# Why do we have chins?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 16, 1999, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995 "1999-10-16T21:44:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)
#### Post date: [October 16, 1999, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/1 "1999-10-16T21:44:00Z")
Some of us have more chins than others, but why do we have chins? Other creatures get along without them.
---
### Author:  [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)
#### Post date: [October 16, 1999, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/2 "1999-10-16T22:53:00Z")
Ther’re a natural biproduct of the kind of FACE we have, and the type of body it’s perched upon.
All mamals with similar structures - mostly simian beings - have chins, or a semblance of a chin to my knowledge.
* * *
Yer pal,
Satan
---
### Author:  [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)
#### Post date: [October 16, 1999, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/3 "1999-10-16T23:50:00Z")
They do? Chimpanzees have a sort of round jaw, for instance.
---
### Author:  [@Therealbubba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Therealbubba)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/4 "1999-10-17T00:03:00Z")
Chin/Jaw Jaw/Chin. One in the same. I just checked both of our cats, and they’ve got chin/jaws too. Helps with chewing and talking/meowing. I suppose you could have a jaw and no chin if your mouth was located in the middle of your face, between the nose and eyes, but nature saw fit to do it the way it is now.
Therealbubba
---
### Author:  [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/5 "1999-10-17T00:58:00Z")
Well, from what i heard on a TV show on the Discovery Channel once, all mammals and mammal like animals (me thinks) have chins, but humans are the only ones with **forward protruding** chins. Don’t know the reason, but that’s what I’ve heard.
* * *
‘The beginning calls for courage; the end demands care’
---
### Author:  [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/6 "1999-10-17T01:08:00Z")
Ok, so now we are looking for forward protuding chins.
Some links to primates that I found. Should show the weak chins of apes: [http://www.skullsunlimited.com/PhiladelphiaZoo.htm](http://www.skullsunlimited.com/PhiladelphiaZoo.htm)[http://www.neanderthal.de/](http://www.neanderthal.de/)[http://www.primates-online.com/](http://www.primates-online.com/)
I think that had the best side view of an ape [http://www.bergen.org/Smithsonian/prigal.html](http://www.bergen.org/Smithsonian/prigal.html)
---
### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/7 "1999-10-17T02:55:00Z")
No none knows why we have chins.
Frankly, I’d be more interested in why they call them chins.
---
### Author:  [@JBENZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBENZ)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/8 "1999-10-17T04:22:00Z")
Quote:
Frankly, I’d be more interested in why they call them chins.
Easy one…'cause they’d already used “wang” for something else.
Browsing the Peking phone book.
* * *
JB
Lex Non Favet Delictorum Votis
---
### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/9 "1999-10-17T04:39:00Z")
We have chins so we have something to keep up when misfortune befalls us. As **JBENZS** alluded to, the old expression, “Keep your wang up,” became, uh, problematic when the English language developed slang.
* * *
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
---
### Author:  [@Temujin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temujin)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/10 "1999-10-17T05:51:00Z")
My WAG is that we have chins because chins were an attribute that the opposite sex found attractive. Slowly, over the millenia, selective breeding creating humans with larger chins.
Or maybe that’s what happened with wangs …
---
### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/11 "1999-10-17T06:54:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> My WAG is that we have chins because chins were an attribute that the opposite sex found attractive. Slowly, over the millenia, selective breeding creating humans with larger chins.
Then Jay Leno ought to be voted Sexiest Man Alive.
---
### Author:  [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/12 "1999-10-17T11:12:00Z")
Oh oh…where’s this going…and where is Dr.Fidelius with a good WAG?
---
### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/13 "1999-10-17T16:34:00Z")
If we didn’t have chins the people who make chin staps would be unemployed. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@bill422](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bill422)
#### Post date: [October 18, 1999, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/14 "1999-10-18T05:01:00Z")
Why forward protruding chins?
Neotony.
(Longer answer available upon request)
---
### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [October 18, 1999, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/15 "1999-10-18T05:07:00Z")
Pigs and humans alone have chins (it’s not just the forward jutting – there’s a reinforcing bone there that other critters don’t have).
The only obvious connection would be an omnivorous diet, since one rarely sees pigs boxing.
* * *
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
---
### Author:  [@bill422](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bill422)
#### Post date: [October 18, 1999, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/16 "1999-10-18T05:31:00Z")
I respectfully disagree with the pig/human extra bone idea.
All mammals have two bones in their lower jaw the dental bone (the chin) and the mastoid bone (the bone that connects to the skull). Reptiles, conversly have four bones in the lower jaw (the dental bone IS one of the four). This is a primary way paleontologists can distinguish between reptile fossils and mammal fossils.
So all mammals have the dental bone (Pigs and humans don’t have an extra “reinforcing” bone). Incidently, I don’t remember my pig skulls having a forward protruding dental bone…I’ll have to dig them out and look more closely, but I think they didn’t.
The whole question of why we have chins is silly. We have them to support our lower teeth, there’s no other reason.
The answer to the question of why ours protrude and most others don’t is still
Neotony.
---
### Author:  [@Konrad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Konrad)
#### Post date: [October 18, 1999, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/17 "1999-10-18T05:40:00Z")
If the question is why are our chins shaped that way then part of the reason may be our brains. In certain humans and most animals the jaw muscles take up a large part of the space inside the skull, but that’s ok cause their brains are small. A good example would be the alligator’s head.
Another reason is, of course, our diet and posture. Our chins stick out because our head is not pointed along our bodies as most animal’s head are. Also if you look at early humans their chins are very different, probably because of changes in diet.
---
### Author:  [@Sealemon88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon88)
#### Post date: [October 18, 1999, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/18 "1999-10-18T05:43:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> My WAG is that we have chins because chins were an attribute that the opposite sex found attractive. Slowly, over the millenia, selective breeding creating humans with larger chins.
> Or maybe that’s what happened with wangs …
Oh, don’t I _wish._
* * *
You say “cheesy” like that’s a **BAD** thing.
---
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [October 18, 1999, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/19 "1999-10-18T05:57:00Z")
A protruding chin is the unique hallmark of _Homo Sapiens_. Neanderthan man, Homo Erectus, et al, have a rounded chin. I think that it’s more a case of the rest of our lower jaw having shrunk and receded, leaving that knob of bone sticking out.
---
### Author:  [@aseymayo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aseymayo)
#### Post date: [October 17, 1999, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995/20 "1999-10-17T18:20:00Z")
Okay, I give. I’ve tried looking it up with no result. What the hell is neotony?
* * *
Bluecher!
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-chins/3995.md?page=2)