Why are there different races of people?

Question

I seriously doubt it has anything to do with climate, that doesn't make sense to me.

Answer 1

The person above, of course, has good information but I would like to address the fact that science was the one that gave name to the races and science is deeply involved in classification.  Now, I agree with you that things don't make sense. We all know that dark colors absorb heat and that nature would put dark individuals in a hot environment doesn't make sense. Another, agriculture arose in the Middle East not in Europe.  Agriculture has been in Africa for thousands of years now and as I have read, it is suppose to be only a matter of a thousand years for people to do a color change. That in itself seems to say that it is not a matter of type of food eaten. What I see is that as humans lost their hair, the skin took on a tan, which we know happens, and in time this became the color of humans, as people moved north and did not need that protection then they lost color (cover a plant from the sun, it loses color) but Africa stayed tan and dark tan became chosen (any number of reasons) and the darkest individuals had more offspring.  Dark individuals are of human selection by way of natural selection. I don't think that this idea is racist, forgive me if it does, I do not mean it sound that way. It just seems reasonable.

Answer 2

I think that different varieties make the world more interesting :D

But we are all humans

Wether yellow or pink or black or white

In a world where all people help each other - no matter what race...

*sigh*

Answer 3

Because god made us like this!

Answer 4

There are no races of people. The concept of race is cultural and anti-scientific. Furthermore, this classist way of thinking has killed millions of people.

Now that this is out of the way, let's look into it.

The genotype is the totality of the genes of an individual. The phenotype is the physical result of the genotype. Our genes determine our skin color (level of pigmentation).

Here's a popular hypothesis for highly pigmented people giving rise to lightly pigmented people ("blacks to whites", an example of CLINE). To study this example we need to understand calcium. With too little calcium, we have bone problems, this doesn't affect our reproductive ability at young age (normally). Yet with excessive amounts of calcium, the individual usually dies too young to reproduce. The only way to pass your genetic material is reproducing. If you're dead you can't do this.

Vitamin D is essential to obtain usable calcium. Too much vitamin D is deadly, as it gives rise to hypercalemia (too much calcium). Vitamin D is synthesized by the body using sunlight, but it can also be consumed. Africans used to eat a lot of animals with high concentrations of Vitamin D. Therefore, the individuals with little pigmentation died too soon to reproduce, whereas those with a lot of pigmentation would have a lower effect by the sunlight, and therefore less vitamin D in the body = normal calcium levels.

As dark skinned individuals moved to Europe, they ate less meat and became less nomadic (they stayed put). Due to constant climate changes, it was difficult to acquire meat in winter, and was more practical to have agriculture. With agriculture, they would ingest less vitamin D and individuals with less pigmentation were favored.

PS: the intense sunlight in Africa has NOTHING to do with it.

Answer 5

Race, like ethnicity in general, is a cultural category rather than a biological reality.  That is, ethnic groups, including "races," derive from contrasts perceived and perpetuated in particular societies, rather than from scientific classifications based on common genes.

Answer 6

This article explains it very clearly

http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/...

We are all descended from Adam and Eve, and more recently from Noah and his wife. After the Flood, God told people to fill the earth. They disobeyed, staying in one place and building the tower of Babel. God then forced man to spread out by confusing the languages.

The reason we have different racial characteristics is down to genetic variation and selection (not evolution).

Take skin colour, for example. The colour is determined by how much melanin we produce. The more melanin, the darker our skin. People with pale skin have the genetic code (through variation and selection) for producing little melanin.

Check out the article.

Answer 7

There are not "different races of people"!

All humans are of the exact same race = Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

There are ethnic differences due mostly to weather in various geographical areas. Species adapt and ours is no different. Don't expect the average person to accept this for some time, ignorance is a powerful force.

Answer 8

Check out the relationship between melanin and climate!

Answer 9

If we were geneticaly all the same, we would die out as a species. Diversity keeps living things safe cuase think about it. If there was one pathogen, it would wipe out everyone but cause we have differences, it doesn't, some might get infected, others won't. Therefore humans sustain themselves. Ths is just one example, but that's it in a nutshell.

Answer 10

Here is the closest info I can provide. There is significant proof in research archeology's making the African as the first human. there are three genes of race; black, white, and yellow. These can be found in the King James Version of the bible. I totally agree climate is by choice. There isn't much research being committed in this department, most likely it is of a spiritual perspective. Each and every piece of creation was made for a specific reason and relating to a job, when quoting in a spiritual nature, and so is man. For his purpose is to learn how to live and how to earn a living, then in the long term sense he is to be a future candidate for a Godlike replica. Now, back to the races, we all have equal abilities to discover and create and maybe our creator was being generous in giving us more than one race.

Answer 11

Climate actually had a lot to do with the way people evolved into different races.

People in Africa for example, have dark skin and hair because it protects them from the harmful rays of the sun, which is much more intense in the African continent. Also, Africans and people residing in tropical environments are usually much taller and thinner than other people- This is because since they are taller, they have comparatively more skin with which to sweat and keep themselves cool, and long, thin limbs help to reduce heat retention in the body.  When people migrated from Africa to Europe and Scandinavia, they found themselves in a much cooler, generally cloudier environment. Evolving lighter skin and hair helped them to absorb as much vitamin D from what sun there was to grow healthy, strong bones. Shorter, stouter body frames helped to retain warmth in the body in a cooler environment.

Differences among races now can also be attributed to things like genes, mixed races and backgrounds, diet, and lifestyle, so some people in hot environments are shorter or don't have skin as dark as everyone else, etc... but in general, during the evolution of the human race, people who stayed in hot or tropical places kept dark features and a tall, lean stature, while people in cooler environments developed lighter skin and features, with a shorter stature.

EDIT: I realize race is anthropologically not an accepted idea or term, and I agree. I use it only for simplicity's sake in my answer. And the intense heat and sun of Africa and all the other countries where you find people with darker skin and features has everything to do with it. It's simple. Naturally dark skin = Protection from the sun.   It is true that when people moved north, they consumed less meat, which also added to their lack of Vitamin D, hence lighter skin to absorb it from the sunlight

Answer 12

Actually, there aren't, really.

There is no way to divide the human race into racial groups that are exhaustive and exclusive.

But, yes, the looks of people in various areas is connected to climate. It's not that climate changes people's genes, but that given climates favor certain variations over others.

So, if you've got people living where the sun is weak, and someone is born to be lighter and their complexion helps them get sufficient vitamin D, then they'll thrive more than their neighbors, and the off-spring that inherit that gene will also thrive more than others.

Over time, that variation becomes more wide-spread.

I recently read a hypothesis that some of the color variation is actually due to "sexual selection" so, for instance, if women start preferring darker-skinned men, then over time, the whole group will become darker and darker, as the men who are darker will have an easier time winning the women, and make more copies of their genes. (This could account for variations in hue among sub-Saharan Africans -- if some groups have a sort of fad for darker skin.)

Answer 13

Well, race is really a social construct, as there is more variation within "races" than there is difference between them.  However there are several factors that have caused people to look different, and yes, climate is major.  In Africa, because there is more exposure to the sun, it is advantageous to have melanin in your skin, which makes it darker and less penetrable by the sun.  On the other hand, in places with less sun exposure, you need less melanin so you can absorb enough vitamin D.  Taller, thinner populations tend to develop where it's hot, so they have more surface area and cool off faster.

Of course, there's also founder effect, which basically means if a lot of people with a trait start a population, that trait will become widespread.

Answer 14

Most people define "race" by skin color. Most scientists define race only as "human."

As for skin color:

"In their analysis of human evolutionary history, Jablonski and Chaplin concluded that modern humans most likely evolved in the tropics, where they were exposed to high UV levels. But as they moved into regions away from the equator, where UV levels are lower, humans became fairer so as to allow enough UV radiation to penetrate their skin and produce vitamin D, the "sunshine vitamin," also obtained from eating fish and marine mammals. Vitamin D is essential for maintaining healthy blood levels of calcium and phosphorous, and thus promoting bone growth.

Skin color, according to Jablonski and Chaplin, basically becomes a balancing act between the evolutionary demands of photo-protection and the need to create vitamin D in the skin.

One of the important implications of Jablonski and Chaplin's work is that it underlines the concept of race as purely a social construct, with no scientific grounds. DNA research has shown that genetically all humans, regardless of skin color and other surface distinctions, are basically the same. In an April 2001 article titled, "The Genetic Archaeology of Race," published in the Atlantic Monthly, Steve Olson writes "the genetic variants affecting skin color and facial features are essentially meaningless —they probably involve a few hundred of the billions of nucleotides in a person's DNA. Yet societies have built elaborate systems of privilege and control on these insignificant genetic differences."

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/02...

"Before the mass global migrations of people during the last 500 years, dark skin color was mostly concentrated in the southern hemisphere near the equator and light color progressively increased further away, as illustrated in the map below. In fact, the majority of dark pigmented people lived within 20° of the equator. Most of the lighter pigmented people lived in the northern hemisphere north of 20° latitude."

http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_4....