Please vote: Are we meant to live in the tropics?

[TylerDurden]

D and S, what you forget is that people are wusses nowadays, not just in a genetic way. One wouldn't need mutants to survive in the cold, just a few generations in the arctic, minus support, to cull off the weakest, and the rest would survive. I often note that humans in extreme survival situations, such as  advanced military exercises etc., suddenly find themselves able, eventually, to run across snow barefoot etc. Plus since wild animals in the arctic also often need warm shelters, it would be reasonable for humans to have such too, when sleeping, such as igloos. Plus, I recall, in one survival book, tips on how to carve holes in the ice/snow for sleeping in - what happens then, is that in the insulated, confined space, the human body temperature makes the place much warmer.

The antarctic is a very bad example, as no humans ever went there until modern times. It also has unusual weather conditions etc. which make it harsher than anywhere else, even the arctic, as I recall, even for emperor penguins.

You are also forgetting something else:- palaeo HGs would cover vast distances throughout each year in order to keep up with migrating herds of herbivores so that they could have a ready supply of foods. So they were unlikely to spend much time in one place, and would have had access to both hot and cold areas, though perhaps having less of the former due to the Ice-Age.

[Iguana]

 

Iguana, the whole point is that the Neanderthals did not have the use of fire when they first appeared in Arctic/glacial areas almost a million years ago. So they managed to survive fine without the use of fire, for hundreds of thousands of years!

Yes, some managed to survive and natural selection acted during some hundreds thousand years so that generation after generations the survivors were more and more able to stand the cold. As you say (quote below), an adaptation to different climates is certainly much easier than an adaptation to cooked food.

But anyway we, modern humans, are not Neanderthals but Sapiens (with perhaps no more than 1% to 4% DNA from Neanderthals), and Sapiens came out of Africa some 30 or 40 thousands years ago only. 

As for claims as regards survival, it all depends on what one is used to. For example, the Eskimoes have bodies so designed that they are far less likely to get frostbite than other ethnic groups. Plus, putting humans for a few generations into cold climates would kill off those least likely to survive in such  harsh climates, with the rest being  hardier.Then there is another point:- many arctic animals use various forms of shelter. For example, it was quite wrongly thought for decades that polar bears had no need for warmth - then they found that polar bear mothers did not breed successfully unless they had a warm place to lay in before and after birth. Bears in general also need a warm place for hibernation over the winter months and so on.

What kind of warm places can they find in the Arctic? 

Overall, being able to survive somewhere doesn’t mean such location is optimal for our health, well being and happiness : we can survive on cooked food too. I guess that most of us would prefer to live in a tropical or subtropical place rather than in the Arctic, especially if it is without using any kind of artifice such as heating and clothing.

[Löwenherz]

I don't know about anyone else Lowen - but I'm meant to live in the tropics.   It's too coooooooooold out there for me and this place is considered one of the warm ones in the U.S.

Germany, Monday, November 7, 2011: Temperature 7 degrees Celsius,

it's COLD, it's DARK, it's rainy. I hate it.

I LOVE warm weather + sunshine.

Tyler is right, humans adapted to cold climates. But this ability is very limited, IMO. Diet is a very important factor. If I eat fruit in the winter, I always feel very cold. In the last years I tried several times to achieve maximum adaptation to cold weather. I stuffed myself with tons of raw animal fat + protein. My resistance to cold weather significantly increased over time. Down to 10 degrees Celsius I felt relatively comfortable. But below that temperature NO diet or anything else helps. I need clothing and heating. And there is another, more important downside: Eating constantly very high amounts of animal food affects me mentally negatively.

NOBODY can convince me that our body is designed for cold regions. Even the toughest raw paleo dieter needs warm clothes in the cold. Isn't this enough proof?

Tyler, please don't forget that there is a not unimportant difference between surviving and thriving!

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

Personally, I can never understand this absurd love of warmth that some people have. I mean, warmer holidays with "sun, sea, sex and sand" tend to be overwhelmingly boring, often involving drunkenness and vomiting(such as in the Costa Del Sol, for example), or mindless, passive sunbathing

LOL!! The Brits! LOL!

I have been told that Iceland has an average annual temperature of 15 degrees Celsius - if only I could get a job there instead!

Try to get a job there and you WILL get if this is really your wish.

Iguana could send you some bananas via air freight..

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

    D, while practicing high fat raw meat diet I have slept outdoors in the snow without socks, no gloves, not hat, no scarf, no hood, no heater, no blanket, no tent, no heating grate, no fire, no shack, just shoes, a jacket, pants, that's about it.  I was not naked and I stayed near the wall to protect from some wind.  I slept well and my knees weren't even stiff in the morning.
  I was more comfortable than indoor sleeping or sitting vegan or cooked.  I may do sleep like that all this Winter.  I told the son I've been talking about here.  A few days later he proclaimed he plans to sleep outdoors this Winter.  Eat high enough raw quality fat, and my experience is different.  Sure there were no mountain lions around, but at least there's no insects like outdoor tropics.  I can imagine a trillion mosquito bites trying this there.

WOW! Your body seems to be really HOT! I guess all the snow within a radius of three miles around your sleeping place melted off... 

Mosquito bites are really no issue on a fully raw diet, although these little monsters are nasty. One morning I woke up with more than 80 bites, no problem at all. The small wounds healed within 24 hours. Whereas cooked food eaters often get problems and need most often a much longer healing time.

I have to admit that even I don't feel 100% comfortable at tropical shores, due to the heat and massive amounts of insects. Tropical mountains are the perfect place in my 'world' (which is an illusion, please don't forget  ). By adjusting the altitude you can choose your desired temperature which is usually stable 365 days a year, with wonderful lush green surroundings...

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

Would someone please explain how in accord with physics that someone without clothing for insulation and heat retention would prevent their skin from freezing in our extremities as the warmth is needed to protect the interior how we possibly would not get frostbite in extreme cold? I know that with a raw paleo diet our circulation gets better and we have a better layer of fat to protect our inner organs so not so much energy would be taken from the extremities and eating all raw we don't have to waste so much of our energy on digestion and we have stronger metabolisms -  but hey! - there is an actual limit. We can only generate so much heat and that heat escapes without fur or feathers or a massive amount of fat for insulation. Humans simply are not built like polar bears! We are built in every way to withstand HEAT! We walk upright so that the heat can escape and have lost most of our fur. We sweat all over our bodies for cooling. The hunter gathers of Africa can run for days after prey in the sweltering heat of the Kalahari and win because of the human ability to endure the heat. The prey gets overheated and exhausted where the bushman doesn't. We have very few adaptations to the cold like the animals that live naturally without fire and taking the protections of animals that do to use.

I think we can call ourselves adapted ONLY if we include our minds like H-I-R said.

Exactly,
exactly,
exactly!

  Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

Difference between raw animal food and fats and not is that my hands freeze terribly painfully without any of the raw fat (and raw meat). 

RawZi,

what kind of animal fats do you usually prefer? I guess that the most saturated animal fats (like bison backfat) are the working best to achieve good body isolation as described in your post..?

May I ask you how many years you are now living on a raw paleo diet?

Löwenherz

[ys]

I mean, warmer holidays with "sun, sea, sex and sand" tend to be overwhelmingly boring

my wife and i don't find it boring.

if i had a choice i would spend winter months in the tropics and summer in the northern hemisphere.

[TylerDurden]

The point is that just as wild animals create warm dens in the Arctic for themselves, so can we as regards igloos or survival shelters. I mean, making huts out of pieces of wood in palaeo times is no different from much smaller birds using twigs to make a nice warm nest for themselves and their young.

The Out of Africa theory has by no means been proven, with it stating that migration out of africa occurred 70,000 years ago. If, as is likely, the multiregional hypothesis is correct, given that we are proven to be descended from Neanderthals etc., then many of our hominid ancestors left Africa up to a million years ago:-

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

The other point about the tropics is that they are mosquito-ridden with malaria and other nasty tropical diseases occurring there. Now, malaria-resistant black Africans and similiar ethnic groups might not have too many problems therein, but other ethnic groups would. Last time I was in the jungle, for example, I was extremely uncomfortable given the c. 10 insect bites I got every couple of seconds or so. Having to live there all my life would be like living in Dante's vision of Hell.

[Löwenherz]

The point is that just as wild animals create warm dens in the Arctic for themselves, so can we as regards igloos or survival shelters. I mean, making huts out of pieces of wood in palaeo times is no different from much smaller birds using twigs to make a nice warm nest for themselves and their young.

Yes, but most of us like it to be outside in the warm sunshine, walking barefoot etc. much more than to sit in an igloo.

The other point about the tropics is that they are mosquito-ridden with malaria and other nasty tropical diseases occurring there.

In my view we don't have to fear such tropical dis-eases as long as we follow a 100% raw dairy and grain free diet. Really. Most certainly malaria and other monsters are as harmless as colds and flus in colder regions. Although I have not been born in a tropical country I never got any problem in the tropics and very often I didn't use mosquito nets or any other "protection". OK, thats everything else than representative. But I also have never heard that any raw foodist got one of the typical dis-eases like dengue-fever etc. in tropical places. If you stay in London or elsewhere in Europe think of all the thousands of people around you fighting with colds and flus and other common dis-eases, always caused by bad viruses and bad bacteria if you listen to our doctors. Do you get all these viruses and bacteria? YES. Do you get colds and flus like all the others? Probably not. And btw: We should never fear anything.

Perhaps Iguana could say something more about raw foodists and tropical diseases?

Last time I was in the jungle, for example, I was extremely uncomfortable given the c. 10 insect bites I got every couple of seconds or so. Having to live there all my life would be like living in Dante's vision of Hell.

Where have you been?

Löwenherz

[Iguana]

The Out of Africa theory has by no means been proven, with it stating that migration out of africa occurred 70,000 years ago. If, as is likely, the multiregional hypothesis is correct, given that we are proven to be descended from Neanderthals etc., then many of our hominid ancestors left Africa up to a million years ago:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans

The other point about the tropics is that they are mosquito-ridden with malaria and other nasty tropical diseases occurring there. Now, malaria-resistant black Africans and similiar ethnic groups might not have too many problems therein, but other ethnic groups would. Last time I was in the jungle, for example, I was extremely uncomfortable given the c. 10 insect bites I got every couple of seconds or so. Having to live there all my life would be like living in Dante's vision of Hell.

I read in your link:

A majority of scholars prefer the primary competing hypothesis, which postulates a recent African origin of modern humans (…)
The primary competing scientific hypothesis is currently recent African origin of modern humans, which proposes that modern humans arose as a new species in Africa around 100-200,000 years ago, moving out of Africa around 50-60,000 years ago to replace existing human species such as Homo erectus and the Neanderthals without interbreeding.[54][55][56][57] This differs from the multiregional hypothesis in that the multiregional model predicts interbreeding with preexisting local human populations in any such migration.[57]

Even if there was interbreeding with the Neanderthals (which is far from sure), this was to a very limited extend, with us having no more than 1% to 4% DNA from Neanderthals, as stated in the link I gave before.

The origins of malaria - Following the plough
A genetic study suggests that malaria may have evolved because of farming
http://www.economist.com/node/699558

(…) According to work published this week by Sarah Volkman, of Harvard University, and her colleagues, Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the severest form of malaria, seems to have got going between 7,700 and 3,200 years ago. A study published in June, by Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Maryland and her colleagues, comes up with a range of 11,760 to 3,840 years ago.

Both teams looked at gene frequencies to arrive at these estimates. Dr Volkman studied the genes of the parasite itself. Dr Tishkoff examined those of its host, Homo sapiens. Both were testing a hypothesis first proposed in 1958 by an anthropologist called Frank Livingstone.

Dr Livingstone thought that the emergence of malaria might have been connected with the beginning of agriculture. He argued that sunlit pools left in patches of forest cleared for farming would have been perfect sites for the mosquitoes that transmit the disease to breed in, and also that the growing human populations that agriculture permitted would have provided an abundance of convenient hosts.

Dr Volkman and her team tested this idea by looking at the range of genetic variation found in P. falciparum. In general, the more variation there is in a gene in a population, the longer it is since that population’s individuals shared an ancestor. Such variation can therefore act as a “molecular clock”, from which the age of the common ancestral gene can be deduced.

The best genes for this purpose are so-called neutral genes: those that are not subject to strong selective pressures that will stop random mutations from accumulating them. Averaged over a sufficient period, such random changes accumulate at a constant rate in neutral genes. But previous studies of genetic variation in P. falciparum have concentrated on those genes that help the parasite to evade the human immune system, or protect it from insecticides. These are clearly subject to strong selective pressures, and therefore make poor molecular clocks.

When Dr Volkman looked at nine neutral genes, she found little variation across widely separated parasite populations, suggesting the common ancestors of those genes were recent. And when she applied estimates of the speed of mutation to her results, the ages coincided neatly with the Neolithic agricultural revolution. (…)

I read something alike long ago.

The tropical areas are vast and diverse. Some places are mosquitoes infested, some are better be avoided because of malaria while in some other places there are no mosquitoes.

[Dorothy]

Mosquitoes and what our relationship with them would be living completely in the tropics full time over years and in touch with our plant helpers is misunderstood.

In the tropics of America they would call you "new blood" Tyler. Everyone that visits gets eaten alive until their blood adapts and as you live there you get less and less bites over time ........ and that doesn't even take into account that you can eat plants that grow in the tropics that change the taste of your blood so that the mosquitoes basically leave you alone - or at least you don't even feel them. Whether or not we catch diseases from mosquitoes is also very much like Lowen talked about - if you are eating a raw appropriate diet you just don't get them. Just like dogs and wolves living in the wild don't get heart worm from mosquitoes like the pets that eat cooked bad food do. Next time you are going to the tropics - eat tons of raw garlic for a few months and your experience might be quite different.

The point you made about the Antarctic being extreme is a very good one. Perhaps we are or could get adapted to outside of the actual tropics. You and Zi made an excellent case for that. But I would add that if our bodies would get adapted to more cold over generations then the same argument holds true that we have gotten more adapted to NOT being in the cold - so still - in the present - not in the future - we are not adapted.

What question is Lowen asking? Is he asking if we could adapt outside of our already adapted range or what is presently our adaptation - generally - as a species - at present?

If you go further and include the mind and the ability to build shelters with tools and to use clothing as part of the adaptation then it is clear that our bodies using these have adapted away from tolerance of the cold as most of us would die very quickly without those if placed suddenly into a very cold environment.

Doesn't adaptation imply the environment that is most appropriate for a species? Just because something can be survived through doesn't necessarily mean it is the environment that best suits. We are an animal that so clearly adapted to be able to survive heat that the argument that we are adapted to survive extreme cold makes little sense to me. We stand upright because to release HEAT - hair only where it is useful in the HEAT and we sweat all over our bodies.

You don't like heat, but it doesn't mean that your ancestors weren't changed to tolerate it it perhaps you have made slight adaptions to living in slightly colder places than where we first developed - but generally - as a species - the weight of the adaptions ----- at present ------ go towards surviving heat rather than cold.

And there is a reason that to most people going on a tropical vacation is like going to paradise. You as an individual don't like it and there might be quite a few like you. My preference for warmth and your preference for cold and Zi's preference never to be outside of temperature control does not a species-wide adaptation make.

If you put half of our entire species as it is today in the extreme cold without clothing and no human tools and you put the other half in the tropics without clothing or human tools - in which environment would the most survive?

If you gave all the people a choice of which they could go to, where do you think the vast majority would choose?

The question isn't if some of the people sent to the extreme cold can survive or adapt over generations. The question is what are our bodies adapted to at present.

And of course, we do have our minds so can live just about anywhere - even in space - which might be fun to try one day too.

[RawZi]

You don't like heat, but it doesn't mean that your ancestors weren't changed to tolerate it it perhaps you have made slight adaptions to living in slightly colder places than where we first developed - but generally - as a species - the weight of the adaptions ----- at present ------ go towards surviving heat rather than cold.

    I am fine with natural outdoor hot weather at first depending on how hot.  Of course if it's crazy-hot and I wasn't well, my first few days were hell.  After maybe years the heat takes everything out of me and I feel like I'm losing consciousness dangerously.  In cold and freezing though I always experience consciousness except when deeply asleep a few hours a day (more like night).  I just need a little protection from freezing air and wind and snow, not much protection, just from "biting" winds, if I am eating like someone who lives there all the time.  The heat though, it doesn't matter if I eat what grows there and clean water etc, perhaps coconuts, I don't know maybe fish never tried it.  I do tolerate hot weather better than I did now that I eat RAF, but cold and "bitter cold" feels nicer.  I wasn't always like this.  Till my mid late twenties I liked hot weather not so cold, till the heat was knocking me out.  I'm not afraid of malaria at all, but I like consciousness.

And there is a reason that to most people going on a tropical vacation is like going to paradise. You as an individual don't like it and there might be quite a few like you. My preference for warmth and your preference for cold and Zi's preference never to be outside of temperature control does not a species-wide adaptation make.

    You may not be hearing me D.  Temperature control is the term commonly used for artificial heating and artificial cooling, right? Artificial heating and cooling is what make me feel sick.  My metabolism is apparently functional when getting activity a little in early morning or even afternoon sun and a lot at night. Indoors my metabolism is stressed trying to regulate to what temperature my body wants while the  artificial heating and cooling directs something else.  I call my body's needs natural. 

    Who is "your".  What other person are you talking to?  I assume Zi is me.  Do you mean Tyler?

[Dorothy]

Sorry Zi - that was a typo. I knew exactly what you meant. Fingers not working so well it seems today. I've heard you talk about how bad temperature control is for you several times before. I don't like it either generally, but I don't live alone. If it were up to me I might have some heat on the coldest nights here, but other than that I would much prefer not to have central air and the windows open. Maybe if I could live that way and eat enough fat I would have similar experiences to you and not be thinking about moving some place without the allergens, air filters and windows closed.

I had referred to Tyler before so "your" was directed towards Tyler as he is making the strongest arguments (besides your experiences) that we are adapted to live in the cold.

I think your experiences are fascinating and edifying Zi. Thank you for sharing them.

[Iguana]

Yes, but most of us like it to be outside in the warm sunshine, walking barefoot etc. much more than to sit in an igloo.

Seems like you’re right…

Perhaps Iguana could say something more about raw foodists and tropical diseases?

I lived and traveled in the tropics quite some years altogether and never got any tropical disease, even when I was still eating cooked food. I’ve just always avoided the places known as being very much infested with malaria, such as Halmahera in Indonesia. A raw diet doesn’t make you immune to malaria: as a matter of fact its’s about the only disease which doesn’t heal with instinctotherapy.  Take the proper medicine in case you get it : chloroquin should be ok if it’s malaria vivax, but if by bad luck you get the deadly falciparum, stronger and more specific drugs are absolutely necessary. But I would never take anything preventively, it’s stupid and all the tourists taking drugs uselessly make the plasmodium more and more resistant. 

[HIT_it_RAW]

A raw diet doesn’t make you immune to malaria: as a matter of fact its’s about the only disease which doesn’t heal with instinctotherapy.

probably because it isn't a disease at all.

[Dorothy]

probably because it isn't a disease at all.

Do you mean because it's a parasite?

[TylerDurden]

It is , of course, irrelevant as to where half the world would want to live if given the chance. After all, whether one stays in one place or moves was dependent on things like food-availability etc. in palaeo times - if herds migrated north, people had to move North etc.

The issue of adaptation is simple:- we would only need 3 generations or so  for most people to adapt to the cold, with  quite a number now already adapted, provided they ate raw foods like the Inuit and understood simple survival tips like living in igloos or survival shelters in the snow etc.

As for the Out of Africa theory, the fact that it is still the majority belief among scientists does not make it correct. It is common for flawed scientific theories to be rigidly adhered to by mainstream opinion decades after the theory starts to prove faulty. In this case, the Out of Africa theory was a flawed quasi-Creationist theory which tried to claim a very recent, common origin of mankind while also trying to claim that modern humans never once  interbred with(nor were descended from) the Neanderthals or any other apemen. Recent scientific data showing that modern humans are indeed descended from Neanderthals and one other apeman already debunk one major aspect of the out of africa theory. Plus, attempts by out of africa theorists to claim that Neanderthals and other apemen were just dumb brutes, with modern humans coming out of nowhere  and suddenly acquiring language, culture etc. out of the blue, have also been disproven.

[Dorothy]

"The issue of adaptation is simple:- we would only need 3 generations or so  for most people to adapt to the cold, with  quite a number now already adapted, provided they ate raw foods like the Inuit and understood simple survival tips like living in igloos or survival shelters in the snow etc."

How do you know this Tyler? Were there experiments or studies or something or are you guessing?

Where we are drawn to live is relevant because it speaks to our adaptations. Why do people want to go to the tropics and lay almost naked or naked on the beaches - because it feels good to them. If they were covered in fur, they probably wouldn't want to go there.

[Dorothy]

Another thought Tyler - with what you are saying - does that mean if penguins had to move into warmer climates to get food (or global warming - or whatever reason) that because some of them survived and were able to still reproduce although the majority died that you would say that penguins are adapted to warm areas?

If there came another ice-age but this time all the way down to Florida and some of the tropical birds were able to survive it and adapted enough in the next few generations not to die off completely, would that mean that those species were "adapted" to living in the cold?

I don't mean those questions snidely btw - I think we might have different ideas of what the word adaptation means is all.

[Iguana]

 

As for the Out of Africa theory, the fact that it is still the majority belief among scientists does not make it correct. It is common for flawed scientific theories to be rigidly adhered to by mainstream opinion decades after the theory starts to prove faulty.

Sure. But on the other hand, it’s not because you, TD, believe something else that you’re necessarily correct. For instance, this is the first time I read such weird assumptions:

In this case, the Out of Africa theory was a flawed quasi-Creationist theory which tried to claim a very recent, common origin of mankind while also trying to claim that modern humans never once  interbred with(nor were descended from) the Neanderthals or any other apemen. Recent scientific data showing that modern humans are indeed descended from Neanderthals and one other apeman already debunk one major aspect of the out of africa theory. Plus, attempts by out of africa theorists to claim that Neanderthals and other apemen were just dumb brutes, with modern humans coming out of nowhere  and suddenly acquiring language, culture etc. out of the blue, have also been disproven.

I never understood the ”Out-of-Africa” theory as a quasi creationist, but on the contrary as assuming that the first hominids such as Australopithecus evolved from big apes, probably chimps which are genetically very, very close to us. I don’t think this theory claimed anything like what you say. Again, which mysterious “apeman” are you talking about? Neanderthals are now recognized by every sensible person as not having been the dumb brutes as believed in the past. And excuse me, but how can you pretend that the “Out-of-Africa theory” is saying that modern humans came out of nowhere? It just doesn’t make sense because it actually says they came out of Africa… and Neanderthals too!!
http://www.iupui.edu/~mstd/a103/Human%20Origins%20Chart.htm

Various paleoanthropologists might dispute the precise path human origins has taken, but most are in general agreement on the structure below, as presented by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) on a web site no longer available. Of course, new evidence may change both the "family tree" and the dates.

[Löwenherz]

The issue of adaptation is simple:- we would only need 3 generations or so  for most people to adapt to the cold, with  quite a number now already adapted, provided they ate raw foods like the Inuit and understood simple survival tips like living in igloos or survival shelters in the snow etc.

You have very imaginative ideas.

But the 'Out of Africa' story seems really to be complete nonsense. I guess you know Paleontologist Christopher Beard  and the 'Out of Asia' -theory:

http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmag/feature.php?id=261

http://www.jhu.edu/jhumag/0401web/crust.html

http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article10571917/Wiege-der-Menschheit-womoeglich-nicht-Afrika.html

Löwenherz

[TylerDurden]

Dorothy, I simply mean that I have had personal experience of people, including myself, who have changed their lifestyles/diet etc. , and become much more adapted to the cold within just a  few years. Most wouldn't need  to also alter their DNA in order to survive, except possibly those humans with darker skin etc. who would be less well adapted, presumably.

Same applies to wild animals, as they, too, are more adaptable to their environments than you like to claim.

The fact that modern people are so decadent that many now want warmer climes is irrelevant. It does not imply a search for health, since tanning the skin  makes it more likely to get skin cancer, and ages the skin as well.

Indeed, one could argue that living in colder areas is more healthy as it is more invigorating.

[TylerDurden]

Iguana, the reason why the out of africa is quasi-creationist is because it tries to claim a common ancestor for all humans that is far too recent. There was that bizarre, "african eve" claim for example, which clearly was an attempt to  fashion a quasi-Biblical "adam-and-eve" type story to human evolution. The Out of africa theory is also quasi-creationist since its proponents have been trying to claim falsely, for decades, that modern humans are not descended from apemen nor interbred with them, yet current evidence shows that modern humans share DNA with at least 2 apemen types, with indications of other types of apemen DNA being present as well. So it seems that our DNA came from all over the "Old World" not just Africa.

Then there's the overly simplistic diagram you showed. For example, some evidence has come to light, suggesting that modern East Asians may be partially descended from advanced types of homo erectus. So the old, silly notion that Neanderthals and Homo Erectus were "behind" modern humans, in an evolutionary sense, must be wrong. And that silly notion was directly derived from the Out of Africa theory which wrongly claimed, for decades,  that Neanderthals and Homo Erectus were so stupid, lacking culture or the ability to talk that it was supposedly impossible for modern humans to have interbred with them.  Now that  various  different kinds of "apeman" DNA have been found in modern humans and more evidence has come to light showing that Neanderthals etc. were on a par with modern humans, the OA theory is increasingly showing flaws.

[Dorothy]

Dorothy, I simply mean that I have had personal experience of people, including myself, who have changed their lifestyles/diet etc. , and become much more adapted to the cold within just a  few years. Most wouldn't need  to also alter their DNA in order to survive, except possibly those humans with darker skin etc. who would be less well adapted, presumably.

Same applies to wild animals, as they, too, are more adaptable to their environments than you like to claim.

The fact that modern people are so decadent that many now want warmer climes is irrelevant. It does not imply a search for health, since tanning the skin  makes it more likely to get skin cancer, and ages the skin as well.

Indeed, one could argue that living in colder areas is more healthy as it is more invigorating.

Ok, so let's see if I understand you Tyler - you are saying that as a species, eating the appropriate raw diet for living in extremely cold environments (for at least a few years) we are already adapted as our dna would not have to change and the vast majority would live. This being the case, with correct diet, down to what temperatures do you suppose that humans would survive/thrive in? (If you tell me in celcius - as a "primitive" American - I will have to look it up )

Oh - and I doubt that the sun really is the cause of skin cancer. Maybe the sun combined with other factors - but since we stopped going out into the sun and started lathering ourselves up with toxic sun-blocks - skin cancer rates have risen.