> How did we get through the Neolithic Era without sunscreen? Actually, perfectly well.
I have to suspect that this logic won't apply if you're a light skinned person in a place where the natives are all fairly dark skinned.
I have to suspect that this logic won't apply if you're a light skinned person in a place where the natives are all fairly dark skinned.
The article criticizes the generalization of using sunscreen advice, and proceeds to go full-generalization itself.
The study that the article is based on may be very interesting, the article is just misleading. If there is parts of the population that avoid too much to be under sunlight, it is worth studying. Asking the general public to stop using sunscreen is just bad advice.
I think this article is spot on. And like you say it doesn't say to avoid sunscreen altogether... it says: "Each person’s needs vary so much with season, latitude, skin color, personal history, philosophy, and so much else that it’s impossible to provide a one-size-fits-all recommendation."
When I talk to my grandparents. The idea of doing anything during the hottest part of the day is crazy to them. They would go for a swim at the beach in the morning or afternoon. Not at midday.
I guess they also had people that rubbed themselves in butter to get a nice tan too, but I'm interested if there has been that sort of change.
There was a guy on the radio (in the UK) discussing skin cancer rates in Australia. He summed up with a few words "we're white men in a black man's country".
I think that such a level of skin covering, despite the high temperatures, speaks to an acute cultural awareness of skin cancer that you don't see in most places.
No evolutionary pressure once someone has reproduced, and skin cancer and skin cancer is both rare under 30[1] and take some years to kill.
[1] https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-...
Thus if there are group selective pressures at play. Those with adults who live longer may outcompete those who do not.
And it may explain why darker skin (which has less incidents of skin cancer) was selected for at lower latitudes, while white skin (more effective as absorbing vitamin D) was selected for at higher latitudes.
The paper doesn’t specify why these genes might have been under such strong selection. But the likely explanation for the pigmentation genes is to maximize vitamin D synthesis, said paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), University Park, as she looked at the poster’s results at the meeting. People living in northern latitudes often don’t get enough UV to synthesize vitamin D in their skin so natural selection has favored two genetic solutions to that problem—evolving pale skin that absorbs UV more efficiently or favoring lactose tolerance to be able to digest the sugars and vitamin D naturally found in milk.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolve...
Sure, people did occasionally live to old ages, but only the ones who lived easier lives.
The fact that sun was so important evolutionarily that whole populations literally turned white to get more of it really says something.
Of course the point of the article is that it's not just vitamin D, but a whole host of other effects.
I’m not sure that we actually know that this is true. It could be that there is some other beneficial mutation which causes light skin which is only a net positive at higher latitudes where light skin is not penalized as much. And there’s some disconfirming evidence for the vitamin D hypothesis: people of African ancestry seem to do okay when they live at higher latitudes and most of us spend most of our time indoors, anyway, and also seem to do okay.
If you only have 10% of sun exposure at a time due to trees, that's quite an effective sunblock.