Why are there so many different types of races?

Question

Good answers! Makes sense!

Answer 1

Because our species has been around for a long time.

Answer 2

Different people developed different traits after they went their seperate ways when they left Africa. Northern people got slightly stockier to conserve heat, and lighter skin colours to allow the photosynthesis of vitamin D.

Mostly it's genetic drift, combined with new mutations occuring in the seperate populations to differentiate them.

Answer 3

Actually, there is only one race: the human race.  The variations that exist within our species are clinal in nature.  The differences are regional, and very plausibly have come to be as a result of regional environmental circumstances.  Skin color, eye color and shape, hair color, etc. are only superficial and minor differences.

Quechua speaking peoples living high in the Andes Mountains and Sherpa peoples in the Himalayas of Nepal both have a much more hemoglobin in their blood, as a response to the harsh conditions at high altitudes.  People living near to the equator tend to have darker skin, to protect themselves from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun.  People living further away from the equator tend to have lighter skin, as they need to absorb the rays of the sun for vitamin D production.  Inuit, or Eskimo, people have the largest heads and brains of all humans, and this is possibly a cold response mechanism of natural selection.

If you look at India, for example, the clinal variation is clear.  The people in the north have lighter skin and as you go to the south, the skin color becomes darker, almost to black.  

All of these variations seem to have occured within the last ten thousand years, as the skeletal remains of humans show almost no large degree of variation at that time.

I'm of European ancestry and my future wife is Chinese.  Our children will be lovely, human beings.

PS!  Human beings do not photosynthesize(nor do any animals)....plants do.

Answer 4

Because after God created Adam and Eve, the Devil made different colored people so they would hate each other.

Answer 5

By the way, the reason the Inuit do not have lighter skin, even though they live near the pole,  is because they had a vitamin D rich fish diet that made up for the lack of Vitamin D  absorbed from sunlight.

Answer 6

That is the way GOD planned it.

Answer 7

For most people "race" equates to skin color. Skin color is driven by sunlight. Close to the equater darker skin prevents sunburn. Close to the poles lighter skin allows viatimin D to be absorbed in the weaker sunshine.

You'll find that darker skin is found in the tropics and gradations to lighter skin at the poles