Explanation for different races?

Question

I know the answers about living in different climates, isolationism etc. However, it seems to me that if we all started out on the Continent of Africa, with the physical and physiological characteristics that are common there, it's a real stretch to think that moving to Norway is going to give us different bone structure, facial features, white skin and blue eyes, plus differences in our blood, i.e. no Sickle cells etc.
Anyone have any other thoughts on this that you want to share?

To respond to those who have taken me to task for generalizing. I know there are different characteristics in different parts of Africa and that "race" doesn't really jel in terms of describing someone's origins.
I appreciate the thought provoking answers however.
In looking at where the migrations went from Africa, it's interesting that over time, so many things changed.
Any thoughts as to why facial features would change? Eye shape, nose, lips, cheekbones etc?
I'm liking the answers you all are giving.

Answer 1

"Race" is a social concept, without any biological reality for humans. In every single physical trait of which I am aware, expression (like skin color, nose form, hair form blood group, alternate hemoglobin, and so forth) varies independently according to the selective forces that act upon each trait.

The collection of physical traits that supposedly "define" races, turn out to be derived from the European age of exploration. Those "definitions" turn out to be descriptions of the prevailing physical types in each of the areas of Africa, the Americas and Asia first contacted by Europeans. These descriptions stuck, even though it became obvious that they really did not fit "all" Africans, or "all" Native Americans, etc.

They were, though convenient means to sort people into "them vs us" groups and convenient to base policies of repression. These "racial classifications" do not even stay the same from one country to the next. In Brazil, "race" is based almost solely according to skin color and one's "race" can change by a day or two more in the sun or out of the sun. (this is based on the experience of Dr. Conrad Kottack at the University of Michigan who has done fieldwork in Brazil).

wl

Answer 2

Explanation for different races?

Look at the Aboriginal Australian - A pure, and they do not think there are any left after the brutal colonisation of convicts and administrators etc., has a radically different physiology to Westerners, digestive tract able to handle chemicals, skin density, bone density.

Look at Eskimos, they have a higher soft fat insulation, the men as well as the women, they cannot process vitamin C with the same success as the Mediterranean people.

So it is not just isolation, it is diet, sunlight, the normal mutations of the dominant breed that adapted to the living conditions thousands of years ago when tribes moved about.

You don’t believe

Well look at Japan now, they were always called little, you find a young person of 20 under 5foot now and it will be from a village, one who only eats traditional food, put a child on Big Macs once a week diet like the cities and processed food, Lactose sugar preservatives and cane sugar and you see the obesity and height changes of a whole race in two generations, just like in Japan.

The anthropologist couple who studied two separate tribes in the Andies for 20 years, had a theory that Capsicum annuum (Sweet Pepper, Chilli Pepper, Cayenne Pepper and Paprika), affected growth and intelligence, they proved this by requesting the help of these two tribes, no children in one village were allowed Capsicum annuum fruit in any form until they were past puberty.

Can you guess what the results were? Yes, they grew taller and were more academically inclined, the anthropologists tested all the children constantly with games and education to get results. In two generations the village with the children who did not eat the peppers were going to the city to university, problem was, they did not come back and the village is empty now

So the expression is ‘you are what you eat’ has a little more meaning to you now? Believe it.

Answer 3

Now I am no Scientist but notice how darker skinned people come out of hotter areas around the planet?? Now I am a great believer that we have and do slowly evolve to fit with our surroundings gradually - like you only have to look at birds and their comoflages to see that - how they blend with the trees they inhabit or feed from etc. etc. What are you trying to point out here??? That we didn't start off on our human journey as black people???? and/or white people and black people are somehow from a different order???

Of course it is reasonable to assume that people slowly evolved into being white because of the type of climates they inhabited in their gradual evolution and well down the track I suppose it is reasonable to assume blood types differed and different disorders may have been more prevalent in cold climates than in hot climates. For instance there is a blood disorder called Haemochromatosis which is to do with iron-overload where the body stores too much iron and this can lead to liver disease and the experts worked out it was probably the result of a genetic mutation when years and years ago the hunter/gatherers in colder climates needed to store more iron to keep them going in leaner times when there wasn't much meat to be had and I think this is more of a "white man's disease" so that would be another way of looking at say "sickle cell"??? Plus here is another way to look at what you are asking: Could the first homo sapiens into Europe have interbred with Neanderthals who were probably white skinned???? and red-headed???? Anyway living in different climates, isolationism etc. certainly would have made it's mark big time and organisms change to adapt to what they are confronting. As Darwin observed on separate but close islands lizards and birds adapted differently to suit what were slightly different island environments in the Galapogos Islands???? Also you are intimating that on the Continent of Africa there are "physical and physiological characteristics "COMMON" there as though right through that huge country the people are very much the same to look at??? WELL I DON'T THINK SO. How do you account for pygmies Eh????? and the characteristics of say the Ethiopians as against the Zulus???? Nah that argument doesn't wash.

Answer 4

While we all did start out in Africa, our features changed for reasons beyond just moving to a different continent. While moving to a different location did help with the changes we have. Not everyone moved just certain groups of people, These people breeded and intermixed with each other. The dominate characteristics came out and a few recessive ones. These genetic codes and physical traits were then passed on to the next generation, and so on.
Think of it this way. Every few generations there is someone in the family who's apperiance is different from the rest of the family, they exhibit traits from great, great grandparents, or possably even farther back. Then that persons children will have the different traits and that will add more variety to the human population.
My entire family has blondish brown hair. My cousins and I all have different color hair. One has black hair, one has very blond, almost white, and I have red.
Its just the genetic make up.

Hope this helped.

Answer 5

Over time, (a LOT of time) white skin evolved in order to allow absorption of vitamin D from the sun into the body. In Africa, there is so much sun that darker skin is just fine, since you're getting enough vitamin D already, so what is important is to be protected from burning and cancer. Up in Europe, you get a lot less direct sunlight, so you don't need the cancer and burning protection, but you do need vitamin D. Since dark skin won't allow as much vitamin D to get through, people with lighter skin were more likely to survive in Europe, and skin very gradually got lighter.

Blonde hair was probably a genetic mutation that was so popular that blondes proliferated like crazy. Narrow noses and barrel chests evolved in response to thinner air. I don't know where blue eyes came from.

Answer 6

Except for the part about Hominids and great apes, yeah. I just think it started with the three sons of Noah, Ham, Shem, and Japheth and where they moved. Most Christians don't deny that some adaptations develop over time. What we have issues with is one species evolving from another. After all, while there are three main groups of homo sapiens, we are all still homo sapiens sapiens.

Answer 7

That's because 200,000 years removed from an environment (10,000 generations), or in the case of the Neanderthals, 300,000 years (15,000 generations) removed from Equatorial Africa, is unfathomable to any single individual alive today...

In a laboratory, we can change the color of fruit flies, by introducing different conditions, within a month or so (just a few generations)...

Answer 8

Populations separated and continued to evolve. Sickle cell had powerful evolutionary selection by giving resistance to malaria. The differences between the "races" are quite superficial. Eye color and skin pigments are only a few genes. They are also selected for particularly skin color as it relates to vitamin D formation.

Answer 9

As for the "selection" of traits in each race you must take into consideration the needs of the populations in their various environments. For the Scandinavians they did not need the melamine due to lower UV rates and didn't need sickle cells to combat malaria.

Answer 10

If elovlution was just invented recently, why does most everyone believe thats how we started out? I mean if I came from a monkey why don't I still have a tail? I could really use it at times. And why dont we still see monkeys in Africa turning into people?