Some dude from India...
Posted on 04/27/2007 10:23:12 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS MEETING:
European Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests Ann Gibbons
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA--At the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting, held here from 28 to 31 March, a new report on the evolution of a gene for skin color suggested that Europeans acquired pale skin quite recently, perhaps only 6000 to 12,000 years ago
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencemag.org ...
“This contradicts a long-standing hypothesis that modern humans in Europe grew paler about 40,000 years ago, as soon as they migrated into northern latitudes,” the article states, reporting on a March meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Pale skin is said to have an adaptive value at high latitudes: “Under darker skies, pale skin absorbs more sunlight than dark skin, allowing ultraviolet rays to produce more vitamin D for bone growth and calcium absorption.” The new date was based on genetic studies that suggested a “selective sweep occurred 5300 to 6000 years ago” or up to 12,000 years ago, “given the imprecision of method”.
Pale skin is nothing more than an adaptation to less sunlight at higher latitudes. That vitamin D thingy, IMO.
I experienced the same effect today when I logged on to my Etrade acccount.
Some dude from India...
So at the end of the last ice age, or the beginning of the global warming period, When people could move North, they lost their tans.
Frikkin Scientific Geniuses they are.
muslim
Aquiline noses block the introduction of ice-cold air, I guess.
Nope. Sikh.
Could be a descendant of Alexander’s army. Also aren’t central asians, persians as pale as europeans?
Gene who?
Pale-skinned women must be easier.
No, Sikh.
Sikhism, one of the youngest religions in the world, was designed to be the sword arm of India’s Hindus to defend India against the marauding muslim armies coming out of Persia and central asia.
Osama did the Sikhs great disservice with his turban, IMO.
You know the rules - picture required.
So that means us white people are more evolved!
I knew it! =D
ping
So, before that...we were all darkies?
lol is that Daler Mendhi? That singer dude.
And there are Hindus who have similar features too. That wouldn't be the case if they were descendents of foreigners. India's social caste norms would have kept them out.
An Indian girl from Kashmir
Another actress from the south of the country
OK, but how do you explain that thing on your eye?
very good ....
And now how am I going to get any work done this afternoon?
Since there is no such thing as simultaneous evolution of many individuals in the same species, to accept this you must believe that ALL fair skinned Europeans descended during the past 6 to 10,000 years from a single individual who had a (recessive) gene mutation, or from two individuals who had simultaneous gene mutations, for light pigmentation.
Then these individuals and their offspring out-competed all of the dark skinned individuals, whose progeny either died out or simply left for sunnier locales. And during all of this, the light skinned people avoided breeding with the dark individuals who had dominant pigmentation genes.
Just so we all understand what we have to swallow to accept this evolutionary hypothesis.
...and here I thought Indians all look like those guys from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Next, Al and Jesse are going to be demanding that the whities get out of Europe, or pay reparations for taking land from their ancestors.
*
Which “European” gene? The Scandinavian Europeans? The Gaullic Europeans? The Germanic Europeans? The Slavic Europeans?
It is a bit much. The mutation rate of life takes simply ages, not a single generation or just two people can change a whole segment of the population.
Except you’ve got it wrong.
Plenty of light skinned Asiatics in Korea, China & Japan, etc. What is suggested wrt them?
The traditional story of Indian history is that Aryans invaded from Central Asia in the 2000 to 1500 BC period, about the same time as similar groups went into Europe, Asia Minor, Iran and quite possibly China.
They are generally thought to be associated with the original charioteers, who were able to conquer widely due to their superior chariot plus composite bow weapons system.
The Aryans wanted to forever maintain their superiority to the Dravidian natives, so set up the caste (the Indian word means “color”) system.
Some Hindus get amazingly torqued at the very thought that India may have been invaded in the distant past, considering it somehow as trying to say that Hindu civilization is originally “European.” Oddly, IMHO, since we know of a great many invasions during historical times, and the Aryan invasions of Europe and India occurred about the same time.
LOL! I guess it cuts the glare from the hot Scandinavian sun :-).
“Except you’ve got it wrong”
Wow, it’s hard to withstand the force of THAT argument. I’d better go back and think some more...
Well, no, you're not quite getting it. Moving North doesn't make skin whiter (if that were true, there wouldn't be any black people in the US). Rather, mutations in genes, favored by natural selection, make skin whiter.
This study indicates that the mutations of interest occurred later than earlier hypotheses had suggested, but long after the first human beings migrated to Europe.
Yeah, sorry, no. Gene flow can happen with extraordinary rapidity. This hypothesis is perfectly plausible. Whether it's true or not I can't say. But you should read up more on gene flow.
Good idea.
It’s always a good idea to learn a subject well if you are going to argue against it.
I’m leaving shortly for work and won’t be trying to conduct a blitz course in biology.
Actually, I wouldn’t anyway. The people I teach want to learn the subject and put their money where their mouth is.
So, what is your theory about the origin of pale skin?
Whitey can now expect his skin to turn darker as a result of global warming.
LOL, congratulations, you won the internet.
Nice pics, but you really have no idea what other races have entered into the child and the woman’s bloodlines. India was occupied by the British for a long time.
Races is probably the wrong word, but you know what I mean. :)
probably not, but indians are a hodge podge of different races many of them migrants from central asia.
“So, what is your theory about the origin of pale skin?”
The fact that I have a theory, or whatever it is, would not tend to prove or disprove the article’s hypothesis, no?
Damned creationists!
< /sarc >
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