Why are humans diffrent colors?

Question

scientific evidence says that we came from one type of primate I think they call our monkey mother Maria or lousy, and biblically speaking we came from the same set of ribs ( I imagine its the same color people) then why are we all different colors? if it was because of evolution then it would be convenient for blacks to come from the hot African sun, and white people to come from the north where a darker pigment would be a convenience. does any body have any ideas

Answer 1

Actually a number of interesting papers came out in recent years on this subject. Human skin color variation is essentially attributable to four different genes (with remaining variation due to different amounts of tanning). Light skin color genes evolved twice - once for Europeans, and once separately for East Asians.

Human history goes something like this: we all started off in Africa. About 100,000 years ago a group of modern humans left Africa; some of them went off to Europe and some went off to Asia (and from there to Australasia, the pacific, and eventually the New World).

Skin color evolves very quickly, suggesting that there's quite a strong evolutionary pressure to have the correct skin color for your climate. There's two competing pressures: first, melanin in the skin defends against skin cancer. However, high melanin content in the skin also reduces the ability to produce vitamin D, which requires UV radiation in sunlight to penetrate the skin to facilitate certain chemical reactions in its manufacture. In Africa, where the sun is strong and there is plenty of UV radiation, this is not a problem. However, in northern regions, the sun is not as strong, and vitamin D production would be inhibited. Since dietary sources of vitamin D are hard to find and the sun is weak, there would be a lot of pressure to reduce melanin in northern regions to allow more vitamin D production, and conversely to increase melanin production in equatorial regions where the sun is strong.

The same effect is also true of altitude - high altitude means more UV radiation. In fact a recent study found that a combination of latitude and altitude can explain 77% of skin color variation. Neat!

Answer 2

Human skin color can range from very dark to nearly colorless (appearing pinkish white due to the blood in the skin) in different people. Skin tone is determined by the amount and type of the pigment melanin in the skin. On average, women have slightly lighter skin than men.

In general, people with ancestors from sunny regions have darker skin than people with ancestors from regions with less sunlight. However, this is complicated by the fact that there are people with ancestors from both sunny and less sunny regions, and whose skin coloring may have any shade of the spectrum of possible tones. Sexual selection also plays a role.
Melanin comes in two types: pheomelanin (red) and eumelanin (dark brown to nearly black). Both amount and type are determined by four to six genes which operate under incomplete dominance. One copy of each of those genes is inherited from the father and one from the mother. Each gene comes in several alleles, resulting in a great variety of different skin tones.

Answer 3

All humans started with black skin. As our ancestors moved north, the black skin could not get enough sunlight in winter to absorb vitamin D. Those with the blackest skin could not survive and leave offspring. Those with lighter skin survived a little longer and continued to move farther north and lose more color. Way up north where there is little sunlight in winter, only very pale skin can absorb enough vitamin D from the short days. It was a gradual process.

It has nothing to do with biblical myths.

Answer 4

over time, the UVA and UVB rays tan your skin. it's pretty much cooking you. in the northlands, the rays are slanted, and not received as well as nearer the equator

over time, the body responds to this, by providing more of a pigment to people who use it more. the mother or father has a lot of pigment, and passes that on to their child, who may get more (or less) through their life.

it takes thousands of years to notice any such effects.

i'm more curious about the eye colors. seems to have a similar situation.. people that live[d for thousands of years] nearer the equator don't seem to have the recessive 'blue' eye genes, and green is almost as rare

Answer 5

because after the flood, god made it so that we would have different races...meaning caucasion people gave birth to all colors