If humans evolved from the the same species, then how come....?

Question

...how come there are so many differnt ethnicities? and are all found in so many differnt parts of the world? like Indian, Asian, Native American, Hispanic, African, ect...
evolotion doesnt make sense to me when it comes to that. but evolotion doesnt make sense to me anyhow. i dont beleive any of it. I beleive in God. anyways, is there a scientific explanation to what i just asked? is there any evidence at all?

Answer 1

Its fine to believe in god and evolution I say!!
Anyway yes there is evidence for evolution...or human evolution which is what you are asking about.

We all came from Africa. The evidence for this include 1) people of Africa or genetically more diverse than any Asians, Europeans and Aborigines (which are the 4 main races).
Basically the theory of natual slection is important here...ie those individuals and populations that are most suited to the environment will survive the best, have the most offspring and pass those favourable traits onto the next generation.

2). Fossil evidence. Human like fossils have been dug up in Africa that go back 10 million years, the next most recent found anywhere else is in Asia (Homo erectus about 1 million years ago) and then in Europe etc. I will explain that more later.

3. You can see the spread of humans into various areas, where some have mixed cultures eg carrebean (with africans), south america (with spanish europeans), europe (with northern africa) etc.
Europeans came out of africa quite a while ago. Why do they have white skin and fair hair? Well people can have mutations, over time (and its thousands and thousdands of years..) people with fairer skin were slected for as there was less intense sunlight in europe that did not require high levels of melanin (which give skin colour)...in fact darker skins were selected against because they did not get enough sunlight (vitamin D etc) . Obviously this is the opposite the closer you are to the equator and why Africans have darker skin. asians are also the origin to North and South american natives.
I know that polynesians are actually asian in origin and there is evidence of their spread (in language changes, art, culture etc) from Taiwan thousands of years, eastwards across the pacific and fianally to New Zealand about 1000 years ago.
Aborigines came to australai about 40-60,000 years ago and were isolated until a couple of hundred years ago when european settlers came there.

In the fossil evidence in Africa the oldest fossils of bipedal (able to walk on 2 legs) is about 10mya. These fossils are very ape like (ie teeth, shape and size of skull, shape of skeleton). There are actually about 20 different species of human like ancestors, not all of them "evolved" into anything but died out (eg Paranthopus species x3) and were not direct descendants to us either. Many species were actually around at the same time as each other. The most recent were that of the early humans (Cro magnun man) and neaderthal man (agian its not a direct descendant to us and died out after the end of the ice age and could not compete with cro magnun man...this took thousands of years).
The most recent skeletons found (ie in the last couple of million years) have the most "human" characteristics. We differ in being taller, bigger skull with a protruding forehead, protruding chin, less obvious (eye)brow bridges, and less hair. Our jaws are a bit smaller too. When you actually SEE the amount of evidence you do begin to wonder....

Answer 2

People have been evolving for a while (well, at least differentiating). We developed and perpetuated different traits, which incidentally were connected to different genes, per the conditions. That is, people who were exposed to a lot of light (Africa, etc) developed skin cells with more melanoma cells so that they could absorb UV without getting cancer. There is the out of Africa hypothesis, which delineates (based on mitochondrial DNA) what peoples moved where, when, which would lead to different ethnicities and cultures.
As for evolution, you're thinking about it in terms of RNA to single cells to humans. That is SO not the case. I also believe in God, but couldn't He have just given the basics for life and let it adapt and mutate and accept those mutations as needed to survive?
Evidence for evolution: the moth story. In England, before the industiral revolution, there were a lot of white moths. When the IR came, there was lots of soot everywhere, which was black. Some moths had a mutation to be black, so those that were, could hide from birds better. Thus, the population of moths evolved - changing phenotypically in response to a new environmental pressure, which ultimately resulted in a change in the genetic pool of the species, which is the idea behind evolution.

Answer 3

Well, basically they are all found in many different parts of the world because they TRAVEL from one place to another. It is also believed that the countries and the continents we acknowledge today are one piece of a big land, and that it got separated by earth quake and other natural disaster. About evolution, we, humans are believed as the modern form of Australopithecines, which then became Homo habilis(a more modern "human being" than Australopithecines), then Homo erectus came, and then Neanderthal, finally, Cro-Magnon, the closest "human-being" to us, which is Homo sapien, or in other words: modern human. The evidence of evolution are the artifacts and fossils that were left. As, for the fact to show that the world was once a big piece of land that got separated (perhaps together with the people), the evidence are the type of animals and plants that are found on one continent could be found living in another continent.

Answer 4

1. genetic mutation is the driving force of evolution
2. if a mutation improves and organism's fitness in its environment than the mutation is favorable to the organism
3. anything that is favorable to an organism and helps it survive, also helps it procreate more, thus passing the mutation to offspring.
4. over the course of many generations the environment that that organism lives in determines if the mutation will continue to be favorable or not. (natural selection)
5. if the mutation continues to be favorable it will increase in the population.
6. if it is not, it is weeded out. (also natural selection)

but to answer your question about skin tones of different ethnic people, it was a mutation that natural selection determined was more favorable for that environment.
if you notice, the lighter the skin, the longer the ancestory has been domesticated in moderate climates, rather than the more extreme climates.

if you want evidence of eolution, all you have to do is look at how bacteria evolve mechanisms to bypass immune barriers.
an even easier one is to look at the fact of how your own body builds resistance to chicken pox.

Answer 5

Birds are all birds right? And come in all different colors and sizes. Humans aren't exactly much different... Climate, habitat, survival, etc, all depend on the 'evolution' of how various groups of a species looks. If people did start out in Africa...trust me, for those that ended up far north and became white people, it is totally understandable that we'd end up with the kind of hair we have (for warmth and protection) and lighter skin because it was covered up all the time and people lived in a place that got less sun.

And just like getting a tan...people in hotter climates that wore less clothing...like in Africa...naturally they evolved darker skin from the sun and to protect them from it, and hair that worked best with the heat. The long thick hair of other groups that was meant for warmth would only do them harm in hot climates.

Answer 6

evolution does make since if different groups of people were isolated from eachother and each group mutated and evolved in its own special way to produce different phenotypes.

If man is made in God's image, how many different images does he have? you probably have to believe in some separation and isolation of the species for this to work too. A little bit of evolution. Not necessarily in the way that humans came from monkeys, but in the way that all humans came from the same group of people.

There have been fossil records of different humanoid species which are now extinct. Possibly we evolved from these tribes. How they got there, however, whether because of some divine plan, or not, is open to argument.

Answer 7

Hypothetically what supposedly happened was our species had small genetic mutations occur that created the various different genetic differences between our ethnic gene pools.

I'm not one to accept this form of evolutionary theory, because I have heard no clear explanation for clean genetic mutations resulting with desired effects.

People often say that our ethnically dividing genes just supposedly came about because of climate etc. but fail to understand the random nature of genetic mutation, and make evolution to be some sort of magic. hypothetically, if you were to some how be able to cause clean genetic mutations, one of two things would have happened:

A. the human gene pool spread across the world, with all the ethnic genes existant throughout, untill separation of environment dealt with the ethnic genes that were unreliable with their corresponding areas.
-or-
B. the human gene pool was one race that after spreading and separating, different genetic mutations began happening within each ethnic group, which have passed down to the current ethnicities.

this is all of course a load of bunk, as clean complex genetic mutation just doesn't happen. (sickle cell anemia anyone?)

Answer 8

Ethnicities are just adaptations to different climates and conditions when human populations have been in an area for a long time. For instance, people who live far from the equator must have lighter skin in order to use sunlight to make vitamin D.

Answer 9

Human beings all slowly adapted as they grew in isolated locations, as previously mentioned. The most obvious example is how in Africa, humans grew resistant to ultraviolet radiation because of the more direct sunlight.

Not that you'd listen to any of that.

Answer 10

As in all things, we evolve as well, adapted to our environments.

People with a darker skin tone do better in warm/sunny environments.

People with lighter skin tone do better in colder/darker environments.

We developed slight differences in our appearance in ways that would help us survive in the area that we inhabit.