Furries' perks evolutionary possibility

Question

I wanted to create a world inhabited by sapient canine-like Furries, but I asked myself: is it possible in evolutionary and anthropological plans? My main question is about tails and fur. There's a big chance that tails would cease to exist very early if they do nothing to lead an individual to survive. However, they could be useful in social interaction, so it's also possible that natural selection will let tails to be. Fur on the other side, is a harder question. If they have fur, it will be easier for them to live in temperate and cold climate zones, which could be a barrier to developing sapience (I got fur, why do I need sapience to think of something that'll let me survive in this cold, if I'm already fine?), and can make them less furry (which I don't like :) ). Also the fur, and hence almost no sweating, can make them less competent in running long distances (bad for hunting). They could just form a better planning habit of hunting (it's even better for social development!), but it's still more favorable them to be less furry and just hunt like us. In which biological situation the specie can be an effective hunters and form the great society, yet still have fur?

Answer 1

Evolution does not stop organisms from exhibiting traits if those traits aren't evolutionarily useful (see, for instance, vestigial organs); evolution stops organisms from exhibiting traits if those traits actively reduce the ability of individuals to pass those traits on. Take humans, for instance. A human born with six toes, blue eyes, and a star-shaped birthmark on their chest is going to pass those traits down, because six toes, blue eyes, and a star-shaped birthmark on your chest do not affect your ability to have babies. They're useless, mostly, but they aren't harmful. A human born with no brain, on the other hand, will not pass that trait down for obvious reasons.

And so it goes with these critters. There's nothing about tails or fur that stop tails and fur from being passed down. Chimpanzees, for instance, are completely covered in hair and nevertheless are very intelligent for the same reasons humans are intelligent; clearly, being insulated from one's environment does not get in the way of sapience. I see no reason a tail would either.

Answer 2

Because of Sexual Selection and many other evolutionary influences.

Natural Selection is not the only mechanism that affects the overall evolution of a species.

"Survival of the Fittest" is over-represented in general biological discourse, especially when the vast variety of species on this planet only really occurred after the ability for sexual selection was formed.

So in general, evolutionary outcomes are a combination of (not a comprehensive list):

• Sexual Selection: This is the mechanism by which a mate can choose a partner. It thus chooses based on desirable traits, not necessarily ones which maximise survivability. Think Signal Theory - ie. the impression of desirability is equally as important as actually having desirable traits. This is why you have birds with brightly coloured, yet impractical crests - look at male peacocks as an example.
• Absence of Competition: In general apparently non-optimal outcomes can result simply from a species emerging into new environments with little competition. In this case, sub-optimal traits are carried through as there is no need for their elimination. Our appendices, tail bones and other evolutionary 'hang-overs' are evidence of this, being neither too great a 'flaw' or damage survivability enough to influence production of children.
• Signalling: If you were poisonous, and this was your primary defence, how do you advertise this to competitors? Often frogs, snakes and other poisonous insects have brightly coloured skins to actively advertise 'I'm Poisonous', even if it becomes more obvious to predators.
• Cultural Selection: In many mammalian or primate societies, don't forget that hierarchy and society forms major components of selection for partners. In particular certain kinds of males, acting or looking certain ways, may be selected by females, or indeed females may be choosing based on a wide variety of complex social attributes or circumstances not associated simply with optimal survivability. For instance, care-giving attributes, compliance or prospects may be more influential.

So in general, the traits you mention in your question can indeed be passed down to children from a wide variety of factors, not just 'survival of the fittest'.

Answer 3

There's a big chance that tails would cease to exist very early if they do nothing to lead an individual to survive.

I dispute two things here:

1. A trait is only selected against if it provides some significant disadvantage, not if it fails to provide any advantage. IOW, if the tail is not a problem in terms of physics or biology, it likely won’t go away unless it’s a problem in terms of psychology or sociology.
2. A tail could, with the right leg structure and posture, actually still provide some advantage to a biped in an early hunter-gatherer society. For real life wolves, dogs, and foxes, a tail helps provide better control of their center of gravity when running, making it easier to maintain balance on uneven terrain and to turn (you can actually see this pretty easily if you pay close attention to how a large dog’s tail moves when it’s running). It should provide the same benefit for a biped with the right leg structure, albeit to a lesser degree, but would likely lead to a more ‘hunched-over’ posture from a human perspective.

If they have fur, it will be easier for them to live in temperate and cold climate zones, which could be a barrier to developing sapience (I got fur, why do I need sapience to think of something that'll let me survive in this cold, if I'm already fine?), and can make them less furry (which I don't like :) )

But what happens when the climate shifts and things get warmer? Surviving in the cold was a potential driving factor for humans because we’re not naturally well suited to that. But if you want to use that argument, any environmental pressure applied slowly over hundreds of generations may be sufficient. So instead of evolving in warmer times and then developing sapience during an ice age, your species evolved in colder times and developed sapience when their homelands got too warm.

Also the fur, and hence almost no sweating, can make them less competent in running long distances (bad for hunting).

Not bad for hunting, bad for hunting the way humans used to hunt before we developed a sufficient degree of tool use to not hunt like that anymore. One could argue the opposite, humans aren’t great at sprinting (even sea lions can outrun humans over short distances on land) and aren’t particularly dangerous without weapons (we lack the strength of most other large apes, and the natural weapons of a majority of other predatory mammals), which is bad for hunting.

IRL, all large predatory mammals are covered in fur and don’t sweat, and pretty much all of them (except possibly cheetahs) hunt just fine because the way they hunt doesn’t focus much on endurance running. They rely on large-scale pack tactics (humans don’t theoretically need this in the right circumstances, even without high technology), often combined with ambush tactics relying on being able to sprint fast.