A few questions about Race...

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Hello everyone

I know how delicate a subject "race" is and how talking about race is.Im not trying to be racist or anything like that,I am simply trying to get everyone's thought's on exactly where human's came from and where they went.


My First question is...Why is race such a delicate subject? I googled for real scientific answer's as far as to where specific race's came from and why they all look different,and all I get is religious mumbo jumbo and White Power Mumbo Jumbo..and neither offer any scientific answer's,Only rhetoric.
I was reading an article about how new drug's that could only help african's with heart problems and not white's,and scientist's were afraid to test it or even have anything to do with it because it would open a whole new can of worms as far as race's being different.It seem's they care more about that than they care about actually helping anyone with this new medacine.Why is that?


Also...Someone please describe maybe with a world map as to what science says as far as where humans came from...What continent,and then where they went.

Secondly,Why do race's look differently? Are black's dark so they can handel the heat and sunlight better?
If so,why are Lighter people's lighter? Is it to somehow better handle colder weather? Or darker places?
What advantage does having blue eye's have in wherever blue eye's originated.Same with brown.
Why do race's have various facial feature's?

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Btw....Here's what I get when I search google.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=where+races+come+form


Where did the human races come from? - ChristianAnswers.Net


How did all the different ‘races’ arise (from Noah’s family) ...


What does the Bible say about mixed marriages


And even DISCOVER MAGAZINE's answer start's off with "God gave us an incredible ability to recognize one human being from another."
At which point that entire article became useless.



EVERY SINGLE LINK IS EITHER RELIGOUS OR WHITE-POWER RELATED!!!What is up with this??

 

[BillHoyt]

Secondly,Why do race's look differently? Are black's dark so they can handel the heat and sunlight better?
If so,why are Lighter people's lighter? Is it to somehow better handle colder weather? Or darker places?
What advantage does having blue eye's have in wherever blue eye's originated.Same with brown.

Dustin,

A recently revealed U.S. nutritional problem should give you a clue here. Incidence of infant rickets has recently increased. The increase in African-American cases is greater than that among white infants. The reasons? More moms are breastfeeding and those moms have low vitamin D levels. So why do African-American infants have more rickets? Because there are two sources for vitamin D: food and sunlight. The darker skin of African-American infants prevents them from producing as much vitamin D as white infants.

So now, flip this around. On Northern continents, sunlight is not so abundant, and the ability to absorb more (and therefore produce more vitamin D) is an advantage.

 

[Loon]

I was reading an article about how new drug's that could only help african's with heart problems and not white's,and scientist's were afraid to test it or even have anything to do with it because it would open a whole new can of worms as far as race's being different.

If this is the medicine I am thinking of, it's not that it only helps blacks, it's that it was only tested on blacks. There may have been a socioeconomic reason- something like lots of medicines aren't tested on blacks or something. There was a definite medical reason- blacks don't respond as well as other groups to current heart medication, so they only needed to test it on blacks- everyone would probably respond to current drugs.

 

[Dr Adequate]

My First question is...Why is race such a delicate subject?

I think I'll leave that one as an exercise for the reader.

I googled for real scientific answer's as far as to where specific race's came from and why they all look different,and all I get is religious mumbo jumbo and White Power Mumbo Jumbo..and neither offer any scientific answer's,Only rhetoric.

Well, types will diverge when they're seperated, 'cos of variation. Now certain variations may be adaptive, but some may be completely neutral. Darwin hypothesised that most of the visible differences between races was down to natural selection. However, this may be contradicted by the fact that the band of black people round the equator seem to be black as a shared-acquired trait, rather than a shared-derived one, which would suggest, but not prove, that being black at the equator is adaptive. (What it does prove absolutely, however, is that "black" is not a race, just a colour).

I was reading an article about how new drug's that could only help african's with heart problems and not white's,and scientist's were afraid to test it or even have anything to do with it because it would open a whole new can of worms as far as race's being different.It seem's they care more about that than they care about actually helping anyone with this new medacine.Why is that?

Well, that would be "separate but equal" medicine. And there's enough of that already (Michael Moore has some interesting stuff about who gets prescribed what).

Also...Someone please describe maybe with a world map as to what science says as far as where humans came from...What continent,and then where they went.

"Humans" the genus came from Africa. So did "humans" the species (modern humans, H. sap.) Acording to cladistic analysis, they then left Africa via the Bab el-Mandeb, and not at Suez as you might have supposed, and then worked their way round to Suez and colonised North Africa, and eventaully, of course, everywhere else. The main division between those who left Africa is actually between North and South, not between East and West --- the Japanese are more closely related to white Europeans than they are to, say, the Cantonese or the Malay. (From which it follows that "oriental" is not a race, but just a geographical location.)

Secondly,Why do race's look differently? Are black's dark so they can handel the heat and sunlight better?
If so,why are Lighter people's lighter? Is it to somehow better handle colder weather? Or darker places?
What advantage does having blue eye's have in wherever blue eye's originated.Same with brown.
Why do race's have various facial feature's?

I've dealt with that to some extent, but... sometimes the most scientific answer is... dunno. Adaptation, sexual selection, neutral drift, the "founder effect"...? Eenie, meenie, miney, mo.

By the way, you keep overusing the apostrophe. Where the "s" at the end of a word just indicates a plural, there's no need for an apostrophe in front of it. The Apostrophe Protection Society will set you straight.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Well where specificaly do specific race's come from?

Where do the white's with blonde hair and blue eye's come from?What does having light hair and light eye's help with from where they come from?What is the environment like?

Why are some race's taller than other's? What race is the tallest? Shortest? What advantage does this have?

Where do the asian's with light skin come from? or the asian's with dark skin?I notice how some chinese have whiter skin and some have darker skin and the same goes with japanese.

edit..it will take some time to get used to using correct Apostrophes.

 

[Loon]

Well where specificaly do specific race's come from?

Well, the Japanese come from Japan. I'm told that the Finnish originate in Finland because they were too worried about being in Russia with the Russians. The Greeks come from Melbourne.

More seriously, it depends how you define race. If you do so by physical characteristics, races come from environmental conditions. If you do so by genetic similarity, races come from separate and somewhat isolated populations breeding under conditions that they are not yet optimized for. Do this long enough and you get not "races" but "species."

Where do the white's with blonde hair and blue eye's come from?What does having light hair and light eye's help with from where they come from?What is the environment like?

See above about Vitamin D and sunlight. In desert environments there's a whole lot of sun- so much that you you're overflowing with vitamin D, but also at high risk for skin cancer. So the skin grows darker as lighter organisms get taken out by skin cancer and other thinhgs caused by too much sun.

In frigid arctic climates, there's not so much light. You need to be able to absorb as much as possible to make all the vitamin D you need. Darker organisms don't do so well; they get rickets and don't reproduce. Population gets lighter. How this leads to blond hair and blue eyes, I don't know- at least not beyond the extent that hair color and skin color and eye color are linked traits.

I do have a theory that, for reasons of determining the paternity of offspring, females with lots of recessive genes (blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin) are desirable because the offspring show the traits of the father. If those traits are not the ones that her husband has, he knows the kid isn't his. Hilarity ensues.

Why are some race's taller than other's? What race is the tallest? Shortest? What advantage does this have?

"Races" differ because they arose in different environments.

I've heard that the Danes are the tallest in Europe and the Masai are the tallest in the world. Of course, my source is my neighbor Shannon. I think the pygmies are the shortest in the world.

As far as advantages, larger organisms can sometimes fight better. Taller ones can see farther, but shorter ones can hide better and possibly move around better in jungles. Being taller requires more food, being shorter requires less (and the correspondence of the onset of high-meat&milk western diets in Asia and the increase in average height there shows that height is not just genetic but also environmental)

Where do the asian's with light skin come from? or the asian's with dark skin?I notice how some chinese have whiter skin and some have darker skin and the same goes with japanese.

Same for white folk. My parents are both white, of Eastern European stock. Mom is very fair, dad is much darker. Same is also true of black folk. Denzel Washington is much darker than Barack Obama (who is half white) or Colin Powell.

What's with the pictures? How do they relate to the questions you're asking?

 

[drkitten]

Well where specificaly do specific race's come from?

Where do the white's with blonde hair and blue eye's come from?What does having light hair and light eye's help with from where they come from?What is the environment like?

Why are some race's taller than other's? What race is the tallest? Shortest? What advantage does this have?

Not every evolutionary difference need be "advantageous"; there are a number of neutral mutations out there (look up the keyword "spandrel" for some examples and illustrations). One common cause for genetic differentiation is simple distance, or more formally reproductive separation. A group of individuals reproductively isolated from another group of individuals will have their genes drift (randomly) in different ways (in addition to possibly being subject to different selection pressures).

For example, the "founder effect" (q.v.) describes how the genes of the founding members of a population will be amplified in their descendants. A good example of that in humans are the Pennsylvania Amish, who are the descendants of about 200 people in the 17th century. (Culturally, the Amish are very endogamous -- they don't marry outside of their religious group.) Any allele that a single member of that founding group possessed is likely to have been repeatedly duplicated and reinforced within that group over the past three hundred years, and now there are a number of otherwise rare mutations -- for example, polydactyly, heart murmur, or dwarfism -- that are much more common among the Amish than among the general US population.

Other examples of the founder effect have been isolated in Finland, in (white) South Africa, Norway and among Ashkenazi Jews, etc. -- in some cases, genetics can even be tied down to much smaller groups (e.g. which fjord in Norway you come from.)

So there need be no advantage for blonde hair and blue eyes among Swedes; if someone fairly early on in the Germanic tribes had a mutation for blonde hair, by now everyone in Sweden might have blonde hair. Which isn't far from the truth....

 

[ManfredVonRichthoffen]

What's with the pictures? How do they relate to the questions you're asking?

Loon, you ignorant slut. Clearly the hot young asian girl is there to show us that asian folk can be pale. Jackie Chan is there to show us that through bad photography, anyone can be the same color as homer simpson.

 

[Ipecac]

I'm sorry, what were we talking about? The picture of Zhang Ziyi completely derailed my train of thought. Sigh.

 

[BillHoyt]

Gee, I wonder what's up? gee.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Yes...The photo of the girl shows how some asians can be lighter and jackie chan shows how some can be darker.I was wondering how that came to be.



Also,Loon. You claim that frigid artic climates create lighter skin and eyes.But look at the people living in the artic climate's now.The inuits who are living there look asian to me.With dark hair,dark eyes and usually darker skin.
Are they new to that environment?

If frigit artic climate's create lighter skin and eyes,Then why are the native americans living up in north canada not blonde's?

Explain a bit more about this.

 

[BillHoyt]

Okay, time to name that tune: Dustin Pwn

 

[Ipecac]

I would really appreciate it if you would stop referring to the most beautiful woman on the planet as "that asian girl". She is Zhang Ziyi of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Rush Hour 2" and "Hero" fame. (I'm hoping she'll see my defense of her here and rush to my side in gratitude.)

Seriously, Dustin, would you expect everyone who evolved in a particular climate to have exactly the same hue? That's not how it works. And unless you know the ancestry of two individuals, it's kind of pointless to make a comparison as you're doing. For all you know, Zhang Ziyi may have a lighter-skinned ancestor which is why she's so light-skinned.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Okay, time to name that tune: Dustin Pwn

.....


Are you going to be someone who constantly thinks I am some troll who was banned in the past just because I some how "type like he does"? Or can you be someone I can take seriously?

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

I would really appreciate it if you would stop referring to the most beautiful woman on the planet as "that asian girl". She is Zhang Ziyi of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Rush Hour 2" and "Hero" fame. (I'm hoping she'll see my defense of her here and rush to my side in gratitude.)

Seriously, Dustin, would you expect everyone who evolved in a particular climate to have exactly the same hue? That's not how it works. And unless you know the ancestry of two individuals, it's kind of pointless to make a comparison as you're doing. For all you know, Zhang Ziyi may have a lighter-skinned ancestor which is why she's so light-skinned.

I am not big on asian kung-fu films,Nor do I know much about them.The only reason I refer to her as the asian girl is because I can not spell her name correctly.


Also,yes I would expect people who lived in the same climate to have the same skin color and tone.
If that is not how it works,Why is that not how it works? I am simply trying to learn and you are not telling me much.

Some asians have lighter skin and some darker,I wanted to know exactly why this was. It is obvious she had light-skinned ancestors,But why are some asians dark and some light?
You are not answering my question.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Well, that's just normal variation. There's more genetic variety within human groups then between them. (Also, the variation you see is not all going to be genetic. People of all colours tan, not just white people.)

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Well, that's just normal variation. There's more genetic variety within human groups then between them. (Also, the variation you see is not all going to be genetic. People of all colours tan, not just white people.)

I really do not quite understand. Could it because humans breed in modern times despite if they are fit or not?Including these people who have asian features who live in artic climates.



Well how about facial features? Asians and Africans tend to have a flatter nose than most europeans do,Why is this?
What specific purpose does a pointy nose serve for europeans and a flatter nose serve for asians?

 

[The Don]

Well how about facial features? Asians and Africans tend to have a flatter nose than most europeans do,Why is this?
What specific purpose does a pointy nose serve for europeans and a flatter nose serve for asians?

You really are incredibly lazy. If you even bothered to research a little you could have answered your own question. I can only assume that you are a troll. Nevertheless, from here http://au.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_781532332/Race.html

Narrow noses serve better than broad noses in warming cold air before it enters the lungs

edited to add...

And the Inuit do have asian features but narrow noses, from teh same source:

The Aleuts and Inuit are much like East Asians in some respects, but they tend to have narrow noses and other features not found in East Asians

 

[Dr Adequate]

I really do not quite understand. Could it because humans breed in modern times despite if they are fit or not?Including these people who have asian features who live in artic climates.

Well, those people are descended from people from further south, in Asia, and Scandinavians, for example, from people who started out further south in Europe. And there hasn't really been much time for adaptive mutation to take place.

Well how about facial features? Asians and Africans tend to have a flatter nose than most europeans do,Why is this?
What specific purpose does a pointy nose serve for europeans and a flatter nose serve for asians?

Possibly none whatsoever. To repeat myself: "Sometimes the most scientific answer is... dunno. Adaptation, sexual selection, neutral drift, the "founder effect"...? Eenie, meenie, miney, mo." In the last three alternatives, this variation in nose shape doesn't have a "specific purpose" that one could explain in engineering terms.

And most --- or, I hope, all --- biologists would agree with me in saying "Dunno". It's not scientific to just sit around making up Just So stories. Where's the science? Where's the evidence? If I wanted to answer the nose question specifically, I suppose the first thing I'd want to know is: is the similarity in nose shape between (some) Africans and (some) Asians a shared-acquired or shared-derived trait?