Evolution, Melanin And Brain Power
by
R.E. Prindle
There is a whole bunch of nonsense around on the topic of why some people have a lot of melanin and others have little. Melanin is the chemical compound that makes for skin color.
The most common argument is that melanin is somehow affected by heat producing more in the tropics and less in the temperate zones. According to this argument Caucasians are Negroes who have lived in the North for a long time thus losing their melanin. No attempt to offer a mechanism for the process is offered.
The argument can then be used to say that mankind has evolved to a point some hundred fifty thousand years ago when Homo Sapiens severed connections with the Last Hominid Predecessor and no further. A big bronx cheer for that notion.
In fact evolution has been continuing unabated since the LHP. Much of that evolution has been in the development of the capabilities of the brain. Now, when some physical change to an organ takes place the matter for the change must come from the existing reservoir of matter. It is impossible for new matter to be added to the reservoir to facilitate the change.
Thus if some function is added to the brain then the matter to do so must come from somewhere else in the organism. If one organ is increased or added then another must be diminished or eliminated.
Now, if the continuing evolution takes place in one species of Homo Sapiens and not the others that must create a visible physical difference. It has to be.
I am going to suggest that the material for the evolution of the Caucasian brain was provided by the conversion of melanin to the changes in the Caucasian brain. The use of the melanin left the Caucasian White or pale. Thus without the evoltuion of the brain the Caucasian would still be Black while still standing at the intellectual capacity of the Black African.
I don’t need to quote the views of James Watson but there you have it.
Thus the thermometer has nothing to do with skin color but the surfeit or lack of melanin probably has something to do with IQ.
I have said it before and I see no reason as yet to change my opinion, Blacks and Caucasians are two different species of Homo Sapiens or well on the way to being so.
10 Comments
When humans migrated North, the selective pressure for expression of melanin producing genes was removed. So the expression of those genes became useless resulting in lighter skin color.
Where did you get the idea that “No attempt to offer a mechanism for the process is offered”?
heard of vestigial organs? the appendix, tail muscle… could they be the ’somewhere else in the organism to the brain’? Obviously you have not. And if you did what would happen to your nice views and theories? The only thing melanin would do to a Caucasian or any brain for that matter is make it darker. All the same it was really funny reading this. Quite sure the novel you are writing is a joke book.
The nature of evolution is such that as the humans evolved any changes in one place had to be taken from another place. As the appendix is disappearing then the tissues, the cells, must be reappearing somewhere else.
Keep working at it Anu you’ll get the hang of it.
Please order a copy of my book. If it is a joke book I guarantee you’ll get some laughs. It’s only 14.95. What’s that to you? Come on, buy it.
sure, sure! if only evolution happened faster… would love to see where the tail reappears!
always for a laugh, I will.
nice day
Alright. You too, Anu.
I think Caucasians have been genetically and selectively tampered with because albinism is abnormal in natural environments. Polar bears are white, but they still produce melanin, its in their skin, which is still black, brain (neuromelanin), reproductive organs, like most animals and life on earth. Melanin in the brain and body does more than just “make it darker”. Melanin on the inside as well as outside protects against DNA degradation, it enhances, speeds up the transmition of messages to the brain and body, which is as to why people of color have a tendency to have a higher and quicker level of motor skills and response, and melanin also protects the reproductive system, that is why you rarely ever see any Mexicans and other people of color visiting impotency centers.
I’ve read through the comment and the article and I have to say that this form of reasoning is terrible at best.
What you call evolution is in fact a reversal of evolution. What is identified as being civilized is no other then animistic in behavior. All thinks on this planet have color e.g. melanin and I’m not even going to run through the genetics dealing with DNA but pale skin tone does not fit in with this planet nature. Listen, and again I speak without using genetics, religion, etc … Creating weapons of mass destruction is not civilized or a statement of evolution. Stealing whole continents is not evolution, its evil or more so animistic. Civilized and evolution is the ability to co-exist with all inhabitants on the planet and thus majority of Europeans have failed to do as such.
You cannot compare Africans, African Americans, etc to European theories of evolution because your views of evolution is reversed based on the historical ideology of the word. You cannot judge evolution based on your format of reading, writing, language, your history, failing medicine, and even worse, your math. You cannot judge evolution when you only speak one language while kids in African speak 5+ languages.
People who look for ways to be superior are at best ignorant and at worst jealous over things that cannot be changed. African, your heritage is sitting back watching how your destroying this planet and your times is almost up. P.S. Get some education so that way I can debate your claims on a anthropological, archaeological, linguistic, genetic, etymological & historical level.
ru2: I have posted a reply to your comment under the title An African Speaks His Mind. I hope you’ll like it.
Is this a joke? If so, it’s not funny. If not, you’ve got a bit of research to do.
I think the basic idea here is that early humans probably started out with light skin covered with dark hair (what chimps look like) and later developed dark skin when they lost all the body hair. Dark skin (melanin) evolved in equatorial regions, where sun exposure is high, to protect humans from UV radiation’s reduction of spermatogenesis and destruction of DNA and folic acid. The loss of melanin evolved when humans moved away from equatorial regions to higher latitudes, where the lack of sunlight exerted selective pressure on humans to develop lighter skin so that they’d get adequate levels of vitamin D from the limited sunlight. Females of all races have slightly lighter skin because vitamin D is so important for child development (children without enough vitamin D develop ricketts). To read more, check out this paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJS-45F4X4V-13&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8f238e32e70b70686c29b8fc1ca9dd00
Now, where did you get this idea: “when some physical change to an organ takes place the matter for the change must come from the existing reservoir of matter”? No. How does an organ change? Well, for example, the skin changed from light to dark in sunny areas in the following way: the population had heritable variations in skin color, darker skin allowed for more reproduction or for higher survival of offspring (and lighter skin caused a lower offspring survival rate, due to lack of folic acid), offspring inherited the darker skin trait, and the process continued. Go read the Wikipedia page on “Natural Selection.”
You say in your “About” page that you’re, “interested in evolution and the politics of species,” and that you’ve “thought about these problems more than somewhat.” You also say, referring to the profound and delicate absurdities of conspiracy theory, that, “You have to do a lot of reading.” I’d suggest you take your own advice, but spend your time reading about something more worthwhile than conspiracy theory. Speaking about evolution without first reading on it seems to have lead you to dangerous places. You’re shaming your age bracket, proving that an old dog can’t learn new tricks. You’re embarrassing this country. It’s a tragedy that we’re going to have to wait for your generation, and the offspring whose minds you’ve tainted and degraded, to die off before we can approach racial harmony.
Please, please, please educate yourself and stop polluting your mind and the internet with this nonsense. I’m sick of being reduced to tears when pages like this show up in my Google searches.
Dear ‘guest’.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to respond.
What you proffer is the usual ad hominem argument of your kind. You do at least attempt to offer some sort of rational refutation. As with your kind you hide behind anonymity merely identifying yourself as ‘guest.’ I would have done the same in your situation.
If I shame my ‘country’ as you put it, you shame the whole human race. Alright, now that we’ve squared away let’s deal with the arguments.
Quote:
I think the idea that early humans started out with light skins covered with dark hair…and later developed dark skin and lost all their hair…
Unquote.
Interesting but it has nothing do with what I wrote or think.
Your argument, unsupported by any description of a mechanism, is that Homo Sapiens began in the tropics of Africa with high melanin content in the skin because this somehow ’screens out’ UV rays. Or, in other words, Black skin will not be burned by unlimited exposure to the sun. Then Black people migrated North where the strength of the sun is so low it won’t burn anybody Black or White. I can personally contradict your assertion on both accounts. You argue that over an undetermined period of time the Black person adapts to this situation turning milk white while growing a bridged nose, presumably because the high bridge makes breathing cold, thin Northern air so much easier than a broad flat one. Now, these changes are mere adapations but not evolution. Am I understanding you?
Here’s another problem for you. ‘Europeans’ don’t come from Europe. They come from Central Asia. They ‘migrated’ to Europe during historical times, even recent historical times. In Central Asia they lived cheek by jowl with Mongolids. Now, Mongolids have a much higher melanin content than ‘Europeans.’ The steppes of Asia are both colder and hotter than Europe yet the same conditions produced different levels of Melanin. I’m sure you have a ready explanation for that.
Now, ‘guest’ according to many, Homo Sapiens evolved from the Last Hominid Predecessor 150 thousand years ago. We know from experience in the US that 500 years isn’t long enough to even begin bleaching Africans. I expect, since you speak so confidently, that you can tell the world exactly how long it does take. When will all people in North America be White? C’mon fix a date.
I also expect that you can explain how Black people turned both White and Yellow in Central Asia under the same conditions. Or even why Eskimos are dark while living under the lowest sun on earth.
Back to Africa and gorillas. It seems to me that if as, as you say, high melanin is protective against a hot burning sun then a hairy coat such as gorillas wear is even better. One has to assume that the hominid predecessors sometime in the past had both a hairy coat and a tail. How do you say the hominid predecessors ‘lost’ their extremely beneficial hair and tail? How do you say gorillas lost their tail but retained their hair?
And why did HS lose the maximum protection against the sun provided by a full coat of hair when chimps and gorillas under identical conditions didn’t? There’s an easy one for you.
Wikipedia? My goodness, the very voice of God, truly. I’d believe anything they say ‘guest.’ Are you aware that many people say Wikipedia is completely unreliable?
I’ll match reading lists against you any day.
Answer the questions. I’m waiting.