I grew up learning the most stupid and incredibly retrograde theories about races and personality traits. It was so difficult for me to believe them, that I started reading books and magazines with as much reliable information on the subject as possible.
It is a little shocking to me to see that a lot of people all over still make use of the term “race”. And the manipulation behind the idea of different “races” has just been outrageous!
I would like to recommend to all here Stephen Jay Gould’s “The mismeasure of Man”. Excellent book!
Peace.
Men will cease to commit atrocities only when they cease to believe absurdities.
-Voltaire
E1Skeptic, you’re missing my point completely. I never asked what race the original humans were. I asked if they were black. This has nothing to do with race. I repeat, this has nothing to do with race. And while I agree that there is only one race, and while I don’t think you meant what you wrote as JillGat interpreted it, indeed you be trippin if you really don’t think race is an issue these days, as opposed to feeling that it shouldn’t be an issue.
Pete: I didn’t miss your point. My first post was directed to those using the term “race” (and you were NOT one of them) to differentiate from blacks to whites to whatever other pigmentations we have. The only thing directed to you was that in your second post you claim to have mentioned Africa in your first post, and I said you didn’t, and I have to admit that I was mislead by other posts regarding the “opposite” pigmentation. You actually never mentioned “whites” being opposite to “blacks”. I apologize.
And you are absolutely right when you say that I’d be trippin’ if I didn’t think that racism is an issue. Of course it is. I just think that it shouldn’t be.
Now, regarding your original question: “humans originally black?”, I have to say that I have no clue. And my guess is no one has. At the risk of being kicked out of the Dope for excessive lenght, I’m going to quote part of an article by Christopher Wills, from Discover magazine’s issue of Nov/94:
I hope this is useful to you. And BTW, JillGat did not misinterpreted me, it was CFQWEST who she was quoting.
So why did people of the human race evolve with different types of head hair? Why do all black people have black, curly hair? What evolutional purpose would blond hair serve? Why might black people have thicker lips and a flatter, more broad nose than humans of white skin?
C3, not everything has to serve an evolutionary “purpose” (unless you’re a Lamarckian, and I doubt anyone here is). Instead, it simply must be that a mutation does not prevent you from living long enough to reproduce, or from having viable sperm or ova.
If a local population developed a blond-hair mutation, and passed that trait on through reproduction, well, there it is. Same with the dark-skinned traits you mentioned; as the population continued to breed with each other, those traits became reinforced. Certainly there is enough variation within the dark-skinned population to not make it a hard, fast rule.
Why are their so many people saying. “oh this is a racist issue.”? In case you havent noticed there are black people and white people and asian people. I for one am not going to pretend there isnt just to be politically correct.
turkelurke, the discussion about climate and skin color wasn’t referred to as racist. The point of E1skeptic’s comment was that the concept of multiple human races is unscientific.
No one’s denying that people have different characteristics. But the division into three (or four) “races” was arbitrarily assigned by Europeans, almost entirely on the basis of skin color. If you were to paint everyone on the planet a uniform shade of blue, and then start comparing people, there would be no fine line dividing “Caucasians” from the other groups.
personally I hope that we never find out what color the original humans were.
Can you imagen what the results would be?
no mater what the out come the racists would say that it proves they are superior! Example: originally black - “look how more evolved we are from them”
originally white: “see we are the true first people”
I think that if science ever does find an answer it could lead to a race war. I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think so.
I think dopers are pretty good people. I don’t think any of us would take a racist view in discovering the color of early man.
So, for the sake of science, not ego, is anyone here a geneticist or does anyone know a geneticist who can prove or has evidence that genetically, it’s impossible to get black from white?
I don’t know who first said “everyone’s a critic,” but I think it’s a really stupid saying.
Regarding vitamin D deficiency, my mother caught rickets as a child, which results from a lack of vitamin D. She grew up in Michigan, so apparently, it is possible to not get enough sun to produce the D your body needs in climates that may have bad weather for long periods of time. However, vitamin D is being added into milk nowadays.
“Race” IS an out-dated non-concept. There is no definition that anyone has every managed to come up with that would make the term scentifically valid or even useful in general.
“Racism,” is another topic altogether, one on which I made no comment.
Dear Pete:
I realize that you did not start this thread to ask which “race” was created first. What caught my attention was the number of responses (on a board which I assume to be visited by mostly intelligent people) that used the word “race” without realizing that were tossing around an ill-defined term that should be abandoned.
Dear falcon2:
I’m not sure I understand your point. Perhaps my comparison of hair-color and skin-color is not perfect, but both are genetic characteristics passed on from parents to children, no matter how many genes it takes to determine the result. My point still stands: both are superficial characteristics that tell us little or nothing about the fundamental nature of the people who exhibit them–certainly not enough to divide people into groups of different “races.”