Ren Allen

"Is she coming to my house on Wednesday? Unschoolers' Pool Party and
Potluck! Anybody's welcome!"

Oooh, ooh, ooh...I wanna come!:)

Ren, loading up the van now (seriously)
learninginfreedom.com

[email protected]

OK, Luke, (the 12 year old I've been talking about) asked
why there were so many black people in Jamaica. I said that
I thought it was because during evolution people's skin
color changed according to the climate of where they lived.
He then wanted to know why different races had different
features like eye shape and nose shape. I said I didn't know
maybe it had to do with climate and food (different crops
being abundant)

-=-=-=-=-=-

I googled "Jamaica natives" and got a brief history from Wikipedia.
You might like to try there.

But people look different because form follows function.

People who live in cool climates have paler skin because they need to
attract as much heat as possible to keep warm. Desert/equatorial people
have more melanin in their skin to protect them from the harsh rays of
the sun.

Eye color, eye set, ear set, hair color/texture, muscle mass, bone
length/density---all originally due to form following function. Those
that conformed to what nature required survived and thrived. Those that
didn't, died out. Natural selection.

People can outwit nature sometimes. <g>

But not forever. <BWG>


Why there are so many blacks in Jamaica: they were slaves imported
from Africa to work the fields. Jamaica's original natives are of South
American origin.

~Kelly

Kelly Lovejoy
Conference Coordinator
Live and Learn Unschooling Conference
http://liveandlearnconference.org

"The hardest problem for the brain is not learning, but forgetting. No
matter how hard we try, we can't deliberately forget something we have
learned, and that is catastrophic if we learn that we can't learn."
~Frank Smith

________________________________________________________________________
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Deb Lewis

***Jamaica's original natives are of South
American origin.***

Indigenous people of Jamaica were Arawak. They were driven to extinction
on Jamaica by marauding Spaniards. (and to near extinction elsewhere.)
When the Brits took Jamaica from Spanish settlers the settlers abandon
their slaves and left. Some of Jamaica's population descended from
those slaves.

Deb Lewis, whose Irish sister in law was a nurse in Jamaica for four
years. <g>

Michelle/Melbrigða

On 6/11/06, Deb Lewis <ddzimlew@...> wrote:
>
> Indigenous people of Jamaica were Arawak. They were driven to extinction
> on Jamaica by marauding Spaniards. (and to near extinction elsewhere.)

Isn't "progression" wonderful (she said sarcastically).


--
Michelle
aka Melbrigða
http://eventualknitting.blogspot.com
[email protected] - Homeschooling for the Medieval Recreationist

squeakybiscuit

>
> But people look different because form follows function.
>
> People who live in cool climates have paler skin because they
need to
> attract as much heat as possible to keep warm. Desert/equatorial
people
> have more melanin in their skin to protect them from the harsh
rays of
> the sun.
>
> Eye color, eye set, ear set, hair color/texture, muscle mass,
bone
> length/density---all originally due to form following function.
Those
> that conformed to what nature required survived and thrived. Those
that
> didn't, died out. Natural selection.
>


We researched this a little further and someone sent us a site that
seems to say that race and the differences are a social construct-
not an actual physical diffrence.

Here is the link:
http://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_00-home.htm

We tried it and only got a few right.

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: squeakybiscuit <squeakybiscuit@...>

We researched this a little further and someone sent us a site that
seems to say that race and the differences are a social construct-
not an actual physical diffrence.

Here is the link:
http://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_00-home.htm

We tried it and only got a few right.

-=-=-=-=-

Interesting site.

But our ideas of race and racism and prejudice don't negate that
certain physical traits evolved through centuries of natural selection
and isolation.


~Kelly

Kelly Lovejoy
Conference Coordinator
Live and Learn Unschooling Conference
http://liveandlearnconference.org

"The hardest problem for the brain is not learning, but forgetting. No
matter how hard we try, we can't deliberately forget something we have
learned, and that is catastrophic if we learn that we can't learn."
~Frank Smith


________________________________________________________________________
Check out AOL.com today. Breaking news, video search, pictures, email
and IM. All on demand. Always Free.