The first Britons were black, DNA study reveals

[Dr. Who]

Aliens?

No, but not goldfinches choosing the brightest plummage either. These were people with language and social structure. Not animals.

[Chris]

No, but not goldfinches choosing the brightest plummage either. These were people with language and social structure. Not animals.

Yes, and? You've got a whole lot of explaining to do, and no science to support you. Good luck getting past your assertions.

[Dr. Who]

Yes, and? You've got a whole lot of explaining to do, and no science to support you. Good luck getting past your assertions.

Since the term "natural selection" was coined by Darwin to describe the process by which animals and other organisms choose mates better adapted to their environment thus tending to survive and produce more offspring, I don't believe that it applies to humans who make conscious choices unrelated hunting and escaping, or even fecundity, but instead to status and popularity.

[Dangermouse]

Natural selection is not about choosing mates, it's about a population's statistical survival rates of offspring in a changing environment.

[Chris]

Since the term "natural selection" was coined by Darwin to describe the process by which animals and other organisms choose mates better adapted to their environment thus tending to survive and produce more offspring, I don't believe that it applies to humans who make conscious choices unrelated hunting and escaping, or even fecundity, but instead to status and popularity.

Natural selection isn't selection of mates.

I remembered late last night where I've heard you theories before. It was Progressives in the late 1800s, early 1900s, who thought science had advanced enough to re-engineer society by getting rid of undesirables theough sterilization, marriage laws, and other "scientific" methods. Hitler and the Nazi like the Progressive "science" enough to adopt it in creating a master race and eliminating Jews. It's the same basic argument Progressives use today to defend abortion on unwanted babies.

So you're in good company, Dr Who.

[Chris]

Natural selection is not about choosing mates, it's about a population's statistical survival rates of offspring in a changing environment.

And really about a population's gene pool replicating, mutating and being selected for by its environment.

[Mister D]

I'm pretty sure that word of light-skinned people would have made it to the trade routes. It doesn't take millions of people to create light skinned tribes. Just thousands that don't outbreed much. If there were moderately light-skinned people from the upper ME plying their trade on the standard trade routes, word of who lives where would be communicated and those who were seeking more accommodating communities would have been directed to such places. We are talking about thousands of years of migrations of individuals in between mini ice ages. Only the strongest would have survived.

You're right, Who. Outcasts from dark skinned tribes teamed up across a vast and sparsely populated expanse and formed tribes to defend themselves. They followed the "trade routes" (before the existed, apparently) and they knew where to go because, you know, the word spread along the trade routes. The outcasts just packed lunch and followed the trade routes. That's a plausible theory.

[Mister D]

Why is that implausible? Migrant meets trader who tells him/her that there is a white tribe on the other side of that mountain. That tribe meets too much resistance and moves further north, eventually moving into the Netherlands. We are talking about thousands of years here. If white can discriminate against black, the opposite can also be true.

It's all so very plausible, Dr. Who. You should submit this for publishing.

[Mister D]

No the topic is not evolution. Read it again. It's not talking about suddenly evolving white people. It's suggesting that it's not sure how white people entered the population when virtually everyone wasn't white. If white were an evolutionary trait in the north, they would have become white long long ago. Whites have only cropped up recently in evolutionary terms. White showed up "suddenly" on the evolutionary scale. That suggests not evolution, but selective breeding of recessives. Just like no natural wild dog ever evolved into a Pekenese.

Your own source suggested that white skin was in fact favored in northern climates. They're just saying that it's not as simple as thery had thought. That it evolved isn't in question.

[Mister D]

No, it's not all that selective. Dark skinned people can and do live in the north. Have you looked at the Inuit? In winter they are light brown, exposed to a lot of sunlight they are very dark skinned. Light colored skin is a recessive, like albinoism - in fact probably derived from albinoism. White tribes were made, not evolved. If the center of humanity was Africa, then the first albinos moved into the ME/Mediterranean i.e. north. They kept migrating further north. Every European and Asian culture has relics of dark skinned ancestors, so they were invaded by light skinned people from outcast northern tribes who were very aggressive, much like the stories of the Vikings. At some point, light skin was selected by the ruling classes, no doubt originally because they were dominated by the invaders. Even in places like India and China, the ruling classes became light skinned. This certainly helped to distinguish the ruling classes from the peasants. However, what the ruling classes do, tends to be replicated by the upwardly mobile masses.

Albinism is pathological, Who.