Jim Devine wrote: > I can hardly remember all of the book under review, but there's one > article in it that goes utterly against the sociobiologists' creed. > Diamond argues that "racial" differences in appearance (black vs. pink > skin, etc.) arise not from the usual suspects but from Darwin's sexual > selection. In his view, men and women tend to seek out sexual partners > who look like the people they know and trust. Thus, black men & women > seek each other out, passing down genes for black skin, while pink men > & women seek each other out, passing down the genes for pink skin, > etc.
Louis P: Odd, I always attributed white men choosing white women and vice versa to racism, not passing down genes. Actually, Jim has the details wrong. The idea is that you prefer mates who look like your parents. This is for perhaps psychological and not survival reasons. This is about the origin of differences in appearance not their perpetuation. This kind of selection produces feedback effects which can produce morphological differences among isolated populations that have nothing to do with adapting to different evironments. This includes skin color. Once these isolated populations mix other forces, e.g. racism, lust, other psychological factors, etc can easily be more determinant. Terry _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
