Charles Darwin, 1880
Charles Darwin applied his ideas about evolution to humans in “The Descent of Man” (1871). In that book is a chapter called “The Races of Man”. There Darwin considers three main questions (I use his terms):
- Do the races of man belong to the same species?
- Why are savages dying out?
- Why do negroes have such dark skin?
On skin colour he leans towards sexual selection: that negro men love dark skin in women. But then again maybe it is climate or sunlight or immunity to disease. Or something else. It is hard to tell. He doubts it is sunlight because the natives of South America, right across the ocean from Africa, do not have black skin. It could be that black skin somehow protects against tropical diseases: negroes have by far the best immunity, even to diseases of South America and the Caribbean where they are…
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