bernard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> "Survival of the fittest" is not the best
> formulation. a more insightful one is "ability to
> reproduce, or reproductive advantage" And, yes, if
> your descendants lived near the Equator (and
> particularly if they lived outside and did not
> wear a lot of clothes (like people did in the
> past) they would get a lot darker. In the paper I
> posted, people who have more melanin are protected
> from destruction by sunlight of their folate more
> than lighter skinned people. Therefore they will
> have more offspring than lighter skinned people
> (because destruction of folate affects the ability
> to give birth. Over time this will produce what we
> see now. Skin color is apparently not a huge
> reproductive advantage, because it takes a long
> time to produce results.
>

I understand this process of biological evolution, but wouldn't it depend on a few things: the assumption that some of my descendents WILL in fact develop darker skin, and that those who don't will be at a survival disadvantage only if the SOCIETY permits. I didn't think that the concepts of "Survival of the fittest" or "reproductive adantage" significantly applied to humans. Also, on the former point that my descendents will develop darker skin, i presume you meant that the process of natural variance is enough, since you said, in a reply to wireless, that mutations are not necessarily involved. However, despite the examples given by others here, does natural variance really cause this much change in skin pigmentation?

Back to the question of race, it still requires thousands of years for this adaptation to occur. Are you saying that the gene pool created in this time is insufficient to enable taxonomic relationships to be established?




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2005 03:14PM by darkuser.