Funny thing, Winter…
Most of the time I ask myself questions; either pertaining to the season, or not. The question of the day has been about fur. Why don’t people have it? With our built in expansionism and curiosity, you’d think that it would have been an evolutionary advantage – The hairier the ape, the farther north it’s territory may expand.
So, if it is a given that hair on apes would be advantageous in colder climes, whatever happened to those pesky Neanderthals? Why’d they up and drunkenly drive themselves into a head-on collision with the extinction bus? For that matter, whatever happened to the good ol’ Gigantopithicus? Did they broken-heartedly throw themselves from the bridge over river extinction as well? (Don’t mind the ridiculous metaphors).
My question remains. Why did my ancestors insist on being mostly hairless, and then go on to inhabit some of the coldest climes this planet has to offer?
“Ridiculous,” I shout. “Ancestors! What were you thinking!”
(Side note. It could be, and has been argued that both the Neanderthal and the Giganthopithicus did not meet extinction. It could be, and has been argued that Neanderthals went on to breed with early Homo Sapiens. It could be, and has been argued that Giganthopithacus went on to a lucrative career starring in several grainy and poorly financed schlock films in the 60’s under the pseudonym ‘Bigfoot’.)
The answer is simply this: Our ancestors simply weren’t thinking. Because of this ancestral folly, we are stuck wearing coats and boots in the snowier climes. This is no reason to fret, however. We are all left safe and warm in the knowledge that the concept of ‘why’ is lost on things like evolution and life. ‘Why’ is a construct of the human mind, as a direct extension of curiosity and the very expansionist evolutionary drives that should have left us all with majestic coats of fur.
And so we struggle onwards, dropping our genetic remnants into the evolutionary soil. Little regard is given to ancestrous line one hundred or one thousand or one million years from now. Just as we have no forethought to the eventual positing of the question ‘why’, our ancestors didn’t stop to think that a tail might be advantageous in several million years.
This could be construed as a strong argument for Eugenics…
I assure you, it’s not. It’s all just stemming from my latent werewolf jealousy. Fur and claws? Man, they have it all figured out.
-Ash
Ash Catherwood 
Why do I live in a Northern climate again? Remind me?