Why do we have race?

Question

Wondering why we have different races? I know we all started in Africa so does that mean all ancesters were dark skinned? was it just that a group of light skinned people went to Europe...a group that look like chinese went to the east? Is that how it worked out...it just seems to far fetched?

Answer 1

Differential evolution occurs when you have a separation of population. A particular example is Australia, which has evolved noticeably different plants and animals since it separated from the main land mass some 90 million years ago. In the case of H. sapiens, populations probably moved from Africa to Europe and to Asia some tens of thousands of years ago, and were separated by distance and natural calamities (ice ages) so some differential evolution occurred.

Answer 2

Race doesn't exist outside of our perception. There isn't any definable genetic differences between people from different places.

Back in the day, when everyone was isolated to regions, certain traits were selected, the strong sun of Africa may have selected for darker skin tones, the relatively weak of sun in N. Europe made blonds and blue eyes. When people did move out of Africa, not only did it take a very long time...a lot of generations, but those with darker skin weren't able to absorb enough of the weaker sunlight to create Vitamin A causing diseases like rickets in the children who then weren't able to reproduce like the others. Nowadays, since we pretty much don't live outdoors and get some of our vitamins from things like milk (notice it always says Vit A & D). Outdoor environment doesn't matter as much; though skin cancer is rising since the sun is getting stronger with less ozone.

Now that everyone is moving around and meeting each other, you can see everyone is starting to blend together.

Example: some of the most beautiful people, and aesthetic beauty is often thought to be the average of everyone we see, are a mix of people from several different backgrounds, i.e. Soledad O'Brien, the news anchor.

Answer 3

All humans were once dark skinned. The dark pigment, melatonin, protects the skin from UV damage which can cause cancer. Melatonin also reduces the amount of vitamin D the body can make. Where there is plenty of sun, that's OK. As humans moved north, where the sun light is less direct, they suffered a vitamin deficiency. So light skin, which resulted from less melatonin became and advantage. In a fairly short span of time, the populations which had moved north came to be predominantly light skinned. By the way, vitamin D is needed more by mothers because of its importance during pregnancy. That is why, within a population, the women are lighter skinned than the men. You will note that Iranians, who are not an Arab people, have darker skin than their ancestors to the north. They, as a population, have regained some of the genetic coding for darker skin. The same is true of the descendants of the Brahmans in India. The Brahmans came from the north to the Indian sub-continent, and later came to be darker skinned.

Answer 4

Yes we all came from Africa.
But it doesn't necessarily mean that we were dark skinned, because the climate may have been different, or Africa may not have been quite where it is now, due to continental drift.

They did not "look Chinese" before they went east, but because of adaptive evolutionary changes which occurred in the hundreds of thousands of years while they were migrating. Thats how long it took, they did not just decide to pickup their belongings and walk until they reached the sea. Tribes and groups just expanded, followed water and food, etc about. If they wandereed into other tribes, they either integrated, fought with them, or moved on to areas where there was less competition. Gradually they filled out the Asian and European continent, and moved to North America via the land bridge which then connected the two continents, and down to Australia, via Indonesia and New Guinea, which were then not separated by water.
Their skin and facial features adapted over many years to suit the climate.

Answer 5

We all started out with the dark skin of our ancestors, The reason that man separated and evolved in the different races is because of environmental pressures. People in northern latitudes evolved into the fair skin light hair races, those in temperate zones into brown skin races and those along the equator remained the black skin race.

Answer 6

I don't know that we all started out in Africa. But remember that living and working in the hot sun does give tans. Seems to me that hairy individuals came from a history of their people maybe living and working in the cold weather.

Answer 7

Evolution caused the human race to adapt to their habitat. Think about it. Where it's hot, people are dark, where it's cold, people are light, and there are a million other factors involved....

Answer 8

Genetic adaptation to sunlight and weather. Nothing more. Underneath, we are identical.

Answer 9

We have different races because that is the way that God set it all up.

Answer 10

The lighter your skin, the more recently have you had fur (been incarnated as an animal)