Humans Bleed too Easily?

This question I pose has bothered me since I was a young hunter. Over the decades, it has persisted and grown stronger with bits and pieces of data from all manner of sources that tend to support this question that I couldn’t answer. Today, I had something of an insight. Maybe it is the answer or at least, a clue.

As the headline states, we humans bleed too easily. Not only that, but our bones break too easily, our skin is too soft and damages too easily. Our senses, musculature and durability are weak. In general, we, this day, are delicate animals waiting for physical damage to occur and even all-too–common minor diseases to eat away at our being. Why this overall weakness? Why have we lost these better abilities?

The common response from conventional quarters would be because human have evolved to not be so bullet proof because such was not necessary. But is that the answer? Is the “proof” of that assertion, to simply point to a bigger brain as if that was the answer? Was it not just a hundred thousand years ago, more or less, that we lived exactly as do the animals in the wild, scrounging out a living among the raw elements of Nature as is common to all mammals? When did it happen that every aspect about our physical forms was reduced from the optimum that evolutionary nature had slowly developed and allowed over the hundreds of thousands of years and then virtually overnight that perfected specimen was shifted into reversed physiologic changes where social aspects became more key to survival than rugged attributes?

The study of human DNA seems to have some problems in explaining how exactly we came to be as we are, even while telling us that we are about 95 per cent the same as chimps, etc. The similarities merely tell us where we’ve been along the family tree, but not about the radical changes that happened fairly recently. It is no fresh insight to wonder if at some point in our past somebody was shaking the test tube that contained our DNA elements and sieved out some of the more unattractive ones that were deemed no longer necessary for the creature that was to become Man.

My efforts here is to merely to point out from a slightly different direction some aspects of the human body that seems contrary to what we should be still if we had not been tampered with to perfect a “better” bipedal creature for Earth. But hey, I ain’t no anthropologist.

That is a fascinating question. I look forward to some anthropological analysis. It is a poignant question, when it seems the bipedal monkeys we are related to have many times the strength and endurance that we do. From an alien perspective one can wonder if we are made weak on purpose. Then again, from an evolutionary perspective, greys look many times more fragile. I once heard there is a an older mark of DNA that is inactive within us. I don't know. Then again, maybe aliens had nothing to do with it. I like to hypothesize either way. I won't believe one or the other until I see for myself. Good Post.

Because we are tool users. Once we started using tools to the point where softer skin or weaker muscles/bones were no longer a quick death, the genes started to be passed on. While not a bad thing, it does prove the most valued muscle for humanity's survival is the soft one between our ears.

reply to post by Aliensun


i have no scientific answer to your query, but it reminded me of this passage from the book the Once and Future King by TH White.

"The Wart (Kind Arthur as a child) eventually returns to the badger’s lair and talks to the badger, who tells the Wart a story about how man got dominion over the animals. In the beginning, all animals looked like shapeless embryos. God offered to alter each of them in three different ways. The animals chose things like claws for digging and large teeth for cutting. Man was the last embryo to choose, and he chose to stay just as God made him. God was moved, and therefore gave him dominion over the animals and the ability to use any tool he wanted. The badger wonders, however, whether man has turned his dominion into a kind of tyranny."

i always though there was an elegant poetry to this verse, irregardless of my own personal creed.

cheers

The only reason we "bleed easier" is because we don;t have a protective coating of hair to blunt the blow of a sharp object. If you cut off the fur animals bleed from their raw skin just as easily as we do. The bottom line is that even with our apparent "weak" physiology we have managed to dominate the planet whereever we go. Whether it is tools or cunning or opposable thumbs, we're doing something in combination that makes us dominant.

tools as well as a pack mentality. humans thrive in groups,
when in the collective there is less necessity for individual strengths.

Originally posted by yourmaker
tools as well as a pack mentality. humans thrive in groups,
when in the collective there is less necessity for individual strengths.

I must disagree. In a collective it is the individual strengths that allow the pack/ band/ troop to thrive and survive. Which doesn't always mean physical strengths.

Originally posted by schuyler
The only reason we "bleed easier" is because we don;t have a protective coating of hair to blunt the blow of a sharp object. If you cut off the fur animals bleed from their raw skin just as easily as we do. The bottom line is that even with our apparent "weak" physiology we have managed to dominate the planet whereever we go. Whether it is tools or cunning or opposable thumbs, we're doing something in combination that makes us dominant.

As an old hunter, I can tell you that is not true.
I see that most disclaimers to what I suggest want to give credit to the better brain. Satisfying, I suppose, that is.

reply to post by Aliensun


I will not argue better. But different. Different priorities. Most of the species on this planet are fixated only on thinking of survival. Humans think about altering the world through tools to ease their survival.
It is the better or more enlightened response to survival? Only you can make that decision.
Especially as I assume you do not go out hunting without some tool, to aid in your survival.
I'm a fisherman with modern tackle. I've never hunted, please let me know where my theory is incorrect. I love learning

Originally posted by randomtangentsrme
Because we are tool users. Once we started using tools to the point where softer skin or weaker muscles/bones were no longer a quick death, the genes started to be passed on. While not a bad thing, it does prove the most valued muscle for humanity's survival is the soft one between our ears.

A good and valid point and I don't refute it, but one could also say that it was the other way around too though. We didn't become physically weaker because we were tool users, but became tool users because we were physically weaker.

For instance you look at clothes, we would have never bothered to start covering ourselves if we had fur and probably would never have made spears, knives and clubs if we had large fangs and claws.

I guess in the end it's the chicken or the egg argument and we probably will never know which came first, our tools or our physical weakness.

Cool point though, Random and cool thread OP

reply to post by Aliensun


I would imagine once we started wearing clothes we lost the hair covering, and the skin would stop growing as thick, leading to bleeding more easily?

What animals are you comparing us to when you say we bleed too easily? Virtually every mammal out there will bleed when cut and doesn't have armor-like skin. Cats, dogs, chimps, monkeys, cows, deer etc. They all bleed fairly easily, which means 40 million+ years of evolution for that type of trait to emerge. There's no doubt in my mind that softer skin evolved slowly with intelligence. As creatures slowly increased their intellect, they became less reliant on strong skin to survive, and more reliant evading predators and hunting based on things like smarts, muscle expansion and fur color. As humans, intelligence is pretty much the primary trait for survival, even back in the day we we lived off the land.

reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools


I certainly cannot say I have the answer. But thanks for the Kudos

reply to post by ANOK

To go with prisoneronashipoffools, Is it the lack of hair that lead to clothes, or clothing that lead to the lack of body hair-
And may I just add after meeting a three time winner of the hairiest man in Seattle contest, there are folk out there who are so hairy that taking their shirt off, still gives the impression that they are wearing an angora sweater.

reply to post by Aliensun


Speak for yourself!

After hundreds of street fights, hundreds of sparring matches, about 20 car wrecks, countless construction accidents, and who knows how many bicycle and dirtbike wrecks, .....the extent of my lifetime accumulation of injuries is 4 sets of stitches (although had I gone to the ER that number would likely be much, much higher!), never had a broken bone, never a cavity, one missing tooth that a big cowboy with a pipe knocked out through my lip, and one chipped tooth from taking a header over the handlebars onto a street. I've removed a 3" ringshank nail from a nailgun from my own hand, crashed my motorcycle multiple times with no helmet, been hit with pipes, baseball bats, and knives.

I'm just saying, I don't think the problem is that we bleed or break too easily, I think the problem is that we run to the ER for every little booboo. A lot of blue-collar type folks will work to the end of a shift with no problem and then go get stitches or splints. A lot of folks just ignore the pain or injury and never know they were broken. I bet a doc would have a heart-attack if they ever X-rayed my body and saw all the old healed injuries that didn't get any care but healed up anyway.

Our problem is fear, over-reaction, and the luxury of good healthcare. Animals don't have those things, so they just go on with surviving and they don't let their own thought-process, pain, and fear get in the way of their daily activities.

And, for the record, I actually do bleed easily. Or so the tattoo artists always say, and I also get nosebleeds regularly, but it hasn't seemed to matter much, so I ignore it.

I don't agree with the premise. We bleed just as easily as chimps. Some animals have thicker skin for obvious purposes (e.g. protection) because in their ecological niche such trait has been selected for. We, however have been on top of the food chain for millions of years, and perhaps because of that reason thick skin is something we didn't need. I'm sure thick skin comes with many downsides, e.g. regulating body temperature might be more challenging. To understand our physiology you need to think about it in savannah context..

Originally posted by randomtangentsrme
To go with prisoneronashipoffools, Is it the lack of hair that lead to clothes, or clothing that lead to the lack of body hair-

Well if I look at my calf's you can see where my jeans rub, and causes the hair to not grow.

I think we started wearing clothes, or simple coverings of animal skins, when we migrated to cooler climates.

reply to post by ANOK


Again I cannot disagree. Thighs and calfs for me too. I realize this and damn myself for not believing my legs would end up like my father's. However, of girlfriends past who rarely wore pants, it was not as great an issue, and they still needed to shave their legs everywhere. I will say it's from restrictive clothing not from lack of hair growth.
We still grow it, it is just worn away. The why of clothing is an unknown, but I will concede a colder climate, and possibly throw in either an embarrassment (bible) or cooling effect (modern knowledge) on the idea of clothes as well.
Regardless clothing is still a tool.

reply to post by randomtangentsrme


We still grow hair, but not as course and thick as it would have been pre-clothes.

If you put chimps in clothes, after a few generation their hair would be lot finer also, no?

reply to post by ANOK


I do not know. Is there information available about the descendents of the primates used in vaudeville, the "golden" age of Hollywood, or those simian performers of times gone by? As we still dress up non human primates for entertainment, seeing if clothing changes body hair should be easy.

Short answer: Agreed. No.

Originally posted by prisoneronashipoffools
A good and valid point and I don't refute it, but one could also say that it was the other way around too though. We didn't become physically weaker because we were tool users, but became tool users because we were physically weaker.

Actually, it's thought to of started with both.

A major turning point in human evolution was a certain mutation that lightened up a muscle in our jaw. This muscle put tension on our craniums, as a price for the intense biting strength most other mammals have. The weakening of this muscle made us both weaker in combat, and gave us more potential for brain development.

Tool using and advanced thinking became our niche. We originally used tools to cover our weakness, but by using the tools, we gave ourselves a niche where the weak survived(and passed genes on) as long as they were smart enough.

Using tools made us smarter and weaker.
Being smarter and weaker forced us to use tools.

The BBC documentary "The Human Ape" has a good segment on this near the end. Explaining it in better terms. A well informative documentary worth watching anyways.