One thing I find fascinating is that the skin colors of the different peoples seem to so strongly reflect their native environment, in spite of the very weak impact that skin color has on survival. How likely do you think it is that a black person raised in England will die of vitamin D deficiency before he gets the opportunity to reproduce? And how likely is it that a white person raised in Africa will die of skin cancer before getting the opportunity to reproduce? I would say that both of these are so unlikely that they are an afterthought. And yet, when you look at the populations of England and Africa, the English are all completely white, and the Africans are all completely black. This fascinates me to the point of skepticism, but I have not thought of a better explanation than the vitamin D and skin cancer thing.

They say that Eskimos are an exception to this general rule that those in sunny environments are dark skinned and those dim environments are light skinned, because Eskimos have a diet rich in vitamin D due to the fish they eat. This is also said to be the reason why some of the Japanese have a tanner complexion compared to Koreans or those from Northern China, because the Japanese eat a lot of fish.

So why is it that Scandinavians, in spite of herrings being a staple of their diet, all universally have very white skin?