why does natural selection make organisms have traits that are helpful but not necessary for the species’s survival?

Question

For example our hands become wrinkly after getting wet so our ancestors could grip onto trees better after swimming.

Would we really go extinct as a species if we didn’t develop that extremely specific trait at one point?

Same for crying as an emotional response, or eyebrows keeping sweat out of our eyes, or goosebumps making our hair stand to be more intimidating to predators.

I understand why these would be helpful, but I don’t see why these were so necessary to the human race’s continuation that nearly every human has these traits.

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Answer 1

Evolution isn’t trying to creat the perfect version of a species. Evolution is a good enough game, if something is good enough to reproduce it’ll make it

Things like these were neither helpful no harmful but the “people” who had these features were the ones that had other things that made them more favorable for reproduction so they simply didn’t evolve away.