tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post6878550902688699757..comments2024-03-22T15:55:34.030-04:00Comments on Evo and Proud: European Hair, Eye, and Skin Color: Solving the PuzzlePeter Frosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04303172060029254340noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-14639471206977258592022-10-14T11:40:50.004-04:002022-10-14T11:40:50.004-04:00Peter,
I have emailed Academic Press as you sugge...Peter,<br /><br />I have emailed Academic Press as you suggested, inquiring about a lower-priced paperback edition that would be more affordable for amateur enthusiasts. Thanks.siriusactuarynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-4455420735523309942022-10-10T17:40:22.753-04:002022-10-10T17:40:22.753-04:00I think Caucasians are bizarrely different from ot...<i>I think Caucasians are bizarrely different from other human populations, so the selection of distinctive facial patterns generally found in this group may have come first. But of course I have no evidence of that.<br /><br />After all, do typically Caucasian facial features have any relationship to clear complexion??<br /><br />It is also important to clarify about “the inhabitants of Europe had dark skin”. People imagine a black African male, but it is possible/likely that he was a human with more tanned skin, and more Caucasian features, based on the hypothesis that facial features were selected first.</i><br /><br />Peter does specify "European", which is a subset of "Caucasian", a more general category that also includes populations that are mainly dark haired/eyed with olive or dark complexions. <br /><br />There are examples of people in the Middle East and South Asia who have dark skin with Caucasian features. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-7143631047444075302022-10-10T17:35:23.619-04:002022-10-10T17:35:23.619-04:003. Thick straight hair remained prevalent in the e...<i>3. Thick straight hair remained prevalent in the eastern group but disappeared in the western group. Nonetheless, it was still present in half of Europeans as late as 8,000 years ago, according to ancient DNA from Motala, Sweden. Today, its incidence is 87% in East Asians and about 1% in Europeans.</i><br /><br />If by "Europeans" we mean the modern populations derived from some composite of hunter-gatherers/Indo-Europeans/EEFs, then those in Motala, Sweden 8,000 years ago would have been a different group, no? Perhaps analogous to the Amerindians who were largely replaced in North America.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-16263353640254401052022-10-09T17:44:28.483-04:002022-10-09T17:44:28.483-04:00I think Caucasians are bizarrely different from ot...I think Caucasians are bizarrely different from other human populations, so the selection of distinctive facial patterns generally found in this group may have come first. But of course I have no evidence of that.<br /><br />After all, do typically Caucasian facial features have any relationship to clear complexion??<br /><br />It is also important to clarify about “the inhabitants of Europe had dark skin”. People imagine a black African male, but it is possible/likely that he was a human with more tanned skin, and more Caucasian features, based on the hypothesis that facial features were selected first.Santocoolnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-48045740236837812822022-10-09T17:38:28.106-04:002022-10-09T17:38:28.106-04:00''Santocool,
I suspect that toxoplasma br...''Santocool,<br /><br />I suspect that toxoplasma breaks down social and cultural inhibitions. A half-century ago, such "dis-inhibited" individuals would have become radical Marxists. Today, they become radical traditionalists.<br /><br />We need more research on Candida species and their behavioral effects.''<br /><br /><br />I have a lot of reservations about parasites altering human behavior. I understand that this can happen with other species. But the human species is too complex. Even if there is an interaction, I don't believe the results are so dramatic, that the effect can be more localized.<br /><br />Remember that any such study finds correlations. This means that not all study individuals who tested positive for "toxoplasma infection" showed the same political-ideological tendencies.Santocoolnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-72176569131024695592022-10-09T14:23:49.129-04:002022-10-09T14:23:49.129-04:00Jb,
Europeans became more and more reproductively...Jb,<br /><br />Europeans became more and more reproductively isolated from North Asians with the onset of the glacial maximum (about 17 thousand years ago). This relative reproductive isolation continued into the Mesolithic and the Neolithic as populations became larger, less nomadic, and more fixed within smaller territories. Selection for light skin in present-day North Asians took place largely after the glacial maximum, if only because there had been widespread extinction of North Asian populations at the glacial maximum.<br /><br />I believe that selection for new hair and eye colors took place during the first half of the ice age (before the glacial maximum) within the steppe-tundra stretching from the Baltic to central Siberia. Blonde hair has been dated to 18,000 years ago, according to ancient DNA retrieved from a site in central Siberia.<br /><br />As for hair form, here is a cut-and-paste from the book:<br /><br />1. In a population ancestral to Europeans and East Asians, hair became thick, straight, and long some 30,000 years ago via a derived allele at the EDAR gene.<br /><br />2. Those ancestral Eurasians split into two groups: a western group that would become present-day Europeans and an eastern group that would become present-day East Asians. <br /><br />3. Thick straight hair remained prevalent in the eastern group but disappeared in the western group. Nonetheless, it was still present in half of Europeans as late as 8,000 years ago, according to ancient DNA from Motala, Sweden. Today, its incidence is 87% in East Asians and about 1% in Europeans. <br /><br />4. Europeans thus went from thick straight hair to thin hair with diverse forms: about 45% now have straight hair, about 40% wavy hair, and about 15% curly hair. Curly hair is thus a derived trait among Europeans and not a holdover from ancestral Africans. Hair form became diverse in Europeans probably for the same reason that hair and eye color did—a desire for novelty. Indeed, an Austrian study has shown that women tend to change their hair form to a less commonPeter Frosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04303172060029254340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-43196421150326784392022-10-09T11:33:48.794-04:002022-10-09T11:33:48.794-04:00The reason I asked about East Asians is that the a...The reason I asked about East Asians is that the alleles responsible for their light skin are different from those responsible for light skin in Europeans. It sounds like you are saying that lightening of skin was a process that happened independently in Europe and East Asia, while sexual selection for hair and eye color was a different process that happened only in Europe. Do I have that right?<br /><br />Also, how well do we understand hair <i>form</i>? It seems to me that, with the possible exception of some Melanesians, "kinky hair" is unique to sub-Saharan Africans, and sharply differentiates them phenotypically from the rest of the world, certainly more so than skin color. Yet I've seen very little discussion of what would appear to be a highly informative trait in terms of understanding the history of the deepest genetic division of the human race.<br /><br />For example, if the earliest Europeans did <i>not</i> have kinky hair that would suggest to me that maybe there is something to Dienekes' idea that the ancestors of modern non-Africans were separated from those of modern sub-Saharans for a very long time, perhaps in Arabia, before moving on to the rest of the world, and that hair straightening, and possibly other changes, could have taken place there. Anyway, do you have any thoughts on this?jbnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-35592088885116735142022-10-09T09:39:31.258-04:002022-10-09T09:39:31.258-04:00Santocool,
I suspect that toxoplasma breaks down ...Santocool,<br /><br />I suspect that toxoplasma breaks down social and cultural inhibitions. A half-century ago, such "dis-inhibited" individuals would have become radical Marxists. Today, they become radical traditionalists.<br /><br />We need more research on Candida species and their behavioral effects.Peter Frosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04303172060029254340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-26640015541011852962022-10-08T17:43:39.324-04:002022-10-08T17:43:39.324-04:00https://www.psypost.org/2022/10/a-common-parasitic...https://www.psypost.org/2022/10/a-common-parasitic-disease-called-toxoplasmosis-might-alter-a-persons-political-beliefs-63999<br /><br />I already said I wouldn't comment here anymore, but this study excited me to go back just to post and conclude that any study on parasites and human behavior and their results always seems so random...<br /><br />On the subject of the text.<br /><br />Scandinavians are the blondest, but have the fewest redheads. Redheads appear more often where there are lighter brunettes. The British have more redheads and light brunnettes [Norwegians have a middle ground pattern between Brits and Scandinavians] and is lighter skin too, of course, before the invasion.Santocoolnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-40361040094696390302022-10-07T11:44:32.513-04:002022-10-07T11:44:32.513-04:00Anon,
Fair hair does occur among the indigenous i...Anon,<br /><br />Fair hair does occur among the indigenous inhabitants of Australia and Melanesia. In Central Australia, the incidence is 85% for both sexes up to ten years of age. Male hair then darkens, its color ranging from medium brown to black during adolescence and being almost always dark beyond the age of twenty. In contrast, female hair darkens only after twenty and is seldom darker than light brown even in old age.<br /><br />So this might be due to a similar selection pressure that is aimed both at women and at children. I discuss this possibility in the book.<br /><br />Jb,<br /><br />It looks like the "epicenter" of sexual selection was in eastern Europe and parts of Siberia during the last ice age. Lightening of skin color may have taken place over a wider geographic area, as seems to have been the case with straightening and lengthening of head hair. The latter evolutionary changes may have required a lower threshold of sexual selection (in comparison to diversification of hair and eye color).<br /><br />Sirius,<br /><br />Please send an email to Academica Press (academicapress.editorial@gmail.com) and tell them what you told me. I argued with the editor over the pricing, making the same points you made. He was confident that the book could be sold as a hardcover at that price.Peter Frosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04303172060029254340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-23621824503769738472022-10-06T23:11:17.496-04:002022-10-06T23:11:17.496-04:00golazo!golazo!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-9842195063479105102022-10-06T19:55:47.829-04:002022-10-06T19:55:47.829-04:00nice work Peter. nice work Peter. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-80650174014342959262022-10-06T05:04:21.829-04:002022-10-06T05:04:21.829-04:00High lattitudes. Did you even read the words, or u...High lattitudes. Did you even read the words, or use your brain?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-53457806197055258002022-10-05T11:23:55.112-04:002022-10-05T11:23:55.112-04:00Peter, do you know if there will be a lower-priced...Peter, do you know if there will be a lower-priced paperback edition of your new book? As an amateur enthusiast I find your work quite fascinating but the academic press book pricing is rather steep for individuals. Thanks, and thanks for all the work you put in to this blog.siriusactuarynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-91334650991297097292022-10-04T16:02:01.505-04:002022-10-04T16:02:01.505-04:00What is your explanation for the light skin color ...What is your explanation for the light skin color of East Asians?jbnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-16263863198507817142022-10-04T08:45:38.042-04:002022-10-04T08:45:38.042-04:00It would have been interesting if said female surp...It would have been interesting if said female surplus occurred in the tropics more often. Would there have been darker skin. But brightly colored hair and eyes?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com