Why are white people white?

[moon]

If the vitamin D thing were true wouldnt there be loads of black britons suffering Vitamin D difficiency, also I have mid brown skin which tans to dark brown during a normal english summer, shouldnt that put me at a disadvantage in terms of Vit D production due the fact that I am already dark skinned and have enough sun protection?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Before we left Africa, due to spontaneous mutations, light skinned people would pop up from time to time. Only problem is, they rapidly burned to death without ambre solaire.

Once people started trekking out of Africa to places with less sun, skin colour mutations that may offer advantages weren't fatal any more, so other skin colours developed.

I think that when they moved to europe and other cold places, they slowly went white to blend in with the snow. It was a survival mechanism, to help prevent being devoured by wolves, etc.

The reason eskimos aren't white, is that they only came across the Bering strait not that long ago, so they haven't had time to turn yet. In about a million years, Eskimos will be white too: just mark my words.

 

[moon]

Thats rubbish, black people wouldnt be walking around naked in the snow now would they. They would have been covered by animal skins etc etc.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Thats rubbish, black people wouldnt be walking around naked in the snow now would they. They would have been covered by animal skins etc etc.

But that's how mutation works. The first ones to mutate into white would have an advantage, because the part showing from out of the fir: face, feet, etc, would blend in with the snow. They'd have more babies, and before you know it, the white race.

 

[ska invita]

Not sure how that translates to eskimos... maybe it's because there's a lot of reflected light, their skins need protection, not to mention the endless summer...

Talking out of my armchair here, but some say Innuits are descended from Chinese 'explorers' and Im not sure that they go back that far (evolutionary speaking). Therefore any pigmentation change may well not have had a chnace to really kick in.

I think there is some dispute about wether Innuits have Chinese ancestory or not - I certainly dont know anything about it!

...although I did learn from a thread on vegetarianism and evolution that they have evolved to have a little more stomach acid to help aid the digestion of the meat intense diet.

 

[ska invita]

But that's how mutation works. The first ones to mutate into white would have an advantage, because the part showing from out of the fir: face, feet, etc, would blend in with the snow. They'd have more babies, and before you know it, the white race.

I think it is also worth remembering that skin colour changes gradually as you move out of Equatorial Africa up into North AFrica, round the Middle East, into Eastern Europe before you end up in pasty Skegness.

ts not about the odd one off white mutation, it would be a gradual process, it would seem. Personally, the change of skin colour by degree doesnt make much sense in terms of traditional evolutionary theory - why should there be any advantage for being slightly lighter skined and living in Morocco than being darker skinned and living in Ghana?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

There must be some advantage to being white in the snow: look at polar bears. Down here, the bears are black or brown, but up there, they're white.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Talking out of my armchair here, but some say Innuits are descended from Chinese 'explorers' and Im not sure that they go back that far (evolutionary speaking). Therefore any pigmentation change may well not have had a chnace to really kick in.

I think there is some dispute about wether Innuits have Chinese ancestory or not - I certainly dont know anything about it!

...although I did learn from a thread on vegetarianism and evolution that they have evolved to have a little more stomach acid to help aid the digestion of the meat intense diet.

The gene pool of Paleoindians (and today's Native Americans) may have arisen from that of the present-day Ainu. The Ainu are an ancient culture of hunters, gatherers, and farmers who still live on the Japanese island of Hokkaidō and the Kurile Islands in the archipelago north of Japan. A small population of Ainu still survive. They possess features of both Japanese and the European Caucasoid: light complexions, wavy hair, and sturdy bodies [7 54].

In addition to the Ainu, other present-day hunter-gatherer societies that have remained isolated in northeast Asia and North America and whose ancestors may have contributed to the gene pool of Paleoindian are the Yukaghir, Inuit, Aleut, Koniag, Kamchadal, Chukchi, and Koryak. However, in one anthropological study, only three groups of Gm allotypes (i.e. special blood proteins) were found in Native Americans. One group is supposedly that of the Paleoindians (which also includes thousands of Central and South American Indians) and the second is that of the Inuit and Aleuts. Another study involving mitochondrial DNA suggests a single founding tribe diverged into 4 specific mtDNA lineages responsible for 95% of all Amerindian genotypes. These 4 lineages may have roots in present-day Siberian, Mongolian, and Tibetan populations. A fifth lineage has been associated with European or Eurasian populations [3 204; 11 226-227; 10 56-58].

The most telling physical evidence for the ancestry of the first Americans is a unique "shovelling" of the two central upper incisors. The posterior surface of the teeth is hollowed like a shovel and referred to as sinodonty. Sinodonty is common amongst populations of Native Americans in North, Central, and South America; and in Turkestan (from the Caspian Sea to the Gobi Desert), Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Siberia. A population of Sami from Finland are also classified as sinodonts.

Opposed to sinodonty, sundadonty is found from Africa to Central Asia and Scandinavia. Except for some skulls found in Minnesota and dated about 8,500, all prehistoric North and South American fossils display a common Asian ancestry [3 196-198, 233, 236; 7 53, 55].


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Paleoindians#Paleoindian_Genes

 

[goldenecitrone]

There must be some advantage to being white in the snow: look at polar bears. Down here, the bears are black or brown, but up there, they're white.

Penguins fucked up big style.

 

[ymu]

There must be some advantage to being white in the snow: look at polar bears. Down here, the bears are black or brown, but up there, they're white.

Yes, yes there is.

Weirdly enough though, human beings would feel the cold and do something about it or freeze to death way way short of anything like an evolutionary timescale. Vitamin D from fish and no particular need to hide from predators (and definitely not whilst naked) = no obvious evolutionary pressure.

 

[yield]

If the vitamin D thing were true wouldnt there be loads of black britons suffering Vitamin D difficiency, also I have mid brown skin which tans to dark brown during a normal english summer, shouldnt that put me at a disadvantage in terms of Vit D production due the fact that I am already dark skinned and have enough sun protection?

I linked to an interesting article in post 14.

"Only after humans learned fishing, and therefore had access to food rich in vitamin D, could they settle these regions."

...

Jablonski hopes that her research will alert people to the importance of vitamin D and folate in their diet. It's already known, for example, that dark-skinned people who move to cloudy climes can develop conditions such as rickets from vitamin D deficiencies.

So all people, no matter their skin colour, risked vitamin D deficiency that near the pole before the widespread use of fishing.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Penguins fucked up big style.

The part nearest the snow is white. They're black on top so that when they're in the water, predatory cormorants can't swoop down and scoop the young.

 

[selamlar]

They're black on top so that when they're in the water, predatory cormorants can't swoop down and scoop the young.

Hu? Baby penguins don't swim, for one. Cormorants don't eat penguins for two. Penguin colouration is much more like the general pelagic colouration, i.e. pale ventral, dark dorsal. I would venture that it is nothing to do with snow, especially given that most penguins dont live on snow, they live on rocky shores.

The problem with asserting that white people are white to blend in with the snow is that a) If you were to wander about nekkid during a glacial period, it wouldn't really matter if anything can see you coming, cos you'd be dead and b) if it is the case that people evolved skin colour as a form of camoflague, why are (most) people from Africa black, rather than earth (or tree etc) coloured?

Its more likely to do with what someone mentioned earlier about random pigmentation change confering an advantage that would be negated in Africa by the associated rise in skin cancers. However, it is important not to take a purely mechanical view on this, as it is entirely possible that many aspects of (particularly human) 'evolution', have as much to do with population drift as they do with darwinism.

 

[camouflage]

Working on the basis that the original humans came out of Africa and had dark skin why have other racial groups developed other skin colours?

Black skin is black as a protection against strong sunlight isn't it? So where's the genetic advantage in 'reverse' evolution to lighter skin?

Or am I talking bollocks?

The lack of coloration means the fat inside the epidermis can be seen through the surface of the skin.

 

[camouflage]

Cool, I take things far more literally then all you jokers.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Hu? Baby penguins don't swim, for one. Cormorants don't eat penguins for two. Penguin colouration is much more like the general pelagic colouration, i.e. pale ventral, dark dorsal. I would venture that it is nothing to do with snow, especially given that most penguins dont live on snow, they live on rocky shores.

The problem with asserting that white people are white to blend in with the snow is that a) If you were to wander about nekkid during a glacial period, it wouldn't really matter if anything can see you coming, cos you'd be dead and b) if it is the case that people evolved skin colour as a form of camoflague, why are (most) people from Africa black, rather than earth (or tree etc) coloured?

Its more likely to do with what someone mentioned earlier about random pigmentation change confering an advantage that would be negated in Africa by the associated rise in skin cancers. However, it is important not to take a purely mechanical view on this, as it is entirely possible that many aspects of (particularly human) 'evolution', have as much to do with population drift as they do with darwinism.

Well then why are polar bears white?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The lack of coloration means the fat inside the epidermis can be seen through the surface of the skin.

Then why aren't they pink? There's blood in there.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Hu? Baby penguins don't swim, for one.

That is just such a raw fucking deal. God must hate penguins.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Btw, I said 'young' penguins, not necessarily babies.

 

[Callie]

Btw, I said 'young' penguins, not necessarily babies.

baby penguins - eggs?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

If you can make an omelette out of it, it isn't a baby.

At least, not an omelette that I'd like to eat.

 

[Callie]

well you'll never know unless you try

 

[story]

If the vitamin D thing were true wouldnt there be loads of black britons suffering Vitamin D difficiency, also I have mid brown skin which tans to dark brown during a normal english summer, shouldnt that put me at a disadvantage in terms of Vit D production due the fact that I am already dark skinned and have enough sun protection?

There is growing evidence that people of colour who live at cooler, Northern latitudes do indeed suffer the effects of low vitamin D.

The team examined 1546 African American women and 1426 white women aged 15 to 49 years between 1988 and 1994. They found that hypovitaminosis D was 10 times more prevalent in African American (42 per cent) than in white women (4 per cent).

From here.

There's plenty more in similar vein.

Low levels of vitamin D have been linked to prostate problems, muscle weakness, ostoepathologies, mood disorders and also (interestingly), the relatively higher rates amongst young black people of schizophrenia. (This is contentious: some argue that schizophrenia is overdiagnosed in the black population).

It appears that in utero levels of vitamin D are crucial for the health of the newborn child, and also into adulthood.

People who cover themselves up in the sun also run the risk of becoming deficient in Vitamin D: Mediterranean widows who wear head-to-toe black, women who wear the Burqua or similar, etc.

We can and do get vitamin D in our diet, but it seems that even people who eat a full range of foods, are at risk of becoming deficient in vitamin D if not exposed to sufficient sunshine.

We store vitamin D: we build up stores in the summer, and use them up in the winter. Low levels of vitmin D may be a contributary factor in SAD.

If taking a supplement, be aware that too much vitamin D can also cause health problems.

 

[selamlar]

Well then why are polar bears white?

Because they get a selective advantage from being able to blend into the snow/ice (which they do often live on) when stalking their prey. They hunt on land, penguins hunt in the sea. They live on snow/ice a lot of the time, penguins more commonly live on rock. Etc

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Why are seagulls white?

 

[Gromit]

Why are seagulls white?

All the ink washes off when they swim in the salty abrasive sea.

 

[ymu]

Well then why are polar bears white?

Because they never developed the knack of killing snow foxes and sewing themselves nice snuggly white camouflage coats?

 

[camouflage]

Then why aren't they pink? There's blood in there.

They are pink, as well, sometimes, you have to press em so the blood veins show throw the epidermal fat, or when the blood veins become swollen due to higher pressure, this is known as a "blush", or bad circulation.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

They are pink, as well, sometimes, you have to press em so the blood veins show throw the epidermal fat,.

But white humans are actually pink, because of the blood supply even in the fat.

 

[camouflage]

Actually they're more egg-shell coloured, they only turn pink when they're drunk, or embarresed, or have been in the sun too long.