Male faces 'buttressed against punches' by evolution

One more thing I wanted to throw out there was the difference between Chimps and Bonabos. They are extremely close, some even arguing they shouldn't be classified separately, but they have some minor differences because of their social structure. Chimps are more violent and there is more infighting, and they are slightly larger, and have a heavier built upper body. Bonobos spend more time mating than fighting, and are smaller, and the males have smaller weaker upper bodies compared to chimps.

That seems no different than male humans evolving a heavier bone structure in the face to deal with incoming blows. It could potentially be the upright stance that opened our face to more damage, since we would be facing straight ahead instead of down.

a reply to: Bybyots

The hands do indeed develop as a person adapts to violence. Usually leaving arthritis in its wake as a person ages.

That would be an acquired characteristic, not inherited. Healed wounds are not passed on. The ability to resist injury is.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Bybyots

The hands do indeed develop as a person adapts to violence. Usually leaving arthritis in its wake as a person ages.

That would be an acquired characteristic, not inherited. Healed wounds are not passed on. The ability to resist injury is.

Sure, that's what I mean; the hands are used in to usefulness.

So people were beating each other in the face with fists so often, over such a great length of time, that the mechanisms of evolution began to take action? What about a big rock to the back of the head, or a club to the side of the head, or arrows or spears to the chest?

Did there used to be some gentleman's code back then that demanded fist fighting for local arguments between individuals? And this code was honored for so long that evolution took place? Or did they used to conduct warfare with their fists? Like those huge battles with tens of thousands or over 100k people on one battlefield, all duking it out with their fists?

This theory is ridiculous. Men are more burly and stronger in women in SOME ways, and that's how it's always been. If anything its from women choosing to mate with males who look a certain way so those genes are what got spread around more. A tough looking face probably activated a woman's instinct thinking he can protect her and the kids they will eventually have better than a weaker looking face.

originally posted by: James1982

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: BASSPLYR

And I'm going to come out and say it anyway, a fractured skull WILL stop most people, and if you hit someone hard enough to fracture their skull, you probably hit them hard enough to ring their brain proper.

I disagree. Most people don't even realize their face bones are broken in a fight until afterwards. The way the shock wave goes through the head when a hard impact occurs is different than from a soft impact. A hard object like a fist breaks things because it stays on the surface and doesn't penetrate. The guy will have a broken bone, a lot of pain and swelling afterwards. Might not even be phased during the altercation. Usually aren't if they are actually angry and serious and not some high school kids swinging it out over a girl on a corner. Punching to the face to break bones. It's not effective for stopping a real fight. Can you knock a guy out if you hit them on a lever point on the head with a punch sure. that works but punching to the head to try and break something on the head doesn't really work.

Besides look at how primates do their striking. If they want to break something they use scissoring movements where they grab a leg or arm and jerk one arm one way and their opposing arm the other to break a bone. And despite what the MMA will have you believe is still the fasted most sure way to break a bone on a human or other animals. ITs whats done in nature, and its probably what our ancestors did. Like I said a lot of this theory is based on cultural bias that people punch or fight like westerners. Most around the world do not. Never have.

I can agree with that. My right ring finger has some nerve damage and isn't as supple as my left. Can't make it touch all the fingers as easily as the left hand. But on the bright side my right hook is like getting cold clocked with a brick. And when I'm pissed I can punch steel polls ....HARD... and without fear of hurting myself anymore. OK maybe that's not a bragging point.

a reply to: Bybyots

a reply to: Bybyots

Are you a fellow Panatukan player?

You are correct. Western world got a real lesson in boxing after they discovered FMA. Or SE Asian MA in general. The boxing guard as shown in that picture has been used though by others besides westerners to good use. It's not much different from a Wing Chung Guard, or a Silat Cimande/ Cikalog guard. They use it differently then western boxers did though.

The modern boxing guard comes from FMA I feel. The foot work too in my opinion. Triangles n all.

That being said western boxing is superb for its simplicity, practicality and to me most important footwork. But yeah, was made a lot more functional and realistic by incorporating FMA.

Wonder why the Dumog didn't become more popular. ANd why didn't FMA influence the MA of Spain and Portugal more. Silat and Pukulan/Kuntao influenced the Dutch and the SF unites from Holland, and England a lot. Spain did influence the FMA with their sword work. I've noticed their keris and golok are bigger.

Reply to: 3n19m470

So people were beating eacht other in the face with fists so often, over such a great length of time, that the mechanisms of evolution began to take action? What about a big rock to the back of the head, or a club to the side of the head, or arrows or spears to the chest?

It started with our hominid ancestors, who didn't have them. See the paper; I linked to it earlier.

Did there used to be some gentleman's code back then.

Mating combat is always quite ritualised.

If anything its from women choosing to mate with males who look a certain way so those genes are what got spread around more. A tough looking face probably activated a woman's instinct thinking he can protect her and the kids they will eventually have better than a weaker looking face.

Yes. They picked the ones who survived the fights. Because they were a better reproductive bet. Because sexual selection is a two-way street.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

And when I'm pissed I can punch steel polls ....HARD... and without fear of hurting myself anymore. OK maybe that's not a bragging point.

Yeah I hear you, I can often get a resounding tone out of most good telephone poles with an open-hand slap and I have pinky knuckles like ballpeen hammer heads (but those are recovering). People are beginning to forget what kind of conditioning is possible due to the overwhelming poularity of MMA. But, knowing what I know at this age I would have only engaged in and would only ever suggest ping pong, or some other nice racquet sport, as we now know that the living brain has the consistency of fresh tofu. I'd rather make a living with my brain.

I have always wondered after the dumog as well, I mean...

ANd why didn't FMA influence the MA of Spain and Portugal more. Silat and Pukulan/Kuntao influenced the Dutch and the SF unites from Holland, and England a lot. Spain did influence the FMA with their sword work. I've noticed their keris and golok are bigger.

...yeah, all that. You and I are brothers from another mother; I haven't figgered out any of it though.

Are you a fellow Panatukan player?

In the most liberal sense, yes, I sure am.

a reply to: Bybyots

"In the most liberal sense, yes, I sure am."

Yeah me too. I'm not a legit Panatukan player so to speak. I focus more on Sundanese/Javanese fighting. Sera takedowns work the easiest for my build. Cimande works as an amazing flanking system. I love the simplicity and complexity of it at the same time. Can't beat some Pekiti Tesia if you want to become a living weapon. Those guys are a little scary for me though. I don't need to train that hard. heck I don't even want to train as rough as the Dog Brothers do. I like quite days in the park with out the welts from sticks. If I had any decent flexibility and no problems with spinal compression injuries I got a few years ago Id get into the Harimau n see what Crabbe De-Bordes is up to. But I'm not that badass enough.

Dumog. Yeah, why isn't it more popular. It's better than jujitsu in my book. Much more practical in a dynamic environment, leaves you less exposed.

ANyways. I know what you mean by getting a satisfying ring when you smack the poles. I like to go to the park once a week. Sat morning are best, before the kids show up. And I go to those 25 foot high steel light poles and I use it like a mook jong. People look at me like I'm crazy because I'll bare knuckled punch the thing while practicing my lanka tiga n empat (triangular footwork) It's loud enough to turn heads a few hundred feet away when it goes bink bink bink. They think I'm some pathological guy in the park beating up a defenseless poll. But I'm doing a few things. 1. Weaponizing my body (fists, forearms, shins) 2. not in danger that other people would be doing this. I'd built up to it slowly over a very long time. 3. learning to root properly so that when I hit something I don't fall on my ass. 4. making sure my body structure is correct for a solid blow when I do the technique against something unyielding. it will let me know how the force is moving and how best to transmit it. 5. Most importantly besides learning to feel the way a technique is supposed to be used depending on body position, and experimenting with using it with different force vectors I'm listening to how the poll sings when I hit it. There is a logic behind what we do. I can tell by the sound it makes (if I'm at my favorite poll) how the force from my blows are being transmitted into the poll. I can learn to drive the hydrostatic shock in deep to the organs, or how to keep them shallow and only hurt or break things. But yeah, onlookers think I'm crazy.

Then I go over to my favorite tree which has two (lucky me) head high branches both meeting at the same place on the tree trunk like a "V" I hubud Lubud the Shiznit out of that poor tree. But hey when you don't have a partner for hubud lubud (I call it Khalid latihan) Great for working the inside of the gate, where I practice gunting on the branches or on bleacher tubular railing.

And I still disagree with this stupid theory regarding humans toughening their face bones to withstand against punches. To me it makes little real world sense. We are not rams. We don't fight like them. We are primates and we instinctively fight like them. The scientists are making this theory up with little real world knowledge on the phenomena and a cultural bias.

Yep, three years ago a local gang took a baseball bat to my shins in a fight. the bat cracked both my tibias at the same time. dented them in really. broke the skin to the bone. and broke it's self in half. That got their attention. I mean when you hit somebody in the shins with a bat as hard as you can while they are being held down you expect better results. Shouldn't that have ended it? Nope I got up (with a lot of struggle, they weren't happy about me trying to get up) and ended up beating the guys off of me. I walked home bleeding all over the place, had no medical insurance, walked through the local grocery store looking for butterfly bandages and hosed out the bine deep wounds with distilled water twice a day for a few weeks. Went back to that same park where I got jumped a week later and kept going back. Their friends showed up and promptly left and haven't come back since. If I hadn't done the type of training I do I would have been maimed.

To me it validated two things. One. Holy crap hardening your body does work and it's pretty darned effective. Those old masters knew what the hell they were doing. two. Broken bones don't stop a fight necessarily. Especially when you are scared. three. you get a pretty cool reputation with the local community after that.

a chimp will tear a pro wreasler into a pulp. And you are saying humans blungeoned australopithecines?
Or the australopithecines and human hybrid neanderthals? I seriously doubt it.

More than likely, extreme atmospheric changes deminished their numbers greatly. Likewise australopithecines human hybrids still exist and fossils have been found to prove these hypothesis.

Hominids of the planet are still around.

This study refers to hominid apes. Not humans, Humans are extremely vulnerable when it comes to hand to hand combat.

Our inginuity would conquer such things, As bows, Gunpowder, Spears, and knowing humans nowadays probably tanks and guns. But the sons of god made love with the daughters of earth aka australopithecines. When we may a product of cross-trangenetic experiments. We can isolate how much DNA is of the early hominids through generic gene sequencing.
We cannot however explain the large percentage of DNA of unknown DNA. We can try to convince ourselves we developed on this planet from a single celled organism as the theory of primordial evolution states.

But the theory of creationism butts in, Because humans very well could be a created species.
Judging by our excelleration of technology within the last 500 years. It's safe to say there was some tampering in there.
History has a habit of repeating itself.

a reply to: AnuTyr

a chimp will tear a pro wreasler into a pulp. And you are saying humans blungeoned australopithecines?
Or the australopithecines and human hybrid neanderthals? I seriously doubt it.

Read. The. Linked. Paper.

Then come back here and express your opinions. Uninformed opinions are worthless.

a reply to: Subnatural

And in matriarchal societies?

I don't buy this theory because it applies modern gender social paradigms, when there can be no proof of this same gender related paradigm remaining consistent throughout pre-history.

We males havent always ruled the roost so to speak. We weren't always considered to be the hunter, the provider or the fighter. Throughout history, though not in modern history but deep in antiquity, male dominance and female dominance has been a kind of cyclic affair.

I'd imagine this has been true for as long as Humans and prehumans have been around, so to attribute evolutionary characteristics based on gender based social structures we have now, and the history of which we are aware of that only reaches back a relatively short period of time, a few thousand years or so and base a theory which must remain consistent through 100's of thousands of years is naive.

a reply to: MysterX

I was going to leave your post for someone else to reply, but nobody has, so at the risk of hogging the thread, I will.

And in matriarchal societies?

Men fight one another in all societies, regardless of social structure.

I don't buy this theory because it applies modern gender social paradigms, when there can be no proof of this same gender related paradigm remaining consistent throughout pre-history.

It doesn't apply any social paradigm. It's looking at the relative thickness of human male and female facial bones, and of the bones of some human ancestors, and deriving certain conclusions from that.

We males havent always ruled the roost so to speak. We weren't always considered to be the hunter, the provider or the fighter. Throughout history, though not in modern history but deep in antiquity, male dominance and female dominance has been a kind of cyclic affair.

So some people like to believe. Possibly it is true, but it has nothing to do with this subject. Anyway, most of the evolving had been done by the time we turned into Homo Sapiens. Since then, if anything, male facial bone structure has become less robust. That's in the paper too.

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

What you wrote is very interesting, I'll have to think on this and maybe reply later.

It is so difficult to teach someone and it is even harder to learn in a way that actually makes a difference, almost impossible.

originally posted by: WanDash
a reply to: James1982
Thanks!
My perspective... "Might be. Might not be."
As in every matter investigated, I explore the answers presented, and assign them whatever degree/s of probability that seems most likely (to me).
As to the theory represented in the OP...at this point, I'm giving it a 50/50 chance of holding water.
As someone-else posed - "why do our hands/fists hurt".
My take on that? I would think that we'd all come out of the womb with "Hellboy" fists...since the fists would have taken more punishment (used more often on more objects) than the face.

Just because our hands hurt it does not mean this theory is wrong. Remember, the theory states that human (male, in this case) jaws are thickened by the process of evolution, in order to resist hits (not necessarily "punches", the way I see it, by the way).

Just because our modern day jaws have thickness X and our modern day fists have strength Y you cannot say this is wrong. Why do you think the fists should be stronger simply because the jaws are adapted to resist injury?

Maybe the structure of the fist is so much stronger than the structure of the jaw that it doesn't have to evolve? Or maybe the fist has other vectors of evolution making it weaker when striking jaws?

Anyway, I feel the burden of proof is on you in this case. Just my personal opinion.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Subnatural

From experience I can tell you zygomats break the easiest and fairly common is fights. the zygomat is your cheek bone. It's pretty fragile. Aren't high cheekbones a feminine quality sought after by supermodels and the fashion industry?

Yes, this is the reply I was hoping for, exquisite.

The cheek bone breaks the easiest and so it is the most strengthened in males, according to this theory. Just because the cheekbone breaks easier than, say, the rib-cage, it does not mean that this theory is wrong. Bones in the face brake the easiest simply because they are in a vulnerable position. And this is because the head contains a lot of the nervous matter, and the eyes, which need to be in at a vantage point to look out over stuff.

The statements made in the paper do not compare the strength of different bones in the human body, they compare the strenghts of the facial bones of different species of hominins.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
What about the nose that breaks pretty easily too and fairly commonly in a fight. I don't see those being any larger then one would expect between males and females.

I'm pretty sure males have larger noses than females? Don't know what you mean by "larger than what one would expect"?

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
I guess jaws are whats left. But wait those break easily too. Damn these scientists are striking out. Maybe some of them should get a little more experience fighting so they won't have to speculate so much to make up a lame theory.

Heh, someone is certainly striking out... maybe if I would have been punched enough times I wouldn't be making this stupid # up?

Again, you say jaws brake easily... what do you mean? Did you read the article or the paper? The point is the jaws of some groups brake easier than the jaws of others.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
Wouldn't men develop overdeveloped traps and neck muscles and shorter necks then females to protect the head against whiplash injury and rotational force on the brain which can and does knock people out pretty easily. its a fact the longer and less developed some dudes neck is the easier they are to knock out. rotational force and all. why do guys not have shorter necks then women if this theory is true?

Getting punched in the face is not the only thing that defines male physique.

How do you define "overdeveloped"? If the necks were adapted to injury the wouldn't be overdeveloped, would they?

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
How bout higher pain thresholds. wait nope don't have those either. doesn't seem like men were evolved to withstand fist fights better then women after all.

Not sure about that, pain is very subjective and hard to measure, I think.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: BASSPLYR

And then finally from experience. A broken facial bone does not end a fight or stop another angry alpha male. so evolving to withstand breakage of facial bones in a fist fight doesn't really make sense. the guys got a broken cheek or a cracked skull. so what. he's still pissed. he still isn't close to stopping, he's still dangerous. he still has a good chance or killing or beating down the other alpha male and all that still has nothing to do with his ability to after the fight is over broken face and all from going around and "asserting" his dominance on all the females. A broken facial bone or skull does not end a fight and won't have much impact on who will go on after said fight and rape all the females or whatever cavemen did back then to spread their seed.

The physics of getting knocked out and bested in a fight between two alpha males aren't really determined by how hard your skull or bones in the face are. at least not for the physiology of a human. it's more about how the forces transmit through the head case. not how hard the head case is.

A broken facial bone may not end a fight, but it doesn't help either...

In action movies the hero always gets bloodied and bruised at first. Then he overcomes his opponent in the end.

In reality... not so much... even if you win, your injury will be an evolutionary disadvantage. It will make you loose later.

originally posted by: Subnatural
So do you guys believe these scientists are on to something or not? The apeman in me wants to argue with someone.

Its a logical assumption
1 just associates it with the male skeleton design being larger then female and so more masculine faces...