I once read in a magazine titled Scientific American about why we humans have no fur (cover story, The Naked Truth: Why Humans Have No Fur). It has to do with needing to shed excess body heat as our ape ancestors had to actively look and kill their food, instead of just having to forage for it (we humans actually have more endurance where heat is concerned because we won't overheat as readily as fur-bearing mammels will).
As we became less furrier, our bodies got better at getting rid of heat. While that was happening, our brains began growing larger because there was no excess heat getting trapped to interfere with what is the most heat sensitive of organs. As our brains grew larger, we grew more sapient (there is actually a difference between sentient and sapient, with sentient meaning complex feelings and sapient meaning complex thought).
What that means is that fur-bearing sapient beings would not be able to exist because their brains would overheat too readily.
BUT . . . BUT . . . keeping reading . . .
Also, according to an article in another issue of Scientific American, the human brain is showing signs of shrinkage in the species! Yet it's not going to lead to what we think it will lead to. There are species of birds whose brains make up 8% of their body weight, while the average human's brain makes up only 2.5% of their body weight. The Neanderthal never advanced beyond chipped rocks even though they had larger brains than us and were around a lot longer too (250,000 years when compared to 100,000 years for modern humans).
According to the science, that means our neurons are merely growing more efficient (just like computer chips).
So it can be possible for fur-bearing sapient beings to exist after all, just that their brains will need to start off with much more efficiency than the brains of our prehuman ancestors did if they are to keep their pelt on their road toward sapience.
-Brandon Payne
Received on Tue Oct 12 2010 - 06:55:45 CDT