a hand to hold in the dark

from jens lekman’s blog, small talk:

I’m reading a book. It’s a book about the climate changes, it’s thick and it covers a lot of evolutionary theory. It talks about spandrels, characteristics that are simply byproducts of another characteristic. It talks about the chin.

“The chin is where it is because it is the only bridge that can merge the human jawbone, whose function for the organism is obvious – to allow food intake. But the chin as such has never been subject to natural selection. It lacks adaptive origin.”

I put the book back on the shelf. Anyone with a heart (and a chin) knows that the function of the chin is so much more than a bridge between our jawbones. It’s there to be kept up when the times are hard. It’s there to lean against a lovers shoulder, or rest against a clenched fist. It’s there to measure the length of a tear, a finishing line if you will. How could these features not have affected natural selection?

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also, it is imperative that you listen to this Tiny Desk Concert of his, at least in the background as you go about your business, and there is this pitchfork interview too, if you are so inclined.