Are people who don't have wisdom teeth more "evolved" than those that do?

Similar questions: people wisdom teeth evolved.

They are vestigial. First off a semantic issue. No organism is more or less evolved than another, stating it that way infers that evolution has a goal that it is attempting to reach.

This is a common misunderstanding, evolution/natural selection favor those organisms who are most adapted to their environments so no organism is closer to any goal than another, they just have found their genetic niche. Wisdom teeth are like other vestigial characteristics such as the appendix and the tail-bone, they are remnants from detailing our common ancestry. Being born without wisdom teeth is pretty rare and it is certainly a genetic mutation, but in our current environment and with modern medicine it doesn't really make us more or less adapted, so it most likely will not be selected for or against.

For now people who don't have wisdom teeth are mutants, just like everyone else.

Evolution is not an up or down thing People always portray evolution as a scale, with single-celled organisms at the bottom and us at the top. That's really not a good way of looking at it. Creatures evolve to fit the environments they're in, and fairly quickly (on an evolutionary scale) they reach a stable state where they're kind of locally optimal.

That is, a small change won't really make the animal any better. That is, a bee is the most-evolved bee, and squid are the most-evolved squid. Neither of them is more evolved than the other, and we're not actually more evolved than anybody else.

We all have the same number of years of evolution under our belts, and its just a question of how quickly we adapt to the changes. As for wisdom teeth... maybe we're witnessing evolution in action. We still haven't reached an entirely stable state because of a relatively recent change, the ability to cook food.

We eat softer food now and live gentler lives. We lose fewer teeth and don't need spares. That's only about 10,000 years old, and our bodies haven't adapted yet.

I don't know if lacking wisdom teeth will really catch on, though. The societies where they're not necessary also have behaviors for dealing with them (e.g. Removing them) and so there's little selection pressure. Sure, a few people manage to die of them before they reproduce, but probably not enough to put significant pressure towards eliminating them.

Even if we were, it would only make us more fit for our current environment. If something changed so that we had to eat raw food more often, it would be better to have our wisdom teeth back.So I try to avoid making value judgments about the state of evolution as to "better/worse" or "more/less" without qualifying the particular environment you're adapting for.

Possibly, but being more or less evolved is hard to judge. If you believe in evolution, then different genetic traits come from mutations in genes that don't inhibit procreation. If you get a new gene through mutation, and you still manage to have children, you might possibly pass on that gene.

If the new gene makes it easier for you to have children, because you are stronger, or prettier, or smarter, or have some other survival advantage, then that might constitute "more evolved". Not having wisdom teeth may or may not be an advantage for survival and having children. Wisdom teeth are more likely than other teeth to become impacted and cause infection, which can cause death and prevent having children.

But you can have children prior to wisdom teeth coming in and causing problems. I am not aware of any advantages of having wisdom teeth. I think the jury is still out on which is "more evolved", but the fact that some people have genes that prevent wisdom teeth from coming in is an example of gene mutation.

Evolution will occur when that trait is the deciding factor in which group survives, the group with the teeth or the group without. I hope this helps. Manimal's Recommendations Genetics: From Genes to Genomes Amazon List Price: $141.88 Used from: $110.00 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 2 reviews) .

When mother nature puts wisdom teeth in our mouth it is because we need them.... we can survive without them though. Just like tonsils, your spleen, and your appendix... they have a purpose but you can live without them. Over eons... folks that have had problems with wisdom teeth impaction and infections may have died from it (really... folks used to die from tooth abscesses) and so their "wisdom teeth making" gene were selected out of the gene pool.

Let this go on for a few eons... and then no one has wisdom teeth anymore. But now we have dentists that can handle the work with little threat to life... reverse evolution I think. I am 51 years old and I didn't come with wisdom teeth.

Some of my friends think I am a Neanderthal though. I like the idea that the lack of those teeth (and the problems that go with them) means that I am a higher life form!Thanks..

I don't know about that but they sure are lucky! .

If I have waited two days to smoke after I got my wisdom teeth taken out can I smoke now.

My wisdom teeth has been taken out already but the dentist says I have more growing inward to my jaw bone what can I do.

They were but now I am just getting headaches everyday.

27 years old and wisdom teeth still have not erupted.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.