Skin Color

Abstract

When a large group of students lines up from lightest to darkest skin color, there are no clear breaks from darker to lighter skin colors. Additionally, those with the darkest skin are just as likely to come from southern India and Southeast Asia as anywhere else. This exercise highlights two basic facts about human skin color variation: skin color is a poor predictor of race or the continent from which one comes, and skin color is continuous. Evolution, not race, explains skin color variation. Indeed, skin color is an adaptation to the amount of solar radiation, which is greatest toward the equator and less as one goes toward the poles. Dark skin color protects against the destruction of folate and light skin color allows for greater vitamin D synthesis.