Say goodbye to pinky toes

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I would be surprised if one of you hasn’t heard that eventually humans aren’t going to have the fifth, and smallest toe, the pinky toe. Humans, just like other organisms, evolve as well. No one knows the future before it happens though, so how do scientists know we are going to lose our pinky toes?

The answer is they don’t! Its just a prediction based on walking patterns, and how we now use our feet, versus how they were used before. According to Popular Science, humans used to use there feet for grabbing things, like primates do, and for climbing trees and hoping around. (Think about the Disney character Tarzan). As Dr. Anish Kadakia says, obviously we aren’t climbing and swinging from trees on normal basis, or picking stuff up by our feet regularly. This means that we no longer use our toes as much as humans used to, so we don’t necessarily need our pinky toe. Popular Science also said that humans rely on the metatarsals and the heel of the foot for balance in a tripod form, so that the toes, and especially the pinky toe, is not used for balance.

Also, Natural History  finds that humans used walk and balance more on the midline of their feet, but now we have gradually transferred to balancing more toward the side of our big toe, and studies show that our center of balance is still shifting inward. This means that humans used to rely on their pinky toes for balance, but now they do not rely on them as much, and if this trend keeps up they will no longer need their pinky toes.

Shapiro (with Natural History) also reported that humans seem to be trending to have less and less hair, as that European men are now growing balder by the time they are 30, and that age is getting younger. This means that eventually, if these trends of evolution keep on going, humans will only have 4 toes AND will also have no hair!

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/fyi-do-i-really-need-my-pinky-toe

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/picks-from-the-past/151691/man-500000-years-from-now?page=5

One thought on “Say goodbye to pinky toes

  1. Kristen Louise Robertson

    This post scares me because I have an extremely small pinky toe! Maybe evolution is starting to occur already ha ha. I actually have heard before that pinky toes have the same muscles as fingers in them. So this means that if we wanted to write with our toes, we could actually train them to do so. Heres an example!

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