Evolution and Human Diversity

[jonb]

Well, not very light-skinned. Too close to the Arctic Circle, and you can't have an agrarian society. Animals have more vitamin D than plants. They would, however, have very short arms and legs. A lot of human evolution has to do with temperature, simply because we are, bar none, the best distance runners in the animal kingdom. Thus, we can just chase any animal we're hunting and spear it when it's tired. It doesn't work so well in reverse, since we're among the worst sprinters. As such, though, our primary concern is maintaining a proper temperature. The relative length of one's arms and legs, as well as the cephalic index (maximum cranial breadth over maximum cranial length), provides a good indicator for the typical temperatures and humidity of the environment one's ancestors are from.

But as for "subspecies", these "subspecies" don't even fit cladistic requirements. Normally, subspecies are the extremes of a clinal pattern; not every organism will fall into one subspecies or another. Typically, subspecies can produce fertile offspring, which of course any two humans can, but the junk DNA rarely mixes.

 

[jonb]

Paedomorphosis and gerontomorphosis just mean that a gene affected the hormones. One anatomical trait may be more paedomorphic than another, but that doesn't make one by necessity superior to another in and of itself. The question is why a paedomorphic or gerontomorphic trait is favorable.

There is some West African paedomorphism as well: Less body hair, fullness of lips, less-defined brow ridges, and a flat nose come to mind. Ashley Montagu had a whole list of them, and I'll have it for you Monday. Southern Africans are more paedomorphic still, what with their epicanthic fold. East Africans, while not paedomorphic, are hypermorphic; the typical Kenyan girl has her first menstruation at age 18, according to Tanner.

Of course, on a paedomorphosis/gerontomorphosis scale, Mediterranean types are the most gerontomorphic and Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are the most paedomorphic. The latter still have a functioning thymus as adults.

Human evolution isn't "progressive", as it were.

BTW, a century ago, all the white racists saw themselves as the adults to a world of children; remember the "great white father" of all the Westerns? What about those Indian-themed camps? Or just read some psychoanalytic work like Freud, Jung, Adler, or Ferenczi, and you'll see this "primitive = childish" belief. (The idea of man as a microcosm is ancient; Haeckel first tied it to evolution, though.) Anatomists just provided a list of traits to prove this.

 

[jonb]

Yeah, the thing is, that's how evolutionary novelty works: Any mutation will change the degree of response to the hormone, the amount of hormone, or simply the onset or offset of a particular level of hormone. For example, a mutation making the bone growth plates close earlier will result in a smaller vertebrate.

 

[jonb]

Oh, I got the Montagu book. Here's the entire list of black neoteny:

Flattish nose
Flat root of the nose
Small ears
Narrow joints
Frontal skull eminences
Later closure of pre-maxillary sutures
Less hairy
Longer eyelashes
Cruciform pattern of lower second and third molars

Bushmen have their own list:

Less hairy
Large brain
Brachycephaly
Bulging forehead
Small cranial sinuses
Flat root o fnose
Small face
SMall mastoid processes
Wide eye separation
Median eye fold
Short stature
Horizontal penis

The Chinese and Japanese, of course, have the greatest neoteny.

 

[jonb]

Well, they were the most neotenic prior to the 20s, back when the "primitive as child" argument was popular. Things changed with Louis Bolk and other vitalistic theories explaining neoteny.

The current Big Racial Theory seems to focus on sexual behavior and intelligence. Apparently something to do with low environmental capacity in northern climates. Fools didn't even realize that postpartum taboos and institutionalized homosexuality correlate highly with low-capacity environment.

 

[lokican]

I'm a little confused mouse do you mean human races will elvolve to become different species?

 

[Freddie53]

This thread has the potential to become the most informative for many of us here. I have a request. I can understand what is being discussed if when word s like
neotenic, low capacity environment, eminences, Brahycepepaly, mastoid, Paedomorphosis, gerontomorphosis, and other terms are defined.

Overall, the writing is above the average person. I am having trouble myself. This being written to all the writers contributing not just to the person I happened to reply to.

Getting into the scientific realm is great. And I know that in a way it has become primarily a discussion between two very bright intelligent people. You both are very gifted. Nothing pleased me more as a teacher then for students to surpass my knowledge, even while in the classroom. I encouraged it. My hat is off to you.

Just as you write define the terms such as, "The arctic circle, the area close to the Nortj Pole, is very cold." The addiion of the "area close to the North Pole" is so helpful. You would be surprised at how many people don't know where the Arctic Circle is. Those short definitions in the middle of the sentence set off by commas are extremely helpful to those of us trying to keep up.

This thread left the cultural and political aspects of race sometime ago. That is great. I really appreciate all you especialy two of you are contributing. I want to know more. But please help me out with the definitions.

I sent this in because I suspect there are many here don't have the vocabulary skills needed to comprehend the writings, but also want to learn.

Again, thanks for your scientific contributions. If more people take the time to read this thread and understand it, more people will be influened.

This was written primarily to the two who have contributed the most. However, there have been others who wrote in as well using those "big words."

I will also start looking at what I write. I suspect that in my fields I have done the same thing.

Freddie

Originally posted by ChimeraTX+Mar 7 2005, 08:54 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ChimeraTX &#064; Mar 7 2005, 08:54 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-jonb@Mar 7 2005, 06:12 PM
Oh, I got the Montagu book. Here&#39;s the entire list of black neoteny:

Flattish nose
Flat root of the nose
Small ears
Narrow joints
Frontal skull eminences
Later closure of pre-maxillary sutures
Less hairy
Longer eyelashes
Cruciform pattern of lower second and third molars

Bushmen have their own list:

Less hairy
Large brain
Brachycephaly
Bulging forehead
Small cranial sinuses
Flat root o fnose
Small face
SMall mastoid processes
Wide eye separation
Median eye fold
Short stature
Horizontal penis

The Chinese and Japanese, of course, have the greatest neoteny.

[post=289035]Quoted post[/post]​

Aren&#39;t blacks the least neotenic though? I thought Khoisan peoples where dolichocephalic. They are one of the easiest skull types to recognize, for me, because they have such a flat vault.

[post=289083]Quoted post[/post]​

[/b][/quote]

 

[jonb]

neoteny -- retention of juvenile traits into adulthood, a.k.a. CUTEness
paedomorphosis -- same thing as neoteny; paedomorphosis can also occur due to an earlier offset of hormones
gerontomorphosis -- opposite of paedomorphosis
brachycephaly -- round head; to be more technical, it means the head is at most 25% longer than it is wide. Used primarily for description of skulls by paleontologists; ratio of head breadth to head length is also used by obstetricians.eminence -- protuberance from the surface of a body part
mastoid process -- a conical bone behind the ear; it&#39;s a site of muscle attachment
cruciform -- shaped like a cross
molars -- the back three teeth in an adult. Paleontologists refer to all teeth used for grinding as molars.
low-capacity environment -- as it sounds, the environment cannot contain many organisms of that niche, or that role in nature. This tends to favor delayed puberty, longer gestation, and fewer offspring per pregnancy; cultural adaptations to this kind of environment include postpartum taboos (where you can&#39;t have sex for a while after pregnancy), polyandry (multiple males marrying the same female), infanticide, and institutionalized homosexuality.