Time is our enemy, what use would adaptations be unless you could have them when you need them?
Adaptation happens to populations, not to individuals. Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? Oh, wait, I am.
You're born with all the adaptations you'll ever have. You don't get new ones after you're born. The adaptations come from mutations when you're concieved. They're not driven by environment, they're random. Then the environment selects among individuals to pick the ones with the best adaptations. The rest die, and the winners reproduce.
Fact is, losing all that ape-like hair is too risky for survival reasons, so I doubt we came from a common ancestor.
We
didn't lose it! You have as many hair follicles as an ape. Man or woman, you have the same number of follicles.
Also, we would need to swing in the trees with nasty beasties with large teeth on the floor, so again I'm confused.
How many trees do you think there are on the African steppe, where humanity evolved?
Fact is there are lots of apes and monkeys surviving fine so why would we have needed to evolve in the first place?
How many ape species do you see on the African steppe these days?
It was that transition to the new envrionment - one of flat, rolling terrain and tall grasses, not trees - that drove the evolution of the human body plan.
It's like you guys are thinking totally backwards on this. How do you guys come up with this stuff?