Ever wondered why there's this much variation in skin color?
I will share my insight and hypothesis...
Common Skin color of haired mammals is pale.
After Ice age due to rise in temperature,
when human beings started shedding body hair to facilitate sweating,
diversification of skin tone occurred.
Evolutionary pressure from various sides lead to the current spectrum of skin tones.
Humanity originated in Africa and migrated to other continents.
During this migration there was gene flow between these isolated groups (they had sex).
This further complicated the evolution of skin color.
Pale skin tone was superior in Temperate zone.
Why?
Vitamin D is the key.
Pregnant women need lot of vitamin D for Skeletal Maturation of fetus.
So Dark skinned mothers in Temperate zone had fetuses with
Skeletal defects and gradually became extinct.
You can see this if u compare skin tone of men and women of same ethnicity.
In general, Women have paler skin tone than men due to increased requirement of vit D.
Testosterone makes skin tone darker.
Dark skin is superior for men as in course of evolution,
they spent their time outside in sun hunting and gathering food.
So dark skin gives protection from uv.
Dark skin tone is Superior in Tropics.
Why?
This perplexed researchers for a long time.
The reason for this was only discovered recently.
Folic Acid is the key.
Pregnant women need lots of folic acid.
Folic acid is a fragile vitamin.
It is easily destroyed by UV-A rays in sunlight.
So pale skinned women in tropics,
gave birth to babies with neural tube defects
and they gradually became extinct.
Another important factor is Sexual Selection.
Mating Preference of women for men with specific features further complicated this.
In India, a caste system existed.
People of higher caste, were not working outside,
so their skin tone was pale.
Lower caste worked outside in intense sun.
So they had dark skin tone.
So Dark skin became less preferable.
But from an Evolutionary Standpoint,
Dark skin is an advanced trait...
Congratulations @drgmancm! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPThat's interesting...so, that's why skin tone has some importance in sexual attraction? because it's related to the health status of the person?
yes...
Hi!
I did read through the article and got some suggestions. Give sources, both for pics and for the text; makes it look more credible. Also, make sure the pics are free to use (google images is a big no no :P)
Also join the SteemSTEM channel on steemitchat, you tend to meet up more people who're into your line of work. Its more active on discord though.
~ Stel.
Congratulations @drgmancm! You have received a personal award!
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Congratulations @drgmancm! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!