Quote Originally Posted by Oneironaut View Post
Well sure it is, this far down the line. Most things are. Those different skin tones began as the body's reaction to climate/sunlight, though. Remember, mankind originated from the same region. (Africa) It was in their moving to different locales that the changes in pigmentation began happening. It's more or less the same thing. Though I do agree that the musculoskeletal system is a better analogy.
The exodus from africa happened at least 40,000 years ago though. That's long enough for as trivial a change as melatonin variation to stabilize. "Civilization" has only been going on for the past 10,000 years that we know of. And that's with a very small percentage of the human population. I would expect that any selective pressure against the hypothesised ability has only arisen over the course of the past 500 years [i]averaged out[i] over the species. That's about 25 generations. And it's a very very light selective pressure at that.

I stand by my statement. Skin tone is a terrible analogy and musculoskeletal condition is a good one. You're shooting 1 out of 2. That ain't bad.