Skin Color is an Illusion

Charles Darwin

“Of all the differences between races of man, the colour of the skin is the most conspicuous and one of the best marked […] does not coincide with corresponding differences in climate” This is a quote from Darwin’s The Descent of Man, written in 1871. In today’s world, due to modern technology, we know that Darwin’s remarks were flat out wrong because the amount of UV radiation in an area directly corresponds to skin pigmentation.

The Anthropology of the Situation

Because of our knowledge on climate/location relative to the equator, we can gauge skin color, ultimately turning it into a gradient among the world. 3.3 million years ago, however, when the species homo first came about, members had darkly pigmented skin as they lived near the equator. And that’s how melanin came about, protecting skin from DNA damage. Yet, humans dispersed into the Northern Hemisphere, where regions were much cooler and had less radiation, and they lost their pigmentation to maximize Vitamin D production. But as people began moving around, shown by the millions of people who migrated over the past hundreds of years, different people of different skin colors moved to places where their skin was inherently poorly adapted.

Skin Color is an Illusion

The way we look at skin color in society, often known as colorism, is really just a social construct where lighter skin is placed at a higher value than darker skin, stemming from our past history of colonialism and slavery. Skin color is simply a mark of evolution that’s derived from climate in certain areas, and is quite literally just evidence of evolution through natural selection.

Final Thoughts

I find it super interesting how our skin and our features are results of the environment around us, and also how humans from all over the world traveled thousands of miles to different places. As a result, I find interesting the consequences of said travels. Darker pigmented people in regions with low UV radiation face the risk of Vitamin D deficiency, and lighter pigmented people in regions with high UV radiation face the risk of skin cancer. That being said, it’s not just physical consequences people face with different skin tones, but also social consequences. But as Nina Jablonski said in her Ted Talk, “skin color is an illusion”. I’ll link it below—there are some very interesting facts.

https://www.ted.com/talks/nina_jablonski_skin_color_is_an_illusion?subtitle=en