Why is there no cure for male pattern baldness yet?

HensVassal

Widdershins wrote: »

I've a male friend who has been saying he has a receding hairline since he was in his mid twenties, and he's early thirties now. It wasn't receding then and it's not now. Fair enough if you're seeing it come out in the shower or something.

He's a pretty normal case. When you hit your mid to late twenties then the sides of the hairline drop back a little bit and then just stop, so you've got these "power ramps" on the sides of your forehead. Only really noticeable if you grease back your hair,

pragmatic1

I'd prefer to have more hair, but even then I'd still go for a skinhead as I like having them.

The_Kew_Tour

pragmatic1 wrote: »

I'd prefer to have more hair, but even then I'd still go for a skinhead as I like having them.

Proably why i dont mind going bald is I was usually a blade 1 man in the barber shop

Why is there no machine that could measure how little I care about my male pattern baldness just yet?

endacl

Deleted User wrote: »

Why is there no machine that could measure how little I care about my male pattern baldness just yet?

There are many. The kettle. The bicycle pump. The reciprocating saw...

Pac1Man

endacl wrote: »

There are many. The kettle. The bicycle pump. The reciprocating saw...

Ooo Conor try the last one.

Please!!

LordSutch

TNT2k_ wrote: »

Why is there no cure for male pattern baldness yet?

What's wrong with a Crown Topper or a Toupee?

ScumLord

If we cured baldness how would the alien anthropologist identify different males?

Wibbs wrote: »

it's possible if you went back 60,000 years men never went bald, so it's a "fault" in our DNA.

Yeah but, white skin is also a fault.

It's hard to say that any genetic mutation that's happened in the past 100,000 years has anything to do with sexual attraction due to humans doing arranged marriages for god knows how long.

It could just as likely have been something like a viking family that had a bald mutation that just raped their way across northern Europe seeding their mutation all over the place. Or maybe it came with white skin?

At this stage though it's just a male trait. The same as a lions mane, or a deers antlers.

wakka12

Maybe its harder than you think. Just because its not a major problem like a disease doesn't mean its that easy to fix. It shocks me that its not possible to dye dark hair light with one simple dye but Im sure theres reasons for that. Im sure its difficult to make dye that powerful or effective otherwise hair dye companies would be selling it

Outlaw Pete

Men don't lose their hair. It just relocates to their ears and nostrils.

ScumLord

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Men don't lose their hair. It just relocates to their ears and nostrils.

It's the weird one off hairs that annoy me. I don't have hair ears, yet, but I do get one hair that grows really long. Same for nose, most hair is under control except for one hair that wants to be a part of the moustache.

HensVassal

ScumLord wrote: »

If we cured baldness how would the alien anthropologist identify different males?

Yeah but, white skin is also a fault.

It's hard to say that any genetic mutation that's happened in the past 100,000 years has anything to do with sexual attraction due to humans doing arranged marriages for god knows how long.

It could just as likely have been something like a viking family that had a bald mutation that just raped their way across northern Europe seeding their mutation all over the place. Or maybe it came with white skin?

At this stage though it's just a male trait. The same as a lions mane, or a deers antlers.

SL, I think you'll find that blonde hair (also a genetic/dna defect) strengthend in northern climates thousands of years ago. Due to men frequently dying whilst out hunting in the harsh conditions there were usually less men left to go around and they had their pick of the women. It so happens that the rare blond was always selected because she stood out from the pack of ubiquitous dark haired females. Consequently blonde hair strengthened as a genetic defect.

In a nutshell, primitive ugga-buggas found blondes sexy.

Also look up the swordtail fish. Some of them have an enlarged but useless fin. For some reason the females go nuts for the freaks with the bigger fins. As a result this urge in the females drives the evolution of a trait in the opposite sex.

ScumLord

I suppose under those kind of conditions men can be selective, and I suppose slaves would have been selected for looks. But for most the time marriages would be arranged for political reasons. It's possible that the children of slaves could have been killed/sold rather than looked after.

With other animals reproduction is fairly straight forward, they select for healthy characteristics. But in human societies the son of the leader would be given a wife even if he was next to useless. Daughters were ideally married off to someone. The decisions are logical rather than sexual.

We also have some evidence that odd looking people were admired in some cultures and thrown in the bin in other cultures.

I suppose at this stage it doesn't matter so much, there's so many of us and plenty of diversity that we should have a genetic profile suitable for every type of disaster.

HensVassal

Maybe the same can be said for gingers and jaffa-heads in Ireland.

ScumLord

HensVassal wrote: »

Maybe the same can be said for gingers and jaffa-heads in Ireland.

Probably, when these mutations popped up people probably thought they were gifts from the gods. I think I heard somewhere that some of the Egyptian pharaohs were red heads. Imagine when the first white people appeared. We would have looked bizarre to everyone else and probably highly valued, which didn't work out too well for the rest of the world.

Melodeon

Best toupées in history, the Black Widows Motorcycle Club:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU6eTVZUWJg

suicide_circus

If I start balding I'm gonna grow my remaining hair long and have it in a ponytail. For the ladies...

Galwayguy35

ScumLord wrote: »

If we cured baldness how would the alien anthropologist identify different males?

Yeah but, white skin is also a fault.

It's hard to say that any genetic mutation that's happened in the past 100,000 years has anything to do with sexual attraction due to humans doing arranged marriages for god knows how long.

It could just as likely have been something like a viking family that had a bald mutation that just raped their way across northern Europe seeding their mutation all over the place. Or maybe it came with white skin?

At this stage though it's just a male trait. The same as a lions mane, or a deers antlers.

Blacks and Asians go bald as well as whites.

pumpkin4life

Pumpkin's crazy armchair theory.

There's a book (evolutionary psychology) called The Red Queen. Book talks about the different sexual strategies of men and women. For women it would be a mix of the really attractive lad and the resource provider lad. Like the way hips/youth are signals of fertility for men for example.

Baldness is a signal for a man to women being a provider Alan the Accountant type, rather than being the attractive bad lad stereotype type. Because bald men are less able to cheat with other women.

ScumLord

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Blacks and Asians go bald as well as whites.

But not to the same extent as white people. That gene has probably been with humans for a while but for some reason it's become more prominent in white people. Maybe it's become more prominent in white people because it's linked to the white skin gene and continues that advantage of being able to produce more vitamin D in harsher environments.. Maybe baldness just became a fashion, shaving the top of your head where you would go bald was a fashion style in the past.

wakka12

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Blacks and Asians go bald as well as whites.

Its so much rarer though and theyre generally much older when they do start balding

HensVassal

To answer the OP's question and I could be off the mark here so I will stand corrected if need be. There probably IS a cure for male pattern baldness ... or rather a prevention/eradication. I read that baldness in men is a genetic defect passed down through the women. Remember that doctor who reconstructed someone's DNA effectively killing the genetic defect that would cause breast cancer? It was controversial at the time but he stuck admirably to his guns stating that he wasn't "playing God" but alleviating the certainty that the daughters and grand-daughters of this person would develop the deadly affliction.
It would be reasonable to think that the defect that causes baldness could also be eliminated. Problem is that this type of genetic engineering is a departure from sickness prevention and into the realm of cosmetic idealism. It's a dangerous precedent that could lead to people wanting "designer" offspring with specific traits.

HensVassal

wakka12 wrote: »

Its so much rarer though and theyre generally much older when they do start balding

Bollocks. Have you seen all those little 6 and 7 year old Buddhist and Shaolin monks?
They're all bald as eggs.

Galwayguy35

ScumLord wrote: »

But not to the same extent as white people. That gene has probably been with humans for a while but for some reason it's become more prominent in white people. Maybe it's become more prominent in white people because it's linked to the white skin gene and continues that advantage of being able to produce more vitamin D in harsher environments.. Maybe baldness just became a fashion, shaving the top of your head where you would go bald was a fashion style in the past.

wakka12 wrote: »

Its so much rarer though and theyre generally much older when they do start balding

Yes you wouldn't see as many all right, although a shaved head seems to be a popular look among young black men now.