...................................Why must everything always be beneficial? Can't we be caught in the in-between of something vestigial from a common ancestor being weeded out? Can something be neutral and not expend much energy so it kind of lingers for a while?

 

 

I wouldn't argue with that especially as "for a while" in evolutionary terms can be millions of years. However if we, chimps, apes and even koalas have finger prints the "for a while seems to have already existed for "quite a while". IMO The fact that the Koala is a marsupial from Australia suggests any genetic link to us, monkeys and apes must have existed very long ago with plenty of time for significant evolutionary differences to take place.

 

 

 

 

Aiding in channeling water makes sense but concluding that fingerprints must have an evolutionary benefit because chimps and apes have them doesn't make much sense to me- are you implying they developed separately in each species?

 

Why must everything always be beneficial? Can't we be caught in the in-between of something vestigial from a common ancestor being weeded out? Can something be neutral and not expend much energy so it kind of lingers for a while?

The other alternative, and the more defensible one for traits that are common across species with otherwise significant divergence, would be that the trait is a neutral byproduct of some other advantageous trait and that decoupling them is either impossible or unnecessary.

 

Although I personally find it unlikely, you could make an argument that fingerprints are simply annaccidental result of the way that the skin on our hands develops, and if that process had resulted in perfectly smooth fingers and palms instead, it would have no impact on human fitness whatsoever and the only difference would be the fact that we'd be debating the adaptive advantages of smooth skin over wrinkly koala hands in this topic instead.