Poll: Black or white?

[Baldry]

Now this topic which was plaguing my mind as I tried to drift into slumber-land the other night. I begun thinking that since its supposed that humans originate from Africa then the common idea would we would all be black, but black people are black because of skin pigments that are exposed to the sun and the ice age was caused by the meteor and caused enough smoke to block out the sun, but during that time humans came to be and since their may of been no sun the skin must of been white...

Now I know it doesn't matter but its the reason I didn't fall asleep till 5 in the morning and i'd like an answer! Also I know that its most likely some of my, if not all, my facts are wrong and if so correct me, but I just want to know who came first. The black man, or the white?

 

[El Poncho]

Black, the earlier human evidence found has been found in Africa, from there we migrated all across the world, evolving to the suitable conditions.(skin colour/facial colour etc.)

 

[Emphasis]

Haha, at first I thought this was some sort of anti one race thread.. I broke out into a serious case of lolwuts

 

[microhive]

Black skinned humans, who ventured north from the African continent, had to adapt to the harsh sunless climate in Europe. The skin produces necessary vitamins for the body to function, however, this process is driven by sunlight thus those who had evolved whiter skins were able to extract more energy from the sun light and they'd be selected for. That's how we got white people.

tl;dr

Black people.

 

[reg42]

We started black, but our pigmentation adapted to better suite our climate

 

[Penguinness]

I'm not sure, I picture them being a very hairy looking bunch. I guess it'd be a darker shade of yellow? Certainly nothing like today's pigments.

 

[Syphous]

I am a firm believer that humans were originally neon pink. I'm also quite insane. HAW HAHA!

 

[Souplex]

Humans, who ventured north from the African continent, had to adapt to the harsh sunless climate in Europe. The skin produces necessary vitamins for the body to function, however, this process is driven by sunlight thus those who had evolved whiter skins were able to extract more energy from the sun light and they'd be selected.

Just because people from Africa are black, doesn't mean it was the default color when humans first evolved. We evolved from rather hairy monkeys that had layers of fur covering their skin so they wouldn't need much skin pigmentation. Pigmentation is an evolved trait anyways I'm assuming, so the first humans were probably pretty albino looking. More pigmented humans simply had an advantage in a warm climate so it spread around Africa.

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the earliest human corpses ever discovered found to have black skin?

Either way, black skin makes more sense.

 

[microhive]

Humans, who ventured north from the African continent, had to adapt to the harsh sunless climate in Europe. The skin produces necessary vitamins for the body to function, however, this process is driven by sunlight thus those who had evolved whiter skins were able to extract more energy from the sun light and they'd be selected.

Just because people from Africa are black, doesn't mean it was the default color when humans first evolved. We evolved from rather hairy monkeys that had layers of fur covering their skin so they wouldn't need much skin pigmentation. Pigmentation is an evolved trait anyways I'm assuming, so the first humans were probably pretty albino looking. More pigmented humans simply had an advantage in a warm climate so it spread around Africa.

I heard that humans lost their furr in Africa because it wasn't necessary since the climate was warm.

 

[wfpdk]

well... seeing as how the reason we have so little body hair and no longer have opposable toes is because for a short time in our evolutionary past humans tried to live in the water, so once they became land animals, again, I'd assume they'd be light skinned, not really black or white, so i guess I'd say the first human could possibly be blue.

 

[microhive]

well... seeing as how the reason we have so little body hair and no longer have opposable toes is because for a short time in our evolutionary past humans tried to live in the water, so once they became land animals, again, I'd assume they'd be light skinned, not really black or white, so i guess I'd say the first human could possibly be blue.

There hasn't been any facts to support that speculation.

 

[Valkyrie101]

Most likely somewhere in between, but closer to black than white.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

A combination of who cares and it doesn't matter.

Seriously, from an anthropolgical standpoint it might be interesting for a scientist to know for the development of different skin colours, but for your average person it shouldn't really matter.

 

[KnowYourOnion]

Black skinned humans, who ventured north from the African continent, had to adapt to the harsh sunless climate in Europe. The skin produces necessary vitamins for the body to function, however, this process is driven by sunlight thus those who had evolved whiter skins were able to extract more energy from the sun light and they'd be selected for. That's how we got white people.

tl;dr

Black people.

Urm people don't absorb energy from sunlight as far as I remember........It's plants that do that. Besides white is a more reflective colour than black, it reflects all shades of the spectrum rather than none so actually black should be better at absorbing sunlight.

OT: Would it be outrageous to assume that there were both black and white people at the start anyway and there the northern places became white because they migrated there from Africa where their skin colour wouldn't do them any favours i.e a high chance of skin cancer? Where as a higher percentage of darker skin tones remained in the hotter equatorial climates.

This is all just conjecture I have absolutely no facts to base this theory on

 

[microhive]

Black skinned humans, who ventured north from the African continent, had to adapt to the harsh sunless climate in Europe. The skin produces necessary vitamins for the body to function, however, this process is driven by sunlight thus those who had evolved whiter skins were able to extract more energy from the sun light and they'd be selected for. That's how we got white people.

tl;dr

Black people.

Urm people don't absorb energy from sunlight as far as I remember........It's plants that do that. Besides white is a more reflective colour than black, it reflects all shades of the spectrum rather than none so actually black should be better at absorbing sunlight.

OT: Would it be outrageous to assume that there were both black and white people at the start anyway and there the northern places became white because they migrated there from Africa where their skin colour wouldn't do them any favours i.e a high chance of skin cancer? Where as a higher percentage of darker skin tones remained in the hotter equatorial climates.

This is all just conjecture I have absolutely no facts to base this theory on

Well, the difference is that the skin uses the sun rays to produce vitamin D and if you were dark coloured in northern Europe the weak rays wouldn't penetrate the dead skin as easily while The plants uses the photons from the sun to drive the photosynthesis to make glucose e.g. sugar.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Czargent Sane]

black people are not just "a different color" there are distinct differences between races. thats why experts can determine someone's race if all they have is a skeleton.

 

[derdeutschmachine]

the oldes human remains... at least the last time I checked, were found in south africa. They were as Souplex mentioned fairly hairy. That means they could have had multiple variations of skin pigmentation an as with any adaptation humans have gone through, some would die off and others would live on. It's not so much a question of black or white its the survivablity of the race as a whole to produce such a varied and adaptable product that we are today.

 

[nuba km]

when human first evolved we had fur meaning that our skin didn't change due to sun. as we evolved and spread we lost the fur so the sun changed our skin colour. meaning that black and white people came at the same time. anyway I would just like to say that skin colour is genetic and the gene for being black is a dominant gene so in the future nearly everyone will be black (I'm talking about in 200 years time).

 

[Oskar K]

i choose white... Wpww