Origin of Race

[feqz101]

There is no concrete explanation as to why the different races exist. Even the Bible has no explanation as to why skin colors differ. Personally, I believe that skin colors differ due to location. For example, Africans, due to the Africa's placement upon the equator and extreme temperatures that can be found there, gradually over thousands of years began to darken in skin color. Caucasians, who are generally found in areas north of the equator, have a lighter skin color due to excess moisture and a lesser exposion to the sun. Still, this is only my poorly thought-out theory. Why do you believe that different races exist?

[scorpifly]

So that all the assholes with nothing better to do but slep with their sisters/ brothers and buy old cars and park them in their yard, will have some one to hate. Don't get me wrong, I'm a racist myself. The only difference is I hate the human race equally.

[Revero]

You are correct in your hypothesis that skin color is related to location. Think about it. Dark-skinned people are only natively found in sunny regions, primarily Africa, India and Australia, and to a lesser extent in the equatorial regions of the Americas. According to the Wikipedia article on skin color: While dark skin protects vitamin B, it can lead to a vitamin D deficiency. The advantage of light skin is that it lets more sunlight through, which leads to increased production of vitamin D3, necessary for calcium absorption and bone growth. The lighter skin of women results from the higher calcium needs of women during pregnancy and lactation. The evolution of the different skin colors is thought to have occurred as follows: the haired ancestor of humans, like modern great apes, had light skin under their hair. Once the hair was lost, they evolved dark skin, needed to prevent low folate levels since they lived in sun-rich Africa. (The skin cancer connection is probably of secondary importance, since skin cancer usually kills only after the reproductive age and therefore doesn't exert much evolutionary pressure.) When humans migrated to sun-poorer regions in the north, low vitamin D3 levels became a problem and light skin color evolved.[/b] But of course skin color isn't the only way in which races differ. The reason for the variation among the races is not that hard to grasp. As people began living in isolation from each other, they adapted certain features that helped them survive in their new environments, and with limited interbreeding from other areas these distinctions were preserved. But of course, through thousands of years humans have traveled a lot and managed to interbreed with other peoples, which blurs the lines between the races. This is why race is a societal construct and not a scientific one. There is no scientific classification of the races. Genotypic and phenotypic differences in humans across the world occur gradually and with much variation, to the point that carving up the human species into distinct races is impossible.

[Belisarius]

Genetic drift because of geographic isolation allowed populations to mutate to different skin colors. Some of them may have been selected for based on climate, but that might not have occured, they may have instead been random tendencies, or tendencies seleted for their beauty. Aboriginal Australians suggest that humanity started out Black and mutated over time into the other skin colors, although it is possible that aboriginals gained their black skin color independently.

[Rakkantekimusouka]

If you're talking about skin color, of COURSE it's because of location -- and sun intensity in said location. Not trying to insult anyone here, but, isn't that kind of a DUH? Check, please! NEXT!

[insanejester]

Originally posted by feqz101 There is no concrete explanation as to why the different races exist. Even the Bible has no explanation as to why skin colors differ. Personally, I believe that skin colors differ due to location. For example, Africans, due to the Africa's placement upon the equator and extreme temperatures that can be found there, gradually over thousands of years began to darken in skin color. Caucasians, who are generally found in areas north of the equator, have a lighter skin color due to excess moisture and a lesser exposion to the sun. Still, this is only my poorly thought-out theory. Why do you believe that different races exist? It all has to do with elevation, enviornment, climate, diet, social preferences, and selective evolution. simple as that...

[Revero]

Originally posted by feqz101 Even the Bible has no explanation as to why skin colors differ. Even if it did, would you just accept that explanation? It's not exactly the most reliable book for explaining evolutionary diversity. According to the Bible, all the diversity in every land species arose within the past few thousand years, ever since Noah and his family got off the boat and started committing incest to repopulate the planet. That logically includes all the viruses known to exist, with which they must have been infected. According to what we know about evolution, it would be impossible for all the intraspecies diversity we see to have evolved in such a short time span.

[AirRick101]

Just..the environment in general will do it for you. It's too bad we don't have video feed of how it happened throughout the years. We only have theories from now on. Considering the Tower of Babel story from the Bible, do you think when God changed their language, that their skin colours and hair colours and such changed instantaneously? Ok, otherwise, I give credit to skin-cancer inducing ultraviolent rays from sunlight.

[Revero]

Originally posted by AirRick101 Considering the Tower of Babel story from the Bible, do you think when God changed their language, that their skin colours and hair colours and such changed instantaneously? Of course not. As a linguistics student, I can tell you that languages most certainly evolved gradually, and do not show any signs of having separated instantaneously. I'm not an expert on anthropology, though, but I'm willing to bet we have good evidence that human evolution was gradual too. According to the literal interpretation of the Bible, the Tower of Babel thing happened sometime within the past 5,000 years. And yet, we can track several language families' gradual dissipation into many daughter languages over those years. For example, through literary records, we can trace the dissipation of Latin into many divergent dialects which gave rise to languages such as Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian over the past millennium or so as the dialects changed so much that they couldn't understand each other. We can compare Latin words and grammar to Old Church Slavonic, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, and what we know of Proto-Germanic and Proto-Celtic, and the forms are way too similar to be due to chance. In fact, by extrapolating the processes of linguistic evolution backwards, we have undeniable evidence that a huge number of modern languages are ultimately descended from a single language called Proto-Indo-European spoken about 5,000 years ago, which then split up into different languages as people spread out geographically, and those groups split up into smaller groups, etc. The modern languages this process gave rise to include Icelandic, English, Irish Gaelic, Spanish, Russian, Modern Greek, Armenian, Persian, Hindi, and Bengali, among many others. Beyond 5,000 years, though, we don't really have enough conclusive evidence to draw any conclusions as to where the proto-languages came from, although there are some intriguing hypotheses out there that Proto-Indo-European might have been related to some other proto-languages, suggesting a hypothetical language spoken some millennia before that point. We have seen similar processes of linguistic evolution at work in a myriad of other language families, such as the Afro-Asiatic languages (including Hebrew and Arabic, which seem to be related to Ancient Egyptian), the Chinese languages, and the Bantu languages. To assert that all this linguistic diversity came about instantaneously sounds as ridiculous as the idea that God embedded fossils showing evolution in the ground to "test our faith". There's just so much evidence for the gradual evolution of languages that to state it didn't happen is a huge leap of faith unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. It's possible, I guess, but it would require a God that deliberately wanted to fool us into thinking that it isn't the case.

[Wezel]

[edit]typo...

[insanejester]

Originally posted by Wezel ev·o·lu·tion (ĕv'ə-lū'shən, ē'və-) n.[list] Something I'm more worried about is the fact that human diversity is starting to disappear. Due to people being able to travel all over the world, the entire human race will graduately mix into a one single race, like the Enoi in H.G. Wells' 'the Time Machine'. The worst news: natural red hair and freckles are the first to go... I think racail convergence is the only natural thing to happen... I think it's a beautiful thing IMO...

[Wezel]

I shouldn't have used the word 'worried' It's just that I've been involved with the matter before. I would say it has its pros and cons. And I have to admit, the Eloi race is indeed very pretty... :sweat1:

[icedawg]

pressures in environment (i.e. location) & variences in gene pool -> variences in reproductive success -> natural selection -> evolution

[Nirvana Starseed]

oh my god icedawg is getting involved in a discussion!

[InTheMoment]

Originally posted by Nirvana Starseed oh my god icedawg is getting involved in a discussion! And if you could do more of the opposite, then we would be getting somewhere.

[AirRick101]

Ooh, buuuuuuuurn Ow, hot!

[Revero]

I just had a thought. Is it possible that new races may emerge in the future as humanity explores the cosmos? Is it possible that if we develop the technology to terraform other planets, or simply make enclosed environments in bases on other worlds for humans to live in, that these people would evolve their own adaptations to their local environments and in so doing create new races? It would make sense, if these colonies were allowed to grow without the ability to interbreed with the population of the home planet very often.

[Wezel]

I'm not sure about that. I believe natural human evolution is about to reach equilibrium. Because of modern medicine, even the weak will live long enough to breed; natural selection will lose its impact. I said natural human evolution, because in the future, human kind will keep changing. This time, however, it will be humans that change themselves through genetic engineering, making themselves stronger, more intelligent, resistant to disease, and stuff like that. I don't think superhumans can be classified as a new race though. Too many variables for that.

[icedawg]

Originally posted by Wezel Because of modern medicine, even the weak will live long enough to breed; natural selection will lose its impact. right, because our biology is no longer the dominant agent that determines our survival; rather, it's our culture. the shift started probably during the latter time of homo erectus (1.8 million to 400 000 years ago). that being said, natural selection will always exist and lend its hand in evolution. new diseases and viruses will always surface as existing ones mutate, and there will be those who are more susceptible than others. yes, new medicine will rise to meet the challenge, but there's usually a discernible lag in between. depending on the length of time, there could be a clear survival of the 'favourable' trait versus those who lack it.

[Neruo]

Black peope exist becouse they can dance so they take all the woman that like daning men. Nah it has to do with climate and such.

[icedawg]

Originally posted by Neruo Black peope exist becouse they can dance so they take all the woman that like daning men. Nah it has to do with climate and such. Our original ancestors were all black, since they first appeared in Africa. The many variances in skin colour have to do with several different factors, ultimately controlling the amount of UV radiation that enters our bodies (which is used to stimulate the formation of vitamin D).

[Jalexxi]

Originally posted by Wezel Because of modern medicine, even the weak will live long enough to breed; natural selection will lose its impact. The result of that might be that mankind becomes more open to medical treatement and more sensitive to medicine. Or, our bodies might find ways to neutralize the resistance bacteria have against antibiotics. Evolution is not about improving things, it's about adapting them to the circumstances.

[Ynot]

the origin of races, eh.......ok.....my take on this....... Don't forget, modern man is an amalgamation of two earlier races (both seperately descended from apes) Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons I forget when it was discovered, but it was recently, there was a partial skeleton found that was crowned the "missing link" between ape and the Cro-Magnons. (the link for Neanderthals having been found ages ago, hence all the old hollywood caveman images of big, hairy and massive nostrels) Cro-Magnons were very different to the Neanderthals. Cro-Magnons were tall and lean, built for running And, as for no reference to different races in religion, well..... religion can offer an explaination of races (at least a documented split in common religious belief, leading to christianity and islam) apologies for the slight religious slant to this, but as an unbeleiver I find this stuff is suprisingly addictive I won't take up pages and pages with cut 'n pasted bumph, but basically, God / Allah instructed Abraham and his descendants to spread the word of god for all time. problem was, Abraham's wife, Sarah, was barren - that meant no children to spread the word of god So, she told Abraham to have sex with their Egyptian servant, Hagar, in an attempt to have a child. Hagar conceived and Ishmael was born. However, later Sarah ended up having a son with Abraham. This son of the marriage was Isaac. Muslims claim the first born son, Ishmael, was an apostle and prophet, and was the legitimate successor to spread the word of god. Christians and Jews believe it can only be the son resulting from conception within the marriage, Isaac. This is where Islam splits from Judaism & Christianity anyway, enough of this, back to senseless banter, I think

[icedawg]

Originally posted by Ynot the origin of races, eh.......ok.....my take on this....... Don't forget, modern man is an amalgamation of two earlier races (both seperately descended from apes) Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons I don't believe it's known exactly what became of the Neanderthals; many Europeans like to insist they are a separate branch and not part of our lineage (because of the brutish stereotypes they have attained, which appear to be completely false). Another theory is that Cro-Magnons moved into the territory of the Neanderthals and were much more successful at hunting; for example choosing high-placed dwelling areas in order to monitor the herds whereas Neanderthals typically chose caves and the like. This competition for resources lead to the displacement and eventual extinction of the Neanderthals. (Again, that's just one theory.) Regardless, they only lived together for approx. 5000 years, then the Cro-Magnon went on for a further 25 000 years. Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals were separate species, having both originated from archaic homo sapiens (if I remember the tree diagram correctly). While the definition of a species is a group of beings that can successfully breed within themselves, I don't think the definition touches on whether two different species can in fact breed; that completely depends on the closeness of genetics. Since these two species shared a common ancestor, it is *possible* they could interbreed.

[SKA]

There is no concrete explanation as to why the different races exist. Even the Bible has no explanation as to why skin colors differ. Personally, I believe that skin colors differ due to location. For example, Africans, due to the Africa's placement upon the equator and extreme temperatures that can be found there, gradually over thousands of years began to darken in skin color. Caucasians, who are generally found in areas north of the equator, have a lighter skin color due to excess moisture and a lesser exposion to the sun. Still, this is only my poorly thought-out theory. Why do you believe that different races exist? [/b] Actually The manifestation of different Human Races is very logical: EVOLUTION. African Geese, for instance, are very different from European: it is how they addapt to their different enviroments: hey are the same kind, yet another variant of it suited to the climate and enviroment. Why are Africans Dark-skinned? Well africa is a VERY sunny continent and when Africans would be WHITE, the LACK of Skincolor Pigment would make their skins easily Sunburnt: So nature addapted them with more pigment so People's skins in Warm N sunny countries can stand the sun. Asians ( From The middle east to China) have got these typical eyes, long dense, eyelashes and Where it is REALLY sunny people have thick eyebrows. The asian eyes and eyelashes are eyes addaptede to the climate and enviroment: mainly dusty and dessert like: It keeps the dust out of their eyes ( even seen an Camel's eyelashes? ). Eyebrows serve to keep sweat running into your eyes and redirecting it around them: This is why most middle easteners, who live in very hot countries, have such thick eyebrows. Al these ''Racial'' Differences within the Human race are due to Evolution, adapting to the enviroment we live in. I myself am an Ethnic Cocktail: My father and his Parents were Moroccan Jews that moved to Israël and took the Israëli Nationality, my mother is Dutch(NorthernEuropean/Germanic), a quarter Jewish and a bit of Enlish. WTF am I? A Morrocan Israëli Dutch Jew? Whahah Whatever, I'm a PERSON and my name is ALLON. Nice meeting ya However Character traits are NOT racial as many RACISTS claim. The soul is something too complex to be racially common. Humans are (supposed to be) Individuals. But most importantly: Let's not forget that, Asian, African or Caucasian, in the end we're all people. Let's not be devided by Racial differences as Filthy Racists try to do.