Why is everyone different skin colours ?

Skin pigments are like filters, that block some light-frequencies out of the suns’ spectrum.

White people in Africa and Australia or middle America don’t have enough filtering. So they often have sunburn and are more likely to get skin cancer. So if you live anywhere near the equator its better for you if you got dark skin.

Black people in polar regions have too much filtering. So they often get vitamin D deficit and are more likely to get rachitis (rickets, makes your bones soft).

White people only get rickets if they work in mines and never see daylight.

So, in the past several thousand years pale humans in the equatorial regions hat greater risk of getting skin cancer, dying early and were thus less likely to produce offspring. Dark-skinned humans in the polar regions had greater risk of getting rickets thus of being disabled, dying early and were thus less likely to produce offspring.

It’s of course not immediately lethal to live in a region that does not fit your skin tone, but on the long run, unfit features just get extinct. Think of the immense number of generations. Think of the fact that it takes months to travel from Africa to Europe or Asia on foot (remember: they didn’t even have roads) You need the Bering Strait frozen to get from Asia to America. You need a hell of a lot of luck to get from Asia to Australia on a primitive boat.

About racism: Using skin color to determine the genetic heritage of a person is complete and utter bullshit. Really. If you consider asians a race, europeans a race and native americans a race, then there are about three dozen black races. Because there’s much greater genetic variety in the natives of Africa than in the natives of any other continent. In fact, if you’re white, then you might have greater genetic similarity to a Chinese guy than a black guy might have to some other black guy.

So there’s absolutely no way to discern even the inherited attributes of a person by the color of somebodies skin. And then a lot of who we are is not innate. Your parents, your education, your culture, your experience - all this changes you. And as you definitely can’t see any of that.

So, next time anyone tells you ‘Black guys are good at X, but white guys are better at why and Chinese guys do Z better than anyone else’ just say (or think) BULLSHIT!

As far as evolution is concerned, skin tone generally is determined by how much direct sunlight your body is able to absorb. Exposure to sunlight is one of the main ways our bodies produce Vitamin D (a process that has always seemed incredible strange to me, very plant-like). And the more melanin you have in your skin, the less sunlight your skin is going to absorb. More melanin means a darker skin tone, and a darker skin tone means less sunlight is absorbed.

So if your ancestors have spent 10,000 years living in Scotland or Norway or Iceland, where there is very little year-round direct sunlight, it’s very likely that you will inherit a genetic predisposition for light skin. If your ancestry can be traced to Congo or Brazil, where there is a great deal of year-round direct sunlight, you’ll likely have darker skin.

Nowadays, there is little evolutionary advantage to differing skin tones, and since travel is so fast and easy, we’re seeing a great deal of interracial mixing. In 1,000 years, perhaps we’ll all be a single shade. THEN what will we have to fight about?

I think maybe it is because millions of years ago, when people moved to hot places like Africa, Spain etc their skin got tanned and it went down through the generations. Maybe thats why people in those places have darker skin! I don’t know whether its correct, but it might be :D

dark shin is for climates with loads of sun so there able to handle it pale skins get burnt easier so there not meaqntn for too much sun damn ireland lol

Good advice mikeh But… I think humans will always have things to fight about =]

thanks :)