Evolutionists: Why do we pick scabs?

There is actually a certain point at which the wound is healed enough that you can pull off the scab (I say "pull", but it's actually more like scratching at it and having it fall off) and have it be fine.

Before that, your body has a natural aversion to picking at it, since it hasn't healed all the way. The fact that you continue to pick at it anyway is because you are over-thinking it and using your mind to overcome your natural tendencies.

People eat too much, smoke cigarettes, text while driving - these are all known to be dangerous yet we do them.

Some people pick scabs because they enjoy it, some because they want the scab gone, some out of nervous habit, some because the skin underneath itches - all sorts of reasons.

The itch or feeling to pick it is just your body's way of saying the healing process has gone as far as it can with the scab in place. That the scab has to be removed now to complete the process. So you pick at it without even thinking about it.

For the same reason we pick at mosquito bites. Scabs produce histamines as part of their disinfecting process. Histamines generate itchy or scratchy feelings which is why mosquito bites are itchy and why we scratch them, and why allergy sufferers often experience itchy eyes and nose.

Take an anti-histamine to lessen the itchiness.

NOT picking at scabs because it takes longer for the wound to heal, or not scratching poison ivy because it leads to its spread are among the first thing a child learns about how to control him/herself in an adverse situation. Apparently you have not learned that yet.

Not every evolved trait needs to have survival value. Some are just random. As long as they don't actually decrease survival, they can persist.

I'm not sure picking scabs is an evolved trait in itself though.

You do realize that not everything we do is beneficial, right?

"Why can we stab ourselves? There must be some survival value to it!"

No, there doesn't have to be. These things are just emergent behavior, probably deriving from the fact that we have skin that can itch (and itching is beneficial).

Creationists: Why do we pick scabs? Were we intelligently designed to to so?

Not an evolutionist, but some people develop bad habits now that our welfare societies have made survival of the fittest obselete.

It itches, you scratch.

Because they taste better than boogers.