# How come white people don't all look alike? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 22, 2009, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970 "2009-04-22T13:46:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/21 "2009-05-05T23:58:24Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Whites have a greater range of hair and eye color. Blacks (despite racist iconography) have a greater range of noses, lips, and hair types. Asians have a greater range of head shapes. We are all programmed in infancy and early childhood to notice the differences distinguishing people that are important to us at that time. For example, I grew up in a small town in Maine in the 1950s, so it is much easier for me to distinguish among whites. Exactly. And, of course, whether people with dark skin “all look alike” is completely subjective and depends on what you’re looking at. PS: And the “multiple separate origins” theory of human evolution was always dodgy at best. Scientists don’t assume multiple different forces cause gravity, or that apples evolved in multiple separate places. It always sounded, to me, like a weak attempt to say “Maybe _our kind_ didn’t evolve from Africans.” ---
**Author:** ![caligulashorse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@caligulashorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulashorse)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/22 "2009-05-14T06:14:35Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Exactly. > > And, of course, whether people with dark skin “all look alike” is completely subjective and depends on what you’re looking at. > > PS: And the “multiple separate origins” theory of human evolution was always dodgy at best. Scientists don’t assume multiple different forces cause gravity, or that apples evolved in multiple separate places. It always sounded, to me, like a weak attempt to say “Maybe _our kind_ didn’t evolve from Africans.” Uusually it’s called “multi-regional hypothesis”, though they have apparently started using “mulitple origins” in some instances. Seperate is logically redundant in that phrase. It is against Occham’s Razor to suggest a multi-regional theory without much compelling evidence. The neaderthal is decent evidence, but I wouldn’t call it compelling. The Mungo man, however, is the very definition of compelling. It’s not dodgy at all. Current evdince supports the multi-regional hypothesis, not one origina “out of africa” model. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/23 "2009-05-14T16:26:08Z")
> [@caligulashorse](#): > > The Mungo man, however, is the very definition of compelling. It’s not dodgy at all. Current evdince supports the multi-regional hypothesis, not one origina “out of africa” model. Maybe not. From [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mungo_Man). > [@](#): > > The results can be reconciled with the Out of Africa model, however, if the Mitochondrial Eve mtDNA type, and the Mungo Man mtDNA type were both spread from Africa, with one maternal line going extinct and one surviving to today. The time of the split between Mitochondrial Eve and Mungo Man’s maternal ancestor must have been earlier than the date when the main wave of fully modern humans left Africa, about 50,000 - 60,000 years ago. > > Since remains of a robust form of modern humans have been found in Ethiopia dating to about 160 ka, and similar remains have been dated at Jebel Qafzeh in Israel at about 100 ka, it is conceivable that Mungo Man’s maternal ancestor left Africa in an early wave. Indeed, Schillaci has recently found morphological similarities among the crania of early humans of the Levant and those of Australasia [1]. > > The study by Adcock has been criticized by a study conducted by Chris Stringer. Adcock claimed to have found an exceptionally large amount of ancient DNA from the Mungo remains. This finding is inconsistent with other researchers who were searching for Neanderthal DNA. The study indicates that Ancient DNA is most likely preserved in cold environments such as those found in Europe. But even in the case of Neanderthal remains, the probability of extracting DNA is still low. The study further indicates that the likelihood of any DNA being preserved over the 40,000 - 60,000 years since the Mungo burial is very low. [2] The multi-regional hypothesis has enormous problems that have never been even partially explained satisfactorially. Every “explanation” involves a dozen ad hoc theories with no support that require another dozen imaginary scenarios to justify them even internally. [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_hypothesis) has this as the mechanism. Remember, this is supposed to be a positive description, not a devastating criticism. > [@](#): > > For periods of time some populations became isolated, developing in a different direction. But through a complicated process involving continuous interbreeding, replacement, genetic drift and other vehicles of evolution, adaptations that were an advantage anywhere on earth would spread, keeping the development of the species in the same overall direction, while maintaining adaptations to regional factors. > > Eventually, the more unusual local varieties of the species would have disappeared in favor of modern humans while retaining some regional adaptations, but also with many common features. ---
**Author:** ![EdwardLost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@EdwardLost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwardLost)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/24 "2009-05-22T18:51:47Z")
I seems likely to me that the commonly recognized human “races” have their origins in the discoveries of agriculture. Before agriculture, distinctive physical traits were probably spread more uniformly around the populated world. People in different regions would have looked different from one another because of local adaptation and genetic drift, but you would probably have seen only gradual changes in appearance as you traveled from place to place - not big jumps from one “type” to another. Agriculture allowed small regional populations to suddenly and massively increase in number, spread, and replace the non-agricultural natives over large regions. The Bantu expansion was mentioned. The East Asian “race” (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc.) are probably all largely descendants (70-90%) of the original discoverers of rice cultivation in some small corner of China who replaced a more diverse range of phenotypes in that part of Asia. Europeans are likely 70-90% descendants of the earliest wheat/barley/etc. cultivators in the Middle East. The lighter skin, hair, and eye colors are probably later adaptations of dark-skinned people moving into less sunny climates and suffering vitamin D deficiencies. As to why East Asians seem to look more alike (assuming you buy that), I would guess that the rice-growers’ ballooning and expansion was more sudden and complete: starting from a smaller (maybe more recent) seed population and with a smaller percentage of “native” genes being absorbed into the expanding population wave. It’s also possible that the new environments did not impose much adaptive pressure for new phenotypes (as cloudy Europe did on the Middle Easterners). ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/25 "2009-05-22T19:48:06Z")
excised because it’s not relevant, really ---
**Author:** ![tk4212](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e57/32.png) [@tk4212](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tk4212)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/26 "2009-05-24T18:52:33Z")
I’ve lived as a caucasion guy in a non caucasion society, and local folks there did think we all looked alike to some extent. I got friendly greetings wherever I went, often called by whatever name the last white guy to wander through had been called. Happened all the time, even from people who knew the other dude in question at least a little bit well ---
**Author:** ![Palsboss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/50afbb/32.png) [@Palsboss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palsboss)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/27 "2009-05-26T06:19:11Z")
Living in Japan, and also being of Japanese descent, I would have to agree that I see alot of “evil twins” in Japan, including guys that I think look alot like me and vice-versa. However, to say white people don’t look alike can only be attributed to the convention of not saying that white people look alike. They do, and it seems more so in places like the midwest. But since there is no common practice of saying whites all look alike, no one actually sees it, or at least points it out. Further, asians have more commonality of physical features like black hair, brown eyes, shorter stature, etc., which makes for more look-alikes. But I can say that because of the larger population, there are a lot more “attractive” asians in big asian cities that you would see in perhaps, San Francisco or Los Angeles. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/28 "2009-05-26T21:55:30Z")
Interesting topic, though I don’t have much in the way of scientific data to offer to it. The original question wasn’t actually why don’t all white people look alike (that was just a snarky title) of course. As for the actual question of more apparent variation between “white” peoples and those of other origins, I don’t really find that to be the case. I am “white” (Anglo of British/French ancestry) and I notice WIDE variations between individuals of Asian, African, etc…ancestry. Many different skin tones, bone structures, eye shapes, hair types and shades, body types, etc. About as much as between “whites”, imo, just perhaps more subtle? (as opposed to say, my red-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, small-framed grandmother and my almost black haired, olive-skinned, hazel-eyed, taller self) As I understand it though, the genetic variation between ANY of us humans is miniscule, regardless of race/ancestry. I recall reading a study years ago which postulated that red heads were, compared to other variations both among and between races, the most extreme variation, almost a separate line altogether. Not sure if that has been de-bunked or confirmed or what, but I laughed, thinking of Tom Robbins’ novel, “Still Life with Woodpecker” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![natalie\_kiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9e5f3/32.png) [@natalie\_kiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natalie_kiko)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/29 "2009-05-26T23:28:58Z")
By white people i’m assuming you are referring to americans…brown hair blond hair etc… America is considered “the melting pot” where we all come together from different nationalities, therefore we have tons of different genes in us so we are very diverse. If you are referring to lighter skinned people in general, we are designed for the climate that best fits us by the whole natural selection. therefore some may have lighter hair to stay cooler than dark, same with skin. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970/30 "2009-05-27T12:41:32Z")
Let’s not forget though that _looking different_ and _genetic diversity_ are not the same thing. Africa is by far the most genetically diverse continent, yet to some people “they all look alike”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-white-people-dont-all-look-alike/493970.md?page=1)