Race: Then, Now, And....

[Barracuda]

I was watching Troy for the 20th time. A blond, blue eyed, Brad Pitt played Achilles.

Was this that inaccurate? Maybe not. We think of Spanish, Greeks, Italians, and Turks as dark skinned peoples. That was not so true before the Moors invaded Spain, and southern Italy.

And the the Trojans...What did the people we call Turks today look like before they were invaded from the east?

I can generally tell the difference between a Korean and a Japanese person, but DNA proves they were the same people not so long ago.

How long have Africans had black skin? I guess they were not that dark when modern man first left Africa, or modern Europeans would also be dark?

Are Native Americans a blending of different peoples that came to this continent at different times, as perhaps suggested by Kennewick Man?

And what now? Modern technology allows people to travel as never before. The differences between races are becoming less distinct.

I live in Northern California. It is a very diverse place. I see people of many "races" and I see many people who are obviously of mixed race. I myself am of mixed race. Perhaps why I have given this some thought.

What next? Is it inevitable that we all become one race at some point in the future?

And for all the evils of racism, won't it be slightly sad as the last of each race dies out? Sort of like the exinction of the last of a subspecies, like the last Asian Lion?

[Beagle]

Wow Barracuda - you sure know how to open a can of worms. You'll probably get a different opinion from every responder.

Yes, until recent history Europeans were mainly light haired and light eyed, not to mention their skin. (I really don't want to imply anything like racial purity or any of that other Hitler crap). There have been many migrations of peoples to Eastern Europe, and when genes are exchanged the dark hair and brown eyes gene is a dominant trait. Many caucasian genes are recessive.

For instance, the Huns I think, were a group of people that fled west from the Mongol hoard that swept across the steppes. Their genes being expressed as a dominant trait - it changed the genetic landscape.

Many historical figures have been portrayed inaccurately in the movies. Alexander the Great was a blonde. So were Julius and Octavius Ceasar.

I'll post on this thread again. There will be more opinions than mine.

[Minimalist]

Arthur Jensen! Where are you when we need you.

[Beagle]

Mini - you're being very provocative.

[Minimalist]

Moi?

Un provacateur???

[Beagle]

French? Well now it's really gone south.

But, I would have thought that this thread would have drawn more response. I know my views on gene transfer are in the minority, that being that we have been slowly melting in to what will some day be a raceless world, and that at this point in time Caucasions still carry a bit of the Neandertal genome. However I don't bring a "soapbox" into every thread and preach about it.

Maybe it will get more attention tomorrow.

[Minimalist]

Okay, what the hell.....

Arthur Jensen wrote an article for Harvard in 1969 or so about the effects of genetic mixing on human intelligence.

As I recall, and it was a long time ago, he noted exactly the kind of cross-continental genetic sharing ( an extraordinary euphemism for mass rape, I know! ) and was merely trying to make the case that 'group intelligence' could be as genetically influenced as 'individual intelligence.' Unfortunately for Jensen, he indicated that the blockage by the Sahara desert had isolated sub-saharan africa from this genetic sharing that was going on in the rest of Europe/Asia.

The nurture v nature crowd immediately denounced him as a racist.

Now, of course, it seems that the influence of the desert is a relatively recent phenomenon since the Sahara was not a desert all that long ago, geologically speaking.

Anyway, once tarred with that brush, Jensen was never able to explain his views.

[Beagle]

Thanks Minimalist. Yeah, the racist thing is about all I knew about him. I know he was an educator and involved in psychometrics but I really don't know squat about him. I don't care what they say about you - you really know some stuff.

[Minimalist]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen


Dull....but it's a dull field.

[Beagle]

Barracuda, this is just my opinion again so don't take it as gospel. But when we think of the "out of Africa" migration it brings up an image of Charleton Heston in the Ten Commandments leading thousands of people to the promised land. The first humans coming out of there were Homo Erectus. None of them carried a sign that said "Europe or Bust". In fact not one individual who walked out of Africa ever saw Europe. They slowly, over time, settled in the Levant. They lived side by side with Neandertal men and women for approx. 20,000 years.

And then - 95,000 yrs. ago, the climate changed. An interglacial warming. Migration patterns changed again because big game animals follow the lush grasslands. Man moved north again to reunite with his older cousins who had weathered the ice age in Europe.

This pattern would repeat itself around 40-45,000ya.

Again - just an opinion. I think all "cousins" have been intermingling since the beginning.

Someday, 50k years from now, a future archeaologist may be digging in a layer for techno-sapien. If they run across a miraculously preserved picture of me, they may say, "OH FELTERCARB!! Look here. This ugly brute had no skin color and - ugh -he had GREEN eyes.

Just my opinion.

[Barracuda]

I am kind of surprised this didn't get more attenion from a group like this. It is an interesting subject. This is one of very few places where I would feel safe to discuss it in a rationale way, but perhaps even here people are not comfortable discussing it

[Minimalist]

I just don't know that there are any answers, beyond mere speculation, for a lot of those questions you asked.

Take, for instance, the question of skin color. Generally, I have seen it claimed that because humans developed in Africa where it was hot that the melanin developed as a protective device. As they moved northward it became less of a factor and so decreased in importance.

I don't think I buy that. First off, assuming the Out of Africa scenario is true, the earliest migrants would have settled in the Levant which is drier but no cooler than sub-saharan Africa. Why did their skin lighten? For that matter, you don't even have to go that far. The ancient Eqyptians pictured themselves as white while the Sudanese to their immediate south were black? Is there that much of a temperature difference between Egypt and Sudan? I think not....both are hot as hell.

Moreover, the Underground Railroad helped many escaped slaves get to Canada in the 1840s and 50s. Yet I do not notice Canadian Blacks being appreciably lighter skinned than American Blacks even though Canada is a LOT colder than Alabama!

Further, and here is the real rub, it would seem that such a reaction would not be genetic in nature. In other words, these were tribal groups, or at least clans, infiltrating Europe. They would have made, by necessity, other adaptations to the cold which were far more immediate than waiting 100 generations for their skin color to change. They would have put on animal furs and built fires in their caves in order to keep warm and failing to do that would have rendered evolutionary change irrelevant. Thus, that runaway slave arriving in Toronto had better put on a goddamn coat and not wait for his hair to turn blond.

It just seems that blacks who live in Europe stay black and whites who live in Africa stay white and all this grandstanding about building up or reducing melanin levels doesn't make a lot of sense when you look at it as a matter of practicality. There is something else going on here.

Who is to say they didn't have a race war in Africa 40,000 years ago and the blacks won and the whites fled?

[Forester]

Sorry I have not been around much, things have been hectic.

Take, for instance, the question of skin color. Generally, I have seen it claimed that because humans developed in Africa where it was hot that the melanin developed as a protective device. As they moved northward it became less of a factor and so decreased in importance.

I don't think I buy that. First off, assuming the Out of Africa scenario is true, the earliest migrants would have settled in the Levant which is drier but no cooler than sub-saharan Africa. Why did their skin lighten?

Just a quick point: skin color is not about how hot it is. It is about level of solar radiation. They of course tend to be related, but not always. Anyway, the increased melanin (darker skin color) is a long term adaptation to increased UV levels closer to the equator. Lighter skin pigmentation of peoples moving away from the equator is an adaptation to compensate for the need for Vitamin D, which is manufactured in the skin in response to sunlight.

Skin Color

[Minimalist]

Thanks for the clarification...although it still doesn't explain why the Boers remain stubbornly white and Canadian Blacks remain obstinately black.

Granted the equator crosses relatively little land but the occupants of Northern South America and Indonesia/Malaysia should begin to show some of the tendencies to darkened skin color by now.

I just can't shake the notion that there is something else going on here. Skin color also does not explain racial bone structure differences in the face of the various red, white, yellow, and black races. Barracuda's original questions remain valid.

[Beagle]

Hi Forester. Of course what you say about solar radiation and melanin pigmentation is absolutely right. The people of the earth are generally adapted to their natural environment.

Trying to stay with the question raised by Barracuda - it seems that evolution occurs at a sustained and gradual rate, for the most part. I'm wondering how, according to current prevailing theory, that Africans migrated to Europe and developed light skin, light hair, light eyes, an extremely bowed femur compared to the gracile African form, a large nose, and heavy beard among many other things in only 40,000 +/- years. The European is almost completely adapted to living and moving in a high latitude icy world.

I am a layman in these matters. But I don't think things can happen that fast. Glad you're back Forester.