Posted on 09/02/2009 12:47:20 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Humans come in a rainbow of hues, from dark chocolate browns to nearly translucent whites.
This full kaleidoscope of skin colors was a relatively recent evolutionary development, according to biologists, occuring alongside the migration of modern humans out of Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
The consensus among scientists has always been that lower levels of vitamin D at higher latitudes — where the sun is less intense — caused the lightening effect when modern humans, who began darker-skinned, first migrated north.
But other factors might be at work, a new study suggests. From the varying effects of frostbite to the sexual preferences of early men, a host of theories have been reviewed.
Vitamin D plays an important role in bone growth and the body's natural protection against certain diseases, and the inability to absorb enough in areas of less-powerful sunlight would have decreased life expectancies in our African ancestors. The further north they trekked, the more vitamin D they needed and the lighter they got over the generations, due to natural selection.
This explanation accounts for the world's gradients of skin color traveling south to north, the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among African immigrants to higher latitudes, as well as the relatively darker skin of Canada's Inuit peoples, who have good levels of vitamin D despite living in the Arctic, due to their diet rich in oily fish.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
If 6 billion individuals were sourced out of this mythical Adam and Eve, all of these inbreds would be dropping like flies in a rainfall of pesticide, due to genetic abnormalities accumulating over the generations.
Yes, there is a large and sad contingent on fr that truly believe that we are all decended from ‘devine inbreeding/linebreeding’ - and that Darwin was the original antichrist.
It is true within homogenous cultures and in mixed cultures such as our own it loses its attachments to particular groups after a couple of generations. Among Chinese it operates pretty generally as among Luos in Kenya. It causes a sorting out of intelligence relationships in cultures that stay fairly homogenous as the brighter more successful lines marry their kids to lighter mates. It does not imply that a lighter homogenous group is more intelligent than a darker such group but within groups such sorting occurs.
It is not outdated yet. After the marriage is fait accompli and there are children the stigma rapidly fades, in part because the children (if the Indian mate is dark) raise the apparent caste level of the family by being lighter skinned. I am long acquainted with several such families. The strong distaste for the foreign choice disappears soon after the marriage, especially if the marriage is a possible a ticket to emigration for relatives. The light-skin preference does not really work across cultural lines. When such lines are crossed the affluence of the foreign culture(and the individual prospective mate) is the dominant consideration. That works for third world Orientals marrying American Negroes. Any stigma is formalistic and quickly dispensed with and is the same as that for marrying a Nordic-American.
They cannot raise the “caste level” by the pigmentation of the offspring. In fact, marrying a foreigner is the quickest way to lower oneself in the racist caste heirarcy.
It is for this reason that Anglo-Indians were accorded special protection by the Indian constitution.
Yeah, I used to do a bit of that sort of thing and came to the conclusion that it wasn't a terribly good idea. Unless there's a reason to track genetic diseases (or if you're Mormon), noodling around in who really begat who can be rather eye opening, pointless, and impossible all at the same time.
I found I really didn't want to know some of the stuff I discovered. Coming to the conclusion I was committing genealogical voyeurism, I've adopted the Popeye philosophy on researching the family tree, “I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam.” It works lots better for me.
I am thinking of how it is among people I know. Both families’ Indian sides are based in Goa which might make a difference. Both of the men, one Irish and one Carolinian intend to retire to Goa to be, at least in part, near their (wives’) families.
Ok,I’ll jump in here.
I’m getting old and had developed liver spots on my hands.
After reading the FR thread on the benefits of Vitiamin D and flu prevention, I began taking 2000 units per day. Believe it or don’t but some have disappeared and the big one is fading.
As the saying goes... “Momma’s baby, daddy's maybe.”
Easy. As they moved north our of africa into snowy climes, Homo Sapiens needed a different colaration to disguise themselves from their prey.
Imagine a dark-hued Neanderthal, walking down a trail when out of a snow-drift springs a white homo sapiens.
Another one bites the dust and is eaten by the cannibal species.
Thank you for posting. This very subject came up in a family discussion a couple of weeks ago and we were pretty much stumped and lacking the time to do the research. I’ve printed out the article to digest later.
And thus, we have the Swedish Bikini Team. Ain't evolution a beautiful thing?
“Momma’s baby, daddy’s maybe.”
Perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Mamma’s baby. Daddy's? Maybe. ;)
Kudos for “white is the default color.” That is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while.
You seem to be thinking in current terms as genetic defects are rife today and inbreeding leads to deleterious genes. The gene pool started out perfect with the addition of the death factor after Adam sinned. The faults have increased slowly over time but the curve seems to be somewhat of an exponential one. People in general are becoming very polluted with genetic faults. At this rate we may not have much time save The LORD’s eminent return. Another good reason to say “Come LORD Jesus”.
If your model made any sense, then there would be a gradual progression towards increased genetic abnormalities, to such an extent that from the gene pool of Adam and Eve, to the current generation, barely anyone born today could have escaped drastic genetic defects. This, however, isn’t the case, thus implying that no “perfect” genetic source originally existed to be corrupted later on, least of all, out of a gene-pool of two members, propagating their generations, to the multi-billions, by incest.
Not only that but every indication of human excellence is increasing on average as more and more of the world gets access to better nutrition, modern medicine, and athletic enhancements.
The human population has never been so tall, well nourished, intelligent and healthy.
Moreover according to the model of only accumulating genetic defects. White skin is a defect of the system that would cause dark skin and thus would be more ‘polluted with genetic faults’, at least in the genes for skin color. Amazing to me that Creationists tend to avoid this obvious implication of their ‘model system’.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.