Why do caucasians have more aesthetic variety than other races?

[the_mango55]

OK, now don't take this as a racist topic, like "black people all look the same" or "I can't tell one asian from another" because facial features vary greatly among all races.

However, Hair and Eye colors are a different story. Probably 90% of the world has brown eyes and brown to black hair, but among "white" caucasians, there is much more variety in hair and eye color. Red and Blonde hair, and Blue and Green eyes, are very common features among these people. Along with the brown hair and eyes which are also shared by the white population.

For example, this is a photo of my eye. I took it like 3 min ago. They are blue-green, with a yellowish ring. (they look mostly blue in this picture, but they seem to change often, sometimes they look mostly green.)

And my hair is light brown, while my beard is somewhat red.

I am aware that there are examples of exceptions, with green eyes among middle eastern and asian people especially, but these are fairly rare, rare enough to take somone by surprise when they see it.

So, why is this? And feel free to use this thread to discuss genetics in general and/or post photos of your eyes.

EDIT: just remembered the science section , move this if you need to.

[the Black Prince]

*moved to science forum*


well
first, i'd like to say this is my general opinion, based on what i remmber from GCSE science, not scientific fact, feel free to correct me...

people who have dark skin have it because of the sun... its genetically linked, obviously, but its also due to the sun... white skinned people come from colder climates, the north of europe/russia

the romans had darker skin - olive coloured is one i've often heard, like a permanent deep tan, while the closer toward the equator, the darker peoples skin colours get...
the sun darkens the skin, or the skin darkens to protect itself from the sun. i guess the pigments in the hair and eyes have reacted the same way as pigments in the skin.

also remember that both dark eyes and dark hair have dominent genes, so they are always going to be more common

to bear this out, if a white person spends too much time working outdoors, he can get a deep, permanent tan as well... my grandad did national service as mechanic with the RAF. he was stationed in Egypt for a long time when he was 18/19... he's never lost his tan since, and he's coming up on 70!

[RZZZA]

I've always learned (in books, so it has to be right) that there are really only two eye colors: brown and blue, and eveything else is just a spinoff or variation. That being said, I find pretty piercing blue/grey/green eyes to be fascinating. Have you ever seen someone who's eyes were SO blue that it was like the only thing you could see on their face? I keep thinking people like that have some weird hidden powers or something. I'm just an unremarkable brown hair/brown eyed loser, people tell me my eyes are deep and intellectual but I'd trade my boring brown eyes for peircing blue eyes any day.

btw, I dont think 90% of the world has brown eyes/hair. That cant be right, I see tons of blond haired and fewere red haired people walking around, with lots of different eye colors.

[therussian]

OK, now don't take this as a racist topic, like "black people all look the same" or "I can't tell one asian from another" because facial features vary greatly among all races.

However, Hair and Eye colors are a different story. Probably 90% of the world has brown eyes and brown to black hair, but among "white" caucasians, there is much more variety in hair and eye color. Red and Blonde hair, and Blue and Green eyes, are very common features among these people. Along with the brown hair and eyes which are also shared by the white population.

For example, this is a photo of my eye. I took it like 3 min ago. They are blue-green, with a yellowish ring. (they look mostly blue in this picture, but they seem to change often, sometimes they look mostly green.)

And my hair is light brown, while my beard is somewhat red.

I am aware that there are examples of exceptions, with green eyes among middle eastern and asian people especially, but these are fairly rare, rare enough to take somone by surprise when they see it.

So, why is this? And feel free to use this thread to discuss genetics in general and/or post photos of your eyes.

EDIT: just remembered the science section , move this if you need to.

Wait, do you mean Caucasians as white people, or Caucasians as people from the Caucusas? Because if you meant the latter, I would have said you're freaking crazy. :laughing:

[the Black Prince]

Have you ever seen someone who's eyes were SO blue that it was like the only thing you could see on their face? I keep thinking people like that have some weird hidden powers or something

i'm told my eyes are like that... its the thing absolutely everyone says they like about me, my eyes...

[the_mango55]

btw, I dont think 90% of the world has brown eyes/hair. That cant be right, I see tons of blond haired and fewere red haired people walking around, with lots of different eye colors.

That is because you are in America. Where I would say perhaps 20% of people are blonde and 10% red haired (naturally) and maybe 25% blue and 25% green eyes. But America is mostly white. Think about the world demographics, there can't be more than a billion white people in the world, and more than 50% of white people have brown hair and eyes. so that is at most 1/12 of the people in the world who have these differing eye colors.

And yeah by caucasian I mean white.

[RZZZA]

So, do you see dead people or can you move objects with your mind or something? Ever been abducted by aliens, or heard the voice of angels/demons?

[Beetlecat]

Well, there are a whole lot of things that I could offer into this discussion - but may later, as I'm taking a break from my work and don't have a lot of time.

The largest factor could be that since 'white' skin, or the lack of pigment (of which there are also varying degrees), is itself a mutation. Could it be more likely that people in that sub-group would then exhibit further mutations as well? I havn't studied ethic groups very much, but I have the notion that as groups settled and stayed in various areas, specific traits made themselves dominant. Only later when we migrated around and inter-mingled did those genes/traits become mixed up.

This is, of course, assuming that 'white' people do indeed exhibit more variety of hair/eye color combinations.

[RusskiSoldat]

There are far fewer readheads than 10%.
I see two in my school of 3000, out of which 1/3 or so is white.
1% at best.
Asians have black hair (I've seen some with a cherry red, but I don't know if that's natural or collored, but I assume the latter).
Funnily enough, some Caucasians (of the kind from the Caucusus) do have a great variety.
Armenians, for one, claim they were originaly fully white.
My grandmother comes from an Armenian village, high in the mountains and isolated from most of the others, and both she, her sisters, and her parents have white skin, different eye and hair collors and facial features which suggest that they are a white ethnic group on their own (meaning they look neither like Slavs, Germans nor Saxons, which I'm familiar with but unmistakeably white).
Any explanation for the above?
And if I sound like I'm obsessing over whites too much, trust me: not too many Kauffmans are accepted into the Neo Nazis.

[Niles Crane]

There are far fewer readheads than 10%.
I see two in my school of 3000, out of which 1/3 or so is white.
1% at best.

I don't think using a survey of 3000 people is good source material.

[Ghoulem]

Oh, redheads. When they're ugly they're real ugly and when they're pretty they're real pretty.
Why do they have red hair? Is there a scientific answer to this?

[Niles Crane]

It is estimated that between 2–3% of the United States population have red hair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair

Mind you, there are some red heads like me who can tan over time rather than just burn.

[Darth Wong]

Caucasians have more aesthetic variety than other races for the simple reason that caucasians are all arbitrarily classified as one race, when they could have just as easily been split into several races.

[RusskiSoldat]

OK then, classify Slavs as a different race.
I've seen plenty blondes, brunettes, redheads, with eye collors of all sorts.
Explain it to me now.
Feel free to substitute any white ethnicity for "Slavs"

[Halie Satanus]

Migration and invasion, it's no coincedence that races of people that were cut off from other tribes or cultures by natural obsticals such as the shifting land masses mountianous blockades or sea barriers, tend to have less differences in their genetic make-up than the close nit tribes of northen europe,

I watch alot of documentarys this one was a while back and was one of the best and most contriversial(because of the religious implcations and is banned in many countries) i've ever seen i definatly intend to take part in this one day.

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/

my favorite part of the study :laughing:

Up to three million men living around the world today could be descended from a fifth-century Irish king, according to a new study. Research suggests as many as 1 in 12 men in Ireland carry the genes of Niall of the Nine Hostages, bolstering claims that the ancient warlord founded a dynasty that dominated Ireland for centuries. Some historians doubt Niall's existence, comparing his legend to that of King Arthur. But scientists at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland say a distinctive genetic signature on the male Y chromosome, which is passed down from father to son, leads to Niall or some similar figure.
Niall had 12 sons, according to folklore, and took nine key hostages, including Saint Patrick, as way to subdue opponents and consolidate power. Writing this month in the American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers said Niall "resided at the cusp of mythology and history, but our results do seem to confirm the existence of a single early medieval progenitor to the most powerful and enduring Irish dynasty." Geographic Hotspot The study was based on the DNA samples of 800 males across Ireland. "We used a genetic fingerprint in the Y chromosome that was sufficiently detailed that you wouldn't expect very many men to have the same one," said Dan Bradley, a genetics professor at Trinity College Dublin.
In nothwest Ireland (map), one in five men bore the same distinctive genetic marker, the team found. "That part of Ireland was influenced by a certain dynasty called Uí Néill [descendants of Niall]—a group of lineages that held sway to a greater or lesser degree for almost a thousand years," Bradley said. "The area of this Y chromosome coincides geographically with the greatest influence of these groups," he added. Continued on link above :wink:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3086777.stm

and in the interest of forum harmony for the religious..
http://www.duerinck.com/migrate.html

[Darth Wong]

OK then, classify Slavs as a different race.
I've seen plenty blondes, brunettes, redheads, with eye collors of all sorts.
Explain it to me now.
Feel free to substitute any white ethnicity for "Slavs"

So the most races that one can possibly split "whites" up into is two? Interesting. How did you come up with this number?

[Bwaho]

My grandmother comes from an Armenian village, high in the mountains and isolated from most of the others, and both she, her sisters, and her parents have white skin, different eye and hair collors and facial features which suggest that they are a white ethnic group on their own (meaning they look neither like Slavs, Germans nor Saxons, which I'm familiar with but unmistakeably white).

So how would you describe their looks? can you clearly see that they're unique?

I can usually spot where different people are from, slavs are pretty easy to recognize.

Have you ever seen someone who's eyes were SO blue that it was like the only thing you could see on their face?

yeah I love that. The eyes are almost shining, it's a pleasure to look at.

people tell me my eyes are deep and intellectual but I'd trade my boring brown eyes for peircing blue eyes any day.

I also think blue eyes are the coolest...but then again, like you I often get comments about how pretty my eyes are.

[Ahiga]

Blue eyes are a little cliche to me, like blonde. I like the variations of green the most, but of course that's just a variation from the blue.

The piercing blue where you seem to be drawn only to them are great, though. Like the Fremen.
Like this: http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/3691/p62900016yg.jpg

[Sher Khan]

This is all just off the top of my head - just pure random thought and speculation:

I'm kinda with Darth Wong in saying that some of this variety is because of massive grouping of what is 'Caucasian.' Not too sure, but I remember a Classics teacher telling me that most Romans had dark hair and tanned skin. He also mentioned that they thought no true Roman would have, say, blond or red hair. Today, Italians and Scandinavians are considered the same race.

I disagree that only the Caucasian race has more aesthetic variety. There are tons of variations within, say, Negroid African populations - but it's not the same kind of variety that we first notice with Caucasians. The differences deal with facial structure and sizes of different facial features.

From a biological-adaptation viewpoint, I'd say that the colder climate allowed for variations in Caucasian people that deal mainly with color pigmentation in their hair and eyes, whereas other populations in Africa or Asia favored more physical shape variations. There are tons of different ethnicities in Africa, Middle East, India, and the Orient, and they all have a lot of aesthetic varieties - these varieties however do not focus on hair or eye color since the climates would not favor such differentiation.


Another idea I have concerning such variety in Caucasians is because of their movement. They've certainly mixed a lot throughout history, and they've even mixed with other races many times - most especially in America where the Caucasian variety is great.



But anyway....

Another idea is that eye or hair color that isn't brown and black might be a recessive trait genetically (not sure). The colder climate of Europe allowed for a greater pool of recessive eye and hair colors to pass on their genes while hotter places in Asia and Africa favored more people with dark hair and eye colors. This is not to say Asians or Africans can have varied eye or hair colors. My mother's hair is a phenotype mix of dark red and black, and my eyes are mostly brown with some green tints here and there.

It's just not common traits to pass on because it's not a common gene to begin with. Europe had much more of these genes to start with and the cold climate didn't hinder selection like hotter climates did.

[Tigran of Sasoun]

Wait, do you mean Caucasians as white people, or Caucasians as people from the Caucusas? Because if you meant the latter, I would have said you're freaking crazy. :laughing:

Why is that crazy again? My mom and brother both have blond hair and blue actaully my mom has green eyes. So what is wrong with that? Not all Armenians looks like what you think they look like.

Also to everyone else there is no Caucasian race where it is European. Lol dont make me laugh, there is not such thing. There is no "White race". Please if people knew where i come from they think im middle eastern, but when they see my mom they think she is polish or something and people think im Portuages or Spanish, but i get French alot. I used to have blue/silver eyes when i was a child, now they are brown and blue/green on the outside.

I have seen Indians with blue eyes