Why are white people white?

[merlin wood]

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.

Um how about more like various shades of beige? and which admittedly is a pretty boring colour at the best of times. Although, as for all shades in the human world, skin only skin deep and its surface colour even less so.

 

[secretsquirrel]

Actually, polar bears AREN'T white - they're black!

 

[Gromit]

Actually, polar bears AREN'T white - they're black!

I'm going to bore people to death with that fact in future and they have you to thank for that.

 

[secretsquirrel]

*proud*

 

[camouflage]

Actually, polar bears AREN'T white - they're black!

But what is color? Yes, I've heard that polar bears 'are black', but you look at one and it's clearly white. What is blue? What is green? If a tree falls in the woods and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a crackling sound?

Polar bears are white, because the experience of looking at one is the experience of looking at a white thing. A big fuzzy white thing with beady black eyes and yellowish highlights.

 

[camouflage]

I mean basically "colour" does not exist outside of perception, and if people only perceive polar bears as white, then that is what they are. Maybe if you look at their hairs-cells under a microscope or something the hairs are black or something (I doubt that), but polar bears are still white.

'white people' are eggshell coloured and that's that.

 

[Gromit]

Polar bears are white, because the experience of looking at one is the experience of looking at a white thing.

Its an optical illusion that it appears white.

There are optical illusions that make one square look bigger than another when they are the same size. The optical illusion doesn't alter the fact that they are the same size but by your reasoning because your eyes tell you one is bigger it is therefore true that one is. Is that what you are saying?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Actually, polar bears AREN'T white - they're black!

Does this mean that white people are actually black?

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Does this mean that white people are actually black?

Technically, the human norm is for black skin. Everyone else is a mutant.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Technically, the human norm is for black skin. Everyone else is a mutant.

Whites are just mutated black people, then. This won't come as good news to some people.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Whites are just mutated black people, then. This won't come as good news to some people.

"Some people" just arn't happy with a kick in the ass.

 

[povmcdov]

As well as the vitamin D thing, theres also a cost to producing a protein that isnt needed. Amino acids and energy are expended to produce the melanin. If a mutation prevents the useless protein from being produced then the offspring will have a slight advantage. I'm not actually convinced this would select strongly in this case though.

Vitamin D deficiency is a problem at UK latitiudes. I myself am Vit D deficient because of my piss poor lifestyle. Supposedly there is a particular problem in the north of england amongst the muslim population because of the burka and weaker sunlight. The source for that was the BMJ IIRC.

 

[girasol]

I also understood that darker skin means better protection against sunlight, i.e. the skin takes longer to burn, so the nearer the tropics the darker the skin...

Maybe the populations in the rainforest have developed lighter skin because of cover of the trees, they don't get exposed to direct sunlight as much as the aborigines or africans...