Saturday, April 19, 2014

Thoughts After Wisdom Teeth Extraction


Apparently after this video I was asking about rules and saying how much I liked to follow them. Then I kept talking about Joe. I don't remember much of this...

Since this experience, I have wondered a lot about wisdom teeth. Why do we have them, and why do they bare the title "wisdom?" The answer to the latter question seems so obvious to me now, but I never thought of it. Many believe the name comes from the latin "dens sapientiae." This name comes from the fact that wisdom teeth most commonly appear between the ages of 17-25, much older than all the other teeth, so the recipient is deemed wiser than a child. Of what I know of teenagers, I am not sure this is always the case, but I'll take it.

When thinking of why we have wisdom teeth, all I could think of was that it was some cruel trick of nature, or else, a way to help out all our ancestors who didn't know about brushing their teeth, and therefore, had them rot out of their heads and needed some more. Then I found a source which states, "Anthropologists believe wisdom teeth, or the third set of molars, were the evolutionary answer to our ancestor’s early diet of coarse, rough food – like leaves, roots, nuts and meats – which required more chewing power and resulted in excessive wear of the teeth. The modern diet with its softer foods, along with marvels of modern technologies such as forks, spoons and knives, has made the need for wisdom teeth nonexistent. As a result, evolutionary biologists now classify wisdom teeth as vestigial organs, or body parts that have become functionless due to evolution."

There you have it. Now I just need to figure out why we have tonsils, adenoids, two kidneys, and an appendix. If you have any answers for me or any thing you wonder about, feel free to share!

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