I can understand why people are black, but how did they become white?

Answer 1

(After I wrote this, I read all the answers you've gotten. A lot of people didn't understand your question, which is their fault, not yours. A lot of people wrote you really good answers. So far, I think the person called PICKLES gave you the best answer because she found the Washington Post article for you. One person referred to a skin disease which Michael Jackson claims to have. It affects whites and blacks, and leaves big blotches of very light skin on them. The name of this disease is vitiligo, pronounced vitt-ih-LY-go, and I've given you a link about it. Neither vitiligo nor tanning have anything to do with the evolution of light skin.) Here's my original answer:

The melanin which makes people black helps protect them from dangerous ultraviolet rays (which cause skin cancer).

The melanin ALSO limits the ability of the skin to produce Vitamin D, which everyone needs to live. If you live in an area where the people historically are dark-skinned or black, there is plenty of sunlight to get through for them to be perfectly healthy.

However, as human started to migrate away from those areas millions of years ago, some moved north, to where the sunlight is not as strong. Skin cancer became much less of a risk. Vitamin D deficiency became a much bigger risk.

So, they evolved to have less melanin in their skin, hair, and eyes. This is where white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair come from. This occurred through "natural selection." In northern areas with weaker sunlight, over millions of years, people who were slightly lighter survived slightly longer than people who were darker, and were more likely to live long enough to reproduce and raise their own children to reproductive age.

You may think, "What about dark-skinned Arctic people like Eskimos? I mean, the Inuit and the Yupik and the Aleut?" They are dark because they are from dark-skinned people (like Native Americans) who moved into the Arctic too recently for the skin changes to have taken place. By "recently" I mean only a few thousand years ago, instead of millions of years ago. They may also be getting enough Vitamin D in their historic traditional diet to slow down the need to evolve lighter skin.

Remember, these changes take place very very slowly, over millions of years. You can't move to Brazil and expect your kids to be born black if you are white and their other parent is also white. You can't move to Alaska and expect your grandchildren to be born looking like Swedish blondes if you are black, the other parent of your children is black, and your kids marry other dark-skinned people.

(If you are black and marry a blue-eyed blonde, and your kids also marry blue-eyed blondes, then yes, you could have blue-eyed blonde grandchildren -- but that's a discussion about genetics, rather than evolution).

Answer 2

People are white for the same reason that some are black and some are brown. It has to do with heredity. All people contain the substance melanin in their skin. It is what helps protect the skin from the rays of the sun and gives skin its color. The color of a persons skin really only has to do with the amount of melanin a person has. There is really only one human species or race. The differences in shape and appearance showed up because of migration to different parts of the earth and different isolated groups which developed the differences. The people who migrated to the north were not in the direct rays of the sun so much and therefore they did not need as much melanin as those living in the more tropical countries nearer the equator. Over the years they passed on the characteristics of having less melanin to their offspring.

Answer 3

believe most people in America (both black and white) are 'race struck'. By that I mean a black person who has a fantasy concept of white people or a white person who has a fantasy concept of black people. I view people as people and judge their attributes individually. There are alphas and betas. I'm a strong alpha. Women can feel this when they are in my presence, they either like it or they don't. I am also better looking, more intelligent, more athletic, and more successful than most men (regardless of their race). Being Black does not hurt my self esteem one bit, because I am so superior to most men in most categories of comparison. Because I bring so much to the table, I am very selective about women. Race is not a criteria, but the women I give time to must have very good qualities across the board. I have never had to seek attention from women, it has always come to me. I can't imagine what its like to be the type of man who has to seek and pursue women, but I am aware that this is how most men exist.

Answer 4

humans evolved near the equator of the planet, which, you know, I am sure, is the hottest, just as the poles of the planet are the coldest areas. These humans needed a lot of melatonin in their skins to act as a barrier to the sun's rays, and therefore as they evolved, their bodies developed a lot of this substance for survival. Thousands of years later, as humans evolved more and more and began to develop skills that helped them to travel further and further across the planet, they spread very slowly, from the equatorial areas to the farthest poles of the planet, north and south, where the sun's rays were less intense, and it was so much colder.

Over the course of hundreds of thousands of years (it takes a very long time for evolutional changes to fully take place) their genetic make-up changed because they no longer needed all that melatonin and now they became white-skinned. This is why, today, those who still live in the equatorial areas remain very dark-toned. But, if you go to Sweden, for example, or one of those other countries close to the north pole, the people there are almost all blonde, blue-eyed and very pale-skinned.

Mother Nature has a way of not bothering about things that we don't seem to need, and are not using for any survival purpose. Slowly, over a very very long time, the genes responsible for those particular redundant features, begin to drop them from their programming. The human appendix is a very good example of an organ that humans have not needed since we began cooking our food, and otherwise preparing it before eating. It is no longer a functioning organ, the way it still is in animals in the wild. It just hasn't been long enough though, for it to disappear altogether. It does, of course, often flare up and get infected and then w e have to have it removed. But because we don't use it any more anyway, that is no loss.

Incidentally human toes are also in recession. Our distant ancestors had toes much longer and more versatile. But we no longer use our toes the way our ancestors did, and we go around with them encased in shoes anyway. A few hundred thousand more years, and the whole structure of human feet will probably have changed completely.

Answer 5

It's a mutation that happened in northern Africa between 20 000 and 50 000 years ago.

It was due to the mass migration of the populations away from the equator that caused a deficiancy in Vitamin D, which the darker skin couldn't produce due to the lesser exposure to solar radiations. It caused major health issues to the migrating populations.

It's one of the most drastic evolution within the hom0 sapien species, just like Darwin's birds. The moving populations started manifesting changes in skin color in different ways. Some simply paled, others took an "olive" tone and the later produced the lighter tones that are now found in Europe and Russia.

The different tones probably happen through genetic selection like the in-breeding of cats and dogs that gave us the different breeds like Labrador and Shnauzer.

Hope this helped...

Answer 6

I think when men first settle all over the earth God gave them the skin colour they need for that area.

People in hot places had dark skin to protected from the sun.

People in colder places had fair skin so they could still get vitamin d with less sun.

Maybe the first people where olive compilation neither black or white. Or maybe God made one black and one white.
camera where not around so we don't know.

Children who ancestory are first generation Sudan Africa, are still very dark. And I know of one who studing to be a doctor. But most African American are mixed races so most of them would not be as dark as their ancestors from Africa.

Answer 7

There has been some recent research, saying that the reason for white skin is due to a genetic mutation that took place tens of thousands of years ago. From one person. This person's offspring thrived, and the skin of the group of people who moved Northwards (Europe) gradually became whiter as a result.

Just looked for a relevant link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501728.html



P.S. And why are some twits on Yahoo giving the thumbs downs to some perfectly reasonable answers to this question? Got nothing better to do?

Answer 8

As some people migrated from the tropics, the sunshine became less intense. So lighter skin was an advantage, as those with it were less vulnerable to lack of vitamin D in their diet,

Answer 9

Any race/skincolor, can be attributed to climate, that makes sense. Black people did not become white by some way..if that is what you are suggesting.

Answer 10

I think you do NOT understand why people are black therefore you can not understand why people are white....perhaps you could share your theory on why people are black and then we could get on with the rest of the question