Interestingly enough, crying is also often triggered by strange smells, like onions, etc.
I don't want to intrude into this debate very much, but I thought I'd raise my objection to this particular point. Onions hurt the eye like mad (they irritate mine, anyway). I don't think that has much to do with us smelling them, more with an urge to wash the irritating compounds from the eye (though the compounds might originally get there through the nose, I don't really know). Which is a useful adaptation, you don't want your eyes smoking away in some nasty chemical reaction.
(Apologies if I've misunderstood the rules and shouldn't be posting here at all.)
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"Come on, put your bloody thinking caps on!" - Dr Tony Prave, geology lecture
I don't want to intrude into this debate very much, but I thought I'd raise my objection to this particular point. Onions hurt the eye like mad (they irritate mine, anyway). I don't think that has much to do with us smelling them, more with an urge to wash the irritating compounds from the eye (though the compounds might originally get there through the nose, I don't really know). Which is a useful adaptation, you don't want your eyes smoking away in some nasty chemical reaction.
(Apologies if I've misunderstood the rules and shouldn't be posting here at all.)
I think your post is fine here and makes perfect sense.
Just to further your point, tears secreted to flush the eye of such noxious odours is chemically different to those of pain or normal lubrication.....
__________________ "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Professor Richard Dawkins.
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." - Mark Twain
"The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it." - Robert G. Ingersoll
Children alone will cry so they are not all by themselves. My point! but they were by themselves. Adults doing it are probably following a learned pattern, it worked as a child so it could work as an adult.
This is pscho-babble baloney! Sorry Freud...NOT!!
Originally Posted by NailsII
Tears are known to produce hormone changes and relieve stress, so crying alone is not pointless.
This is more in line with what is true.
Originally Posted by NailsII
I'm sorry if it was too basic for you, given your previous posts about biology I assumed you don't have this basic knowledge.
Thank you for the thought, though.
Originally Posted by NailsII
Derived from the Greek Sardonios which means bitter or scornful laughter: the primary reference is to the effects of eating a Sardinian plant which was said to produce facial convulsions resembling horrible laughter, usually followed by death. www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/definitions.htm
Very interesting. I like that kind of stuff.
Originally Posted by NailsII
You obviously don't have children or younger siblings then, or if you do then perhaps you are not very close to them. I wonder what Sigmund Freud would say about this.....
Who really cares? I surely don't. He's one of the reasons that their are so many screwed up people in this world today. And I have both children and siblings whom I love very much and vice versa. When I was growing up I didn't need to cry to get affection. As a matter of fact I probably wouldn't have gotten any sympathy if I was doing it for that reason. Children need to learn not to cry all the time it's called growing up. Although, I certainly think it's okay to cry as an adult, both male and female, I do think that we need to learn why we are and when it's good for us. But never to get the affection of other people.
Originally Posted by NailsII
Tears is a prmary tool for youngsters to gain affection even when they have done wrong. It is unfortunate that you have not experienced this.
Answered above
Originally Posted by NailsII
If crying was sufficient on its own to save lives, we would all be cry babies and there would be no war. Good chance there would be humans as well, as we would have struggled to avoid any kind of predation.
That was the point I was making!
Originally Posted by NailsII
Similarly, if we had stopped to pray when a predator approached, there would likely be no humans left.
No, I say whack their heads off in the Name of the Lord and thank God for delivering you!
Originally Posted by NailsII
i thought you refuted evolution?
Survival of the fittest was around before evolution!
If children don't cry to get attention, then I wonder why my brother used to go into bellowing fits with big crocodile tears for no particular reason all the time
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"Come on, put your bloody thinking caps on!" - Dr Tony Prave, geology lecture
Darwin struggled with the evolution of tears: what evolutionary advantage could come of secreting water from the eyes? I thought about this, and suggest the following answer.
Tears are both an expression of sorrow/grief—and also a grand visual display of grief—meant to be viewed by others. Think about what happens when you see someone crying: there is an immediate response from the gut; we feel great sympathy, and if we were angry before, our anger dissipates.
I think this explains why the display of tears evolved: to show resignation and submission to an opponent; to relieve tension between warring individuals—and therefore enhance the weaker one's chance of survival.
What do you think?
I think that your point is good. Yet, as tears are perceived as a sign of weakness by many, you would have to cover that aspect also.
I'd have to look over the literature, but my guess is that tears began as part of a generalized arrousal response to prepare for fight or flight. From there it was adapted as a signaling mechanism to indicate arrousal level. Further specification and strengthening could then bring us to the current use.
All of Adam's children have three kinds of tears.
each of which has it's own fit, form and function.
There isn't any known mechanism that can produce the irreducibly complex tearing system of the human body.
Maybe some of you consider tears a simple thing but in reality it is complex and requires three totally different tear formulas which provide totally distinct functions.
And other animals do not have them.
I'm suprised that posters are so ready to discuss something they apparently know nothing about and yet they willy nilly theorize in an ad hoc manner while seeming to not bother with understanding the truth of things.
Evolutionism is simply storytelling without regard to witnesses or empirical science.
The AV Bible is an eyewitness account of what actually occurred before mankind existed and since.
FUnny...I thought tears were just a mechanism to keep yours eyes from drying out (much like your skin). They also can help deliver nutrients and reduce the need for blood vessels (which would obscure vision--my wife had LASIK primarily because her contact were causing more blood vessels to grow--her contacts prevented nutrients in tears from reaching the cells).
Tears as a consequence of experienced emotions probably came from the advantage of outwards displays of emotion in communal settings.
Oh...and onions cause tears because they admit Hydrogen Sulfide gas when cut. The HS then combines with water in tears to form a weak concentration of sulfuric acid. MOre tears are produced to dilute the mixture.
Oh...and onions cause tears because they admit Hydrogen Sulfide gas when cut. The HS then combines with water in tears to form a weak concentration of sulfuric acid. MOre tears are produced to dilute the mixture.
H2S??? I didn't know that... all I knew it was something thoroughly irritating
It mustn't be very large amounts of hydrogen sulphide because onions don't really stink like the gas does. (On my first encounter with hydrogen sulphide in chemistry class, instead of a careful sniff I managed to take a deeeep breath of it... wasn't very nice )
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"Come on, put your bloody thinking caps on!" - Dr Tony Prave, geology lecture
As onions are sliced, cells are broken, allowing enzymes called alliinases to break down amino acidsulfoxides and generate sulfenic acids. Sulfenic acids are unstable and spontaneously rearrange into a volatile gas called syn-propanethial-S-oxide. The gas diffuses through the air and eventually reaches the eye, where it reacts with the water to form a diluted solution of sulfuric acid. This acid irritates the nerve endings in the eye, making them sting. Tear glands produce tears to dilute and flush out the irritant
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