How Europeans evolved white skin (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: How Europeans evolved white skin (2015)

#81

Post by drb91 » Sun, Mar 18, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #36

drb91 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, the Indo European migration is presumed to be a trade/culture migration—there’s not a lot (any?) evidence that this resulted in much increased genetic transfer. Furthermore, I was under the impression milk consumption generally spread from the middle east with rudimentary cheese production with rennet, reducing the lactase to an easier to digest level. This might have been after the europeans starte…

> Just to be clear, the Indo European migration is presumed to be a trade/culture migration Not the case. You're making the "pots, not people" case, which ancient DNA evidence has thoroughly debunked. Changes in material culture usually do indicate large-scale population movements. Yamnaya remains from the Caucuses, for example, are genetically almost identical to the ones buried in the Corded Ware culture that sprea…

> Changes in material culture usually do indicate large-scale population movements.

I wasn’t trying to contradict this, rather that the any genetic migration correlated with a culture/language migration would have likely trailed significantly speed wise and should be demonstrated, not assumed. I am certainly not arguing for a lack of conflict :)

Re: How Europeans evolved white skin (2015)

#82

Post by taysic » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 12:40 AM UTC

alejohausner wrote: post #3

So vitamin D is the driving factor: either you lose melanin, or become lactose tolerant, or you die. With dark skin, you can't make enough D from sunlight. If you can't drink milk, you can't get it from diet. Either way, ancient Northern Europeans had to mutate into pale-skinned milk drinkers, because their land is not very sunny. Cool.

It is worth noting that some of the people migrating into Europe introducing some of the white skin genes were not from northern regions.

Re: How Europeans evolved white skin (2015)

#83

Post by taysic » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

drb91 wrote: post #27

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of this is tricky to untangle, because it's easy to intentionally or unintentionally conflate genetics/race, culture, and language, but at least culturally/linguistically the people of North India are related to the majority of the peoples of Europe. So Sanskrit, Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Assamese, Nepali etc. are all Indo-European languages, as are Latin, Greek, Russian, Danish, Icelandi…

Just to be clear, the Indo European migration is presumed to be a trade/culture migration—there’s not a lot (any?) evidence that this resulted in much increased genetic transfer. Furthermore, I was under the impression milk consumption generally spread from the middle east with rudimentary cheese production with rennet, reducing the lactase to an easier to digest level. This might have been after the europeans starte…

The R1a haplogroup is found throughout India, primarily in the North. It is also found primarily in Eastern Europe. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v6YlXJXhMvk/UJDwo_oAemI/AAAAAAAABR...

So there is some type of link but most likely both came from the Eurasian steppe and have an ancestral link.

Re: How Europeans evolved white skin (2015)

#84

Post by WillReplyfFood » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:51 AM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #24

irrational wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to read some introductory anthropology textbooks. For as long as there have been humans it has been us against them. Them/the others/the strangers/the not us are dangerous and cannot be trusted. There are specific rituals that an other must go through to become a part of the community - the means by which one of the others can become one of us. What separates us from them? It might be skin color, it mi…

You're not wrong, but it's worth saying that contemporary racism is qualitatively quite different from, say, Greek ideas about their own superiority or tribal conflicts generally. It's very nearly a caste system- you can be born next door, speak the same language, eat the same food, think the same way, and you will be treated differently based on racial judgements. That's quite different from "we Hill People hate the…

I wonder - why the suprise?

We strip humanity of the old caste system- which was beeing defined by there jobs- and they go and search for new definitions, and we - the shivas, the destroyers of worlds, stand in the ruins and wrench our hands? The priest beeing shocked on the existance of untoucheables..

We crafted this moment, this is what we worked for all along. If you can not accomplish anything in life as a commoner, you will draw meaning from what as who you where born and who your ancestors where..

You can not shake a world in its foundations and expect for good things to magically appear.

Also, the africa situation debunked a lot of left myths. All that aid, all those campaigns and ralleys, and in the end, some cultures rise and shine (china, korea, japan) from the ashes, while others just stagnate and decay, often with a painfully strong contrast existing nearby (israel).

If one does not discuss culture, and does not offer a powerfull alternative explenation, just leaving a discourse hole- people will find a answer for themselves.

The islamic worlds decay and the african mess, spilling out in all directions- sometimes the world produces the racism by just show and tell.

And yes, i know the usual explenations- africa is exploited, the islamic world has one huge conspiracy against it- but honestly they are as hollow as a bell. South korea had a conspiracy against it, china was exploited. Yet there they are. India is independent as long as china.

At the same time, the western culture has proofen itself to be unsubstainable, with a giant economic footprint demographically dwindling away, another fact conveniently never discussed to avoid unsettling the holy cows of the sun god.

It would be a miracle if with all those holes in the narrative, the old working defaults wouldnt rear there ugly heads.