AutisticBeaner
Nosebreather
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so this is how early humans got to the different continents
the only important thing to take away from this is that humans were dark skinned at first (in africa) and over time some of them became lighter skinned (the ones that migrated to europe and the northern asia).
the lighter your skin is the more vitamin d you receive by exposing it to the sun. in europe and the upper part of asia the sun doesn't shine as often and as strongly as it does in africa, so when humans first went to europe and so on, they got less vitamin d. vitamin d is very important for survival (already just because it makes your bones stronger), so the people that had lighter skin had a higher chance of survival. so as you'd expect the people's skin colors got lighter and lighter.
but this doesn't quite explain why those people would be more attracted to lighter skin.
let's look at this from the perspective of a female. a female is looking for a male whose genes will grant the offspring the highest chance of survival. in the aforementioned regions having lighter skin would be one (or multiple) of those genes. though humans have never come across lighter skin before, so the female doesn't have any predisposition to it (this is why I think africans don't have any preference for lighter skin). now read the following sentence very carefully.
females that were attracted to lighter skin had a higher chance of reproducing a child with lighter skin (because the female was more likely to reproduce with someone with lighter skin) and a child with lighter skin had a higher chance of survival. this child would possibly inherit the attraction to lighter skin. so individuals that were attracted to lighter skin had a higher chance of survival. fast forward a couple thousand years, everyone has white skin and everyone is attracted to white skin.
this also works from the perspective of a male btw, it's just a little less obvious.
the only important thing to take away from this is that humans were dark skinned at first (in africa) and over time some of them became lighter skinned (the ones that migrated to europe and the northern asia).
the lighter your skin is the more vitamin d you receive by exposing it to the sun. in europe and the upper part of asia the sun doesn't shine as often and as strongly as it does in africa, so when humans first went to europe and so on, they got less vitamin d. vitamin d is very important for survival (already just because it makes your bones stronger), so the people that had lighter skin had a higher chance of survival. so as you'd expect the people's skin colors got lighter and lighter.
but this doesn't quite explain why those people would be more attracted to lighter skin.
let's look at this from the perspective of a female. a female is looking for a male whose genes will grant the offspring the highest chance of survival. in the aforementioned regions having lighter skin would be one (or multiple) of those genes. though humans have never come across lighter skin before, so the female doesn't have any predisposition to it (this is why I think africans don't have any preference for lighter skin). now read the following sentence very carefully.
females that were attracted to lighter skin had a higher chance of reproducing a child with lighter skin (because the female was more likely to reproduce with someone with lighter skin) and a child with lighter skin had a higher chance of survival. this child would possibly inherit the attraction to lighter skin. so individuals that were attracted to lighter skin had a higher chance of survival. fast forward a couple thousand years, everyone has white skin and everyone is attracted to white skin.
this also works from the perspective of a male btw, it's just a little less obvious.