"iruven"  wrote
>
> is there an evolutionairy/biological reason/function that humans can
> stick out their tongue?
>
This sort of thing gives "sociobiology" (actually not much to do
with social
behaviour) a bad name. It's easy to invent hypotheses, much harder to test
them.
My first candidate would be sexual selection. Tongues are used to stimulate
the partner during petting.
Second candidate would be in order to explore nuts or bits of meat of
similar food that is held in the hands. Any bitter taste can be detected
before the food enters the mouth.
A third theory is that it is a "spandrel" and the real reason is
that a long
tongue with musculature is needed to produce speech. The ability to stick
one's tongue out is just a size-effect of this. This one is actaully
testable - can great apes stick out their tongues, and are special muscles
used to push the tongue out or are they the same muscles as used in speech?
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