Evidence that white skin was an adaptation to agriculture. Is this an idea you just came up with on your own? It's interesting and I guess maybe could be plausible. But...I've never heard of it... Neither Grok nor Wikipedia seem to have.
I think you're right that evolution happens much more quickly than most people realize, and that that undermines both egalitarianism and racial idealism. But the fact that certain people may be motived to affirm or deny something isn't necessarily strong evidence about whether it's true or not.
UV radiation as the main selection pressure seems to be the consensus view, and isn't incompatible with evolution being fast/recent. According to Wikipedia, not known for its right wing/race realist bias:
"Some researchers suggest that human populations over the past 50,000 years have changed from dark-skinned to light-skinned and vice versa as they migrated to different UV zones,[7] and that such major changes in pigmentation may have happened in as little as 100 generations (≈2,500 years) through selective sweeps.[7][8][9] Natural skin color can also darken as a result of tanning due to exposure to sunlight. The leading theory is that skin color adapts to intense sunlight irradiation to provide partial protection against the ultraviolet fraction that produces damage and thus mutations in the DNA of the skin cells.[6][10]"
It's a topic on which it seems plenty of research has been done. You're pushing at an open door if you tell me science has become increasingly biased and corrupt. But yet there is a mountain of evidence in peer reviewed journals supporting the hereditarian position on race/IQ going back a century. If this hypothesis was plausible, I would expect there to be at least some academic research on it.
I'm not sure why you're responding to the links I've posted with "there's no evidence of this." I'm not even sure what you're arguing. Are you saying that admitting skin color is genetic is "race realism?" I'm so confused.
I was just saying it didn't seem likely that this idea had been suppressed or ignored in academia because of egalitarianism, as it sounded like you might have been implying in the, "Why is the evolution of white skin so controversial?" section. (I never got the impression the evolution of skin pigmentation was controversial one way or the other.) Without citing many sources, it sounded like you were rejecting the scientific consensus in favor of a pet theory you came up with in your armchair.
But it's looking like you are right that agriculture was instrumental in the evolution of white skin. But you make it sound like, "people think it's sunlight and vitamin D; WRONG! Actually it's malnutrition due to agriculture." That doesn't seem quite right. UV radiation is definitely a major factor, but how that interacts with diet among other things is why there isn't a perfect correlation between pigmentation and latitude.
"Extreme depigmentation in northwestern Europeans involved multiple skin pigmentation genes and appears to have been further promoted by the introduction of agriculture (Brace et al., 2019 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6520225/)."
"Prior to the introduction of agriculture and the origin of the classic variant of SLC24A5, hinterland Eurasians were moderately pigmented, had some or considerable tanning abilities, probably conferred by varying configurations of pigmentation genes, and pursued outdoor hunter‐gatherer lifestyles. The evolution of extremely depigmented skin was a recent novelty in human evolution, occurring in northern and northwestern Europe after the introduction of the SLC25A5 variant as the result of admixture with agriculturalists. Skin containing little eumelanin and lacking tanning abilities evolved only in relatively isolated populations living under the lowest and most highly seasonal UVB regimes with very limited opportunities for cutaneous vitamin D synthesis. The extremes of human skin pigmentation evolved under extremes of environmental UVB and were mitigated by vitamin D‐rich diets. When genetic variants were available that enhanced reproductive success, they underwent rapid positive selection, especially in extreme solar environments, and quickly brought about changes in skin pigmentation phenotypes. Thus, natural selection for dark pigmentation under high UVR conditions and for lighter skin capable of tanning under lower and more seasonal UVR has been the dominant influence, but skin pigmentation has been modified increasingly by population genetic influences on the genetic composition of dispersing populations and by cultural processes, which have mitigated the expression of pigmentation genes and modified the impact of the environment on the human body. In recent millennia, human skin pigmentation has been influenced increasingly by culturally reinforced processes including, in some places, mating practices and sexual selection."
There reasonably could be evolutionary pressure working against developing white skin in Africa. Don't think it's viable to be a hunter-gatherer or a farmer, if you are getting constantly sunburnt. Sunburn is really not fun. It's exhausting, painful and itchy. And if you get it all the time (which nobody with vulnerability does), I would expect skin cancer to come within a couple months (bit unethical to run that experiment, though).
Alternatively, the white-skinned would have to put on lots of fabric in the heat, doing manual labor, which quickly becomes energy-inefficient.
Anyway, there's more to archaic life than just being a hunter-gatherer (or the related hoe farmer) and doing full agriculture. What about pastoralists?
Where are you getting the thing about skin cancer not existing and being because of mutation and sun screen?
I am very, very, very naturally pale, like my tone is essentially see-through/vampire. And I just don't buy that it's at all adaptive or even possible for anyone with skin like mine to live anywhere with anything but the most minimal sunlight, absent sunscreen. I get sun-burned THROUGH MY CLOTHES all the time.
Also, blue eyes were definitely sexually selected for and lighter skin would be, to a point, but not to the point of being ultra pale like me.
"Also, blue eyes were definitely sexually selected for and lighter skin would be, to a point, but not to the point of being ultra pale like me."
Yeah, I've heard the argument that blue eyes evolved via sexual selection, but personally I'm not so sure. Western Hunter Gatherer populations (some of the first people to inhabit Europe after the ice age ended 15 thousand years ago), are known to have had blue eyes. Blue eyes have been proven to be superior re vision in lower light environments (ie less sun), and so are an advantage for for hunters in darker northern environments. Also within populations that have blue eyes, more males have blue eyes than females (which makes sense if males were the hunters in lower light environments). I will also mention anecdotally (and it's pretty fascinating), that almost ALL of super bowl quarterbacks, historically, have blue eyes (as do American presidents). Maybe blue eyes are a result of sexual selection (which, I would presume would be males selecting for blue eyed females?). But, they would also seem to be an evolutionary advantage for males in more northern, lower light, environments too.
If you start paying attention, virtually everyone in power or hish status positions in society has blue eyes that are massively over-represented among white people, compared to baseline. 55% of Republican senators for example, and about 60% of news anchors and white CEOs. Why would you assume blue eyes were selected for in women, rather than the other way around? Dark hair with light eyes is always deemed a sexy combo.
"skin cancer was not an issue for pre-modern populations (especially those with brown skin...). Skin cancer is a functional of modern mutational load, industrial pollution, and cancer-inducing sunscreens."
When I say "it was not an issue" I mean "it exerted no evolutionary pressure." The average age of diagnosis of melanoma is 66 years old. Skin cancer doesn't impact reproductive rates.
When I say "is a function of" I am referring to the increases in melanoma over the last 100 years.
My argument in this article is that ancient Europeans were darker in their skin color than they are today, and your skin is the result of vitamin D deprivation as a result of an agricultural diet.
I never argued that white skin developed in hot sunny areas, so I'm not sure why you're pointing out that your skin is sensitive to sunburn.
Okay when you said it wasn't an issue for those populations I thought you were saying that it didn't exist for those populations and that they didn't get it. But if you're just saying that it's not an evolutionary pressure bc you don't get it til you're old, then it's not "an issue" for ANYONE. Not just those populations.
I'm working backwards on your logic by mentioning fair skin and low sun. The standard explanation is that light skin helps you get lots of Vitamin D, really quickly, if you live in a place with literally no sun for months of the year. You're saying no, it was developed to counteract nutritional deficiency and if those people happened to live in places without a lot of sunlight, that's just a coincidence because others like Aleutians had brown skin. I guess I find the sun hypothesis easier to believe because once you go pale to get that extra Vitamin D, you're pretty well screwed if you try to live someplace with sun, so I have to imagine they all lived in places where people were indoors or sunless most of the time. Not totally discounting your theory but you don't need to be THAT pale to get sufficient Vitamin D if you live anywhere that isn't cloudy and grey most of the time, and dark half the year. It's something like minutes of sun solely on the back of one hand for 5 minutes a week, is enough, if you're quite pale.
Mostly I got caught up on the skin cancer and sunscreen statement.
Correct, skin cancer hasn't been selective for any populations, black or white.
And yes, white skin helps you get vitamin D, however, this only becomes a problem when you start eating bread because unlike fish or meat, bread has no Vitamin D.
The sun hypothesis is refuted by the pictures of aboriginal and Inuit peoples that I post.
That's a great question. I don't think this is a flaw with my theory that extreme paleness developed in result to vitamin D deprivation. The two questions are not directly contradicting one another. I'm not sure why extreme blackness developed in Africa and not in, for example, the Americas or Oceania.
Bantus developed very dark skin way earlier than they started farming though. And being very dark makes you much harder to see at night, so it confers an enormous advantage for hunting and warfare. I have a black dog and a brown dog and when they go in the yard at night the black dog is literally invisible, the brown dog is not. I would think the ultra dark skin is what enabled them to take over all the other groups.
Masterful button pushing
10/10 dismount
It would have been helpful to link to something that offers some evidence for any of this.
Which claim? That white skin originates in Anatolia?
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2009227118
What else? That Europeans used to be darker skinned?
https://www.sciencenordic.com/archaeology-denmark-history/dna-researcher-its-not-woke-to-portray-prehistoric-europeans-with-dark-skin-its-evolution/2273715
Regarding Africa, the source is Guns, Germs, and Steel. I've covered this here:
https://deepleft.substack.com/p/ancient-pale-invaders-replaced-chinas
All very helpful links, thanks. That mostly covers it.
Evidence that white skin was an adaptation to agriculture. Is this an idea you just came up with on your own? It's interesting and I guess maybe could be plausible. But...I've never heard of it... Neither Grok nor Wikipedia seem to have.
I think you're right that evolution happens much more quickly than most people realize, and that that undermines both egalitarianism and racial idealism. But the fact that certain people may be motived to affirm or deny something isn't necessarily strong evidence about whether it's true or not.
UV radiation as the main selection pressure seems to be the consensus view, and isn't incompatible with evolution being fast/recent. According to Wikipedia, not known for its right wing/race realist bias:
"Some researchers suggest that human populations over the past 50,000 years have changed from dark-skinned to light-skinned and vice versa as they migrated to different UV zones,[7] and that such major changes in pigmentation may have happened in as little as 100 generations (≈2,500 years) through selective sweeps.[7][8][9] Natural skin color can also darken as a result of tanning due to exposure to sunlight. The leading theory is that skin color adapts to intense sunlight irradiation to provide partial protection against the ultraviolet fraction that produces damage and thus mutations in the DNA of the skin cells.[6][10]"
It's a topic on which it seems plenty of research has been done. You're pushing at an open door if you tell me science has become increasingly biased and corrupt. But yet there is a mountain of evidence in peer reviewed journals supporting the hereditarian position on race/IQ going back a century. If this hypothesis was plausible, I would expect there to be at least some academic research on it.
I'm not sure why you're responding to the links I've posted with "there's no evidence of this." I'm not even sure what you're arguing. Are you saying that admitting skin color is genetic is "race realism?" I'm so confused.
I was just saying it didn't seem likely that this idea had been suppressed or ignored in academia because of egalitarianism, as it sounded like you might have been implying in the, "Why is the evolution of white skin so controversial?" section. (I never got the impression the evolution of skin pigmentation was controversial one way or the other.) Without citing many sources, it sounded like you were rejecting the scientific consensus in favor of a pet theory you came up with in your armchair.
But it's looking like you are right that agriculture was instrumental in the evolution of white skin. But you make it sound like, "people think it's sunlight and vitamin D; WRONG! Actually it's malnutrition due to agriculture." That doesn't seem quite right. UV radiation is definitely a major factor, but how that interacts with diet among other things is why there isn't a perfect correlation between pigmentation and latitude.
This is the sort of link I would have appreciated: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8359960/#pcmr12976-sec-0013
"Extreme depigmentation in northwestern Europeans involved multiple skin pigmentation genes and appears to have been further promoted by the introduction of agriculture (Brace et al., 2019 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6520225/)."
"Prior to the introduction of agriculture and the origin of the classic variant of SLC24A5, hinterland Eurasians were moderately pigmented, had some or considerable tanning abilities, probably conferred by varying configurations of pigmentation genes, and pursued outdoor hunter‐gatherer lifestyles. The evolution of extremely depigmented skin was a recent novelty in human evolution, occurring in northern and northwestern Europe after the introduction of the SLC25A5 variant as the result of admixture with agriculturalists. Skin containing little eumelanin and lacking tanning abilities evolved only in relatively isolated populations living under the lowest and most highly seasonal UVB regimes with very limited opportunities for cutaneous vitamin D synthesis. The extremes of human skin pigmentation evolved under extremes of environmental UVB and were mitigated by vitamin D‐rich diets. When genetic variants were available that enhanced reproductive success, they underwent rapid positive selection, especially in extreme solar environments, and quickly brought about changes in skin pigmentation phenotypes. Thus, natural selection for dark pigmentation under high UVR conditions and for lighter skin capable of tanning under lower and more seasonal UVR has been the dominant influence, but skin pigmentation has been modified increasingly by population genetic influences on the genetic composition of dispersing populations and by cultural processes, which have mitigated the expression of pigmentation genes and modified the impact of the environment on the human body. In recent millennia, human skin pigmentation has been influenced increasingly by culturally reinforced processes including, in some places, mating practices and sexual selection."
Interesting take.
There reasonably could be evolutionary pressure working against developing white skin in Africa. Don't think it's viable to be a hunter-gatherer or a farmer, if you are getting constantly sunburnt. Sunburn is really not fun. It's exhausting, painful and itchy. And if you get it all the time (which nobody with vulnerability does), I would expect skin cancer to come within a couple months (bit unethical to run that experiment, though).
Alternatively, the white-skinned would have to put on lots of fabric in the heat, doing manual labor, which quickly becomes energy-inefficient.
Anyway, there's more to archaic life than just being a hunter-gatherer (or the related hoe farmer) and doing full agriculture. What about pastoralists?
“White bread” as a derogatory term makes some sense, it turns out
@razib: Hold my beer.
Where are you getting the thing about skin cancer not existing and being because of mutation and sun screen?
I am very, very, very naturally pale, like my tone is essentially see-through/vampire. And I just don't buy that it's at all adaptive or even possible for anyone with skin like mine to live anywhere with anything but the most minimal sunlight, absent sunscreen. I get sun-burned THROUGH MY CLOTHES all the time.
Also, blue eyes were definitely sexually selected for and lighter skin would be, to a point, but not to the point of being ultra pale like me.
"Also, blue eyes were definitely sexually selected for and lighter skin would be, to a point, but not to the point of being ultra pale like me."
Yeah, I've heard the argument that blue eyes evolved via sexual selection, but personally I'm not so sure. Western Hunter Gatherer populations (some of the first people to inhabit Europe after the ice age ended 15 thousand years ago), are known to have had blue eyes. Blue eyes have been proven to be superior re vision in lower light environments (ie less sun), and so are an advantage for for hunters in darker northern environments. Also within populations that have blue eyes, more males have blue eyes than females (which makes sense if males were the hunters in lower light environments). I will also mention anecdotally (and it's pretty fascinating), that almost ALL of super bowl quarterbacks, historically, have blue eyes (as do American presidents). Maybe blue eyes are a result of sexual selection (which, I would presume would be males selecting for blue eyed females?). But, they would also seem to be an evolutionary advantage for males in more northern, lower light, environments too.
https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/about-us/news/articles/2024/2/7/blue-eyes#:~:text=Blue%20eyed%20see%20better%20in%20the%20dark&text=People%20with%20blue%20eyes%20may,Europe%20where%20skies%20are%20darker.
https://www.thesportscol.com/2014/01/like-blue-eyed-boy/#:~:text=Intrigued%2C%20I%20did%20a%20little,one%20have%20light%20colored%20eyes.
https://list.fandom.com/wiki/United_States_presidents_by_hair_and_eye_color
If you start paying attention, virtually everyone in power or hish status positions in society has blue eyes that are massively over-represented among white people, compared to baseline. 55% of Republican senators for example, and about 60% of news anchors and white CEOs. Why would you assume blue eyes were selected for in women, rather than the other way around? Dark hair with light eyes is always deemed a sexy combo.
I never said skin cancer does not exist:
"skin cancer was not an issue for pre-modern populations (especially those with brown skin...). Skin cancer is a functional of modern mutational load, industrial pollution, and cancer-inducing sunscreens."
When I say "it was not an issue" I mean "it exerted no evolutionary pressure." The average age of diagnosis of melanoma is 66 years old. Skin cancer doesn't impact reproductive rates.
When I say "is a function of" I am referring to the increases in melanoma over the last 100 years.
My argument in this article is that ancient Europeans were darker in their skin color than they are today, and your skin is the result of vitamin D deprivation as a result of an agricultural diet.
I never argued that white skin developed in hot sunny areas, so I'm not sure why you're pointing out that your skin is sensitive to sunburn.
Okay when you said it wasn't an issue for those populations I thought you were saying that it didn't exist for those populations and that they didn't get it. But if you're just saying that it's not an evolutionary pressure bc you don't get it til you're old, then it's not "an issue" for ANYONE. Not just those populations.
I'm working backwards on your logic by mentioning fair skin and low sun. The standard explanation is that light skin helps you get lots of Vitamin D, really quickly, if you live in a place with literally no sun for months of the year. You're saying no, it was developed to counteract nutritional deficiency and if those people happened to live in places without a lot of sunlight, that's just a coincidence because others like Aleutians had brown skin. I guess I find the sun hypothesis easier to believe because once you go pale to get that extra Vitamin D, you're pretty well screwed if you try to live someplace with sun, so I have to imagine they all lived in places where people were indoors or sunless most of the time. Not totally discounting your theory but you don't need to be THAT pale to get sufficient Vitamin D if you live anywhere that isn't cloudy and grey most of the time, and dark half the year. It's something like minutes of sun solely on the back of one hand for 5 minutes a week, is enough, if you're quite pale.
Mostly I got caught up on the skin cancer and sunscreen statement.
Correct, skin cancer hasn't been selective for any populations, black or white.
And yes, white skin helps you get vitamin D, however, this only becomes a problem when you start eating bread because unlike fish or meat, bread has no Vitamin D.
The sun hypothesis is refuted by the pictures of aboriginal and Inuit peoples that I post.
Potential flaw: Bantus are farmers. Why not white?
Vitamin D
Sure, but why are they blackest of black, compared to hunting gathering populations with (one would assume) higher vit D intake?
That's a great question. I don't think this is a flaw with my theory that extreme paleness developed in result to vitamin D deprivation. The two questions are not directly contradicting one another. I'm not sure why extreme blackness developed in Africa and not in, for example, the Americas or Oceania.
Bantus developed very dark skin way earlier than they started farming though. And being very dark makes you much harder to see at night, so it confers an enormous advantage for hunting and warfare. I have a black dog and a brown dog and when they go in the yard at night the black dog is literally invisible, the brown dog is not. I would think the ultra dark skin is what enabled them to take over all the other groups.