Why does our anus have receptors for spicy stuff?
In: Biology
“Why” is always a tricky question when it comes to evolution, sometimes the question implies a backwards chain of events. This is sometimes referred to as a “fallacy of teleologic reasoning”. Evolution does not necessarily move towards a goal, and asking “why?” can falsely imply it does.
Also, there’s a chicken and the egg thing happening here, and turning it around makes more sense. Meaning, it’s probably not that there were spicy peppers around, and humans had selective pressure that led people with burning assholes to have fitter offspring. Rather, certain plants selected for bright colors and capcaisin, because it happened to trigger burning in mammalian nervous systems, which kept predators away. Then, humans cultivated those plants for use as spices, causing further selective pressure.
Latest Answers