Jan Philips  wrote in message
news:...
> The "Mystery Hunters" program (a great program) on the Discover Kids
> channel says that just 10,000 years ago our eye teeth were fangs.  How
> does natural selection cause us to lose something so quickly?  It
> doesn't seem to me that a few thousand years ago someone with small
> fangs would have a survival edge over someone with larger fangs.
> (This could be applied to other things we lost too.)

I can't comment on the timescales, but I do know that the reduction in
our canine teeth corresponded with the increase in the use of knives. 
Suddenly, there was no need to have them any more, and they would
almost certainly have interfered with articulate communication. 
That's a pretty strong selection pressure.
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