h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That is, if in fact there was an original Adam.

I reckon he didn't, but pictures in many children's bibles do to protect the innocent or some such silly thing. Whatever the answer is, I belive an appropriate reply will be

"Ha!"

Yes - 'cause all mamals have belly buttons and the first homo sapien(Adam, if you will) would likewise.

Well, I think he means the biblical Adam, not the scientific Adam. Actually that is a real discussion between the Christians. But if a navel is genetical, then I guess he had one. But if it´s only a scar, then he might not have. But not all mammals have navels. Most animals loose their navel after some time. It just heals. And what about an animal like the kangarro, do they have navels?

Navels being the remains of the severed umbilical cord would suggest that Adam who wasn't born of woman but of dust, had no umbilical and therefore no belly button. QED

Unless he was Created with one so he wouldn't freak out his kids with that smooth belly. XYZ!

Since - according to the book - he was created in the image of God this question must then become "does God have a belly-button?"

God is omnipotent
Therefore God can change his image as necessary
Once he realised that a bellybutton would be a practical design feature for mammals in general he gave himself one to test it out, and then gave Adam one!

So - omnipresent, omnipotent and on the alpha test team for the belly button...excellent . Did he do any testing on my double-jointed thumbs?

I wouldn't have thought kangaroos have navels, as far as I remember they leave the womb at a fetal stage, to enter the pouch, where is attaches it mouth to a nipple, so no umbilical cord. So, if logic follows, no navel Until later...
BCNU - Crescent

Cool . I imagine they were just a free gift: are they a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

Hmm - as yet they have no discernable extra usefulness - though I'm told they could have been useful had I been a cricket bowler and they can be used as a "rest" for tricky pool shots.
Actually - my hands are an oddity altogether as I can bend the tips of my fingers without beding the lower joint for all except the finger nearest my thumb on my left hand - what's that about? I know not but I do know I taught mysleft to do this so it aint inherited.

On the subject of Joeys - they leave the womb very early but still do a lot of their development in the womb and therefore would be fed by an umbilical cord? The only mammal I can think of with absolutely no womb time is the Platypus...do they have belly buttons?

Double jointed fingers, left and right hands????

SNAP!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not alone in the world then!

"Double jointers of the world, UNITE!!!!"

'G'

It gets worse....
(If you are easily queasy, stop reading now)
I can also dislocate my lower knuckle of my thumb at will and by so doing can do a fairly passable impression of a standard H gate manual gearbox - though most people look away before I pop it in reverse

Hmm, beware! this probably means that you are related. (I know of other members of the spearcarrier's family who could do rather odd things with their fingers and at least one of them played cricket)

The umbilical cord is the cord that joins the foetus to the placenta. The placenta is a food gathering device that sucks the life blood out of the mother like a giant leech and feeds it into the foetus.

Marsupials do not have a placenta. This includes all native Australian mammals, including kangaroos, tasmanian devils, wombats, platypuses and echidnas. None of these would have a navel.

When I was a young child, I used to bend my thumb backwards at the first joint to impress and disgust my friends. People used to say, "don't do that, you'll get arthritis in it". I didn't believe them.

It used to be a great help in opening the old style of milk bottle, the glass one with the tight fitting foil lid (no plastic involved). I just bent back my thumb and stuck the other side into the top of the bottle. The lid then lifted off.

Now that I am signicantly older, I suffer from arthritis in this thumb joint. I doubt very much that it is because I bent it backwards as a child. More likely, the ability to bend it goes with the arthritis.

Arthritis in my thumb is a nuisance when I play the clarinet, as the full weight of the clarinet rests on the first joint of the right thumb.

Firstly - can we assume from these mutations that the Spearcarriers are some sort of evolutionary next step? If so, what purpose do they serve?

Secondly - on Belly-buttons and their purpose.
If we didn't have them:
The fluff would just have to accumulate somewhere else;
Young ladies would have one less thing to pierce and show off to the world;
Belly dancing would be less focused;
We wouldn't have a nice target to blow rasperries on;
The great "inni or outi" debate would come to an end.

There are a few other (cruder) suggestions for BB utilisation, but since this is still a theological discussion, I will refrain.

Perhaps the Spearcarriers are a mutation? An evolutionary dead end? Surely not!

There's a gentleman in my office - with a beer-belly - who claims to ahve a pierced BB. We have had no urge to ask him to prove this

Truly though - are BB's not proof of God's existance? How would a natural process come up with something so ridiculous and yet so cute?

*Treads carefully*
Someone I know has a very sensitive BB - likened to the sensitivity inner ear - mine own is not nearly as sensitive. Which is "normal".
(Though why "normal" should apply to any part of me given the previous admissions

Hmm, my bro can also make the top of his thumb go backwards. Looks disgusting. But if evolution has created a new kind of ppl, who have double jointed hands, will the human race be outmatched by this new Homo Thumbis? If they are able to open milk bottles easier then they will perhaps have an advantage, since we always learn how important milk is. I´m going to go see the new X-men movie soon. I wonder if there´s any mutants in it with the super-human ability to bend thumbs backwards.