Re: paleonet peppered moth, out of Africa (only a question forcuriosty, all others please delete)

[Peter Paul Smolka <smolka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 5 May 2005, Judith Harris wrote:

> Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 13:03:41 -0600
> From: Judith Harris <harrisj@cvn.com>
> Reply-To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: paleonet peppered moth

Reply: No specific signifcance; only because the topic was raised
and for reasons of curiosity (in case I have to answer such a question,
= all others: Please delete):
>
> Great suggestions.
>
> On a more personal note, what does it mean that you are a
> "Stratigrapher, still out of Africa". I am a terrestrial
> paleoecologyist and am also "still out of Africa.
>
> Judith
> On May 5, 2005, at 12:32 PM, Leo, Sandy wrote:

Dear Judith,

from my rememberance there was a discussion on evolution on
this list.

To make a difference between people who claim to be formed of clay
it was stressed that we are proud to be chimpanzees with knowledge
about the ASCII code (= we are out of Africa and even proud on
such a long experience, of course with a polite smile).

Thus the question (vertebrates are not my field; if somebody mentions
an ocean of ignorance in this field, it might well be data, = OK
with me):

In that discussion the species/subspecies issue of H. sapiens was
mentioned.

Thus: The genetic differences between East-Africans and West-Africans
are said to be greater than the differences between East Africans
and Europeans, that is: Europeans are pale negroes.

It is often said that Europeans got pale for reasons of paleoclimatic
conditions in the Pleistocene/Holocene.

On the other hand (here the question): The Asians (Siberians,
Indians (in the sense of North America) and Inuit ("Eskimos")
experienced similar conditions (also ice margins and thus precipitation,
lack of insolation in North America).

As the insolation was most likely comparable: Why didn t they get pale?

And: Why did they get a different skin and some (see research the Wella
company had to do) different hairs?

Did they for example get earlier or later as we out of Africa?

Anybody who knows an URL on this?

As (a) we have a growing wealth of high-res paleoclimatic time-series,
(b) fast climate models, (c) growing sets of genetic information
(one company, I think in Germany, offers as service DNA based
descendent-lines, against fees, e.g. tracing person xyz to
some Bavarian/Swiss valleys for example) and (d) humans will thus
be able to be studied like foraminiferal communities with such
datasets, thinking about possible studies in 5-10 years might be
permitted.

To avoid communicative misunderstandings: Any word above I mean
intentionally, politically and in all aspects fully correct. If,
because I am a non-native, I used a word that is in English politically
incorrect, it is not intended as such and I apologize in advance.

It is just the curiosity: If environment, as often said, insolation,
is the factor, then I would expect Vietnamese to be as dark as
Australians or Australians to be as bright as Vietnamese.

As I regard Europeans and thus also me as "experienced Chimps"
(the "out of Africa" question) above words are meant in a fully
correct way (see for example recent issues on ethnicity-optimized
medicine).

Best regards

Peter
>
>

**********************************************************************
Dr. Peter P. Smolka
University Muenster
Geological Institute
Corrensstr. 24
D-48149 Muenster

Tel.: +49/251/833-3989   +49/2533/4401
Fax:  +49/251/833-3989   +49/2533/4401
E-Mail: smolka@uni-muenster.de
E-Mail: PSmolka@T-Online.de
**********************************************************************