Talk:Human skin color

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Colour blind

if skin colour as stated is "ranges from the darkest brown to the lightest hue" where does black and white fall "within" that colour scale? 101.119.167.91 (talk) 17:42, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Skin colour evolution

From under the Geography section, "we do not know when skin color is likely to have evolved" - Templeton 2002. Yes we do, Hanel 2020: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/exd.14142#exd14142-bib-0058 14.2.196.234 (talk) 11:07, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have completely blanked that section as it was stolen verbatim from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/exd.14142 and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC212702/ ... someone should rewrite it, in their own words. Tobus (talk) 00:38, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no evidence that black people are related to apes as apes only have black faces not black skin. There's overwhelming evidence in the Bible that Noah had three sons whom all the nations come from in Genesis chapter 9 and 10. Ham means Black or burnt. Like his mother, his skin was dark to black. His sons took dominion of the African continent which was given to them by YaHWeH.They were however cursed into slavery by Noah, Ham's father, who was white, like his firstborn Jepthath. Shem, which means middle, was mixed. If you venture to the Caribbean you'll witness plenty of evidence of this biological truth as is in my family. Please share this in love not ignorance. 31.111.63.243 (talk) 16:12, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sources appear to be unrelated to claims

Specifically numbers 6 through 11 are about testing and preventing various birth defects but do not seem to address the issue of melanin in human evolution. 2601:602:87F:9906:C871:FFCA:724A:3EE0 (talk) 19:06, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed - they are WP:CITEKILL and look more like WP:SYNTH - replaced with a ref that actually states the claim. Tobus (talk) 00:26, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading content that failed verification doesn't belong in lead

The paragraph about white European men having lighter skin than white European women has three citations. I moved that paragraph from the lead. Given the already-existing "failed verifications" tags and my own checks with the sources cited, I inserted it in the "Sexual Dimorphism" section. Next I want to confirm that the content agrees with the sources cited.

Various one-time or IP users have been changing this section back and forth, which I noticed as a Pending Changes Reviewer. FeralOink (talk) 15:36, 23 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Upon checking Candille et al (PLOS), I read that it was a GWAS seeking to identify the genes and alleles causing pigmentation variation between color of skin, hair, and eyes, specifically among European (Irish, Polish, Italian, and Portuguese) males and females; so far, so good. For skin color, there was only ONE area used for comparison of adult male versus adult female skin color, see Candille Materials and Methods, Collections and Analysis subsection:

"three M (melanin) index measurements were made on the medial aspect of each upper arm. These six measurements were averaged for each participant. The inner upper arm was chosen as a site of sampling to avoid as much as possible confounding by variable sun exposure and variability in tanning ability."

Seems reasonable. Candille found country of origin explained 35% of skin pigment. No new genetic determinants of skin pigmentation variation within Europe were identified. GWAS studies have been historically most successful with hair and eye color, and least successful for skin color.

Do European women have darker inner upper arm skin than European men? Candille says their results are inconsistent with previous studies, and confirmed by only one other recent prior study, for a sample European American admixture of Pennsylvanians. That other prior study is Shriver, see mention by Candille second to last paragraph of Discussion section ("The same trend in M index..."):

our analysis of variation in skin color in Europe demonstrates a consistent difference in skin color between the sexes. By the DermaSpectrometer M index measure, males are more lightly pigmented than females in each of the four European countries we studied. The same trend in M index was reported previously in a sample of European Americans. Our results in populations of European ancestry contradict earlier anthropological studies that have concluded females are more lightly pigmented than males in most populations. One potential reason for the conflicting results is the different instruments used [in studies of European populations] ... Whereas DermaSpectrometer M index measurements in this study show European males to have lighter skin pigmentation than European females, DermaSpectrometer M index measurements of skin pigmentation in Island Melanesian, African Caribbeans, and African Americans have shown that in these populations males have darker skin pigmentation than females.

Closer review of the prior study, Shriver, doesn't support Candille's claim. From Shriver, Shriver, M.D. et al. Skin pigmentation, biogeographical ancestry and admixture mapping. Hum Genet 112, (2003), p. 390, emphasis mine:

We have also tested for differences in skin pigmentation between the sexes, measured by using the DermaSpectrometer M. Interestingly, in the African-Caribbean and African-American samples, males are, on average, darker than females... In European Americans from State College, Pennsylvania, the opposite is true, with females being on average darker than males... However, further analysis of this European American sample by using more advanced measurements of pigmentation based on diffuse reflectance spectroscopy does not show a significant difference between males and females.

The third of the three studies includes a quoted excerpt stating that comparison of skin color between European men and women is inconclusive and "murky", and skin color might be about the same approaching middle age. It is tagged with a failed verification before the IP editor single edit accounts got to it.

So, one study (Candille) indicates that European male upper arm skin is lighter than European female upper arm skin. Numerous past studies according to Candille found the opposite to be true. Candille cites Shriver as support, but Shriver indicates otherwise due to measurement method. A single study's findings (Candille), which also acknowledges insufficient sample size, does not make this statement true.--FeralOink (talk) 19:24, 23 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]