We're all DNA, but is Race more DNA, or more Environmental when talking about Racial Evolution?

@Egalitarianjay02

Simply

Witness,
Peoples with Neanderthal DNA have a superior history of creating civilizations.
How about creating inventions.

True or not?

 

The article you referenced actually says that melanin is an advantage as seen in this passage taken from the article.

"Dark-skinned people, who produce more skin-protecting eumelanin, have a greater protection against sunburn and the development of melanoma, a potentially deadly form of skin cancer, as well as other health problems related to exposure to strong solar radiation, including the photodegradation of certain vitamins such as riboflavins, carotenoids, tocopherol, and folate."

The only disadvantages to having dark skin are cultural.

 

That's not a legitimate scientific question. If you are assuming that Neanderthal ancestry somehow endows modern humans with superior mental powers then the first question one must ask is, why? Why do you believe that in the first place? What credible scientists can you cite who believe this claim? I have already provided several older posts with sources directly addressing these claims with information provided by experts. Ignoring evidence doesn't make the argument go away. So first address the material presented to you before you try to simplify the debate with a "True or Not?" style question.

You can not honestly claim that I did not address your arguments when I provided 3 links that directly address all of the points you made. Neanderthal ancestry does not make modern humans smarter and claiming that Black Africans are mentally inferior because of lack of cultural achievements is an insult motivated by a racist ideological agenda not a legitimate scientific argument.

 

dark skin as protection from melanoma I have seen that point made many times while it may be true I question if that's the reason why the adaptation occurred...of all the people who I've known who have melanoma none of them had it until their mid 30s, the oldest was in her 90s...since the average age of hunter gathers would normally be in the 30-35 yr range I don't see melanoma as the driver of a dark skin adaptation, they'll have successfully raised their offspring by that age...

I would think the driver would be something with a more immediate effect that could kill a child...I'm thinking of a simple sunburn, severe 2nd sunburns can easily result in sepsis an immediate life threatening condition...dark skinned people can still be sunburned but not nearly as quickly as light skinned...so melanin only needs to protect us until we're 30-35 from sepsis due to sunburn, that it also reduces melanoma in later years would be just a fortunate coincidence...just my opinion, I've been musing this for 25 years...

and I'm not convinced by the argument for light skin is better vitamin D absorption, I don't think it matters enough to drive change in skin color...people in northern latitudes tend to remain clothed all year round so how does the sun reach those covered body parts?...Inuit of the arctic always remain clothed and they're not the lightest skinned people, where do they get their vitamin D, their diet...I suspect europeans did the same, DNA evidence points to light skinned europeans only occurred about 15K yrs ago so if light skin is such an advantage why did they do just fine for the previous 25K yrs?...imo rickets only becomes an issue when a healthy diet isn't possible, HG cultures would've had little problem with rickets and was more an issue with poverty and urbanization ...

 

I think about that and wonder as well. I know the accepted reason for differences in skin color is tied to environment, but this change in skin color happened rather fast when it comes to humans. Not a slower evolutionary change that we generally associate with evolution, adaptation. And it would have occurred once our species became hairless, right? A fur covered body is not exposed to sunlight as a relatively hairless skin is exposed. So, from the time we lost the hair, until the different skin coloring arose, how much time are we talking about here? Not much, relatively speaking. Right? Are we seeing a lightening of skin tone from african descent people living in the northern hemisphere in the temperate zones. the ones who have not mixed black and white geneteics? Or how about white skinned people living in the more tropical regions for generations? Any change there in skin tone? Would a blond blue eyed person, his offspring over many generations lose the light skin, blue eyes, blond hair? Any evidence for this?

 

once technology eliminates the disadvantage of change in skin tone then there's no benefit to change, there needs to be a positive genetic imperative for permanent change ...then it comes down to sexual selection, if the individuals appearance is not a hindrance to reproduction then it's under no pressure to modify...

being dark skin in the northern latitudes is not a hindrance as dark skinned people lived in the north for tens of thousands of years ...light skinned people in the southern latitudes have no reason to change as clothing now protects them from the sun...as long as we reach sufficient age to reproduce and raise our your to adulthood there is no biological imperative to change

 

Makes sense, logically. So, any ideas as to why humans shed hair, in order that their much more delicate skin would be exposed to the radiation from our star? That would then respond via adaptation to this radiation by various skin colors?

The variance in skin color took place rather fast relatively speaking as adaptation occurred. But exposing the delicate skin to the radiation by losing body hair, doesn't seem to be a response, a positive response, but a rather risky one, IMO.

It seems that in some cases, adaptation seems to happen, at least in some cases, by the intelligence of the organism involved. Of course I doubt that people in materialistic biology would ever recognize the existence of an intelligence exhibited by an organism, and demand a materialistic explanation for what happens in adaptation. To them perhaps it might appear to be intelligence in operation, but that is an illusion, and they must explain it in another, strictly materialistic manner.

Personally, I have never just accepted materialistic based explanations, without question, giving certainty to a science based and grounded in philosophical materialism. That also turns everything into machines, mechanically based, and humans into lumbering robots. ha ha Granted looking at reality in this manner has given us achievements and technology....but it does not evidence the assumption involved, as being true. It only makes the assumptions a very helpful tool in advancing technology. But I am digressing here, as I generally do. ha ha

 

First of all, yes, the average life expectancy of hunter/gatherers was between 30-35 years, but they actually lived much longer than this. The reason for such a low average life expectancy was that infant and child deaths were super high, which throws off the average, but if you could make it to adulthood, you could easily live to 60 or 70 years old and since there was no birth control, and people like to have sex, women had children until menopause.

And yes, people can get their vitamin D from their diet, but light colored skin makes it more efficient so in times of famine, it will give an edge versus those that have darker skin. This also explains why we did just fine the previous 25K years without it. Also, the mutation for lighter skin occurred only in the European population which is why the Inuit have darker skin.

 

we're bipedal we run, not very fast but we can run very long distances we're natural marathoners, it's beneficial to run down wounded prey that run much faster than us and also to be first to a dying animal before other carnivores arrive on the scene of circling vultures...in order to do that we need to regulate body temperature we do so by sweating...being furry and sweating isn't healthy heat exhaustion can be and is often fatal, losing our fur enabled us to run/walk long distances...

I don't think this adaption was very quick, as long as we were still in and out of the trees fur protected us from the sun, not until we ventured into open country full time and adapted to a highly mobile existence would we have shed all our fur...

 

it's not just infant deaths, pregnancy was a significant killer...at the turn of 20th century 1 in 9 pregnancies would kill either the mother, child or both, very few women would've survived to reach menopause as hunter gathers(without modern medicine my otherwise healthy wife would've died in her 1st and 3rd pregnancies)...then there's predation, disease, severe weather events and just random accidents that cause sepsis...the HGs who achieved 60-70 would've been few...

I just found this for HG life expectancy, an interesting read...average mortality among HGs up to 15 years was 38%...it varies according to the type of HG existence and location...
https://condensedscience.wordpress....ectancy-in-hunter-gatherers-and-other-groups/

vitamin D deficiency also africa and australia despite the abundance of sunlight ...in times of famine an abundance of vitamin D isn't going to help you, you'll be dead in a couple weeks, vitamin D deficiency is not a big killer ...orientals are also quite light skinned, my oriental wife's skin is only marginal darker than my northern european skin and my oriental sister in law has skin lighter than mine so it wasn't a europe only event...and if you compare indigenous people extreme northern latitudes the Sami of Europe to the Inuit of Canada/Greenland the Inuit are considerably darker and the Sami very, very white...to me that suggests sunlight/vitamin D isn't the driver there's something else at work...

and to my original point of adaptation requiring a driver, vitamin D deficiencies generally aren't severe or common enough to cause early death or prevent reproduction so where's the biological imperative for change?...

 

So what? What we can't find or manufacture is actual science that says what we want it to say.

 

Because when resources are not used for melanin production, they can be used for something else. Google is your friend.

 

I'm a white person from a black neighbourhood and I'm also a straight person from a gay neighbourhood; from Thornton Heath to Soho, I've enjoyed being me because I'm attracted to girls and; (to repeat); I'm a white person from a black neighbourhood and I'm also a straight person from a gay neighbourhood; from Thornton Heath to Soho, I've enjoyed being me because I'm attracted to girls and; that's just where I'm from. It's not my life, my life takes me out of my home and where I'm from, but I'd always be from where I'm from; so where can I be from where I'm exotic; migrate to America? Africa? IDK how long I'd last in either tbh, but, I wish I was more confident with approaching the opposite sex with out a lesbian of colour to mediate; these aren't requirements but facts.
When meeting new people, not people from my past/my formative years who I've kept up with.

 

Saying **** like that is going to Darwin Award me off from ever reproducing, so I guess honesty isn't the best policy.

 

Sexual Selection!


The Sami and the Yamna peoples developed whiteness separately.
Asian cultures also favored whiteness. Also less body odor when selecting women for the ruler.

 

Exactly. If science supports your position then you've proven your point. What an intelligent person who knows what they are talking about in a debate should do when faced with a scientific source is actually read it and if they disagree offer a rebuttal with counter sources and arguments. Failure to do this leaves your ignorance exposed for the rest of the readers to see.

 

lol well that's a whole other topic we could devote a a separate thread to...I'm not sure whether we've lost our ability to communicate or some of us just don't read the unspoken signals that our sexual interests may be showing us...and then there's the different unnatural dynamic of cities, where we often don't know our neighbours so everyone is a stranger to be wary of...

women are naturally reserved and defensive when it comes to strangers, men are dangerous...so first they need to be comfortable around you, then they'll decide if they're interested which requires reading the signals...joining social groups so they can meet and respond to you in safe setting is the best place to start...I joined a motorcycle social ride group for strangers just to have riding buddies on country side trips, I didn't expect female riders to approach me for other activities...

politcal forum dating advice

I was never good at reading the female signals, even when they were obvious I wasn't sure...so dumb ...
I had a couple of buddies who could pick up on those signals in a second and had the ladies smiling and chatting in no time...

 

that was kind of vague, you're going to be more specific than that...if you know something just say it this is a discussion forum after all...

 

Well, you got me there. If there is no evolutionary advantage of one skin color over another, then I have no idea. However, most biologists tend to believe that melanin does in fact offer an evolutionary advantage and I tend to believe them over random people on the Internet.

 

Beware: Moi is working on memory.

After the War Between The States, or Mr. Lincoln's War, many Black people moved north
and suffered an epidemic of rickets due to Vitamin D deficiency (sunlite to Vite D. y'see)
Children growing with bone deformity.


Chicago's latitude was a bridge too far for their melanin.
What advantage?
In the 1930's (I just looked it up) began to fortify milk with Vitamin D.
Maybe some knew about fish oil as the Vikings did.


Moi

​

 

The advantage is protection against UV exposure. Sorry, I should have made that more clear.

 

I don't dispute the benefits claimed by biologists and the medical community but they maybe they're only looking at it just from their point of view.. have they considered how it ties in with an anthropological approach?...the lifespans of our ancestors?...

Imo it's not just one factor, I see a number of factors possibly at play, environmental adaptation, what's the immediate health benefit, diet(Vitamin D), introduction of dairy, clothing, sexual selection,...and probably more that I haven't thought of as yet.

and I believe it was a post from Mamasaid that made a good point, even if an adaptation is of no real benefit if it causes no harm then it's under no adaptive pressure to disappear is another piece to throw into the puzzle.

 

I don't have much doubt that dark skin is protection from UV exposure, it's the transition to light skin that I think is a still not fully understood...

 

Strong, properly formed bones in northern latitudes.
Sexual selection

There is 2.

 

We're all DNA, but is Race more DNA, or more Environmental when talking about Racial Evolution?
Human differences in appearance & bodily variations are mostly environmental, if that's what you're referring to. In another way, your question makes no sense, for those apparent differences we loosely term "racial" or "race" don't actually exist genetically. That is, there's no genetic-DNA basis for racial distinctions, according to the lead researcher on the Human Genome Project. I read his first book after that project ended and he spent much deliberate time repeating over and over again, that there was no DNA basis for our concept of "race". He stressed that fact. I believe him, since he's the expert. Genetically, we're all the same--worldwide--Homo Sapiens. So, to sum it up. . .there's only ONE race on planet Earth--the HUMAN RACE.