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 ...
Jesus looks pretty white in that Last Supper painting and that Renaissance painter guy was a pretty smart dude.
Why the fudge do moronic Americans use the 19th century junk-science term "caucasian."
Because if you say Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid it rhymes with hemorroids.
Why do we, alone among nations, categorize "hispanic" as a separate racial category?
Because they were mean and pissed off enough in the 1960's to scare the people who passed those laws - squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Why do retards in the New York area refer to Latinos as "Spanish."
Because they are from Spanish Harlem.
There!
Also, I've read that black babies come out white, and turn black later.
It’s more specific than that, Adamah. It means red clay, the red clay of Israel. A ruddy complexion is reddish. So, there is some basis for the contention.
LOL!
:) tee hee, tee hee
Because they were racist.
/lib
Why did people turn white?
Probably because like Michael Jackson they were tired of being black.
Survival of the fittest - like sorta evolution stuff?
(Where is Darwin when you need him)
“Why are middle easterners considered “white?””
Personally, I didn’t like being called a “Son of Shem.”
Avoiding ovens you caucasoids so like is another reason.
Lol....
1. 1 Nephi 11:13 (Mary) “. . . she was exceedingly fair and white.”
2. 1 Nephi 12:23 (Prophecy of Lamanites after Christ) “. . . became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.”
3. 1 Nephi 13:15 (Gentiles) “. . . they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people [Nephites] before they were slain.”
4. 2 Nephi 5:21 “. . . a sore cursing . . . as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.”
etc. etc. etc.
>> sexual preferences of early men
I double dog dare them to run with that one... grab the popcorn and watch, son!
Reminds me of a joke I heard once that I could NOT repeat here on the forum.
Since dark pigment is a dominate phenotype, your theory doesn’t make much sense. The only way that this could happen is in a community in which female would have to produce a generation in which every offspring had a recessive genotype mutation. Not only that, this generation would have to be completely isolated from sexual intercourse from all other people, including the previous generation. How likely is that?
Call me a causasoid, will ya, ya son of Shem? Why I oughtta...
Oh. Wait.
Nevermind.
That means, first, that any mutations altering melanin content would have a hard time getting established, so they'd have to re-occur dozens of times for a reasonable chance at fixation. Second, it would be a near-neutral mutation, such that natural selection would take 'forever' to fix it in any population of a reasonable size.
That said, I fully expect (predict) that we'll eventually learn that the diversity in skin color has nothing to do with random mutations, but is expressed from latent genetic information (i.e., pre-adaptationism).
No, black babies are born black. They may well darken over time; but they come out dark skinned.
Either way, white skin is caused by mutations in the fully functioning system that would cause the skin to be black.
That is true if you believe in natural selection of genetic variation, or that the genome can only ‘de-evolve’ over time.
Either way, white skin is caused by rendering nonfunctional a system that would turn the skin black.
I myself render no value judgment upon this, but according to creationist “logic” it would mean that blacks are the ‘more perfect’ humans ‘the way God intended’ and white skin would have to be the result of the fall of mankind and the resulting degradation of all things.
That’s correct.
As an aside, I am very Jewish, and while my family had a stop-over in France for a couple hundred years (and Rome before that), there was very little inter-marriage going on.
Dark red/brown curly hair.
My mom jokingingly claims dad is a descendant of Esau.
So they could join private country clubs.
Son of Shem. LOL!
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.