Isn't it weird that we have exactly five fingers and five toes on each hand and foot.
Isn't it weird that we have exactly five fingers and five toes on each hand and foot.
I mean why 5, why 5 on each limb, why not 4 or 6. Why do our feet also have 5. Whats with our body being so symmetrical.
People who know anything about evolution, now is your time to shine.
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The wikipedia article Polydactyly in stem-tetrapods has some explanations on how we ended up with 5 fingers and toes.
The gist of it is that tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrate animals) evolved from a fish similar to a lobe-finned fish that had 5 sets of bones in each of its fins that evolved into fingers and toes. Some tetrapods have subsequently lost digits but the basal state was five.
There's a book, Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin that's full of this kind of stuff. Highly recommend.
I love it. So many things in the world don’t really have an “explanation,” they have a “story.”
The reason they are as they are is just because of prior conditions.
Amazing book. I recommend reading it if you're interested in evolution.