extended exposure to the sun or heat? Or is that just a myth i heard on ILP?
Drift,
Go outside and stand in the sun all day. You should get the proof you need.
No, you did not just hear that on ILP.
size=59[/size]
i’m not sure,but i thought i heard this from several places. it may be a common myth.
Hmm…
I was raised mormon, and I was taught that black people and indians skin turned black when they disobeyed god and didn’t accept the lord.
I was also taught that their skin would become, “white and delightsome” as they accepted the lord.
Now that is the truth . . . Ok!!!
if you don’t believe it, just pray and god will tell you it is true.
mormonism rocks!!!
I can’t resist, I tried ,but I can’t, so how does this explain freckles?
[size=59]Rofl[/size]
First, people lost their fur, then their protective pigment. Is pubic hair next?
YadaYada, that post smacks of teleological evolution, be careful.
The evolutionary reasons for skin pigments are still somewhat unknown. As I understand it (and evolutionary anthropology is a far cry from my field) there are a few ideas:
-
Mating with the local near-humans. Homo Sapiens came from Africa fairly late in the game and much of the world had already been colonized by other Homo species. It has been suggested that racial characteristics are a result of matings between the ‘native’ Homo spp. and Homo Sapiens.
-
Amount of Sunlight: On the savana, there is definately a selection pressure for a high melanin content. Once humans left the savana, there was no longer a selective pressure for the high melanin content and it eventually went away. During the Ice Age, lighter skin would have also provided a selective advantage, since it would act as a camo. This doesn’t explain epicanthal folds though, which #1 possibly could.
-
Other. I’ve heard a few other explanations, but I can’t think of them right now.
the melanin content of the melanin is the main reason i’ve always known of. melanin makes the skin appear darker.
the higher the melanin content, the higher the protection against UV radiation. this protection is needed closer to the equator where the UV radiation is higher.
hence, you will find that the native societies closer to the equator have darker skin. basic evolutionary selection process to avoid cancers and burns. as Xunzian stated, as humans migrated towards the poles, the need for lower melanin content in the skin became a need and thus those societies evolved.
by the way, melanin also prevents vitamin D production in the body as a side-effect to blocking UV radiation. that is why in an affluent society when outdoor activity is minimal, compared to early man, darker folks have more vitamin D deficiency health related problems.
also, melanin content cannot be changed in a single lifetime. it is genetically controlled. heading out in the sun and burning/tanning is nothing more than damaging the skin due to lack of melanin content. it’s like trying to make a monkey walk on land in one generation. ain’t gonna happen.
thanks to xunzian and bishop for actually taking the question seriously.
i’d belived it was simply a dormant or otherwise gene that eventually came out through excessive breeding.which may be related the sun block explaination. at any rate,how do you explain asian’s appearance diffrences?
also,my sources say blacks came through ham’s line.(noah’s son) and especially kush,of ham,though i obviously cant recite that name list by memory!
also,noah did pronounce a curse on ca’naan(you will become a slave to your brothers),but my sources say ca’naan’s line looked more like the babylonians/sumerians/assyrians.not blacks. this curse was supposed to be fofilled in how the ca’naanites where routed later.
keep in mind,the last 2 paragraphs i wrote were from memory alone…
I believe that most of the religious explanations need to be taken with a grain of salt - maybe the whole salt shaker. We know a lot more now than we did in those biblical explanations… Still, much of what we know is based on conjecture and not hard evidence, although I have a bit more faith in the scientific explanations than those of religion.
Kris, There has to be some connection between red hair and freckles… I spent some time with a redhead lady, and she had freckles in some of the most interesting places… 
I know that sunlight brings out freckles, but in December?
While I am not sure I agree with the statements made here, it is an interesting model:
no way, the organized and or orthadox religious view are completely right on.
ha ha
i dont recall any scriptural evidence of this claim…
P.S. thanks for the link xunzian,i’m sure it’d be very helpfull if i could concentrate right now. 
and figure out that homozygous means… 
Science says all humans originated in East Africa. There were multiple migrations originating from there, mixing with earlier arrivals.
For support, note the African appearance of the “aboriginals” of New Guinea, and the differences of peoples in North and South India. Many South Indians have more recent ties to Africa. Europeans are thought to have originated from Northern Indian migrations.
You need to find a way to interpret the tale of Noah in this light, if you wish it have any historicity (which is a scientific realm) beyond metaphorical understanding which is religion.
my belief on this matter is tentative right now.i could only conclude a proper belief if i’d referenced it properly and ‘done my homework’.
thanks for the input all.
it is scriptural, and the only bullshit is in the teaching. I am not discriminating, I am POINTING out the discrimination.
The original translation of the book or mormon is clear that as the lamanites (wiked folks) disobeyed god enough they were cursed with a dark skin color. And when they repented enough, they because a “white and delightsome” people again. A few decades ago, the mormon church got beef from this teaching, and so they changed the all the passages in teh book of mormon that contained “white and delightsome” to “pure and delightsome.”
Mormons today (especially the few liberal mormons) may differ on their interpretation of this. But I was raised with orthadox mormon parents, and I had mormon picture books showing the race thing very clear. Mormon teaching believe black people are cursed, any person raised in mormonism has been taught that.
I could find a hundred passages in the book of mormon which are racist. Just pick one up and read it.
Here are a few common quotes by Bringham young about black people.
"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind....Cain slew his brother. Can might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin." (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, page 290).
"In our first settlement in Missouri, it was said by our enemies that we intended to tamper with the slaves, not that we had any idea of the kind, for such a thing never entered our minds. We knew that the children of Ham were to be the "servant of servants," and no power under heaven could hinder it, so long as the Lord would permit them to welter under the curse and those were known to be our religious views concerning them." (Journal of Discourses, Volume 2, page 172.)
"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." (Journal of Discourses, Volume 10, page 110.)
it sounds scarey to be raised in a religion that believes that!
in scriptural evidence,i mean in the bible,not the book of mormon.or some other mormon thing.
and i did not mean you were discriminating,i meant it sounded like discrimination.(the teaching)
right, ok.
yeah, there is not really any bible scriptural sources that mormons go by, except that when cain killed abel, a “mark” was put upon cain or something. And mormons interpreted taht as being a dark skin.
However, mormonism is changing fast to try to put a nicer face on the religion . . . with lots of money in PR etc, so this old teaching might quickly be outdated.