Talk:Human skin color/Archives/2009/April

Specious claim
I removed the following claim:
 * "The skin cancer connection is probably of secondary importance, since skin cancer usually kills only after the reproductive age and therefore does not exert much evolutionary selection pressure."

This is (a) speculation and uncited, (b) probably false. A genetic predisposition to dying with even a modest chance of 1 in 1000 before reproductive age relative to another type, as with skin cancer, is in fact an incredibly strong evolutionary selection pressure and would be a strong influence on genetics. I don't know enough to comment on what's more important, folate or skin cancer, but the notion that skin cancer is insignificant is absolutely wrong. Graft | talk 22:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that staying around after reproductive age obviously has survival value for offspring; that's why we have grandparents around. Graft | talk 22:40, 28 April 2009 (UTC)