Serious Question: Why do males have nipples?

Question

We don't use them, doesn't this contradict a principle in evolution or something?

Answer 1

It's anything but a contradiction of evolution. Men and women are practically identical in basic form - each sex just has large versions of some things, and smaller versions of others.

Testosterone gets the ball rolling. In response to its presence in foetal tissue, some organs enlarge, and others become dormant. Further bursts of the stuff - especially the surge at puberty - puts these organs into Drive.

Some people have gene defects which makes their tissues unable to detect or respond to testosterone. They have XY chromosomes, but are physically women in every way. Female is the default.

If humans were made of putty, you could make one sex into the other without breaking any pieces: testicles would go up into the belly and become ovaries; the glans would shrink and become a clitoris, etc. etc. Sadly for those undergoing gender reassignment we're not that pliable, and things have to be cut and stuck together instead.

So our nipples are just hypotrophied versions of the 'real thing'. In later life, men's testosterone levels may fall far enough for their breasts to develop slightly - the phenomenon of 'man-boobs'.

CD

Answer 2

On the contrary! Vestigial structures like male nipples, the appendix, the coccyx (tail bone), etc. as well as hind leg bones in whales and snakes, etc. are clear indications of ancient ancestry where such structures had a real purpose. What they do contradict is the idea that an intelligent designer would design and create ex nihilo organisms having such utterly useless structures. Evolution is the only rational explanation for such structures.
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Answer 3

No.

It is proof of evolution. Evolution is unintelligent. It only works off of random mutation and selection. The presence or lack of nipples on males does not effect our survival, and therefore there is no evolutionary drive to remove them from the male anatomy.

On the other hand, f we were made by an intelligent being why would it give us nipples.

Don't you think an intelligent being would not create useless "appendages"?

Answer 4

No, in fact it is evidence FOR evolution. Why would God design something that's useless?

The reason they are there is because the fetus develops identically whether male or female for a while before it begins differentiating. The nipples have already been formed by that time.

Answer 5

http://amos.indiana.edu/library/scripts/nipples.html

Male nipples aren't exactly a genetic glitch: they are evidence of our developmental clock. In the early stages of life from conception until about 14 weeks, all human fetuses look the same, regardless of gender. At the tender age of 14 weeks post-fertilization , genetically-male fetuses begin to produce male hormones including testosterone. These hormones turn the androgynous fetus into a bouncing baby boy.

Here's where the developmental clock comes in. By 14 weeks, when the hormones turn on, the nipples have already formed. So, while our male fetus goes on to become a baby boy, he keeps his nipples, reminding all of us that people, male and female, started off the same way.

Answer 6

Quite the contrary. If genesis is taken literally in that man was created first, he would not have had any reason whatsoever for nipples.

Evolution allows for vestigial body parts such as male nipples and the appendix.

Answer 7

Believe it or not, some men actually produce milk, and just as much as wives. It occures when a woman is pregnant. You know when men sometimes feel their pain? Well some feel it more than others. I guess it could just be the whole development as a fetus thing.

Ouch though.

Answer 8

There's a book about that. It's called "Why Do Men Have Nipples" check it out, it's pretty funny.

Answer 9

No, it just means that the energy wasted in making them is far less than the energy cost of an additional developmental (genetic) "program" to only put them in females.

Answer 10

Because femiles are the basic males developed out of them