The Spirit in Human Evolution - Waldorf Research Institute

have brown skin which possesses the ability to tan when exposed to sunlight or lighten
when exposure is reduced. Jonathan Kingdon has argued that the shore dwelling Banda
peoples were the first to evolve truly black skins and tight curly hair as an adaptation
to foraging along the tidal or tropical coastlines of the Indian Ocean. 16 In fact Kingdon
presents a scenario in which Banda peoples migrate back to Africa bringing with them
their genetic heritage of black skin and tight curly hair, suggesting that the original
Moderns were not black but the human archetypal brown.
Cultural Selection
As we have seen, natural selection is not the only factor in determining
physiological traits. Cultural selection has also played an important role. There are strong
arguments for the view that many racial traits have in fact been determined through
sexual selection. Many peoples have strong cultural preferences for certain traits, hair
color, eye shape, facial features, stature, breast, hip or buttock size. Even today there are
noticeable statistical preferences for body shape. As Jared Diamond has shown, men
still prefer woman who appear young, healthy, and fertile as suggested by bodily form
and skin tone. Women apparently seek out men who are likely to be good providers of
support and protection. 17 Whilst such preferences may vary between cultures and change
with the course of time, there is no doubt that in earlier more conservative tribal times,
these factors lead to significant sexual selection. It is perhaps characteristic of the trend
to increasing individualism that people’s preferences for partners are increasingly based
on individually- and less on culturally-determined norms.
Many of these physical traits belong to what we normally think of as “racial”
characteristics. When encountering strangers we can usually identify their ethnic groups
quickly on the basis of skin color, hair type, build and especially facial features. These
observations no longer tell us about people’s origins, as they might have done a hundred
years ago and certainly would have done in the fifteenth century. These outer traits were
once highly significant in identifying people. In our times when multiracial societies are
becoming the norm, such differences are much less significant. We are now beginning
to learn to recognize the unique individuality in another person as primary and what
he or she looks like as secondary. As Jonathan Kingdon put it,“What it is to be human will
always be more complex, interesting and important than what it is to be any particular
type of human.” 18
The Concept of Race
The very concept of race is deeply flawed and comes with an immense amount
of useless historical baggage. We know (but could never quantify) how much human
suffering has been caused by religious and scientific dogmas with regard to supposed
racial distinctions. We also know that the five classic racial types, Negroid, Caucasoid,
Mongoloid, Austronesian and the group including the Khoisan peoples of Southern
Africa, are inappropriate categories in genetic terms. The word Caucasian, which was
coined by Dr. Johann Blumenbach in 1770 because he possessed a skull purporting to
come from Mt. Ararat and which he took to be the type specimen for the ideal for the
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16
Ibid., Chapters 6 and 7.
17
Diamond, J., 1997, Why is Sex Fun?
18
See Kingdon, 1993, p294.
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