Short Answers to Good Questions: Where did the different people groups come from?

If the eight people that came off the Ark were a middle brown color, where did all the variations of skin and eye color, face shape and eye shape come from?

Photo by Ciao Ho

 

After Babel, the human race dispersed across the globe in small groups isolated by language. Without constant intermarriage between the tribes, the genetic information each group carried determining eye color and skin color became more distinct, more concentrated, as time went on. To speed the process, certain characteristics were singled out through various selection pressures (environmental, sexual, etc.). For instance, those with darker skins who lived in cloudy, cool environments, were more susceptible to vitamin D deficiencies, and died off, leaving the lighter skinned genes to dominate that people group. Lighter skinned people are more apt to develop skin cancer, and died off in hot tropical areas. Natural selection combined with environmental factors to discriminate between the fit and the fittest for each climate.

For more information see:
Adam + Eve = All Skin Tones?
Darwin and Racism
The New Answers Book, Ken Ham, et all. Chapter 17