Asian People

[dibble1]

I don't know how to ask this without sounding racist but I'm not so here goes anyway.
Why do Chinese people or Japanese or Asian people have eyes the way they do? Is there some evolutionary or geographical reason why their eyes differ to those of European people?

[RATTER15]

It doesnt sound racist to me!

I have no idea!

[HowardKennitby]

some info here

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

[Old_Geezer]

I suspect that most of the way folk look is down to local preference in choosing a partner, over many many centuries, many many generations. There may be valid reasons for those preferences or they may just be whatever they turned out to be.

[EDDIE51]

I could ask the same question about Afro-caribbean noses , why are they flatter?

[EDDIE51]

Quite true , the fear of racism is now far worse than racism itself.
I remember a post on here, a child had been told by her school to write a letter of apology admitting they were racist simply for asking another child ''are you brown because you come from Africa?'' The childs mother rightly refused and put in a formal complaint.

[heathfield]

Some believe that the Chinese eyes developed from their ancestors having originally lived in a very cold climate, which gave rise to a layer of fat being developed in the upper eyelid to protect the eyeball from cold. This feature can also be seen in Eskimo peoples, and it determines the shape of their eyes. It's thought that the Afro nose was the original normal shape, but as people migrated north to cooler climates, (the so-called temperate zones), the Caucasian nose developed, allowing inhaled air to be warmed for longer before being drawn into the lungs. But if the climate was colder still, (Arctic), noses of shorter length were again necessary, in this case to guard against frostbite. Hence the short noses of Eskimos and Chinese, and added evidence that the Chinese could be of far northern ancestry.

[TheRtHonSec]

On a general note, I read somewhere a few weeks ago that one scientist says humans are one of the newest species on the planet and have not yet reached half way in their evolution. So what will we look like in the future?

[wildwood]

^^ Evolution is never finished. It goes on for as long as there is Life on Earth.

[FredPuli43]

On this, the Ainu people of Japan are very hairy. They are thought to be descendants of original Japanese people, the familiar Asian features being of people who arrived later.Certainly Inuit, 'eskimo', people look remarkably oriental, as noted.

Black people have various adaptations to an African climate; high pigment protects the skin but restricts the benefit in vitamin from sunlight. That doesn't matter when there's so much of it in Africa. They also have more sweat glands, which does matter in hot climates, but which doesn't matter much to people evolved in the colder north Our ancestors came from Africa, and presumably had early adaptation to the climate, so we who are white have lost some of the less relevant characteristics over time.

[jno]

the fear of racism is now far worse than racism itself.

Sorry, Eddie, I just don't believe that's true - ask Stephen Lawrence's family.