What would be the evolutionary advantage (for humans) of being relatively hairless?
359348
One difference we have in comparison with a lot of other mammals is that we have a lot of sweat glands in our skin. They help to prevent our bodies from overheating, especially during exercise. As sweat cooling your body works best if the air on your skin can move easily (and especially if a breeze of air is blowing) I would guess that fur/hair would decrease the efficiency of this cooling system a lot. As humans are supposed to have evolved in warm areas of Afrika, protection from cold was not an issue for keeping hair. And protection from sunburn - as a upright walking species we kept our hair on the place where sunburn would be most of a problem. \nThat's my guess, so that may not be true, but I read not too long ago that sweating allows humans to exercise much longer without overheating than a lot of animals (and so hunt an animal to its heat exhaustion, despite if may be able to run faster), if you look up these studies you may find more.\nPS. I found at least one source for that theory, I added it below
73542
Yes I agree with the previous answer. If you read the book Naked Ape, you will understand there are many genetically coded reasons for that we do. Ultimately this is why men will be attracted to longer hair on Women, and vice versa. Once this is established, going against this trend is not just about being less desirable, but typically results in less success.
1094843
Poor hygiene and lacks in care weaken hair and this also result occasional itching on skull. It may be genetically  inherited too.\nSituation may improve if personal hygiene is maintained, proper hair-care is taken and a balance diet is practiced. \nIt has been seen Vitamin E also helps  sometimes in having stronger hair.\nOne more amazing fact is, most sexy guys have weak or less hair on their heads, since sex hormone predominates collagen which is responsible for growth and strength of ones hair.
341169
This question assumes that humans are going to continue being controlled by natural selection, as we have been for all of our history.  We are at most a generation away from being able to control simple genetic features, and likely not more than 100 years from controlling more complex genetic features.  Hair color, etc, will be genetically controllable by us long before it would disappear.
44639
To help maintain body warmth.  If you think about the caveman , they were alot hairier. They didn't have as many ways of staying warm as we do.  They had to hunt animals to get th skin to cover their bodies and learn to build fires. As human evolution goes on we lose more and more hair since we don't really need it.  We have adapted throughout the years.
447655
I believe that you have a good grasp of the concept of why we have hair based on the text you submitted and that your question actually is... why have we not lost hair? or\n"why havn't we evolved?"\nThis is a way too common misunderstanding of what evolution is.  In order for organisms to "evolve" there needs to be selective pressure on the ability of the organism to survive and allow it to pass its genetic material to the next generation (ie. be able to successfully breed)  For people to lose their hair there would need to be some sort of reason why we should.  For example if some sort of parasitic worm infested the earth  and and ate people who grow hair on their heads (hypothetically of course) then the people who are most likely to live and pass on their genes would be people that grow less hair.  Over time, the population would be limited to survivors of this parasitic hair loving worm, which would be people with little or no hair. That is how evolution works, just because we may not really need hair now in order to breed sucessfully, I know plenty of bald men with children, doesn't mean that nature will automatically detect this and spontaneously cause people to lose their hair over "thousands of years".  There needs to be some survival factor in play.  \nOk, that was fun....watch out for those hair worms.
772803
It's not necessarily unattractive.\n\nThe absence of hair would bring out the facial features even more.  \n\nI've seen pics of some very attractive bald women, and I've seen pics of some very unattractive bald women.\n\n\nIf she has beautiful, delicate, feminine features with good skin tone, a perfectly shaped head (no bumps), and small, non-protruding ears and nose, she could easily pull it off. \n\nHowever, she rolls the dice if she does not have the features.
62802
Evolution doesn't eliminate everything which is useless. It will remove anything which is a disadvantage. For example, if it slows us down while running or makes us less intelligent, then it would have disappeared long ago.\n\nPubic and underarm hair may not have a reason to exist, but it also doesn't harm us, so it's still around. It may or may not disappear from humanity several thousand years from now.\n\nA few other points:\n- Some people believe that the underarm and pubic hair is used to reduce chafing. You'll notice that the crotch and armpits are two areas where the human body rubs against itself the most.\n- Some people believe that the underarm and pubic hair is used to hold in the pheromones that we produce. The crotch and underarms are two of the smelliest places on the human body.\n- In Asia, there are people who are actually born without underarm or pubic hair. However, in places like Korea, pubic hair is considered a sign of fertility, so many of the women born without pubic hair actually transplant hair from their head to their pubic area.
41662
from straigtdope.com:\n\n"The consensus is that eyebrows keep moisture (sweat, mostly, but also rain) from running down one's forehead and straight into the eyes. This explanation has the advantage of being quite easily demonstrated, fitting the morphology involved (notice the distinct slant of the brow hairs, which conducts water sideways), and having a logical survival advantage. There have been one or two comments from people who were, for one reason or another, temporarily without eyebrows who claimed the difference was noticeable. I've always been content with that explanation. It may not have much impact on a modern human's life, but next time you're hunting (or being hunted) on the African savanna, try shaving off your eyebrows and see if salty sweat running in your eyes makes the task any more difficult. I'll bet it does."
870440
Not all changes in a species reflect changes in the genome.  In the case of height, it reflects improved nutrition, and improved general health due to sanitation and reduction in childhood illness due to vaccination.  Since we are probably approaching the limits of the environmental factors, evolutionary forces will seek a new equilibrium.  The evolutionary forces that create advantages in height in a post-industrial society will be different than in our agrarian past.  We have crafted our environment.  Will there be a survival advantage for not having to duck through doorways?  Many factors will be social.  Height can be used to intimidate, which may help in getting a raise.  There's the old cliche, "tall, dark, and handsome".  How much will height help in getting a "better" mate?  Lastly, with environmental factors balanced accross the species, will we see a tendency towards uniformity at an optimum height.  It may turn out that the variance will be more telling than the mean.  The next 10,000 years will give us a hint.
301191
i don't like hair on the body. but i don't necessarily need a man to be completely hairless either. i just don't want to be kissing chewbaka. ya know.
552662
We would be much taller,have fewer wrinkles, and live longer due to less gravitational force afainst our bodies.
393736
hair, because hair does not live once out of the follicle.
123532
Anatommically speakiing, hair grow ooon parts of the body which are more sensitive to heat e.g. head/scalp, armpits. This one of our bodies protection from. Another function of the hair is protection of the skin from friction, specially in the genital area, during coitus or sex. \n\nSo male and female pubic hair has purpose. shaving it would expose the skin to friction which may lead to chaffing, etc.
218243
No, it would depend on the culture, if the culture find that beautiful and you know nothing else no.  Just like in this culture it is considered unattractive to have hair on your legs.  Think of some African cultures where they stretch out their lips with saucers they think the bigger the more attractive.  We don't.  It's all in the culture you are brought up in.
666792
Nearly all the skin of the human body except palms of hands and soles of feet is covered with hairs. The density of the hairs (in hair follicles per square centimeter) thickness of the hairs, color of the hairs, speed of hair growth, and qualities such as kinkiness, vary from one part of the body to another, and from one person to another. All of these features have strong genetic determinants, as demonstrated by the heritability of these qualities.\n\nDoctors generally distinguish scalp hair, vellus hair, and androgenic (terminal) hair. \n\nVellus hair is the hair on the rest of the body which has not been stimulated and transformed by sex hormones. Androgenic hair is the hair that greatly increases in heaviness and rate of growth with puberty.
935953
Shaven...It's more sanitary...Hair holds odor...It's ok for a man too...women seem to like it better....