Whiteness is an Evolutionary Advantage

Humans evolved fair skin to allow us to expand North into bountiful regions like Europe and Siberia. To understand this often-controversial statement, it can be useful to unpack it into these well-documented facts:

• techniques such as genotyping have shown that homo sapiens first differentiated from other primates on the plains of Southern Africa over 2 million years ago
• various homo sapien subspecies spread to Northern Africa and even Asia at various times beginning around 1,800,000 years ago
• others, mostly unchanged, have remained in Southern Africa (such as the indigenous KhoiSan people)

• dark skin contains high levels of melanin
• melanin protects against the sun's UV radiation
• vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) is produced in the skin when exposed to UV radiation from the sun
• even though it is supplemented in many common modern foods, vitamin D3 deficiency is extremely common, and contributes to most of the leading causes of human illness and death, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, COPD, stunted growth, osteoporosis, respiratory infections, and autoimmune disorders
• very few foods (livers, egg yolks, lichen, and mushrooms grown in UV radiation) contain vitamin D3, but being outdoors in sunny climates allows most people to produce sufficient amounts
• dark-skinned people are more likely to suffer vitamin D3 deficiency because their melanin blocks much more of the sun's light, especially when living away from the equator where the sun's UV radiation is greatly reduced, and are more likely to need supplementation to remain healthy
• dark-skinned individuals and their descendants who live on Northern (or Southern) parts of the planet slowly lose skin pigmentation and become lighter-skinned
• light-skinned populations are indigenous to Europe and Russia, and when they move close to the equator suffer from more skin cancer and folate (vitamin B9) deficiency

Academics, scientists, and researchers on every corner of the globe acknowledge the above facts, and conclude that fair skin is an evolutionary advantage to allow humans to survive and thrive when living far away from the equator. Even mainstream sources like Wikipedia admit the above facts, and clearly state the conclusion that white humans evolved from black and brown humans via thousands of years of natural selection.

Why, then, does this fact remain controversial among the general population? Are some of us afraid of being called "racist" for observing the facts and speaking the truth? There's nothing racist about it. What would actually be racist would be to continue to refute, oppose, and censor this fact, denying the diverse populations of Earth the chance to understand and embrace their ethnic heritage and history. It doesn't mean anyone is inherently more valuable than anyone else.

Facts are not prejudicial or discriminatory. We evolved white skin to be able to spread across the Earth, leading to innovations in science and culture. Humanity is what it is today because of this advancement. This reality does not denigrate anyone, nor does it diminish the fact that we are all one species - one big diverse family with innumerous strengths and advantages. Instead of the division caused by hiding and denying truths about ourselves, we should embrace and benefit from our differences, which are, after all, minor compared to our myriad similarities.

"A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth, finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time." - Carl Sagan

DRutter

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