Let me offer a possibility for why an intelligent designer might actually have designed male pattern baldness into the human genome:

This earthly experience is not fundamental reality. It is a place where we souls come (and return to many times) to experience a wide variety of situations and circumstances from which we grow spiritually. As such, it includes innumerable possibilities for the bodies we can inhabit in any given incarnation. Male pattern baldness is just one of the many variations we can choose–a somewhat minor disappointment to help us learn acceptance, perhaps.

Darwinists aren’t actually interested in what real science can say about evolution. The reason is that to them, Darwinism is fact. Since it is a fact, all of nature, including us humans in all our glorious, contradictory behavioral complexity, must have some explanation that fits within the paradigm. In order to maintain a united front and the illusion that there is no controversy regarding Darwinism, Darwinists must allow the evolutionary psychologists to keep proposing their explanations, because if Darwinism is true, then there must be SOME explanation within that paradigm for every bit of human behavior. “Cutting them loose” would be tantamount to admitting that there is some area of “nature” (we humans) that is beyond the capacity of evolutionary theory to explain, thus opening the door to all manner of undesirable ideas like a soul or, dare I say it, God.

The down side to cutting “evolutionary psychology” loose is that Darwinism would then no longer be a comprehensive theory of all features of organisms, in the same way that atomic theory is a comprehensive theory of all substances and all states of matter in chemistry. A Darwinism which placed psychology outside its explanatory ambit might still be able to account for the entire gamut of organisms’ biological characteristics, but it would no longer be a satisfactory theory of their behavior.

This should not be a problem to science as such. However, contemporary science is profoundly reductionistic in its outlook. In the current intellectual milieu, irreducible higher-level properties (such as mental states) are likely to be just as annoying to scientists as surds were to the Greeks, who threw into the sea the man who first proved that the square root of two was irrational.

There is one way in which today’s scientists might be persuaded to cut “evolutionary psychology” loose, and that would be if psychology itself came to be regarded as a pseudo-science. A few philosophers and scientists, such as Paul and Patricia Churchland, deny the existence of mental states altogether and regard talk of mental states as a “folk theory,” which will eventually be superseded by a theory that explains human behavior in terms of brain states. If these views ever gained scientific acceptance, then evolutionary psychology would vanish as a discipline.

FYI, Buddhists don’t shave their heads in the ‘design’ of pattern baldness.

They shave the totality of the hair on their heads.

Allen said “almost all” of the tonsures mimicked male pattern baldness, in #21.

FYI, Buddhists don’t shave their heads in the ‘design’ of pattern baldness.

They shave the totality of the hair on their heads.

If you are curious, I can ask them directly why they shave their heads and get back to you.

Jus’ let me know.

DaveScot:

I though he was banned.

The book Species of Origins has a scientist in it who gives credence to evolutionary psychology. Now, I’m not sure if that counts as a Darwinist.

Never heard of Species of Origins before. The authors are Karl W. Giberson (not an evolutionary biologist) and Donald A. Yerxa (ditto). Is there another scientist in it who is an evolutionary biologist who “gives credence” to evopsych? If so, you’ll have to let me know which page, so I can go look it up in the library (not going to pay over $80 for the book).

Link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0742507645

“The tonsure was meant to communicate holiness, a set-apart-ness, and meant to reflect the halo as depicted in classic art.”

With the exception of the “Roman” tonsure, this was quite clearly not the case:

1) The “Roman” tonsure was, indeed, a shaving pattern which left a ring of hair around the crown of the head;

2) However, the Celtic tonsure was a “lens-shaped” shaved band stretching across to the top of the head from ear to ear;

3) An alternative version of the Celtic tonsure was to shave the front portion of the head (from a line drawn from ear to ear), leaving the back portion long (similar to the tonsure of the Druids);

4) The Buddhist tonsure cannot possibly have any relationship with the iconography of haloes, as such do not exist in Buddhist art or tradition; and

5) The same is the case for the Hindu tonsure (haloes are also not common in Hindu religious art).

Ergo, brazenlady’s “explanation” for the Christian (i.e. “Roman”) tonsure is clearly a post hoc rationalization, rather than an explanation for the origin of the tonsure.

It also does not address the clear fact that almost all of the various tonsures mimic male pattern baldness. Therefore, a first approximation to a hypothesis for the evolution of male pattern baldness (assuming that it is either a direct adaptation or a side-effect of a related adaptation) is that it communicates something to conspecifics. What might that “something” be, and how would communicating it be related to differential reproductive success?

What are the members of such monastic communities trying to communicate by shaving their heads in this way?

The tonsure was meant to communicate holiness, a set-apart-ness, and meant to reflect the halo as depicted in classic art.

//officially entering contest, with trumpet announcements and all\\

What is the down side for serious Darwinists to just cutting the “evolutionary psychology” psychodrama loose, and focusing on what real science can say about evolution?

1) fewer dates for the balding members of the community, obviously, since we can so clearly see that natural processes (whether we invent them or no is irrelevant to the question) have a distinct design in mind. You know, like a hurricane had designed to rip up New Orleans so Bush would have bad press? Smart hurricane. It’s like that: evolution (materialistic process) has a way of simply knowing these things. It always acts in the greater good, it’s such a smart natural process.

2) In the vacuum of God’s demise, there must arise a sufficient replacement in order to make sense of things. If evolution couldn’t provide reasons sufficient for psychology (the study of the soul or “psyche”), it wouldn’t be a valid worldview, which is what it must be to its adherents. The impoverished explanation that this universe and we are simply a lucky throw of the dice is an ax at our tree root: for what is man if only a grown-up, accidental germ?

The disintegration of their worldview would prove fatal to their cause: autonomy from God.

3) The socialist agenda (“good of the species”) wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

So far, you can include:

Dr. Terence Kealey,
Mr. Allen MacNeill, and
Dr. David Holmes

Meanwhile, I’ve got:

Dr. Stephen Jay Gould,
Dr. PZ Myers, and
8,000,000 Scientologists

So really, you only need another 3,999,998 people for the tie, and 3,999,999 for the win.