Before getting a cosmetic rhinoplasty, even a Caveman should read this

This blog post is in support of all the people in the “before” photos for rhinoplasty.

Some guy – and I  always wanted to start a blog post with  “some guy” ever since “some guy” won VH1 Best Year Ever in 2007 or so  -  anyway some guy who happened to be a protein chemist with a fondness for high proof  amber liquid named “Jack” (the liquid, not the guy),  was convinced that over specialization was bad, bad, bad for anything – proteins, anatomy, plants – whatever.  The more specialized, the less adapted: the specialized structure is a only good in special conditions, and should those conditions cease, the specialized thing falls too.

Correspondingly, he thought or said he thought, the most evolutionarily advanced were those that were the most flexible and could adapt to almost anything.  The difference between couture and an off the shelf one-size-fits-all.  Something like the ’80s band DEVO, with the premise being that first, you get evolved, and then you devolve. The “We are not men we are DEVO”  theory-ette of evolution.  (A previous blog post). Something like the Aquatic Ape premise, that humans adapted not to be maximized on land or in water, but to be optimized to take advantage of both.

So this “some guy” determines that if you line up all the amino acid sequences for different mammalian species of the same protein, and get the amino acid letters all in a row, as best as you can line up the sequences that are the same, figure out the conserved regions and then you pick the consensus sequence. That’s the one that’s most likely to be the drug candidate because its least likely to overly optimized – and potentially immunogenic. (This was way long ago so don’t any students out there say “Yeah! I’m saying that in the biopharma intern interview!”. Old news.)

Here’s a conserved sequence – where you line up and see the amino acids are the same ( this is just an illustration from Wikipedia):

If you’re scared to be a decider because the other amino acids are sort of charged-ish, pick a plain vanilla alanine (uncharged). (Oversimplified).

But that’s just the tee up for the rhinoplasty support group.

People don’t really need noses because they survey their surroundings by senses other than olfaction,  and anyway,  they mostly think things through.  Like walking into a conference room and seeing everyone staring daggers at you. Not too much smell going on, but the instinct is “run.”  Some people in my orbit expect others to do it all for them. No matter. Same thing, no nose needed. Nose is used mostly for breathing less so for finding mates or sniffing out those who would potentially chew our heads off.

Unlike Neanderthal individuals, whom I do not wish to offend . Neanderthals have wide and  flat nose to maximize olfaction, the theory goes, because they need to rely on scent to survey their surroundings.

So humans basically went through that evolution (the olfaction thing) and then devolved back to just a regular nose for breathing and maybe a little sniffing odors here and there. And the reason the nose sticks out from the face is because of the shape of the cranium, and specifically, the neurocranium.  The skull is smaller than a Neanderthal, the theory goes, and so the nose is squeezed to point outward basically to fit the brains in. This argues for the absolute dernier cri du evolution as those with a nose that is the most prominent. A point of pride.

But instead, in our perverse, disordered, folie-a deux-zillion,  alienating culture where even Gordon Gekko is getting out of jail, this evolutionary achievement is a point of shame.

Gordon Gekko Gets Out of Jail – Wall Street 2 Trailer (1:37)

O. Alas. The irony. The nose is evolved and then devolved to make it actually the most evolved under the Devo Theory-ette of Evolution. And then the prospective rhinoplasty customers want to look, not necessarily evolved but certainly less devolved (that means, less evolved).

Anyway, they won’t smell better.

Mladina R, Skitarelić N, Vuković K.  Why do humans have such a prominent nose?  The final result of phylogenesis: a significant reduction of the splanchocranium on account of the neurocranium. Med Hypotheses. 2009 Sep;73(3):280-3. Epub 2009 May 12. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.03.045

Tags: cosmetic surgery, neuroevolution, neuroscience, rhinoplasty