Why do humans have finger/toe nails?

is there a point of having these or are they just kinda there for no reason.Why do humans have finger/toe nails?
Self-defense----it's so you have little weapons to scratch with. Or if you're trying to dig through something. They also work like little tweezers if you have a splinter stuck in you. Why do humans have finger/toe nails?
Our body is made up of cells. These cells die. our body gets rid of dead cells by growing hair and nails. That's right, hair and nails are made of the same stuff. That's why they keep growing and growing.
We inherited them from primate ancestors. There's been no big natural selection pressure to get rid of them.



so you can get manicures
well when we were cavemen we scratched people?? umm to protect our faces/fingers/toes...i'm not so sure
they are part of the integumentary system that mainly serve the body for protection. if you notice they are all located at the tip of the toe and at the tip of the fingers. At these terminations nerve cells and blood vessels are abundant, therefore they are sensitive, thats why nails are there to cover and protect these delicate tissues.
my biology teacher told me that nails are dead cells as well as the hair so even if humans die they continue to grow
Please dont listen to what Susan said. I have no idea what she's smoking. That's completely wrong, the only thing she was right about is the fact that hair and nails are made of the same thing: keratin. I still can't believe she said that... Anyway saying this....





All primates have nails instead of claws. Nails have evolved to protect the sensitive nerve-filled touch pads on the bottoms of our fingers and toes to allow us to handle things with greater dexterity.





Twenty thousand years ago (give or take a few) our ancestors used their nails, both finger and toe, for the same reasons that modern apes use theirs: tearing bits of food apart, picking bugs out of their hair, gripping, scraping, etc.





Some people say that nails help to protect our digits, but there seems to be more argument that they exist for purposes of manipulation – their use as “tools” – rather than fortification for the ends of our fingers.