Re: Is the black race/culture under evolved (NON RACIST THREAD)?

On Jun 11, 11:07 am, "jgris...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <jgris...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Jun 11, 9:54 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:



jgris...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Jun 10, 8:36 pm, Artificer <eliezerfigue...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

As far as I know there are not "black" highly developed countries. I
mean countries like the USA, Japan or Europe but where the primary
race is black. Somebody told that this is prove that white and yellow
races are far more evolved.

My personal opinion is that the reason for these phenomena is more
historical than evolution related.

Anybody could please contribute with NON RACIST information in favor
or against this theory. I really will like to make an intelligent
discussion out of this!

Clearly, the adaptation of darker skin pigment and the adaptation of
the eyelid against glare are significant evolutionary advancements in
human biology. These are the qualities of a more evolved human than
the Asian and White "races". But, as a consequence of being better
adapted to their environment, Blacks don't have the same needs for
clothing to protect their skin from the sun or hats to protect their
eyes from glare, so no significant need to originate a textile
industry. Asians and whites have adapted their cultures to deal with
their biological shortcomings and having found ways to overcome their
shortcomings, they have learned to be inventive in many other ways.
Africans are better adapted to the environment, therefore the need to
be inventive is greatly reduced. Biological evolution is not equal to
industrial developement.

Nobody can fit more errors into a single paragraph than Grisham.

Dark skin has evolved many times in human populations and so has light
skin, in response to particular environments. Dark skin works better in
the tropics, light away from the tropics. Both are selected in their own
environments and neither can be said to be more "advanced". If we all
accept that we came from Africa, then it's probably that dark skin was
the original human condition.

And textiles are widely used for all manner of things, including
clothing, in Subsaharan Africa. Africa is not some paradise where life
is undemanding and conducive to indolence. Africans do not live and have
never lived in some imagined state of nature.

The last sentence is correct, though. Is one out of six a good average?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If we accept the "Out of Africa" scenario, then the original condition
would have been fur. Under the fur, the skin would have lacked
pigmentation.

May I point out two of our close cousins, the chimps and bonobos (as
well as all other tropical primates that I've ever seen) have black
skin?

In any event, we lost most of our fur by the time our ancestors were
home ergaster as an adaptation to running.

There's nothing to suggest that pigmentation was
reaccurring or reevolving over time, because the adaptation is set
genetically.

Ummm... evolution is the *change in alleles in a species over time,
remember? Darker skin is easy to do. Some of the European tribes moved
to India and got dark in just a few thousand years. We're not talking
about growing wings, here.

It occurred once, sometime in the age of Homo Sapien
Sapiens (recently, within the last 60,000 years). If it had occurred
before that, then the "races" wouldn't have been distributed as
regionally as they were

Why? The racial differences are trivial, and may easily have happened
after the different migratory groups diverged geographically and
became partially isolated.

and if it had occurred after the move from
Africa, then all the regions would have been more "racially" diverse.

Why? If anything they would have been less so, having more recently
spread out from one region. Why would less time result in more
diversity?

Because Africans were in Africa and Asians were in Asia and Whites
were in Europe, the pigmentation event could only have occurred once.

Why? Whites were in Europe because any group of humans living in
Europe long enough become white; it's an adaptation to less severe
sunlight. Why would the home of some of my ancestors affect the number
of times other groups of human could adapt to the tropical sun?


While Africa is not a paradise, yet before the intervention of white
cultures, native populations throughout the world were happier,
healthier and very well adjusted to their local cultures and
traditions.

I suspect most tribes were happier when they were still living as
hunter gatherers. Once they were forced to move to agriculture, then
they had cities, slavery, organized religions, major and prolonged
wars, plagues, and other unpleasantries.

Whites invented a number of problems for these cultures
(economics, slavery, politics, national identity, class, status, etc.)
which were alien and somewhat surreal.

Europeans (and later Americans) were financed with gold and developed
guns in recent history, and visited a number of other peoples with ill
intent and results. But it is ludicrous to assert that other cultures
had not developed these things.

Because these things are
constructs that exist only in the mind, people living and interacting
with nature have difficulty finding any virtue in them. To some
degree, it's just a white man's Hell, which wisely might best be
avoided, altogether... if, it were only possible.

You think the Mali Empire had no slaves?
You think there was no torture in China?
It wasn't Europeans who invented money.
Etc.


JTG later 6/11/07

Kermit

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