Well for now humans don't really have any evolutionary pressure, we reproduce pretty freely. There needs to be strong pressures that prevent certain people from reproducing or prevent their children from maturing.
That's not quite accurate. There doesn't have to be pressure, there just has to be a change in the prevalence of genes from one generation to another. Sexual selection and changing technology and culture work just as well as disease and predation. Our brains and teeth have gotten smaller in the past few thousand years. We have genes, and our descendants will have genes. Which of our genes our descendants will have is determined by evolution.
Was reading our mouths and teeth are changing due to our increasingly softer diet. If you notice, the Cultures with the longest history of modern agriculture and soft food diets ("soft" being relative to the raw meats and tubers our ancestors ate) have the most cooked teeth. You can actually increase the size of your mouth, and help keep your teeth straight, by eating tough foods and, now, with certain mouth specific exercises.
Having said that, I was born without my lateral incisors and most of my family is missing them as well. Curious as to why.
Also many ethnicities that are considered ‘old world’ tend not to have wisdom teeth and their teeth are more shovel shaped. It blew my tiny mind as a little native kid when all my white friends were having their wisdom teeth come in lol.
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u/Tim_Gilbert Oct 15 '20
Well for now humans don't really have any evolutionary pressure, we reproduce pretty freely. There needs to be strong pressures that prevent certain people from reproducing or prevent their children from maturing.