What's the matter with beards?

We had a discussion about Darwin looking old one day at work. I had just written his name on the birthday board (biotech company, the servers were called Watson and Crick so I wasn't too out of line with that) and someone wanted to know what year. When we realized that Darwin and Lincoln were born on the same day and that Darwin just always *seemed* old while Lincoln didn't we just chalked it up to being that Darwin lived an additional 17 years and people tend to use pictures from toward the end of both men's lives. Beard schmeard.

Maybe he should rethink his stance on this "stereotyping" since his own post clearly points out that at the time of photography's mass inception, Darwin was both old *and* bearded! Why wouldn't we think of Darwin as an older gentleman who had a beard when the only pictures *of* the man depict just that?

I cannot imagine him as a spry 20 something when in fact, I'd have no idea what to envision since I've only seen him as a wizened old man, bearded to no end!

I had a beard for 20 years then it started to turn grey on me so I got rid of it.

I am so much younger now.

Because, natch, you must grow a beard in old age OR young age to be a scientist.

Excuse us while us wimmin find something to velcro on.

Even when Darwin was a "young" 51, when he published Origin of Species, he didn't have the full beard. And there are plenty of pictures to prove it. So yes, it is odd that the fully bearded "old man" pictures of Darwin seem to be the most common.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Charles_Darwin_aged_51_crop.jpg
He looks good without a beard. Maybe that should be shown more. :0

"Because, natch, you must grow a beard in old age OR young age to be a scientist.

Excuse us while us wimmin find something to velcro on."

You have hair on your chin, just not as much or as thick.
Bearded chicks are hot.

Beards do often make men look older.

20s? Hell, I grew mine at 17 (to my father's annoyance), and have only shaved it off once in the 32 years since (for a Halloween joke). At 17 it made me look older. Through my 30s and early 40s, I think it made me look younger. Now that it's gone sort of salt & pepper grey it probably makes me look older -- but I no longer care how old I look.

Maybe someone needs to tell babyface over there that men can grow beards in their 20s, and having a beard doesn't necessarily mean you're a wizened old fuddy-duddy.

Well, the wimpy kind of beard like yours, PZ, sure. But you'll have a few years to go before you can get the impressive Darwin/John Brown/Santa beard.

At least we can grow hair on our legs!

There is a point to be made about portraying scientists at the age when they made their most important discoveries, rather than as the elder statesmen of science that they wind up becoming. One of the fights that got me fired from my last job with a company that produced science documentaries was over presenting a white-haired Einstein at a chalkboard while the voiceover was discussing how Einstein arrived at his theories - something he did when he was in his LATE 20's!!!

I lost that one. Umm... well, I lost ALL of them actually.

Looks like it's time again to separate the boys from men (and the men from apes).

For several years (starting at 21) I grew a beard every winter- no big deal since mine grows very fast. This winter is my first beardless one in 7 years- because I am married now and my wife thinks it makes me look too old. I miss the winter beard, but the improved cooking at home post-marriage makes up for it.

I've had my beard since I was 19. That's because I attended a Catholic high school where facial hair was verboten.

At 47, my full beard is getting nice and grey and I am rather pleased with it. Many assume a certain intellectual ability on my part and I don't mind that at all! In fact, as a balding white guy with a full grey beard, I revel in my resemblence to the great, albeit elderly, Charles Darwin. And to a thin Santa Claus, for that matter!

Here is darwin withiout a beard looking kind of old:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Charles_Darwin_aged_51_crop.jpg

and here he is without a beard looking kind of young:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Charles_Darwin_by_G._Richmond.jpg

and here he is without a beard looking REALLY young:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Charles_Darwin_1816.jpg

(too young to grow a beard but not too young to grow a plant)

Face, the guy was very adaptable...

PZ, uhm, you're not referring to the fuzz around your mouth as beard, are you?

And as we all know, the older you get the less valid your ideas are.

Wait, what?

A pox upon people who care more about hipness than correctness!

I like Darwin's old-man beard but not as much as Einstein's hair style.

having a beard doesn't necessarily mean you're a wizened old fuddy-duddy.

I have considered growing a beard, but then I'd look like Ken Ham (who is now feeling clean-shaven Dawkins' heat:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2007/0116letter.asp)

..sorry, that link should be:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2007/0116letter.asp

PZ, uhm, you're not referring to the fuzz around your mouth as beard, are you?

Maybe PZ was temporarily confusing himself with *Z*Z? ( http://www.zztop.com/ )

20's, indeed. I last shaved the day JFK was shot. Freshmen do stuff like that.

I'm 26 and I wish I had a sweet, snowy-white Darwin beard. The waiting is probably gonna kill me before it happens...

What's the matter with beards? Well, they keep you from living a truly authentic life. Imagine lying to everyone about who you are and... oh... you didn't mean that kind of beard...

I realize that this will never be a matter in which I have any say, but Darwin looked much handsomer without the beard, and so would PZ.

Sorry, in PZ's case, make that "even handsomer."

I added years to my useful life by stopping facial depilation many years ago. Seriously, why do most men remove their facial hair, and why do many (most?) women prefer bald chins? And what do homosexual men do and prefer? Is it all just social conditioning and habit? Is it (sort of) explainable as a pretty unconvincing attempt to look like a 12-year-old boy? Is that also why women are more or less required to remove underarm hair in many cultures - it's a dangerous sign of sexual maturity?

MAN BEARD BLOG supports Darwin in all of his bearded glory, and has decided to enshrine him for all time as a great and mighty Man Beard.

I'm 48 and have a mostly-white beard. I went from red to white.

I enjoy going out for bike rides and pulling up next to younger guys, who must surely be thinking, "Okay, grandpa, here we go..." And then we go, and it's not quite as easy as they thought it was going to be...

I have been mildly recruited by malls to think about being Santa, but at 6'2" and 170 lbs, hard to see how that'd work.

A woman who graduated from high school at the same time as I did saw me and said, "Very clever, you went straight from blond to white! I can hardly tell the difference!" (My head was blond...).

I've had a beard for 25 years now. You don't want me to shave it off. Trust me. I'm pretty sure I could be the proverbial Missing Link.

When my hair and beard get too long, I call my barber and say, "This is Hagrid, can I get a hair cut?".

Pretty random. Sorry. Carry on.

I'm 34. With my full beard, most people I meet think I'm in my mid-twenties. The beard does make me look older though. When I shaved it off last summer, people thought I'd just graduated high school.

What's the matter with beards? Well, they keep you from living a truly authentic life. Imagine lying to everyone about who you are and... oh... you didn't mean that kind of beard...

Is this one of those moments where everybody else but me understands some word or phrase? A neologism perhaps? In other words, WTF?

I sported my first beard as a college student in my teens, then I shaved it for the army. About three years after my wife and I married, on a long trip to Europe she challenged me to grow a beard. I did and at the age of 67 I still have it, a mixture of brown, black and gray. It's slowly graying even more, but, unlike Darwin's in old age, always trimmed. But I still shave around the edges daily, so that's chore I haven't shed. Oh, and my wife still likes it! So not all women go for bald (or bare) chins.

Maybe someone needs to tell babyface over there that men can grow beards in their 20s, and having a beard doesn't necessarily mean you're a wizened old fuddy-duddy.
---------------------------------

Trust me, PZ, Darren knows this -- in the paleontological community, he's literally surrounded by suave, virile male paleontologists in his (our) age group -- and younger! -- sporting sexy goatees and the like. (No muttonchops, though.) Maybe Darren has some sort of follicular mutation that prevents him from joining our ranks...

What's the matter with beards? Well, they keep you from living a truly authentic life. Imagine lying to everyone about who you are and... oh... you didn't mean that kind of beard...

Is this one of those moments where everybody else but me understands some word or phrase? A neologism perhaps? In other words, WTF?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beard_(female_companion)

But the guys with the really big beards and shaggy looks are geologists just in from the field.

Hm. Looking at the Wikipedia Core Bibliographies list for scientists and inventors, skipping some who aren't primarily remembered as scientists...

Biology and medicine: Hippocrates, bearded. Darwin, no bearded picture until halfway down the page, but that's atypical. Linnaeus, never bearded. Lister, mutton chops. Mendel, never bearded. Pasteur, goatee.

Inventors: Alexander Graham Bell, bearded. Edison, no beard. Marconi, no beard.

Physical scientists: Copernicus, no beard. Curie, no beard (big surprise, there...). Einstein, mustache and isro, but no beard. Faraday, no beard. Galileo, beard. Hawking, no beard. Kepler, beard. Lavoisier, no beard. Maxwell, huge beard. Newton, no beard. Oppenheimer, no beard. Pauling, no beard. Planck, huge mustache but no beard. Ptolemy, beard. Rutherford, mustache but no beard. Tesla, mustache but no beard. Watt, no beard.

Hmm. I'm just not seeing it.

I'm just going to throw in that Darwin would have been totally hot with just some stubble.

And yeah, I'm joking. Or am I? We'll never know...

and why do many (most?) women prefer bald chins?

Yeah, there's nothing like having a long, drawn out, romantic kiss with a scrub brush. ;-)

Maybe someone needs to tell babyface over there that men can grow beards in their 20s, and having a beard doesn't necessarily mean you're a wizened old fuddy-duddy.

--or even a man. (Count the facial depilatories on the drugstore shelf if you don't believe me.)

BTW, some of us like our men bearded precisely because the alternative is a kiss with a scrub brush, at least after 5PM. Among other reasons.

I assure you, it's like silk, not stubbly like a scrub brush. It's like being caressed by cashmere.

I assure you, it's like silk, not stubbly like a scrub brush. It's like being caressed by cashmere.

Some of us might believe that if your wife posted the comment.

oh... you didn't mean that kind of beard...

Is this one of those moments where everybody else but me understands some word or phrase?

Thanks Greg for asking and Boo for answering. Until then I'd been thinking along vague lines of the putative evolutionary green beard effect. Which performs pretty much the opposite of Boo's beards.

Given that I look like a cross between these two gentlemen ....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cecil%2C_1st_Baron_Burghley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil%2C_1st_Earl_of_Salisbury

(One of their descendants had an affair ....)
I can see nothing wrong with beards.

I grew a full beard at 18 and have it still.

I love runnign my hand through it and looking thoughtful: who cares whether you look older or not, you sure look wiser and intelligenterer with a beard!

Thanks Greg for asking and Boo for answering. Until then I'd been thinking along vague lines of the putative evolutionary green beard effect. Which performs pretty much the opposite of Boo's beards.

AARRRGGG! I can't believe I didn't get that. Brilliant. Sometimes it is easy to forget we are talking about evolution.

Nice one.

Wow!

If I shave my beard down to mutton chops and get myself a cravat I'd look like Darwin at 51. Of course I'm not yet 40, so maybe that's not a good thing.

Beards are great toys. Every few years I grow one for a few months then slowly shave it off over the period of several weeks. I've tried most men's facial hairstyles that way. Not all, I still need to attempt the ancient Egyptian style and the soul patch. Maybe this time....

Seriously, why do most men remove their facial hair, and why do many (most?) women prefer bald chins? And what do homosexual men do and prefer? Is it all just social conditioning and habit? Is it (sort of) explainable as a pretty unconvincing attempt to look like a 12-year-old boy? Is that also why women are more or less required to remove underarm hair in many cultures

I don't have any data to back it up, but I suspect there's a strong correlation between those trends and the levels of advertising for grooming products. AFAIK, shaving underarms for women is an entirely modern phenomenon. However, I may be mistaken in that...

A kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt.

I'd love to try mutton chops at some point, but it would look ridiculous with my trimmed goatee and I'm not willing to part with it. I'll just have to settle for plain old sideburns. The moustache is going, though. Tried it and I hate it.

What would be fun to do is let the goatee grow and then braid it into tentacles. I would need beard jewelry to make it convincing, though. Some way to put suckers throughout the braids to make it totally awesome.

I've had my beard now for over 30 years. As for all the 'negative Nellies' (note the gender) here, I will counter by saying that my wife (of 23 years) told me way back when we were first married that if I ever shaved off my beard, she'd divorce me. I don't think she was kidding, but then again, she's never seen me without. Either way, it's a great excuse.

I agree with Dr. Myers - beards are soft, not prickly - assuming of course, that you're not talking about those Don Johnson Miami Vice stubbly things. I keep my beard a bit longer than Dr. Myers' - more like this guy's.

One big plus to a beard like mine, which is more salt than pepper these days, is the deference I get on the bus. I'm in no way feeble, but a surprising number of young people jump up and offer me a seat. I usually decline, but every so often it's nice to put that beard to good use.

βPer

Male scientists who grow old may also grow beards. But, as one of my instructors somewhere along the way pointed out, the odds are that paradigm-shifting or "big science" discoveries will be made by the young. If you look at a number of seminal contributions, you'll see that while scientific productivity *can* continue into later life, the odds are that if you have a big idea in science, you'll have it and publish it before you hit age thirty. If you put the threshold at thirty-five, it makes it even more lopsided. Note also that the public perception of Einstein, whose Nobel-winning work was published while he was in in mid-twenties, is based primarily on his appearance and mannerisms in the last part of his life.

The observation about youth and scientific significance puts me behind the eight-ball as a scientist working on starting a career in my forties.

And, yes, I have a beard. It makes up in part for not having a whole lot of chin.

Wasn't this the sub-"plot" of one of those Annette Funicello movies--young anthropologist doing research on beached teenagers grew a beard so he'd be accepted by his profession?

I've noticed that growing a beard would be bad for me, as the intermediate stages are way too itchy.

Also, there seem to be historical people who seem to be always "pictured" as old men. Darwin is one; Galileo, Socrates, Russell are others.

Mena:

We had a discussion about Darwin looking old one day at work.

Speak for yourself. This is my mental image of the Charles Darwin who went to the Galapagos.

(Wasn't there a passage in Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad where they visited a museum that had two skulls of Darwin? One from when he was old, and one from when he was young.)