Salsassin Wrote:
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> She would also have to show that this is not a
> temporary environmental adaptation.
>


No not at all. If there is a lower degree of child mortality then its a permanent thing unless there's some sort of cultural thing where people who loose more young children choose to have more children in total. That would be a strange anti-evolutionary tactic but is similar to the way evolution tends to work nowdays - with many of the most succesfull people choosing not to have families and many on the edge of poverty popping them out as fast as possible to get the extra state benefits (or in the third world in the hope that at least one of them will turn out to be successfull and support them in their old age).



> Do these people retain these trait after just a
> few generations in lower altitudes?
>


Irrelevant.


> It also is important to see if this is a further
> adaptation or just a concentration of traits
> already in the population.

Why ? Either case would be "evolution in action". The newness of the gene (if it is genetic) is irrelevant to her theory.


> If the environment
> kills off all the darker skinned people in a
> population does it mean the lighter skinned people
> have evolved?
>


Its an evolutionary force at work.