No. But get this one at Wall Street Journal:
The question of why we yawn is one of “the enduring mysteries of human physiology,” says Emma Kowal of Harvard University. Her bogus theory attempted to provide the answer.
Flying insects are high in protein. They gather in dense swarms most frequently at dawn and dusk, not-so-coincidentally the times of day when we are most likely to yawn.
Therefore, she says, “these insects served as an alternative protein source for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, with yawning as the primary gathering mechanism.” In other words: We evolved to yawn to catch bugs to eat.
Ms. Kowal, a senior studying chemical and physical biology, cited as evidence everything from our chemical response (“after we yawn, there’s a spike in cortisol levels, which is a mark of hunger”) to the way our faces distort (“eyes shut so insects won’t get in, mouth open as wide as possible to maximize capture”).
The winner of the BAHFest trophy wasn’t a scientist at all. Michael Anderson, a Boston lawyer specializing in First Amendment cases, sought to explain the ubiquity of belly fat in middle-age men. More.
See: Human origins: The war of trivial explanations for the utterly serious version of this BAHFest.
Who knows, some such theses may pan out, for the same reasons as even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
And we will leave it to you to read how the middle-aged spare tire evolved, as proclaimed above.
BUT… here is a challenge from the UD News desk to all would-be participants in the BAHfest, which sponsors these theses: Explain, using these principles (natural selection acting on random mutation), why people in their mid-nineties sleep a lot and tend to wear their loafers in bed.
We need fun trivia for a Christmas party at a retirement home.
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