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:::::::Yes, but I disagree. So please tell ''why'' (with sources) you think he qualifies as an expert in human skin in this case. ] (]) 01:40, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Yes, but I disagree. So please tell ''why'' (with sources) you think he qualifies as an expert in human skin in this case. ] (]) 01:40, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::::*Can you prove that wikipedia forbids experts citing another experts? ] (]) 02:09, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::::*Can you prove that wikipedia forbids experts citing another experts? ] (]) 02:09, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::::No, I can't prove that because as I've said many times, it's not true and has no relevance to my argument.
:::::::Can you please give your reasons for thinking that Hagos is qualified as an expert in human skin colour in this case?
:::::::] (]) 02:22, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
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I've marked recent additions about the speed and scope of human skin colour changes. These additions use a single ref, a story on the NPR website from 2009 based on a short radio interview with Nina Jablonski. Since the interview, Jablonski has published numerous papers on the topic in peer-reviewed journals since the interview, as well as a book, and none (at least that I can find) reiterate nor provide evidence for the claims made. Perhaps the interview was given at a time when a line of research looked promising, but then it never panned out and so was not included in her published work. Unless there is some more robust supporting material I suggest we remove these additions. Tobus2 (talk) 02:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Tobus2 is referring to these changes that were made bySoupforone. I agree with Tobus2 about this. Since I've linked Soupforone's username in this paragraph, Soupforone will get a notification about this discussion via WP:Echo (assuming that he or she has not opted out of getting a notification when someone links to his or her username on a talk page). However, Soupforone might have this article on his or her WP:Watchlist and thus does not need the notification. Flyer22 (talk) 02:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Here is the transcript of the NPR interview. It's all in there. Jablonski also does not appear to have changed her research stance much if at all since then. She indicated more or less the same thing in an article that she wrote a few months ago for the AGEI's website, as an adjunct to her lecture at the AGEI's 2012 Darwin Seminars : "From a genetic perspective, skin colour re-pigmentation and de-pigmentation evolved many times over, independently of other traits like eye and hair colour. So we can’t group people into genetically distinct groups based on skin colour."Soupforone (talk) 22:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
The link to the transcript is wrong - it's a link to a mobile-friendly version of the same story. The actual transcript is here. If you listen to the audio it's obvious that it isn't a genuine interview - it's a story with soundbites from Jablonski edited in to make it sound interview-ish. She doesn't actually say a lot of what's attributed to her in the story and we can't assume that any of her statements are actual responses to what the reporter just said. I don't think we should treat it as a reliable source.
Thanks for finding the 2nd link. It does refer to repigmentation and multiple independent evolution, but there is no support in there for two major claims in the first ref - that skin colour can change in 100 generations with no intermarriage and that South Asians/Sri Lankans were once lightly pigmented. I searched a bit deeper and found two papers in peer-reviewed publications which explain the 'repigmentation' as tanning ability and the 'many times over' evolution as the two known European and East Asian cases plus the possible Neanderthal one:
"This has been proved by genetic evidence for selective sweeps having established depigmented integumental phenotypes independently in the ancestors of western Europeans and eastern Asians and probably also in Homo neanderthalensis . Dispersal of human populations into latitudes between about 23° and 46° was accompanied by the evolution of partially depigmented phenotypes capable of tanning . Many such populations probably represent repigmented descendants of previously depigmented peoples—such as in the case of the indigenous peoples of the New World—but identification of candidate loci associated with evolution of secondary dark pigmentation is still in its early stages ." Human skin pigmentation, migration and disease susceptibility
We shouldn't be including the claims made in the NPR story unless there is some robust corroborating evidence.
Unlike perhaps the authors of those other papers, Jablonski is clearly not referring to tanning when she speaks of "re-pigmentation" in her AGEI piece . This is evident since she mentions re-pigmentation in conjunction with de-pigmentation, indicating that both "skin colour re-pigmentation and de-pigmentation evolved many times over, independently of other traits like eye and hair colour". In other words, Jablonski is referring to long-term directional changes in the skin color trait itself. That is why she concludes the passage with the caveat that "we can’t group people into genetically distinct groups based on skin colour." That is also why elsewhere she uses South Indians as an example of this process at work (please see below).
With regard to the NPR interview, it was evidently longer than what has been transcribed, and was edited down before publication. This is obvious since the NPR article on Jablonski quotes her saying things that aren't featured in the transcript of the final presentation of the interview. For example, her assertion that changes in pigmentation within a given lineage can happen in "a blink of an eye".
It is also apparent that the NPR interview was longer than what is included in the transcript since the transcript paraphrases some of what she says and then attributes those statements to her. In the process, it notes her responses to the interviewer Krulwich's own assertions. That includes the main points about how the ancestors of most people living today were likely a different color not that long ago and lived in a different part of the globe; how a lineage/family group can evolve a different skin color in as little as 50 to 100 generations (~2,500 years), with no intermarriage required; how populations in present-day South India are an example of this, as they "re-evolved dark pigment" after having migrated down from Central Asia; and how she and other researchers know all this through recent advances in genetic clocking technology.
From the NPR article :
”that color, the one you have now, says Jablonski, is very probably not the color your ancient ancestors had — even if you think your family has been the same color for a long, long time.”
”Skin has changed color in human lineages much faster than scientists had previously supposed, even without intermarriage, Jablonski says”
”Recent developments in comparative genomics allow scientists to sample the DNA in modern humans. By creating genetic "clocks," scientists can make fairly careful guesses about when particular groups became the color they are today. And with the help of paleontologists and anthropologists, scientists can go further: They can wind the clock back and see what colors these populations were going back tens of thousands of years, says Jablonski.”
”She says that for many families on the planet, if we look back only 100 or 200 generations (that's as few as 2,500 years), "almost all of us were in a different place and we had a different color."”
”Over the last 50,000 years, populations have gone from dark pigmented to lighter skin, and people have also gone the other way, from light skin back to darker skin, she says.”
"People living now in southern parts of India are extremely darkly pigmented," Jablonski says. But their great, great ancestors lived much farther north, and when they migrated south, their pigmentation redarkened. "There has probably been a redarkening of several groups of humans."
From the NPR transcript :
KRULWICH: And I didn't know this, but there are also instances of lighter groups turning darker over time.
Dr. JABLONSKI: The people now living in southern parts of India are extremely darkly pigmented.
KRULWICH: But once upon a time, those same people lived in central Asia. And up north, there, they were much lighter, until they moved south, where new evidence suggests…
Dr. JABLONSKI: They re-evolved dark pigment.
KRULWICH: And they're not the only ones. Aboriginal Australians may have gone from light to dark, Pacific Islanders, the same.
Dr. JABLONSKI: There's probably been a re-darkening of several different groups of humans.
As the research findings are coming from Jablonski herself and have been attributed as such, the tags should be removed. Soupforone (talk) 21:31, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Jablonski IS the author of those other papers. If you read her actual 'research findings' (ie her published works) instead of a radio DJ's interpretation of them, the 're-pigmentation' reference at AGEI can only be about tanning - she simply provides no other genetic mechanism for skin redarkening. She presents a theory that light skin evolved twice (possibly thrice if you count Neanderthals) as populations moved north and then tanning evolved (multiple times?) as light-skinned populations expanded south - that's what "skin colour re-pigmentation and de-pigmentation evolved many times over" is referring to. Her theory is dark->light->tanned, not dark->light->dark as the reporter seems to think. But don't listen to me, listen to the evidence: we have 2 peer-reviewed published research papers by Jablonski, both with sources and supporting data, saying 're-pigmentation' is tanning, compared with a single news item by a journalist who has edited her words to imply it's genetic evolution, with no sources or data. Which do you think is more reliable?
Don't get me wrong, I would love for the claims to be true. When I first read your additions I was very excited and went to look for the paper the story was based on. I wanted to see which new SNP's they've found for 're-pigmented' dark skin and was hoping to analyse the data showing populations which have migrated and changed skin colour within 100 generations. Unfortunately there is no paper, there are no new SNPs, there is no population data, there's not even Jablonski actually saying the things the journalist has implied she said. It turns out the NPR story is a beat up - it misrepresents and sensationalises Jablonski's theory, hence the 'dubious' tag.
I'm happy to remove the tags if you are able to find peer-reviewed published research which shows that:
1. South Asians were once light-skinned and independently evolved dark skin
2. Human skin colour can change in 100 generations with no intermarriage
Actually, it's indicated fairly conspicuously in the NPR article that those are Jablonski's own words. It's her that asserts that most people living today were likely a different color not that long ago and lived in a different part of the globe; that a lineage/family group can evolve a different skin color through environmental adaptation in as little as 50 to 100 generations (~2,500 years), with no intermarriage required; that populations in present-day South India are an example of this, as they "re-evolved dark pigment" after having migrated down from Central Asia (she mentions the indigenous peoples of the New World as another example in her 2012 paper ); and that she and other scientists know all this through recent advances in genetic clocking technology. In a nutshell, this is what Jablonski means by re-pigmentation and de-pigmentation. That is why those assertions are annotated with phrases -- bulleted and italicized in my previous post above -- like “Jablonski says”, or “says Jablonski”, or “she says”. They're not the work of one over-eager NPR science writer's imagination, as you appear to be suggesting. That is also why this same NPR piece is cited as a reliable source on the Race (human classification) page (where I first got wind of it, btw). If it's good enough for use there, it should be good enough here too. Soupforone (talk) 22:05, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Also note that repigmentation and depigmentation of global populations are things that Jablonski has been emphasizing for many years now. What's really novel is her estimate for how quickly skin pigmentation can change in a given lineage or family group. As recently as 2005, she was asserting that it took at least 15,000 years . However, with the significant advances in genetic clocking technology, Jablonski and other researchers have now lowered that estimate to around 2,500 years. Soupforone (talk) 22:05, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up on the other article using the same source, it's used much more accurately there but I've flagged it as dubious as well so the editors there can review it.
I've gone ahead and removed the claims I flagged as dubious, you haven't provided any reliable verification for them and despite looking I can't find any either. We can reinstate any claims with more appropriate wording if this discussion leads to some supportable facts. Jablonski is a prolific writer and her theories and ideas are very easy to find. If this NPR story is the only place she is reported as saying something, it's probably not something she says. The fact that neither of us can find any other reference to the claims in question is an indication that we shouldn't be repeating them.
I agree that the article indicates that those are Jablonski's own words, but because the claims differ from what she presents in her research I checked to make sure, and as I've already told you, most of them are not her own words. I really didn't want to get into a quote-by-quote analysis of the NPR "interview", but I will. The reporter takes short soundbites with no context and places them in his own context, without the original source there's absolutely no way of knowing what Jablonski was really talking about. For instance, you think "it's her that asserts... :
that most people living today were likely a different color not that long ago and lived in a different part of the globe"
All she said was "Almost all of us were in a different place and we had different color." It could come from an introduction to an overview of OOA and mean "all Eurasians once lived in Africa and had dark skin". The fact that editor has placed it immediately after the reporter saying "if you go back not that many generations..." makes it sound like she means in recent times, but there's no way of knowing if that's what she was actually talking about.
that a lineage/family group can evolve a different skin color through environmental adaptation in as little as 50 to 100 generations (~2,500 years), with no intermarriage required;"
What she actually said was "Our original estimates were that this occurred perhaps at a more stately pace, but now we think that that process of change may have had to occur much more quickly." and "We might be thinking let's say 50 to 100 generations…". Notably she doesn't mention "without intermarriage" and she's not definite about the timespan ("may have had to" and "might be thinking"). She also says "We're talking about the rate of change during the earliest parts of the human evolution when we would not have had the nice togas or clothing that the man in Greece may have had." which is in direct contradiction to the "not that long ago" the reporter is claiming.
that populations in present-day South India are an example of this, as they "re-evolved dark pigment" after having migrated down from Central Asia"
She actually says "The people now living in southern parts of India are extremely darkly pigmented." and, in a separate soundbite that may have preceded the first one or come much later when talking about a different topic, "They re-evolved dark pigment". She does not say that South Indians migrated down from Central Asia. She also doesn't state that South Indians re-evolved dark skin, although the editing would make it appear so. Without the source context there no way to know if those two statements are about the same or completely separate topics.
(she mentions the indigenous peoples of the New World as another example in her 2012 paper );"
She does mention North Americans in her 2012 paper, but not "as another example" like you misinterpret. She mentions them as a 'probable' alternative/adjunct to tanning and then concedes that there is no actual evidence of a second evolution of dark skin:
Dispersal of human populations into latitudes between about 23° and 46° was accompanied by the evolution of partially depigmented phenotypes capable of tanning. Many such populations probably represent repigmented descendants of previously depigmented peoples—such as in the case of the indigenous peoples of the New World—but identification of candidate loci associated with evolution of secondary dark pigmentation is still in its early stages
In any case India covers latitudes 6° to 35°, so this would only apply to northern India, not to southern India and Sri Lanka which are the areas that we are discussing.
The article makes it look like it's Jablonski making the claims, but without the source context for her quotes it's impossible to know what Jablonski actually said and what is being extrapolated by the reporter and editor. The best we can do is to find corroboration in other publications and the best I've found there suggests she means tanning when talking about "repigmentation". I could find no mention of the "50-100 generations" claim in any of her other work. If the NPR story were a reliable source then it would be possible to find other publications that agree with it. If you have other sources that support the claims in the NPR story then please supply them, otherwise I'll consider the discussion closed.
With respect, there's no sense in arguing that Jablonski did not make those statements since it's indicated in the NPR piece that she in fact did. Those assertions are clearly attributed to her, not to the interviewer. Krulwich didn't, for example, come up with the 100 generations rate of change by himself. That is Jablonski's own new estimate, given the recent advances in genomic technology:
"Skin has changed color in human lineages much faster than scientists had previously supposed, even without intermarriage, Jablonski says And with the help of paleontologists and anthropologists, scientists can go further: They can wind the clock back and see what colors these populations were going back tens of thousands of years, says Jablonski. She says that for many families on the planet, if we look back only 100 or 200 generations (that's as few as 2,500 years), "almost all of us were in a different place and we had a different color."
Jablonski explains further in a 2011 article of hers that such major skin color changes can occur in just a few thousand years through selective sweeps, which greatly accelerate populational shifts in pigmentation:
"Light skin is actually depigmented skin. When people started moving away from very sunny places with high levels of UVB to less sunny places with lower levels of UVB, those individuals who had lighter skin were able to stay healthier and leave more offspring. Evolution was at work again. The individuals with lighter skin had specific genetic mutations that resulted in their producing less eumelanin and so having less natural sunscreen in their skin. These new patterns of genetic variation were very successful. We see evidence, in fact, that “selective sweeps” – greatly accelerated periods of evolution by natural selection – led to genes for lighter skin becoming fixed in the population over the course of just a few thousand years."
This is what National Geographic means as well when it asserts that "scientists believe that major changes in skin color can happen in the relatively short evolutionary period of some 100 generations notably, skin color can change from both dark to light and light to dark."Soupforone (talk) 21:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I understand you have faith in the NPR reporter, but I'm highly sceptical. He makes claims that are outside the generally accepted consensus on the topic. He attributes these claims to one of the leading researchers in the field but they're not in any of her research papers. He quotes her multiple times - always agreeing with and supplementing the claims but somehow never actually saying them. It rings major alarm bells to me, made doubly strong by it not being from a particularly respected publisher and by it being presented in such a simplistic way. You may choose to take everything in the story at face value, but before I accept it as fact I want to see it confirmed somewhere else.
By contrast the other two sources you give are much more reliable, both are in publications with high editorial integrity and both make statements that are consistent with the scientific consensus. (I make particular note that neither mentions "without intermarriage" nor claims that South Indians once had light skin.) How would you feel about basing something on one or both of these sources instead of the NPR story?
The Jablonski & NatGeo sources could work. Here is a summary of Jablonski and her husband Chaplin's current research, from the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service (January 17, 2013) :
”Jablonski and Chaplin have published a series of papers on human skin pigmentation and its relation to solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) . Their primary thesis is that human skin pigmentation has adapted to UVR conditions where a group of people live for 50 generations, or about a thousand years. UVR from mid-day sunlight produces vitamin D, which provides important protection against many diseases, but sunlight also causes skin cancer and destruction of folate. Dark skin protects against free radical production, damage to DNA, cancer, and loss of folate. Thus, dark skin is best in the tropical planes regions while pale skin is best at high latitude regions. Those with skin adapted to UVB between 23° and 46° have the ability to tan, which is an adaptation to seasonal changes in solar UVB doses. However, in recent times, people have moved or traveled to regions where their skin pigmentation is not suited to the local UVR conditions. They discuss three examples: nutritional rickets, multiple sclerosis and melanoma. Their abstract concludes with this observation: "Low UVB levels and vitamin D deficiencies produced by changes in location and lifestyle pose some of the most serious disease risks of the twenty-first century."”Soupforone (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
This is not such a good source, Orthomolecular medicine is generally considered a pseudo-science and so being published in the "Orthomolecular Medicine New Service" doesn't give a ref much credibility. I'd be sceptical of anything that publication says unless it can be verified elsewhere. In this case it's verified by the Jablonski 2000 and the NatGeo refs you provided in your last post and since they are the more reliable publications you might as well just use those as refs instead.
I'm happy for you to add content back in that is supported by NatGeo and/or Jablonski's work, but not claims that are made solely in the NPR story. In particular this would mean not saying the speed is without intermarriage and not saying that South Indians were once light-skinned. It sounds like you are OK with this so perhaps we can agree and consider the matter resolved?
The “without intermarriage” is inherent in Jablonski and Chaplin's thesis since the latter is centered on environmental adaptation. Given this, I guess the phrase could be left out. The repigmentation of South Indians as they first moved into the Indian Subcontinent from Central Asia must, however, be included. It serves as a real life example of the kind of major change in skin pigmentation that is possible in the given timeframe. In the NPR transcript, Jablonski also clearly states that South Indians “re-evolved dark pigment.” Soupforone (talk) 21:34, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
We can't include a controversial claim unless it's verified by a reliable source, and without confirmation the NPR transcript is not a reliable source. We've found two reliable sources that confirm that skin colour can, under strong selection, change within a few thousand years (although neither states "without intermarriage" as NPR claims), but the claims about South Indians re-evolving dark skin don't seem to be independently verifiable. Tobus2 (talk) 12:28, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Jablonski states the same thing with regard to South Indians in another interview , this time with her alma mater Bryn Mawr College: "“Light skin evolved more than once in human history, in Western Europe and in East Asia,” says Jablonski. “Dark skin re-evolved once and perhaps twice in populations dispersing into Melanesia and the southernmost part of the Indian subcontinent.”" She also has an alumnus page there . Soupforone (talk) 21:57, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
This is a more reliable source and one that I'm happy to take at face value. The sentence you quote is unusual because it's at odds with accepted genetic evidence that South Asians and Melanesians share the same "dark skin genes" as Africans. Rereading some of Jablonski's research papers it seems that her claim is a hypothetical extrapolation of the effect of UV on skin colour based on the evidence available at the time:
After first discovering the association between UV and skin colour she says "Thus, it is likely that some human lineages through time may have gone through alternating periods of depigmentation and pigmentation (or vice versa) as they moved from one UVMED regime to another." . This was in 2000 before there was any positive association with any skin depigmentation alleles.
She states something similar in 2004 and suggests MC1R as the responsible gene: "The production of eumelanin is under strong functional constraint as a result of natural selection in regions of the world with high levels of UVR, and there is increasing evidence that at least MC1R variation is an adaptive response to selection for different alleles in different environments". In the same article she goes on to say "it appears that populations of humans have moved in and out of regions with different UVR regimes over the course of thousands of years. This finding would suggest that natural selection would have favored the evolution of dark and light skin pigmentation in disparate places at different times, resulting in the independent evolution of dark and light skin phenotypes and possibly involving recurrent episodes of repigmentation and depigmentation." At this stage she had proven a correlation with UV and skin colour, there was a known association of constrained MC1R with dark skin and evidence of relaxed MC1R contraints outside of Africa, but still no positive identification of skin depigmentation alleles. Her paper fits with the expectation that the highly variant MC1R would turn out to be primary cause of depigmentation and, due to the range and number of MC1R variants, the possibility of skin colour changing rapidly and often would have seemed a certainty.
Between 2005 and 2007 a number of genes were positively associated with skin colour. In 2006 the first evidence was found that SLC24A5 and SLC45A2 account for a significant portion of European depigmentation and it was proven that light skin evolved independently in European and East Asian populations, adding further support for the idea that skin colour was highly variable.
It was at this time, and in this context, that she makes the claim (in the 2007 interview ) that "Dark skin re-evolved once and perhaps twice in populations dispersing into Melanesia and the southernmost part of the Indian subcontinent" after the populations left Africa and spent lengthy periods in lower UV environments some 50,000 years ago. She makes a similar claim including Australian Aboriginals this time in a 2008 talk where she says "So deeply pigmented skin evolved in early homo sapiens and has been maintained very stongly in equatorial Africa, but it has also evolved and we can make an excellent circumstantial case for it having evolved at least twice more, perhaps even more, independently in the ancestors of Australasians and southern Indians". The NRP story came out shortly after in early 2009 with a similar claim.
It's worth noting that all these papers talk about the possibility of repigmentation (note the use of likely, may, possibly, suggest etc.)... she's aware there's no known genetic mechanism for it and no population studies that support it. But if you take the "circumstantial" evidence of populations moving though varying UV environments, combine it with a highly variable MC1R and add to that the plethora of studies discovering skin colour alleles in other genes and proving that light skin evolved multiple times, it's easy to see how she would believe that confirmation of her repigmentation theory was just a matter of time.
Since then however, there have been a few studies reinforcing the known associations, but almost no new skin colour alleles have been found. Just about all the skin colour ranges on the planet have been attributed to admixture of the original darker "African" alleles and the lighter "European" or "Asian" ones. It has been shown that the relaxed MC1R variants aren't responsible for population-level skin colour and have not been subject to selection. As time goes on it becomes more and more accepted that the "multiple evolution" of light skin is just twice and no evidence for a re-evolution of dark skin has surfaced. Jablonski's later papers reflect this:
In 2010 she says "Evidence is mounting that darkly pigmented skin, or the potential for facultative development of dark pigmentation through tanning, evolved secondarily under positive selection in populations moving from low-to-high-UVR environments." - introducing tanning, the only proven mechanism for repigmentation. Later in the same paper: ""Hominins and modern humans dispersed independently many times into nontropical latitudes and evolved depigmented phenotypes by numerous and different genetically based means, some of which remain to be illuminated. It is important to stress that habitation of middle latitudes between approximately 23° and 46° involved the evolution of partially depigmented phenotypes capable of tanning."... the "repigmentation" idea is noticeably absent and has been replaced by tanning: ""Depigmented and tannable skin evolved numerous times in hominin evolution via independent genetic pathways under positive selection"
Another 2010 paper confirms this shift to a dark/light/tanning theory: "The stable gradient of skin colors observed from the equator to the poles is the product of two conflicting clines operating over a spatially varying optimum of UVR distribution. One of these emphasizes photoprotection by dark pigmentation near the equator, and the other emphasizes photosynthesis of vitamin D facilitated by light pigmentation near the poles. Moderately pigmented skin, which can develop a tan in the presence of high UVR in the summer and then lose melanin pigment again in the absence of strong UVR in the winter, is a characteristic of humans inhabiting middle latitudes and experiencing seasonal UVR regimes"
And again in 2011: "As modern humans moved around the world in greater numbers and over longer distances in the time between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, a lot of “fine tuning” occurred in the evolution of skin pigmentation. As populations moved to parts of the world with different UVR levels, they underwent genetic changes that modified their skin pigmentation. As people moved into the Americas from Asia, for instance, we see evidence that some populations entering high UVR environments underwent genetic changes which made it possible for them to tan easily. Tanning is the ability to develop temporary melanin pigmentation in the skin in response to UVR and has evolved numerous times in peoples living under highly seasonal patterns of sunshine"
Same thing in 2012: ""Members of the human lineage dispersed many times independently into non-tropical latitudes, and evolved depigmented phenotypes by numerous and different genetically based means, some of which remain to be illuminated. Habitation of middle latitudes between approximately 23° and 46° with seasonally high loads of UVB favored the evolution of partially depigmented phenotypes capable of tanning.
... twice: "This has been proved by genetic evidence for selective sweeps having established depigmented integumental phenotypes independently in the ancestors of western Europeans and eastern Asians and probably also in Homo neanderthalensis. Dispersal of human populations into latitudes between about 23° and 46° was accompanied by the evolution of partially depigmented phenotypes capable of tanning."
It's quite clear that the hypothetical idea of populations "re-evolving" dark skin based on circumstantial evidence disappeared after the initial rush of research in 2006-7, to be replaced by a concrete assertion of the proven evolution of repigmentation by tanning. It is interesting to note that in both the two 2012 papers she mentions the repigmentation idea as an unproved possibility in reference to New World populations, but there is no mention of South Indian or Australasians. She does mention India in the 2011 paper, but it's about "the dispersal of lightly and moderately pigmented “Ancestral North Indians” into high-UVR reaches of the Indian subcontinent", a clear case of admixture since there were already darkly-pigmented "Ancestral South Indians" living there.
So, if you want to use this ref to mention the idea that South Indians were once light-skinned and re-evolved dark skin, you will need to make sure you put it in context and make sure it doesn't sound like a statement of fact. It's certainly a possibility, but at the present time it's hypothetical with no hard evidence or research to support it. Personally I think something like what the NatGeo says would be sufficient.
Tobus2 (talk) 16:12, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for this; quite informative. It would appear that Jablonski once theorized that Australian Aboriginals may have re-pigmented as well. Her specification on page 6 of the 2011 paper with Chaplin that Ancestral North Indians may have re-darkened does not, though, seem to be attributed to admixture with in situ Ancestral South Indians, but rather to a selective sweep once the ANI reached the high UVR areas of the Indian subcontinent : "Evidence is mounting that darkly pigmented skin, or the potential for facultative development of dark pigmentation through tanning, evolved secondarily under positive selection in populations moving from low- to high-UVR environments. Pigmentary changes such as these appear to have occurred following the dispersal of lightly and moderately pigmented “Ancestral North Indians” into high-UVR reaches of the Indian subcontinent and in lightly and moderately pigmented east Asians moving into the high-UVR environments of Central and mountainous South America". Jablonski appears to be suggesting here that the ANI re-pigmented once they moved into southern India since that is the part of the subcontinent where her and Chaplin's UVA & UVB maps are at their most intense , . Soupforone (talk) 23:28, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
I think part of the problem here is one of terminology, in particular "evolution" doesn't always mean a de novo mutation. For a population to undergo selection, the allele being selected for must already exist in the population, even if only in minor frequencies. In cases of new traits this is usually from a de novo mutation, but for traits that once existed in the population's ancestors the allele could still be present as a minor allele in a heterozygous population, and for traits that exist in other populations it can be introduced via admixture. So when Jablonski says "evolved secondarily under positive selection in populations moving from low- to high-UVR environments" this doesn't necessarily mean a novel mutation in a skin pigmentation gene.
In the case of the ANI migration into southern India, admixture is a proven source of the dark-skin alleles. Jablonski provides a reference for her statements about ANI, which says:
We analyze 25 diverse groups to provide strong evidence for two ancient populations, genetically divergent, that are ancestral to most Indians today. One, the “Ancestral North Indians” (ANI), is genetically close to Middle Easterners, Central Asians, and Europeans, while the other, the “Ancestral South Indians” (ASI), is as distinct from ANI and East Asians as they are from each other. By introducing methods that can estimate ancestry without accurate ancestral populations, we show that ANI ancestry ranges from 39-71% in India, and is higher in traditionally upper caste and Indo-European speakers. Groups with only ASI ancestry may no longer exist in mainland India. However, the Andamanese are an ASI-related group without ANI ancestry, showing that the peopling of the islands must have occurred before ANI-ASI gene flow on the mainland.
So she is well aware that the ANI interbred with the ASI as they migrated south and that this would have provided plenty of dark-skin alleles for the UV selection to work with. On top of this she also states that the ANI where "lightly and moderately" pigmented, indicating that they were already heterozygous for dark skin to some degree. Even without the ASI admixture they would have not have needed a de novo mutation in order to undergo repigmention.
Also, I don't think this is the scenario Jablonski was talking about in her 2007-9 interviews/speeches. In those she talks about the proposed repigmentation affecting Melanesians and Australians as well as Indians. I think she's talking about the original populating of India (and then Melanesia and Australia) some 50,000 years ago during the initial Out Of Africa dispersal. She doesn't make it totally clear but there are a few clues here and there that I can dig up if you think otherwise. The main clue is that the ANI migration was only 3-4,000 years ago and she notes (in the NPR transcript) that she's talking about a time before clothing and housing, "when we were naked and moving". The currently favoured Coastal Migration Theory allows for the migration from Africa to India, Melanesia and Australia without the need to go much out of the tropics, but they weren't necessarily travelling in a straight line and I guess it's feasible that some groups may have ventured north and experienced periods of a reduced contraint for dark skin. It's highly unlikely however that any of these hypothetical groups that eventually made it to Australia would have gone far enough north to completely lose the dark alleles and become "fixed" for light skin as happened subsequently in northern Europe. There would also have been continual contact with the people "behind" them and so a link to dark alleles via admixture is also highly likely. So even if any of these early OOA groups did undergo some degree of depigmentation in lower UV environments, they would not have needed a de novo mutation to become repigmented when they returned to the high UV areas. In short, as the NatGeo page says, "skin color can change from both dark to light and light to dark" (and probably has done so within the same population) but this does not require a new genetic mechanism each time - admixture and/or selection in heterozygous populations can account for all of it by allowing the reuse of existing mechanisms. As it currently stands, the only proven new mutations for repigmenting light skin are those responsible for tanning.
Although Reich et al. (2009) presents an admixture model between incoming Ancestral North Indians and in situ Ancestral South Indians, it doesn't appear that Jablonski believes that this is the particular mechanism through which the dark skin pigmentation that is present in modern South Indians evolved. She suggests instead that it may have been due to environmental adaptation. Hence, why she likens the re-pigmenting of ANI peoples in high-UVR Southern India to the re-pigmenting of East Asian migrants in high-UVR Latin America. This particular migration from Central Asia into the Indian subcontinent is indeed held to have happened relatively recently. With respect to the much older Out-of-Africa exodus (which I agree Jablonski was referring to in her pre-2009 works), Jablonski's thesis still seems to have involved the movement of depigmented peoples from the direction of Central Asia southward into high-UVR Southern India and Sri Lanka, where they subsequently underwent repigmentation :
"Imagine, for instance, the populations that went from East Africa and slowly made their way into central Asia or northern Asia. These populations would have had to undergo quite extensive depigmentation in order to maintain enough Vitamin D synthesis potential in their skin. But imagine some of these populations that were eventually on their way into Southern India, or what is now Sri Lanka. Those populations that also originated, ultimately, in eastern Africa would have undergone some depigmentation as they moved out of the most intense UV of the tropics, and then they would have undergone repigmentation as they moved down, back into the intense ultraviolet regimes of southern India and Sri Lanka. This same pattern of intense pigmentation to start out with, followed by a period of depigmentation perhaps 10, 20, or 30 thousand years long, followed again by another period of repigmentation, I think has been followed by many different populations as they have gone from one part of the world to another. It's not a deterministic process; it's simply an adaptive process as these populations have changed from one area with one particular ultraviolet light regime to another."Soupforone (talk) 21:36, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not saying that the ANI/ASI admixture is responsible for the paticular degree of skin pigmentation in today's Indians, I'm saying that on a genetic level, the alleles required for such a repigmentation were provided by the ASI ancestors (and probably also present in heterozygous ANI ancestors) and were not a new mutation. Since it's been 3-4,000 years since the initial admixture, I'm happy to accept that the particular range of pigmentation today is caused by adaptation to UV, my point is simply that this is not (and Jablonski doesn't say it is) due to a "re-evolution" in the sense of a new genetic mutation. As I said in my last post, the initial OOA migration to India and Australasia could potentially have resulted in a repigmentation but it's highly circumstantial (note the "Imagine.." at the start of your last quote) and highly unlikely that any such hypothetical repigmentation would have needed a new mutation either. Tobus2 (talk) 13:50, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Ok, but Jablonski does not appear to suggest that a mutation/polymorphism was necessary for the repigmentation of the ANI to have occurred. What she states is that they adapted long-term to their new high-UVR environment in South India. Soupforone (talk) 21:25, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
By the way, there was an error under the SLC24A5 gene. It stated that it is “fixed in European populations and absent from populations that have no European admixture”. While the mutation is of course at fixation in European populations, it is not restricted to Europe nor is its presence in most other areas due to European admixture. In all likelihood, the gene evolved in West Asia and dispersed from there to Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and South Asia, where it is today found at high frequencies. Soupforone (talk) 21:25, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Can you please explain how they adapted without a mutation/polymorphism?
All those populations you mention have European admixture, so the text is correct.
Please also note that it's not the ANI that have repigmented. The ANI and ASI merged to create modern Indians and it's this merged population, "following the dispersal of" the ANI, that Jablonksi is referring to. Every modern Indian has at least one ANI and at least one ASI ancestor, it makes no sense to say their ancestors once had light skin and repigmented - would you say that Halle Berry's ancestors were once white but are now darker?
I'm aware of the ANI/ASI dynamic; Reich et al. (2009) discuss it. Jablonski and Chaplin only mention the things in the post above from 23:28, 18 July 2013 (UTC). Anyway, here's the wikitext with the relevant links; please point out what exact phrase(s) you're referring to:
More recent research has found that human populations over the past 50,000 years have changed from dark-skinned to light-skinned and vice versa. According to specialist Nina Jablonski, head of Penn State's Department of Anthropology, darkly-pigmented modern populations in South India and Sri Lanka are an example of this, having redarkened after their ancestors migrated down from areas much farther north. Scientists originally believed that such shifts in pigmentation occurred relatively slowly. However, researchers have since observed that major changes in skin coloration can happen on a much shorter evolutionary scale, in as little as 100 generations (~2,500 years) through selective sweeps.Soupforone (talk) 21:58, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
Regarding SLC24A5 - the gene's presence in its high areas of concentration outside of Europe is not mainly due to European admixture. This was previously assumed to have been the situation, but now researchers have a better understanding of the gene's global distribution. West Asia instead seems to have been its center of evolution . Soupforone (talk) 21:58, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
I was talking about the statements in your previous two posts: "she likens the re-pigmenting of ANI peoples" and "was necessary for the repigmentation of the ANI to have occurred". I let it go as a mistake the first time but after the second it was apparent you didn't understand that it wasn't the ANI who repigmented nor that ASI are as much the ancestors of modern Indians as the ANI are (in some cases more so). With this understanding now clear, the statement that you added to the article: "modern populations in South India and Sri Lanka are an example of this, having redarkened after their ancestors migrated down from areas much farther north", makes no sense. Tobus2 (talk) 11:45, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
What I indicated in the wikitext is what Jablonski actually states. She does not mention ASI. Anyway, if it's still uncertain what she means here, we can always email her for clarification. As a professor, I'm sure she'd be happy to oblige. Soupforone (talk) 21:34, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
What Jablonski actually states is:
"Evidence is mounting that darkly pigmented skin, or the potential for facultative development of dark pigmentation through tanning, evolved secondarily under positive selection in populations moving from low- to high-UVR environments. Pigmentary changes such as these appear to have occurred following the dispersal of lightly and moderately pigmented “Ancestral North Indians” into high-UVR reaches of the Indian subcontinent and in lightly and moderately pigmented east Asians moving into the high-UVR environments of Central and mountainous South America".
Your interpretation of this is:
" More recent research has found that human populations over the past 50,000 years have changed from dark-skinned to light-skinned and vice versa. According to specialist Nina Jablonski, head of Penn State's Department of Anthropology, darkly-pigmented modern populations in South India and Sri Lanka are an example of this, having redarkened after their ancestors migrated down from areas much farther north".
Note that Jablonski says:
"evidence in mounting" whereas you say "research has found"
"appear to have occurred" whereas you say "are an example of this"
"following the dispersal of lightly and moderately pigmented “Ancestral North Indians” into high-UVR reaches of the Indian subcontinent" whereas you say "after their ancestors migrated down from areas much farther north".
Certainly you have caught the general gist of what she is getting at, but you have stated it as fact where she hasn't and you've made assumptions about both the ancestry and the distance which she doesn't say. If you take what she actually said with the known ANI/ASI admixture of today's southern Indians you'd have to say with something like "Jablonski suggests that repigmentation after the ANI dispersal may have occurred due to UV adaptation but genetic evidence shows significant and widespread admixture with an already dark-skinned population"... it'd better not to mention it at all IMHO, after all it's just something she suggested once.
So, you *could* email Jablonski to see what she meant, I'm sure she loves spending her time solving minor Misplaced Pages disputes, or you could just accept that the ANI example is a rather poor one and drop it.
Actually, the 50,000 maximal date was taken from Jablonski's solo 2011 article , not from Jablonski and Chaplin's 2010 paper . In any event, here is what I actually wrote:
More recent research has found that human populations over the past 50,000 years have changed from dark-skinned to light-skinned and vice versa. According to specialist Nina Jablonski, head of Penn State's Department of Anthropology, darkly-pigmented modern populations in South India and Sri Lanka are an example of this, having redarkened after their ancestors migrated down from areas much farther north. Scientists originally believed that such shifts in pigmentation occurred relatively slowly. However, researchers have since observed that major changes in skin coloration can happen on a much shorter evolutionary scale, in as little as 100 generations (~2,500 years) through selective sweeps.
Here are each of those wikitext assertions, with the supporting statements from Jablonski and NatGeo below them:
"More recent research has found that human populations over the past 50,000 years have changed from dark-skinned to light-skinned and vice versa."
"Similar skin colors – both dark and light – have evolved independently multiple times in human history As modern humans moved around the world in greater numbers and over longer distances in the time between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, a lot of “fine tuning” occurred in the evolution of skin pigmentation"
"According to specialist Nina Jablonski, head of Penn State's Department of Anthropology, darkly-pigmented modern populations in South India and Sri Lanka are an example of this, having redarkened after their ancestors migrated down from areas much farther north."
"Imagine, for instance, the populations that went from East Africa and slowly made their way into central Asia or northern Asia. These populations would have had to undergo quite extensive depigmentation in order to maintain enough Vitamin D synthesis potential in their skin. But imagine some of these populations that were eventually on their way into Southern India, or what is now Sri Lanka. Those populations that also originated, ultimately, in eastern Africa would have undergone some depigmentation as they moved out of the most intense UV of the tropics, and then they would have undergone repigmentation as they moved down, back into the intense ultraviolet regimes of southern India and Sri Lanka."
"Scientists originally believed that such shifts in pigmentation occurred relatively slowly. However, researchers have since observed that major changes in skin coloration can happen on a much shorter evolutionary scale, in as little as 100 generations (~2,500 years) through selective sweeps."
"Scientists believe that major changes in skin color can happen in the relatively short evolutionary period of some 100 generations. Notably, skin color can change from both dark to light and light to dark."
"We see evidence, in fact, that “selective sweeps” – greatly accelerated periods of evolution by natural selection – led to genes for lighter skin becoming fixed in the population over the course of just a few thousand years."Soupforone (talk) 22:22, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Hang on a second, aren't we talking about the ANI dispersal ~4000 years ago? You're suddenly saying it's about the original OOA about ~50,000 years ago. Please make up your mind.
Still, you've clearly missed my point, even though I specifically highlighted the phrases I have issue with. I'll repeat, try to pay attention this time:
You can't say "recent research has found" something unless some recent research has found it. The idea of repigmentation is a theory of Jablonski's not a proven fact in any peer-reviewed published research.
You can't say "according to .., .. is an example of this" unless A actually has said it's an example. Jablonski uses it as a hypothetical possibility based on circumstantial evidence, not as a concrete example of something that definitely happened.
My third point is a bit moot now that you've changed the repigmentation event you are talking about, but note that "their ancestors migrated down from areas much farther north" is at odds with the leading theory on the route taken by the OOA migration which doesn't have the first south Indians coming from very far north at all - the coastal route would have them pretty much in the topics all the way to Australia.
You should note that I accept Jablonski's theory as a possibily (even a probability) and the claims that humans have repigmented and that pigmentation change can happen quickly are already discussed in both the lead and the evolution section. My issues with your most recent edit are: a) presenting a theory as fact, and b) singling out one population as an example when there is no concrete evidence that it actually applies to them.
Tobus2 (talk) 10:11, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The “more recent research has found that...” phrase can be changed to “scientists now believe that...”. Regarding the South Indian example, I suppose it could be somewhat confusing since Jablonski in different papers uses modern South Indians as an example of both older OOA-linked and recent ANI-associated repigmentation. Soupforone (talk) 21:28, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
... except that scientists don't "now believe that"... from the evidence we've seen, a scientist proposed a theory that it may have happened. Tobus2 (talk) 15:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Per National Geographic, they do : "scientists believe that major changes in skin color can happen in the relatively short evolutionary period of some 100 generations notably, skin color can change from both dark to light and light to dark."Soupforone (talk) 22:24, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Genetics of skin color variation: organization scheme
I believe the Genetics of skin color variation section would be better organized by the genes involved in the determination of skin color (e.g. MC1R, SLC24A5, etc.) and not by attributes of skin color (e.g. light skin, dark skin, etc.) or by geographic regions (Europe, East Asia, etc.). All human populations possess the same genes. The determination of different skin color phenotypes depends on the alleles of the gene. All geographical populations have these genes, what they differ in is the allele frequencies. The MC1R gene cannot only be sorted under the dark skin section, as it plays an important role in the high levels of polymorphism in the Northern European, North Asian, and other light-skinned populations. The same is true for the ASIP, KITLG, and every other gene or gene cluster. Sorting by genes was the original organizational scheme about six months ago when it was unexplicably changed to the current one. FonsScientiae (talk) 04:26, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
I was the one who restructured the section back in February (and created the original format in 2011). I did it because the old format had no structure which made it confusing and hard to work out which genes did what and some people (eg you ) had trouble understanding what it was saying. The current format makes it much clearer how each allele affects pigmentation and groups together alleles that are known to be responsible for particular skin colours in particular populations. I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it, but going back to an unstructured list of genes would be a step in the wrong direction.
It's a bit meaningless to say all human populations possess the same genes. A gene is just a label for a section of DNA, so it's like saying all human populations possess the same hands. You and I both have hands, but they're not the same hands. In the same way, Samuel L Jackson and George W Bush both posses an SLC24A5 gene, but they're not the same gene.
I have twice now had to remove general discussion of the MC1R gene from this section. This section is for listing specific alleles that have been associated with skin pigmentation in modern humans. As such, MC1R is already included in the Dark Skin section, the East Asian section and in the Tanning Response section. Much of what you added is already included in the appropriate section, and the rest is not relevant to the section nor in all probability, the page. There is an MC1R page that might be a more suitable place for the kind of content you are adding. If there is something specific you think is missing from the section, then please let me know and include the appropriate refs.
First of all, I never had trouble understanding what it was saying but had objections for the opinion you were pushing at that time (that every modern population's skin color phenotype is a consequence of an admixture of three original populations). Without reaching a new consensus on the previous issue you have added the new format which pushed the whole discussion further from reaching compromise. The previous format was not at all more confusing than it is today. We cannot include specific genes only under one population. As you said the MC1R gene is already included under two different populations (and with the new material I added it should be included under another one or two). The same is true for the SLC24A5 gene (which you have exclusively listed under the 'Europe' section). A particular allele of the SLC24A5 (which codes for light skin tone) is present at high frequencies in South Asia, Western Asia, and North Africa. The other allele of the SLC24A5 is present in other populations (Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia). The same is true for every other gene, and as genetic research on skin coloration progresses and expands to include a more comprehensive list of subject populations I am positive that even more genes will be added to the current list.
Your hands analogy is out of context. Every human has hands and ten fingers on them, just like every human possesses the same genes. What humans differ in is the length, position, thickness, colour, etc. of the fingers (for which different alleles of the same gene code for). By including specific genes only under specific subgroups of humans, it's like saying that e.g. East Asians only have little fingers, while Melanesians only have thumbs. While these populations may differ, for example, in average rates of the length of the fingers (different allele frequency), they have all the same ten fingers (the same genes).
The text I added is relevant to that section and to this article as it talks about the connection between the MC1R gene and skin coloration. A better solution would be if we returned to the listing by genes. Under the specific genes we could include the different alleles of the gene (or polymorphism) that are associated with specific populations or skin color phenotypes. FonsScientiae (talk) 04:19, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
My apologies if you feel the previous discussion was unfinished, I presented you with over 10 papers published in peer-reviewed journals that supported my position and you presented me with zero supporting evidence for yours. You stopped replying after the restructure so I assumed you'd accepted the inevitable.
I think your issue here is that the headings "Europe" and "East Asia" could lead to the assumption the the alleles are only found in these regions. "Dark Skin" is not an issue because there is only one known genetic mechanism for it so it needs no subdivision. "Light Skin" however has evolved twice with different alleles in each case so it needs to be subdivided to avoid confusion. The research papers generally refer to these separate evolutions as either "European" or "East Asian" - referring to the continent that the reference (ie fixed) populations come from, eg HapMap CEU as "European" or CHB as "East Asian". When I first restructured I tried to find different headings but in the end I decided to follow this naming scheme and add explanatory text about the 3-way model to the introduction. We can change the headings if we can find better descriptions for the 3 fixed phenotypes and/or could clarify in the section intro that these are in name only and don't reflect the geographical distribution of the alleles today.
The section already talks about all the connections with MC1R and skin colour where research has shown a positive association. I found the general discussion you added was very broad and inspecific, and as such it only served to muddy the water - it would be better placed in an overview of the gene (such as on the MC1R page), not in a table listing known population-specific alleles and their effects on skin pigmentation. I've tried to be very comprehensive but if there are proven associations with MC1R that I've missed please point me at the research and I'll add them where appropriate.
The research papers you have included do not refer to the genes as they would belong exclusively to a particular geographic population, but they differentiate between the different variants (or alleles) of the particular gene:
1: "Variants in SLC24A5 play a central role in skin lightening in Europeans, explaining ∼30% of the difference in skin pigmentation between European and West African populations"
"Variants in MC1R, one of the critical receptors in melanogenesis, are associated with red hair and pale, non-tanning skin in Europeans (26). MATP and OCA2 have been associated with eye color in Europeans (27,28). A joint effect of MC1R and OCA2 on skin pigmentation in Tibetans has also been demonstrated"
The three-way evolutionary model proposed by the researchers is tentative as it is based on limited sample data:
"We provide a tentative three-population model (West Africa, East Asia and North Europe) of the evolutionary–genetic architecture of human pigmentation.(...) We have combined our results with those from other studies to form a simple and somewhat speculative model for some aspects of the evolution of pigmentation in humans. Our model (...) shows an average tree of the three HapMap populations "
The model is tentative because their population sample was extremely limited. Also, these three populations are referred to as "West African", "East Asian", and "North European", and not African or European as it is written in the article now. Continental categories are inappropriate because 1, the study is not comprehensive enough to infer that the findings are true for every population on a continent (they examined four populations: Han in West Africa, Japanese, Chinese, and CEU). 2, Populations genotypes and skin colour phenotypes are highly diverse within a large continental group.
"It is important to note that this simplified phylogeny and model only encompass some of the variation in human pigmentation. For example, it remains unclear whether other similarities in human pigmentation across the world, for example those leading to dark skin in West Africa, South Asia and Melanesia, are the result of common evolutionary events and genetic mechanisms. Our simple model is also deficient in assuming broad population groups are uniform in terms of pigmentation mechanism and evolution. For example, related phenotypes such as hair/eye color and skin response traits (like tanning) vary substantially in Europe. MC1R variants, known to influence these traits, vary significantly in frequency across the continent. MC1R or another gene may explain a substantial difference in tanning ability between West (e.g. British Isles) and North (e.g. Scandinavia) Europe despite similar constitutively pigmentation"
Some of the genetic variation of skin coloration is shared between distant populations which may differ in other aspects. Inclusion of these genes under the different population (or skin color phenotype) headings would be again problematic and repetitive.
"Two additional genes, ASIP and BNC2, show evidence for selection in both East Asians and Europeans, with haplotype sharing between the populations pointing to a selective event prior their divergence." ]
The other study included also only examined two populations (Han chinese and Canadians of East Asian ancestry). " (...) a genetic variant located within the gene OCA2 (rs1800414) is associated with skin pigmentation in two samples of East Asian ancestry. The allele associated with lower melanin levels is found at high frequencies in East Asian populations, but is absent or at very low frequencies in other population groups." "A recent genome-wide study reported that variants within the genes SLC24A5, SLC45A2 and TYR are associated with skin pigmentation in a South Asian sample."]
This study also does not refer to different alleles of the gene as "European" or "South Asian" but by the variants of the gene (which are shared among other populations). While I agree that the variants of certain genes differ among populations such as in West Africa, East Asia, or North Europe, some of the other allele variants are shared among these populations such as the KITL and ASIP gene. Furthermore, many of the other populations (which are not included in this paper) share similar allele frequencies to the previous populations.
Other research papers may refer to variants of a particular gene in terms of a population but I still think it is not appropriate - and rather confusing and imprecise - to denote certain alleles of a gene which are found in high frequencies around wide geographical regions in terms of certain geographic populations.
I do not think that inclusion of additional relevant information on the genetics of skin coloration in the Human Skin Color article would only serve to "muddy the water". The genetics section of the article is not long at this time and inclusion of any well-sourced and reliable material should be welcomed. In case the section would grow too lengthy, we can always create a separate article for it.
Evolution works on the level of genes. So variants of a gene may be widespread among two distant geographical populations, variants of another gene may show much more differentiation between the same two populations. That is why I support changing back the organization to gene-based. One gene - or even a specific allele - is not exclusively shared in one population. Under the headings of the different genes we can include more information about the variants of the gene across geographical populations. If you want to include the tentative (and geographically limited) evolutionary history in the article, it belongs to the evolutionary section, not the genetics section. I would also suggest changing the denonyms of the alleles: "African" to "Ancestral" and - depending on the particular gene - "European" or "East Asian" to "Derived". Until we have good understanding of the comprehensive evolutionary history of human skin pigmentation I support keeping the evolution and genetics sections separate and discussing the known genes that affect skin coloration under their own headings in the genetics section, and hypotheses of evolutionary history in the evolution section. FonsScientiae (talk) 05:53, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The paper that mentions the model as "tentative" was the first paper to propose the model (in 2006). Numerous papers since, researching different genes in different ways, have made findings that support the model (see the list in our previous discussion). The paper itself is cited by many articles on the topic and it's safe to say that the model is globally accepted in the scientific community and is no longer tentative. Trying to align the data to any model other than this would be unrepresentative of the general consesus.
"Ancestral"/"Derived" is good suggestion, but it doesn't solve the problem that the derived alleles fall into two categories - those that are fixed in Europeans and those that are fixed in East Asians. One possibility might be to model the section in the same way as that paper does - include the image from the paper and label the "European"/"East Asian" sections as "Path 1", "Path 2" etc. It's a bit clumsy and we will obviously still need to use "European" and "East Asian" when summarising the references but this will at least remove it from the headings and TOC.
I agree that the evolution of light skin pigmentation happened partly (genes such as the ASIP, or BNC2 are shared among light-skinned populations) independently at least twice during human evolutionary history. But I disagree that Europe or East Asia would be the only locations we should mention to emphasize this fact. We do know the allele frequency distribution of the ancestral and derived variants of the SLC24A5 and other genes among many global populations. ] ]
"It's a bit clumsy and we will obviously still need to use "European" and "East Asian" when summarising the references but this will at least remove it from the headings and TOC."
I agree with this suggestion. We will still need to use the “European” and “East Asian” when summarizing references in the wikitext. But we also need to include other populations to represent these populations with known allele frequencies of the same gene. FonsScientiae (talk) 18:28, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
OK, I'll look into getting permission to use the diagram. I think we can come up with better headings than "Path 1/2" and I'm thinking of rewording the text as well to make it clear it's talking about phenotype more than location. I'm thinking maybe "European" Phenotype (with the quotes) but maybe something else will come to mind or you have some suggestions. The discussion of allele frequency is similar to the one I'm having with Soupforone in the SLC24A5 section below, so if it's OK I'll discuss that there. Tobus2 (talk) 10:03, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't think we should include the diagram in the present form. The evolutionary history of skin colour of a number of geographical populations (South Asians, Native Americans, Southeast Asians, Khoisan, etc.) are missing from the image. I oppose using the name European phenotype in the diagram (even with quotes) as a label, for the previously mentioned reasons. Colour coding should be removed because we do not know the phenotypes of historical population. Number 5 from the image should be removed as it does not mark a point of appearance and dispersal of a new allele (West Africans share the ancestral alleles). ] After these modifications, if you'd like to, go ahead and include the image.
There's no way I can agree to changing the image from the research paper as you suggest - we're presenting the scientific consensus not our own ideas. The consensus is what the image shows, and the skin colours of populations not included in the image are considered to be due to some combination or partial expression of the three phenotypes presented. Tobus2 (talk) 15:52, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
I am not saying that we should include other populations that are not on the image. I am saying that we don't know the evolutionary history of many of the other populations and that the image is incomplete and makes assumptions that may not be necessary true (that is why it is tentative). Otherwise I support the labels ancestral path and derived path 1, 2 on the image. FonsScientiae (talk) 02:46, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood, I meant change the headings in the article, not the image (which I'm still waiting for permission on). After sleeping on it I think "Path 1" and "Path 2" are way too clumsy, and they don't reflect the research which clearly say "European" and "East Asian". As a compromise perhaps we could put "Phenotype" after these headings (in the article), to indicate they are not meant to be taken literally in a geographic sense.
Note that I've reverted (again) your restructuring of the section to remove the phenotype sections and simply list the genes one after the other. I disagree with this as it makes it less clear which alleles have which effect, the grouping by phenotype makes it crystal clear. It would be appreciated if you'd wait till we reach agreement before making such drastic changes.
I apologize if I misunderstood something but I told you that I was planning to change the headings. You did not reply to this and I took it as agreement to list by the genes. When you were referring to "path 1" or "path 2" I thought you were talking about the diagram you wanted to include not the wikitext.
I disagree with listing by phenotypes as there are numerous number of phenotypes (skin coloration is continuous) and many populations have different phenotypes. We cannot list different genes only under one phenotype as every population of every phenotype possesses the same genes. In contrast to this, genes (and their different alleles) have an exact effect on the phenotype. As a compromise we could list the phenotypes under the headings of the relevant genes associated with the allele of the particular gene.
We should mention the known geographic areas by name (West Asian, North Africa, East Asia etc.) where path 1 and 2 are prevalent in the text. It would be the less clumsy and confusing solution. FonsScientiae (talk) 03:48, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
The publisher of the image (Oxford University Press) has refused to let us use the image ("Unfortunately it is not OUP policy to allow articles/figures that appear in our journals to be posted on third party websites."), and the backup image I was planning to use is also published by them, so we can't use that either. I think the section needs an image immediately after the test (where the rascist Stoddard map was), so I'm open to suggestions if you (or anybody else) has any.
I originally used a flat list of genes like you suggest, but I think grouping by effect makes it easier for people to find the allele they want. If you're looking for what makes someone from China the colour they are, you can find it very quickly if there's an "East Asian" section, but you'd have to read through the entire list if there's no structure.
The section is really a list of SNPs, not genes. The gene names are just user-friendly and easy-to-remember shortcuts - otherwise we'd have to use "rs6058017", "rs16891982" etc. Perhaps we could use the full user-friendly name "SLC24A5 Ala111Thr" etc. but this isn't really standard and I've seen the "Ala111Thr" written lots of different ways (A111T, 331A>G etc.). It's also useful to list the gene because in general, each gene is related to a function of the organism and the individual mutation can make more sense within the context of its gene... MC1R is a good example because it's famous for being the "red-haired gene". Everybody has the gene of course, whatever their hair colour, but mutations in it are widely known to cause red hair - stating that rs1805007 is in MC1R immediately gives it a context that wouldn't be there if the gene wasn't mentioned. Also, it's very common practice in research and published articles to refer to just the gene, usually after defining the particular SNP in question (eg "populations from South Asia have been tested and alleles found at TYR, SLC45A2 and SLC24A5 can largely account for differences"), but sometimes even in isolation without the SNP even being mentioned - I couldn't find the SNPs for the ancestral dark-skinned MC1R alleles defined anywhere. So the way it's laid out now is both practical and within the standard scientific convention. I think we can probably find less geographical headings, but in terms of separating the genes into the phenotypes they cause it makes sense, is very clear and fits the currently dominant scientific paradigm.
I'm not sure what you mean by your last paragraph, by and large the papers talk about "African", "European" and "East Asian" in relation to the reference populations with the most extreme phenotype, the Path1/2 idea only makes sense in reference to the image we're not allowed to use. Perhaps you can explain what you mean there?
"The section is really a list of SNPs, not genes. The gene names are just user-friendly and easy-to-remember shortcuts - otherwise we'd have to use "rs6058017", "rs16891982" etc. Perhaps we could use the full user-friendly name "SLC24A5 Ala111Thr" etc. but this isn't really standard and I've seen the "Ala111Thr" written lots of different ways (A111T, 331A>G etc.). It's also useful to list the gene because in general, each gene is related to a function of the organism and the individual mutation can make more sense within the context of its gene"
I agree. Genes are part of the genome which code for a protein (in cases, for physical characteristics such as skin colour). Alleles are the different versions of the gene. There can be many alleles of a gene (as in the case of MC1R) which code for different skin/hair colour phenotypes. I'm not saying that we should write the name of the alleles in the headings, we should just write that "the derived or ancestral allele is associated with this or that". We can include the name of the allele if we want or just the site name which is associated with the phenotype once for reference. "111" in the "Ala111Thr" refers to the site of the SNP, the "Ala" to Alanine (the ancestral allele), and "Thr" to Threonine (derived allele which is associated with light skin).
The problem with the current listing is that it is supposed to include only certain populations under one heading. E.g. Europeans under the European section or East Asians under the East Asia section. The same is true for the "dark skin"/"light skin" listing. Now, the European section already mentions South Asians and Africans when it talks about some of the specific genes under the section. The East Asian section assumes that every East Asian populations have the derived allele when it is not true: among Mongolians (East Asia) there is a less than 25% frequency of the derived allele of the OCA2; the frequency of the derived allele of the OCA2 among Malaysians (who are East Asians) are basically 0%; the OCA2 is found almost in 1/4 of the Kazakh population (similar to some East Asian populations) who are Central Asians. Furthermore different genes have different frequencies in different populations. Different alleles and polymorphism of the MC1R gene are associated light skin in different populations not just with dark skin (as it is assumed from the current form of the section). Listing genes only under one phenotype or population is confusing because it suggests that only humans of this geographic region or phenotype possess these genes and that the gene (or certain alleles of the gene) are absent from other populations.
While I understand the reasoning why you have changed the organization scheme in the past, I find the new listing more confusing than the previous one. What do you think about listing the genetics section by the genes which affect skin colour phenotype and under each gene subdividing the section into "light skin"/"dark skin" phenotype and listing the relevant populations under those section? FonsScientiae (talk) 15:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
The latter structural scheme wouldn't work for many global populations with heterogenous allele and pigmentation patterns. The current system seems better, as it is focuses more on the pigmentation functions of each allele. The only other workable structure seems to be one centered on each gene's ancestral vs. derived alleles. Soupforone (talk) 22:16, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Just to clarify terms, genes can produce hundreds of proteins each. The proteins are determined by codons which are groups of three nucleotides (base pairs). An SNP is a variation in a single nucleotide. So the "rsXXXX" number refers to a single nucleotide, the "Ala111Thr" refers to the codon (and its protein) that the SNP is part of and the gene "SLC24A5" refers to a stretch of codons (and sometimes non-coding nucleotides) that the SNP is in. The term "allele" can refer to a specific variation of any of these, depending on context. I'm not 100% sure what you are suggesting with the headings, are you saying that we should put the codon number after the gene name (eg "SLC24A4 111" instead of just "SLC24A5") in the headings?
I understand what you are saying about the current headings and I half agree. The half I agree with is the implication that the current "Europe"/"East Asian" headings have is not geographically correct. I spent a good deal of time trying to find alternate headings that wouldn't be OR/Synth on my part but would still be short enough to be used as headings. In the end I gave up and just stick with the terms used by the research papers, which they use to refer to reference populations in HapMap or other data, not necessarily to geography. If you or anyone else can come up with better terms for the headings that can be supported by sources then I'm happy to hear them, my suggestion would be to put "Phenotype" after them (eg "European Phenotype" instead of "Europe" in the heading) and make it clearer in the introduction that the reference populations represent one end of a phenotype range, not a geographical location. The half I disagree with is that this also applies to the dark/light skin headings. I think it's understood that we're talking about small additive effects and somebody wanting to know about a "medium skin" phenotype wouldn't be expecting a section of its own - they'd understand it was due to some combination of both the dark and light skin genes.
The problem I see with a "Gene: 1. Dark version / 2. Light version" structure is twofold. Firstly the two are largely reciprocal so you're essentially stating the same data twice: "The ancestral Ala111Thr causes dark skin and is found 100% in Africa and 0% in Europe", then "The derived Ala111Thr allele causes light skin and is found 0% in African and 100% in Europe" etc. etc. To me it makes more sense (and better reflects the evolution) to say "Dark skin is ancestral" once and then highlight each of the derived alleles that cause light skin in their own section. Secondly, a flat list disguises the fact that there are two distinct evolutions for light skin - a reader would have to know or specifically be looking for it to see that "European" and "East Asian" light skin phenotypes are caused by (mostly) different genes. The current structure highlights the effect of each allele much better (I think SoupForOne agrees with this too) and it also allows for the common genes to be clearly identified as well.
By the way, there was an error under the SLC24A5 gene. It stated that it is “fixed in European populations and absent from populations that have no European admixture”. While the mutation is of course at fixation in European populations, it is not restricted to Europe nor is its presence in most other areas due to European admixture. In all likelihood, the gene evolved in West Asia and dispersed from there to Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and South Asia, where it is today found at high frequencies. Soupforone (talk) 21:25, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
SLC24A5: I see no reason that the high frequencies of the particular alleles of the gene would be consequence of admixture outside Europe, especially as it seems now that the evolution of the allele happened outside Europe. FonsScientiae (talk) 04:44, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, the SLC24A5 section doesn't make any statements or claims about the origin or history of the allele. It simply states the facts as they stand today: it is fixed in Europeans, and it doesn't appear in populations that don't have European admixture. If you are drawing your own conclusions from this, then please please don't claim it's the article that is in error.
Secondly, the blog post you linked to makes no claim that the light-skin SLC24A5 allele originated in West Asia. The closest it comes to that is talking about the allele being essentially fixed not just in Europe but in all of "Western Eurasia" (which, as you no doubt aware, includes Europe). Please note that this is a blog post, not a research paper and you shouldn't overstate the blogger's personal opinions as meaning "researchers have a better understanding". For the record, the paper he is talking about (which is written by actual researchers) makes no such claim either, it implies the opposite in fact: "the selective sweeps for the European-specific alleles at TYRP1, SLC24A5, and SLC45A2 started much later, within the last 11,000-19,000 years, well after the first migrations of modern humans into Europe".
Thirdly, this is way off-topic, if you still feel the need to discuss the accuracy of the SLC24A5 section, it should probably be in a separate topic.
The link points to Discover magazine's blog, and the author of the piece is a geneticist. Anyway, the assertion in the wikitext that the derived SLC24A5 allele is "absent from populations that have no European admixture" is inaccurate, as its widespread presence outside of Europe is for the most part not due to European admixture. The variant only reached fixation in Europe after the last Ice Age, and on a very short timescale. It appears to have arrived with the Neolithic Revolution (Razib Khan, Medical Hypotheses 75 (2010), 363–367):
Approximately 20–45% of the skin color difference between Sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans is controlled by variation on one gene, SLC24A5, with another 25% of the variation between these two groups controlled by another locus, KITLG. With relation to SLC24A5 all Europeans have one variant, and all Sub-Saharan Africans have the other. The African variant, which is shared with East Asians, is ancestral, while the European variant, which is distributed across West Asia and North Africa, is derived. Additionally, analysis of the genetic variation around this gene with haplotype-based methods suggests that the derived European variant began to rise in frequency on the order of 6000 years ago. The relatively recent date of this selection event combined with the very high frequency of its variant in Europeans, nearly 100%, leads us to infer that the factor driving natural selection must have been very powerful, generating on the order of 10% fitness increase per generation to those carrying the new variant in relation to the population average. This is a very high rate of adaptation, to the extent that individuals may have observed changes in their own populations in their lifetimes. SLC24A5 is also responsible for approximately the same proportion of the skin color variation in South Asians. The European variant of SLC24A5 is extant at frequencies of 50% among South Indians and Sri Lankans, and 80–90% in Pakistan, exhibiting a southeast–northwest cline. This gene has had a rapid rise and wide sweep across western Eurasia and North Africa after the last Ice Age. Different genes also seem to have arisen in East Asia recently, conferring lighter pigmentation on those populations. These data imply strongly that the relatively lightly pigmented phenotype of modern Europeans post-dates the last Ice Age, and those modern humans were relatively dark-skinned at higher latitudes for several tens of thousands of years. Only with the arrival of agriculture do the new methods suggest that genes responsible for light skin in modern populations began to rise in frequency.Soupforone (talk) 21:34, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, but your logic escapes me. If the assertion "the derived SLC24A5 allele is absent from populations that have no European admixture" is inaccurate, then that means that there must be populations with no European admixture that have the derived allele. I would thus expect your supporting refs to contain evidence for the existence of such a population, but neither the blog post you provided earlier nor this paper do - all the populations mentioned have known European admixture (and post-Neolithic at that). So what is it that makes you think the assertion is inaccurate? Do you know of a population with the allele that doesn't have any European admixture? Tobus2 (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
The statement in the wikitext that the derived SLC24A5 allele is "absent from populations that have no European admixture" implies that the many populations outside of Europe that have the derived allele have it specifically due to European admixture. However, the Khan paper dismisses this notion with the observation above that "the relatively lightly pigmented phenotype of modern Europeans post-dates the last Ice Age, and those modern humans were relatively dark-skinned at higher latitudes for several tens of thousands of years only with the arrival of agriculture do the new methods suggest that genes responsible for light skin in modern populations began to rise in frequency". This is an allusion to the arrival of agriculture in Europe during the Neolithic i.e. the Neolithic/Agricultural Revolution, when migrants entering from the direction of West Asia brought along the derived SLC24A5 allele. This is why Khan explains further on the Discover magazine blog (same geneticist) that the derived allele isn't really strictly European, and that much of the evolution of light skin pigmentation probably took place outside of Europe:
"SLC24A5 in its derived skin lightening state is found outside of Europe I’m rather sure there are more copies of the derived “European” allele among non-Europeans: South Asians, Middle Easterners, and North Americans. The problem here is semantic I think. The authors were really talking about West Eurasians in a generic sense, but because their data utilized Europeans, East Asians, and Africans, they felt like they had to speak about Europeans specifically. Additionally, during the Last Glacial Maximum much of Europe was not inhabited, or very sparsely so. That suggests to me that much of the evolution of “European pigmentation” may have taken outside of geographical Europe proper."Soupforone (talk) 22:22, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
OK I get it now, you agree that the article text is factually correct. Your complaint is not that that what states is in error, but that what it implies is misleading in regards to whether SLC24A5 first appeared in Europe or whether it was carried into Europe by a migration. I don't have a particular view on the subject - I don't think anyone can really claim to know where the allele originated or how long it existed in or out of geographical Europe before it came under selection. The genetics section doesn't make any claims about it so as Razib puts it, "the problem here is semantic".
I will point out though that Razib's 2010 is a bit outdated. The 6,000 years ago figure is taken from this article which he dismisses in his 2012 blog post: "A few years ago a conference presentation implied that the selective sweep around SLC24A5 began ~6,000 years ago. To my knowledge a paper never came out of this, and from what I’ve heard in part that’s because that very low number is probably not right, and you may have to push it back some." The 6000 years was actually the lower bound of the 12,000-6,000 range that the article suggested so was probably a bit extreme anyway. The published and peer-reviewed paper he discusses in the blog is this one which is more reputable and states a range of 19,000 to 11,000 - before the arrival of agriculture from the southeast. Given there has been high degree of admixture and migration to and from Europe since the allele became fixed (consider Greeks at the Ganges, Tocharians at the Tarim Basin, Romans and Vandals in North Africa in just the last few thousand years), it's probably going to be nigh impossible to determine where exactly the allele first appeared.
It doesn't really matter though, what we do know is that today it is fixed in Europeans and only appears in populations with European admixture, with the admixed populations showing a skin colour proportional to the ratio of derived alleles to ancestral ones. The case being made is not where it originated, but it's effect on the skin pigmentation of modern populations.
Tobus2 (talk) 13:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the ~6,000 date in Khan's paper is somewhat outdated. But the claim in the wikitext that the derived SLC24A5 allele is "absent from populations that have no European admixture" is even more so, given what researchers now know regarding the allele's global distribution. For this reason, the assertion should be removed and replaced with a statement acknowledging the widespread distribution of the allele in its other global areas of concentration (as is done, for instance, with KITLG). The fact that East Asians and many Africans carry the ancestral SLC24A5 allele should also be noted. Soupforone (talk) 21:28, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Unless you know of a population that has the derived allele but has no European admixture, then the wikitext is not "inaccurate" or "outdated", it's true. Undeniably so.
Personally I'd prefer to remove the reference to admixed populations altogether. This section is not about the geographical distrubution of skin colours (that's what the "Geographical Variation" section would be for), it's about detailing the individual genetic mutations that are known to have an effect on skin pigmentation. Since the widely accepted consensus of experts is that the range of skin colours today is due to various combinations of three separate evolutions (the ancestral dark-skinned alleles and two independent sets of light-skinned alleles), it makes sense to use populations fixed for these alleles as reference points. Using populations that aren't fixed might be a little bit like trying to describe the RGB system by talking about orange, yellow and purple. It so happens that the light skinned alleles are fixed in two populations, and today those populations happen to be centered in Europe and East Asia. Mentioning populations from other locations who aren't fixed and display only part of the phenoytype caused by the alleles might be useful in an overview explaining the full spectrum, but it's not helpful in showing the effects that each individual set of alleles has.
It is not a foregone conclusion that the derived SLC24A5 allele's presence outside of Europe is specifically due to European admixture. Khan argues that it reached fixation in Europe only after the arrival of the Neolithic agriculturalists, and that much of the evolution of light skin pigmentation actually occurred outside of the continent. Beleza et al. (2012) erroneously suggest that the derived SLC24A5 allele is "primarily restricted to European populations", when in fact the allele is also found at high frequencies in various other populations. Despite this, they too acknowledge the alternate possibility that the allele may have evolved elsewhere and was later brought to the continent :
1) the derived alleles arose in Europe (for SLC24A5 and TYRP1)or in the ancestral Eurasian population (for KITLG) where they increased in frequency and were introduced later into Africa by gene flow, 2) the derived alleles arose in Africa, where they remain at low frequencies and spread out of Africa with the early migrations of modern humans. These alleles were then lost from the ancestral gene pools of East Asians (except for KITLG) and ultimately increased in frequency in the ancestors of Europeans, and 3) the African and European alleles had independent mutational origins and are homoplastic, which is an unlikely scenario. It would be necessary to carry out a more exhaustive study of the diversity of these loci, and particularly, the pattern of intra-allelic variation for the derived alleles in African and Eurasian populations, to clarify these issues.
The wikitext must reflect the actual global distribution of the various alleles, including the ancestral SLC24A5 allele. It cannot make claims like "the Thr111Ala allele (rs1426654) has been shown to be a major factor in the light skin tone of Europeans compared to African-Americans, South Asians and other populations" or that the latter allele is "absent from populations that have no European admixture" because this implies that this derived SLC24A5 allele is largely restricted to Europeans and that anywhere else it is found today at appreciable frequencies is mainly due to European admixture. The variant is actually quite common among South Asians in addition to a number of other non-European populations, and in many or most instances, this may not be due to European admixture. Soupforone (talk) 22:24, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I disagree. The section doesn't have to state the global distribution of all the alleles - it can do so if it helps demonstrate the effect of the allele, but there's no obligation. For instance it doesn't mention the widespread occurence throughout West and South Asia of the ancestral dark-skin alleles for SLC45A2 and TYR1. Also, the section can state the effects of the Thr111Ala allele when comparing European, African-Americans, South Asians and other populations and then go on to say it's absent from populations with no European admixture because both statements are verified by reliable published sources.
It seems to me that the issue is more about interpretation than facts. You are associating "European" with the physical location but I think the researchers are using "European" as an example of a specific phenotype more than as a geographically-defined population - after all, the main "European" population in HapMap (CEU) is taken from Utah in the US. The important point about the admixture is not whether it came from inside or outside geographical Europe, but that it came from the same evolutionary path that has lead to the European phenotype. The allele didn't evolve independently in Europeans, West Asians and South Asians, it's the same one spread around by intermarriage and migration. Perhaps we just need to find a better way to express that fact.
While I appreciate Tobus2’s point, I agree with Soupforone’s suggestion that the wikitext should reflect the global distributions of the various alleles of the genes without giving undue weight to any particular geographic population. As Tobus2 mentions the wikitext does not include the distribution of the ancestral allele of the gene through West and South Asia. It should, just as it should state the same of the derived allele.
Whether the research paper uses the word “European ” for the physical location or the phenotype, writing the variant of the SLC24A5 which is associated with the light skin phenotype as the “European” phenotype or allele is essentially misleading and fallacious. A better way to state the conclusion of the study would be to write that the derived allele of the Thr111Ala is associated with light skin and is found high frequencies in European, West Asian, North African, and South Asian (etc.) populations. There are a number of reliable references that mention that the derived allele of the Thr111Ala is widespread in populations outside Europe and that the ancestral allele is not only restricted to Africa and East Asia in high frequencies.
“The derived allele (T= Thr) has been associated with light skin pigmentation (…) and is common in Europe, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia. This SNP has shown evidence of natural selection.” ]
“Looking at the frequencies on other populations besides Europeans that a) it is extant at high frequencies across North Africa and Western Asia and b) there is a signature of selection. There is of course one population which I’ve talked about in regards toSLC24A5 already, and that’s South Asians. It seems that about 1/3 of the variation in skin color within this group can be explained by polymorphism on this gene; that’s around the same range as the between-group difference for Africans and Europeans.” ]
“Rs1426654 and rs2733832 of SLC24A5 and TYRP1 genes respectively, along with some other genes, may be involved in influencing pigmentation differences across India.” ]
“Northern Europeans carry a new allele from a gene called SLC24A5 at a frequency near 100 percent. This allele has spread as far west as Spain, and as far east as Pakistan; it is also common in North Africa.” ]
I believe that inclusion of a map of global distribution of the ancestral and derived alleles would the best solution, clarifying the allele’s distribution in different populations and avoiding cherry-picking certain populations as representative or geographically ancestral to an allele (we are in agreement that we do not know where the evolution of the derived allele of the SLC24A5 happened).. FonsScientiae (talk) 19:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, agreed. The global distribution of both the ancestral and derived SLC24A5 alleles should be shown, and an allele distribution map is a neutral way of doing that. Toward that end, allele frequencies for various world populations are available in this database. Soupforone (talk) 21:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
We can't interpret or rewrite the conclusions of the papers - if they say "X does Y in European populations" then we have to present that as it is. If there is a reliable source that makes an interpretation then we can use that, but we can't WP:Synth our own ideas.
As for the map I think that's a great idea - the allele frequencies are really informative and interesting but it's impossible to present them all via text and not doing so raises the possibility of synth or introducing a geographical bias like we are discussing. That's why the current frequencies in the section are the ones stated by the research papers themselves, not from HapMap or Alfred. HapMap produces maps like this that would could probably use (Razib's blog post uses it so I'm assuming it's fair use or public domain). The issue will be that they're quite big and if we had one for each allele we'll end up with more pictures than text. To get around this with could probably combine a number of these into a single composite image that shows all the alleles on one map.
Yes, we cannot rewrite the conclusion of the sources, but we can include other reliable sources which present a more comprehensive description of the allele's global distribution.
Looking up the maps of the global distribution of the SLC24A5 I found three fairly comprehensive maps. One is from the HGDP project (2005) ], another is from a book by E. Hall ] (2008), and the last one is from Yale's ALFRED / ALlele FREquency Database (the one Soupforone have provided the link for) . I personally would prefer Yale's ALFRED as reference, because it has the largest sample size (119 populations in contrast to HGDP's 52, and Hall's 69), the map of HGDP looks bent and the entire region of the Americas are left out from it, and because ALFRED is the most recent one (updated daily). Plus, ALFRED's copyright states that "ALFRED is intended to be a useful scientific resource for everybody (...).Our copyright precludes any for profit use, but non-profit educational use is welcome." so there shouldn't be a problem with copyright. Although there is a problem with Google Maps as it only displays 30 of the 119 typed populations ]. The kml file works well in Google Earth and other programs which support kml but the 2D map version of the allele frequencies probably can only be created manually. FonsScientiae (talk) 13:09, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
It would probably be best to use percentage gradients for the SLC24A5 allele map, as on the haplogroup frequency maps , . This way the per population frequencies are better captured, as well as any geographic continuities or discontinuities. Soupforone (talk) 21:39, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm happy to use data from any (reliable) source, but remember that the more populations the more crowded it will be, and the less it will be useful as a thumbnail.
Percentage gradients would be great, but AFAIK there isn't data available that would be so specific. It requires full genome studies which are much more expensive than the single X/Y-chromosome studies required for the haplogroups. I had a quick search but didn't find anything that looks promising in this regard. It may be that reproducing Alfred/HapMap is the best we can do.
The allele map would have the same basic format as the haplogroup frequency maps. These maps are similarly based on specific population frequencies, and they too don't and can't cover every single population. However, they do cover as many as possible, and can also take into consideration geographic continuities/discontinuities via different coloring and shading. The mini-pie charts superimposed on the globe can't do that, as they are constrained by limited space. ALFRED's Google chart also doesn't show the areas in Central Asia and Africa where the derived SLC24A5 allele is found at high frequencies. We need an allele map where the frequency gradients are based on actual per population percentages, as on the Allele Frequency Database here. Something along the lines of the HIV/AIDS world prevalence map would be workable . Soupforone (talk) 21:38, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
That AIDS map is a dead link... did you mean this map? It looks like a typo but it's using national borders which I think is contradictory to what you are trying to achieve.
A gradient map would require a separate map for each allele, and as I said before I think space on the page will be a problem. An alternative to circular graphs might be to use the bar graphs (rotated -90 degrees) which could easily be colour coded and stacked side-by-side in about the same space that the circles take up... this would allow a single image with all the alleles displayed.
I agree that a gradient map would represent the continuous geographic variation the best, but I could not find any published sources where they include a gradient map (except for the OCA2 in Asia). I created a pie chart map based on Yale's Allele Frequency Database and added it to the article. I included the names of the ethnic populations from the database also. Let me know what you think about it. A gradient map based on the same data would be possible to create but I'm not an expert in GIS or image editing. Maybe we can find someone to do it. FonsScientiae (talk) 02:57, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for this, it's a great image and really useful for the section. Two things: on my screen (4x3) it's a bit wide so maybe we could cut the Atlantic Ocean out, and also it could use a key (Blue = Derived, Yellow = Ancestral), but I'm nitpicking, good work. Tobus2 (talk) 05:37, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
The map looks good; thanks for the effort. Would it be possible to stretch the canvas vertically to accommodate the allele frequencies for Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Ethiopian Jews and the San? All of the database's other population frequencies seem to have been captured, which is remarkable. This would also render the frame more square. Soupforone (talk) 22:04, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
I reverted most of the changes you made to the SLC24A5 section, here's why:
1. The 2013 Beleza paper article doesn't contradict the 2005 Lamarson one - the difference is simply how they calculated the %age difference. Both found the same absolute melanin units difference (4.8/4.9), but Lamarson compared this to the average difference of the two populations (the average African measurement to the average European one - about 30 units difference) while Beleza compared it to the range of variation (the lowest measurement to the highest one - about 77 units difference). They both found the same effect, they just reported it differently. I have changed the text to say "average skin tone difference" to clarify. We could change it be "13% of the maximum skin tone difference" and use Beleza as the ref, but I think using the average is a closer representation of the 'real world' differences and so more meaningful.
2. You removed the Norton2006 ref as "wikitext not in source". The ref is provided for the first part of the sentence ("shown to be a major factor..." - they do a study using spectrometry samples of African-Americans and African Caribbeans) not to the %age difference. If you like you can move it to after the statement, I've restored it to the end since the other ref also confirms the first part - I think if you put the first ref half way through it'd make the 2nd ref look like it only refers to the %age diff, but it also refers to the "major factor" as well.
3. I don't think we should use Alfred or HapMap frequencies as refs in the text, especially to generalise about geographical areas. If a paper or an expert has said it then let's use that as the ref, otherwise let's leave our own interpretations out of it.
1. "We could change it be "13% of the maximum skin tone difference" and use Beleza as the ref". Okay, I agree with this.
2. "The ref is provided for the first part of the sentence ("shown to be a major factor..." - they do a study using spectrometry samples of African-Americans and African Caribbeans) not to the %age difference. If you like you can move it to after the statement, I've restored it to the end since the other ref also confirms the first part" I agree with this also and I do not think that putting it at the end would make it seem like it only refers to the end of the sentence. An alternative could be to put all the refs at the end of the sentence.
3. The text I used is directly from the source (Yale's Allele Frequency Database) and is not a personal interpretation. ] I apologize if the ref link was missing from the article. Reference to other populations are also found in other sources
"As the map from the HGDP browser to the left indicates, the derived “European” variant is nearly fixed in Middle Easterners. (...) It is also found in high frequencies in South Asians."] FonsScientiae (talk) 14:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
The map: I have updated the old map with a new one with different aspect ratio. I have cut out the Atlantic Ocean and modified the vertical span of the image as you have suggested. San and Ethiopian Jew populations are now included in the map, but I could not include Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews as their geographical location is unlisted in the ALFRED database. FonsScientiae (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Great thanks. ALFRED lists the Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews (Roman Jews in actuality) as being from Israel and Italy, respectively , . Soupforone (talk) 22:16, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
1. I think using the averages is better as the average difference is what people see when walking down the street or picture Africans/Europeans in their head. Either one is verifiable, so if nobody else has an opinion and you feel strongly that the maximum range is better to use then go ahead and change it, just make it clear that it's the range from darkest individual to lightest individual, not the 'typical' difference that most people might imagine.
2. I've put both refs at the end which I think is better, I won't change it back if you want to move the first one to after the word "African-Americans".
3. My bad, I assumed you'd just described the map. I went to add it back in but after rereading the section I think the allele's spread is fairly well implied already ("across a range of populations", "recent selection in Western Eurasia", "natural variation of skin color in South Asia") especially when taken with the map (great work BTW!). My aim for the section is to focus on the alleles and their proven effects and I'd prefer for it not to turn into long lists of populations that have the allele if possible (maybe that can be done in Geographical Variation?). Perhaps we can fix up the problem with it sounding like "Europe" means geographical "Europe" as a better solution than trying to list each and every region where it occurs?
This map, while mostly informative, is quite inaccurate regarding large countries. A national average of skin color obscures the actual distribution of skin colors within each country.
Many large countries display a great skin color diversity that can be explained mostly by a diverse racial admixture. Other countries have a skin color diversity that correlates less strongly with racial admixture and more with latitude.
I agree. Also, the on the site of the the original it states the map is made "with data from the latest national census". Every nation has a different way of reporting skin colour on the census, some have 2 options (white/black) some have more, some don't have it at all and most do it in terms of self-identified ancestry, not skin colour. In no case that I know of does the census taker select their skin colour from the von Luschan Scale, so a whole lot of subjective interpretation has gone into this. While I think it's an interesting and valuable exercise, I think it would have to be considered as wp:OR and so probably can't be used here. Tobus2 (talk) 23:46, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
This map is poorly constructed, especially for large countries with great internal variation. I don't see the point in including a POLITICAL based map on a wikipage of a biological phenomenon. It's better left out rather than being included in such a misleading and irrelevant state. Wadaad (talk) 00:55, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The thing is, the census data from which this map is based upon is also data from which wikipedia articles regarding racial information in multiple countries are built upon, is non-sense to say that source information in a map is original research but the same source information used in these articles is not. And as some editor above me stated, it's the average tone, which means that in the same country there migh be people with lighter or darker skin, the footnote made it clear, if the footnote or the original source said that it's the ONLY ONE color then there would ba a problem, but since it's an average and nothing else there is nothing incorrect on it, the division of the countries might be political but the subject the map addresses is entirely biological, to complain about it is non-sense. the map is not misleading and is not original research in any way: it's correctly sourced, the source where it is based upon is far well elaborated and is made by an investigator who has prestige and who also meets all the standards regarding reliable sources. It's source data meets the wikipeadia quality standards to be used as a reliable source and it will stay regardless of personal opinions. This map is far more reliable, recent and better elaborated than the two maps that already occupy space in the "Human skin tone" article (one being from 1920 and other from 1940). Czixhc (talk) 01:19, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The problem is, the sources for the data in the image aren't cited, there's no way to verify the claims made in the image. Given that you're the only individual cited as a source, that raises alarm bells of original research. —C.Fred (talk) 01:54, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Can you cite the paragraph in that wikipedia guideline who specifies what you are saying? a look on it revals that a source is reliable if it has been published and per reviewed, and Jonathan Hagos works have been published by third parties before, a source which didn't meet that criteria wouldn't be published on first place. Czixhc (talk) 02:12, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Front paragraph of WP:Verifiability: "In Misplaced Pages, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Misplaced Pages does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors." As noted above, the only source cited on the map image is you: you've claimed authorship of it. —C.Fred (talk) 02:46, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
That's why the map cites Jonathan Hagos as a source, his work is reliable and has been published by third parties, therefore a map made by me citing him is reliable and don't violates copyright, it's the same base on which all the other maps on wiki are done. Czixhc (talk) 03:38, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The original census data may be reliable sources, but they've been massively interpreted in a non-objective way. All over the world there are people of who identify as having the same ancestry but have completely different skin colours. For example, both Samuel L Jackson and Halle Berry would have ticked the "African American" box but their skin tones are at opposite ends of the von Luschan Scale - what colour has been chosen to represent them?. In some countries a particular skin colour would be considered "white" while another country would be consider it "black". There's no way self-identified ancestral or racial categories in censuses from multiple societies can be accurately mapped to a chromatic scale of skin colour in any kind of scientifically verifiable way. It's a great idea, but it's not suitable for an encyclopedia. Tobus2 (talk) 12:18, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more... calculating geopolitical skin colour 'averages' from census (often self-identity based) information is just extremely unscientific and misleading.Wadaad (talk) 17:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
There are various reasons for which i have to disagree with almost all the things you've said, starting with the fact that there isn't a huge difference from Samuel L. Jackson and Halle Berry skin tones. Racial census by identification or self-identification are highly accurate and you saying that it was misinterpreted in a non-objetive way has no real fundament at all. In fact to divide the skin tone distribution using governamental census and their respective political borders is much more accurate than to stick to how the skin pigmentation was before the massive migrations in recent centuries have happened. Skin disribution isn't uniform anymore, neither follows a patern, specially in zones that experimented migration recently, Costa Rica for example, has a notable light skinned population while it's neighbours Nicaragua and Panama don't, with the later having a huge black skinned population, another clear exampe is Australia, whose native population had black skin but now the majority is light skinned. To highlight the effects of migration in recent years is the objetive of this map, and there is no way to measure the migration trends without using governamental data, which, for being reliable on every article on wikipedia where it's used is reliable in this map too. Neither you or the other editor can give valid reasons to not include this map, there is no reason for it to not be included on the article, It have been proved reliable and it's way more complete and recent than the two maps used in this article right now. Czixhc (talk) 01:18, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
The government census data doesn't use the von Luschan Scale, so you can't "divide the skin tone distribution using governamental census", you have to do it using your own subjective interpretation of whatever racial category each particular census uses. I count 4 against and only the OP for, so I think this is pretty much decided. Tobus2 (talk) 09:26, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
The Von Luschan chromatic scale was Hagos' initiative, who is an investigator which have imparted seminaries and have exhibited his work around the world, his work has also been published, therefore he knows what he is doing and is reliable. And no, this is discussion is not decided because accord to WP: Consensus: "Consensus on Misplaced Pages does not mean unanimity (which, although an ideal result, is not always achievable); nor is it the result of a vote" The consensus is decided in base to sources, and I happen to be the one who has the most reliable and recent sources, while you haven't brought anything that can support your point, you and the other editor that is actively opposing the adition (because it turns out to be 2 vs 1, not 4 vs 1) have also failed at disproving my sources. The only thing that is opposing to the adition of this map in this article is your and Wadaad baseless opinions, which in the end have no weight at all because none of you have any sources to support their views, even if it were 10 vs 1, the one who will be favored in a discussion on wikipedia in the end is the one who has the sources, not the opinionated oppositors who don't have anything to back up their positions. Again, the map have been proved reliable way too many times and is more precise, recent and elaborated than any of the two maps existing on wiki, so in the end there is no way for it to not be added. What can be changed is what the footnote on the map says, i've been thinking about one that can leave all of us satisfied and that can leave clear what this map is about, here it is: File:Human displacement map of the world.jpgAverage skin tone per country after the recent mass migrations. It doesn't means that only that skin color is present, on every country there is persons that have lighter or darker skin than it's respective averages
I believe it's the best way to set a middle ground, does anybody of you want to add something else to it? Czixhc (talk) 00:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Sorry Czixhc but you haven't provided any "reliable and recent sources". All you've done is repeatedly state your own opinion that the producer of the map is reliable and has been published.
WP:OR states that OR "includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources.". In this the case, the map creator has synthesised the census data and presents a position that is not advanced by that data - the sources state percentages of self-identified ancestry and the map creator has extrapolated this into skin colours on the van Luschan Scale. This makes the map original research. In order for it to be considered for inclusion it would have to have been published in a peer-reviewed journal and/or be accepted as consensus by the general expert community. The author having had something else published somewhere else doesn't qualify. If this particular map has been published anywhere besides the author's website then please provide evidence of it. This will give us an idea of it's acceptance or lack of such by experts in the field.
Let me correct you there, for one WP:SYNTHESIS is a policy directed towards and only to the editors of wikipedia in no way it applies to the work of investigators, scientists, writers etc. the work of these persons is, in fact to synthetise existing information to introduce their concepts and views, by that logic, nearly 90% of the books cited on wikipedia are original research, not to mention the racial census themselves, don't confuse and don't try to apply the policies to which all the editors of wikipedia must adhere to persons whose work is in fact, to synthetise information, you are grasping at straws at this point. Finally, despite you being overdemanding towards a work made by a person whose work has been exhibited and published before, you must know that his map was in fact, featured in an exhibition in London (November 9th 2009). It's reliable, end of history. Czixhc (talk) 03:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I was pointing out that the map is not a reliable source - it's not accurately representing the census data, it's manipulating and interpreting the data to say something that is way beyond the scope of the original sources, thus making it original research, not a reliable secondary source. You're asking us to accept this from someone we've never heard of, who appears to be more of an artist than a scientist and who makes claims that we can't verify with any independent reputable third party. What you've presented us with is unverifiable, self-published original research. Misplaced Pages:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source says "self-published media, such as ... personal websites ... are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.". So this map can be considered reliable enough for inclusion if there is evidence that is the creator is an expert in the field and has been published as such (like the authors of "90% of the books cited on Misplaced Pages" have). I asked you to provide us with evidence of the publications the map is used in so we can assess it's scientific reputation and the best you can come up with "it's been in an exhibition". End of story indeed. Tobus2 (talk) 06:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Just removed another personal map. It's basically the same as the Von Luschan map, but with different coloring, a few distribution tweaks toward Oceania and the Americas, as well as original research image text. WP:OI on this: "Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments, the core reason behind the NOR policy. Image captions are subject to this policy no less than statements in the body of the article."Soupforone (talk) 21:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Tobus2, you are repeatedly claiming that the data on the census is not being represented accurately, to which i have to ask: Do you, by chance have a source that states that Jonathan Hagos map is, in fact, misinterpreting it's source material? because if not, if the only thing you are basing your claim is your own opinion then your claims are completely worthless, until you present any source to back up your claim better stop doing it. Quoting what you wrote in your own response: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. well, maybe you already forgot, but Hagos is an established expert and is recognized by the Oxford university and in the same site the publications and exhibitions where his work has been featured are listed, with the above mentioned map already proven to have been featured in an exhibition. In conclusion this map meets the complete criteria to be a reliable source, and as long you don't present a source to back up your claims saying that it misinterprets the source data your opinion is and will be worthless, this discussion, rather than be like "can this map be added?" (because i already provided more than enough sources that confirm it as a reliable work) is more like "can this map be removed?" so, it's up to you to found sources to back up your claim of it being unreliable and misinterpreting information, and until you acomplish that you, or any other editor won't be able to remove it, because it's proved to be a reliable work. Czixhc (talk) 00:03, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
The onus is on you, the presenter of the questionable material, to verify it's reliability in this case that it was "produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Hagos may have some expertise in Product Design and Architecture. He may be published in those fields and have work in exhibitions and have studied at Oxford, but that doesn't make him an expert in every other field. I wouldn't let him take my tooth out or take my car apart for instance. In terms of this article his credentials mean nothing - I'm sure he's really good at drafting, drawing and designing, but he is certainly no expert in Anthropology or Genetics. The map is a well executed "re-illustration of post-colonial themes such as freedom of speech and expression, identity and migration", but it is more a work of art than a scientific document and as such we won't be using on this page. Tobus2 (talk) 09:06, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
You know, you have zero authority on this page, you don't own it. Reliable sources are what decides what is used and what not, not you, thus far i've proved that jonathan Hagos is a proffesional architect and cartographer (aka, proffesional map maker) with works on the field published and exhibited, In no source his map is called "more a work of art than a scientific document" that's your personal opinion, bring sources or your opinion is completely worthless, you have today and tomorrow to do so. Or the map will go up, likes you or not. Czixhc (talk) 21:50, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Please don't get hostile and start making threats, it won't help. The map has been reverted four times by three different editors (none of whom was me) and in this discussion there has been no support for the map from other editors. There is no consensus that the map can be used (quite the opposite in fact) and if you put the map back up it will just be reverted again. If you believe that all the other editors are in error then you should go down the WP:Dispute Resolution path and not the WP:Edit warring path. Tobus2 (talk) 00:49, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not making any kind of threat, i'm just giving a deadline to this discussion which is going on circles. This isn't a 3 vs 1 or anything similar, the other editors who removed the map already accepted it as reliable when i showed the sources to them, the only editors who keep disagreeing with it regardless of the reliable sources that have been presented are you and Wadaad, but none of you have any source to back up their opinion, your and wadaad performance thus far can be resumed as "it's not correct because i don't like it" which leds me to the next point: WP:Dispute Resolution is used when there are two or more points of view that colide, but all the points of view involved must be backed up by their respective reliable sources. This discussion clearly is not case, because neither you or any other editor that have opposed to the adition of this map have sources to back up their points of view, here wont be any WP:Edit warring, because if any editor remove the map (that has been proved to be reliable) it just will be reported for removing sourced information, which is a violaton to wikipedia's codes of conduct and might have long term repercussions to it's edit "carrer" on wikipedia, it's common sense, if "x" document is proven reliable it must be added, unreliable information or statements should be ignored and editors who remove reliable information are reported. Czixhc (talk) 00:00, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, you don't have the authority to create or enforce a deadline.
And you don't have any authority to decide what stays and what not.
Secondly, none of the editors have said that they accept the map as reliable, they simply didn't respond - you will need everyone to explicitly state their support before you can claim consensus.
Have you ever read the wikipedia consensus policy?
Thirdly, it's you who has the obligation that show the map is reliable and to date you have not presented any reliable sources that do so.
I already presented more than enough reliable sources
Fourthly, my sources are:
The National Census Data (eg , ), which don't use the von Luschan Scale as a measurement and don't have skin colour as a question. The closest they come is self-identified ancestry. The map is original research.
Actually no governmental census uses the Von luschan scale, however that doesn't means that other experts can't use it or interpret it, like the ones who made maps that are already used in the page.
Jonathon Hagos's homepage, which states his field is Architecture and Product Design, not Genetics or Anthropology. He is not an expert in the field.
Nowhere is said that he is a product designer, and citing the page: Jonathan's work focuses on the ‘re-illustration’ of post-colonial themes such as freedom, identity and migration executed through diverse media such as cartography through to film, full-scale installations and architectural interventions. He is already a proffesional recognized by Oxfords University, whose work has been published before and featured in exhibitions (this already proven)
The PubMed database, which says "Your search for jonathan hagos retrieved no results.". He has not been published in the field.
PubMed is used for topics related to medicine, not migration topics, and the Oxford Brookes University site confirms that his work has been featured in various publications
Jonathon Hagos's homepage, which states his works are the "reillustration of colonial themes". He himself is not claiming the map to be scientific accurate.
Here i go again: Jonathan's work focuses on the ‘re-illustration’ of post-colonial themes such as freedom, identity and migration executed through diverse media such as cartography through to film, full-scale installations and architectural interventions. He is already a proffesional on the field, and you implying things that he never said constitutes a form of Original Research.
No source that you've presented back up your point in reality, i don't see why you waste so much time with something that will go up sooner or later anyway, the sources that i've presented meet the criteria of wikipedia for reliable sources, it's as simple as that, i also already propossed a middle ground that you ignored, your behavoir really isn't appropiate for a site like this, and as i told you above, to remove reliable content for no reason at all will get you reported for uncivil behavoir, what else would I want that you actually discussing a middle ground on a civilized manner, not just "It's wrong because i don't like it!" would you try it for once? Czixhc (talk) 04:06, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Please don't intersperse your answers inside another editors text, it makes it very hard to follow. If needed, you can quote the relevent parts in italics before your replies. To answer your points above in the order you made them:
I didn't decide the map was to go, 3 other editors did. When an edit to a page is contested, it's standard procedure to remove the edit until consensus is reached.
Yes, I have read the wikipedia consesus policy.
You have not presented any reliable sources that support the inclusion of the map. As I already explained, the sources you refer to clearly show that he is not an expert in the subject matter and that he has he not been published in the field. To show somebody is an expert in a given field, you require third-party sources that are reputable in that field. One source you use is Hagos' own site which can't be relied upon to accurately state his expertise, and the other, the Oxford Brookes School of Architecture, would only be acceptable if this article were an architecture article.
Hagos is not an expert in Anthropoloy or Genetics, so his interpretation of which von Luschan tile should be applied to the various self-identified ancestries in each country cannot be considered reliable. The other two maps are from works by noted early anthropologists, both widely published in the field and both notable enough to have their own Misplaced Pages articles. Both these authors have established reputations for expertise in the field, Hagos has zero, so there is no valid comparison between them.
A person can be a "professional" on one field and a complete novice in another. The Misplaced Pages policy on using original research clearly states that the author must be an expert "in the subject matter". Drawing maps and making movies does not make somebody an expert in Anthropology or Genetics.
The topic of this page is "Human Skin Colour", not "Migration". The page is primarily a scientific article and most of the other authors used have extensive publications in PubMed (search Nina Jablonski, Mark Shriver, Roger Norton etc.). If Hagos had any expertise in the field I would expect him to have at least one published paper in PubMed.
Here I go again: Drawing maps and making movies does not make somebody an expert in Anthropology or Genetics - Hagos is a professional Architect, not a scientist, so he is not "already a professional on the field". When you say I imply something he never said I assume you mean my comment that he doesn't claim the map is scientifically accurate. My point in that you have assumed that it's scientifically accurate, but nowhere on his site does he say that. In fact, since he describes it in such artistic terms ("re-illustations of post-colonial themes") and puts it into exhibitions, it's clear he considers it more as an artwork than a scentific document.
All the sources I've provided back my point - they are in fact what lead me to my point in the first place. Your "middle ground" was to add some clumsy text to the bottom of the image, I ignored it because I thought it was a bad idea that didn't address the multiple issues with the map. I have given very good reasons why I don't support using the map on the page and I have never once said that I "don't like it". I'm open to discussion of any "middle ground" that uses high-quality reliable sources, but as I've already explained, I don't count this map as one.
I should also raise the issue of copyright - do you even have permission from Hagos to use his image?
Again, it seems that you forgot what consensus means, maybe three editors opposed originaly, but the only one left is you. The map is reliable and i've proved it already, the Oxford brookes University recognizes Hagos as an expert architect and map maker. Hagos don't needs to be a geneticist to make him reliable, because this image isn't a diagram of DNA haplogroups, it's a map regarding the impact of migration, and he happens to be a proffesional at ilustrating maps, the map adresses the impact that migration have had on the mean skin color by country, therefore it's related to this article. To expect hagos to appear in PubliMed is non-sense, PubliMed treaths topics related to medicine, not migration. You saying that it is more a piece of art than a investigation has no foundament whatsoever: That it has appeared on a conference don't means it is art, that would mean that all the graphics used in expositions and seminars are art too, which is non-sense. You asking me if I have permission of Hagos to use his map makes clear (again) your lack of knowledge regarding wikipedia policies, starting with the fact that i'm not using his map, i'm using a map made by me who cites his map as a source, therefore there is no copyright violation, i already have explained that several paragraphs above to another editor. When i called you to make a middle point i was asking for sugestions to you, not asking you to accept my proposal, let me be more clear: what do you consider have to be made to improve the map so there can be a middle ground? i'm considering to add prose to the respective section regarding some countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Australia etc. regarding the subtle changes on the skin tone of their populations. Czixhc (talk) 23:35, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
You seem to have missed my point about the consensus - you can't assume that people agree with you just because they're not actively arguing with you. Three separate editors have reverted your edits and two more have raised objections. Until those same editors have said the map is OK, you shouldn't assume they've changed their minds.
You also seem to have missed my point about expertise. Hagos has no expertise in assigning self-reported racial ancestry to von Luschan skin tones (as if such a thing is even possible). I'm sure he draw great maps, but the colours he's chosen to represent each country are based on his own, inexpert, opinion and can't be considered scientifically verifiable.
Hagos is an expert map maker, and we all known that to found a exact interpretation of the Von Luschan scale at a genetic level is something that has never been done, and stills impossible today, you really wouldn't think that maps used in this article (one from 1920 and other from 1940) used a genetical-level-accuracy to asign skin tones would you? because competent genetic studies didn't even existed back then, this map is as reliable and valid as any of the other ones already used, which certainly are outdated.
If this is your own work then it's subject to WP:OR which states: "To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented.". Your work only uses a single self-published primary source by an author who has no reputation or expertise in anything but Architecture.
The map cites Jonathan Hagos' map as source, and he is a proffesional architect and map maker who has works published on these fields. The work cited happens to be a map, so it's reliable, as i told you above, if the map were a diagram about DNA haplogroups then it certainly wouldn't be reliable, but this is not the case, in this map he is not doing genetical research, he is just ilustrating the data from national census.
Other editors have also raised objections to the use of national borders - it means the internal variation has been "averaged" in some way which is both inaccurate and misleading and in some cases could be inappropriate and culturally insensitive to many people.
I already explained why national borders are necessary: because the census are also done on a national level, it's impossible to know the distribution of each ethnicy if not for national census, i would preffer a map without borders but only a few countries have regional distribution data, wouldn't be fair for the rest and the amount of sources needed would be colossal.
My suggestion for a middle ground would be to abandon this map and find a source that is accepted as accurate by the wider scientific community, preferably one that doesn't use national borders as the boundaries.
I've already asked you not to intersperse your replies with existing comments, please don't do this. In response to your comments:
I have to because you adress too many different topics
"you really wouldn't think that maps used in this article (one from 1920 and other from 1940) used a genetical-level-accuracy to asign skin tones would you"
No I wouldn't, they held coloured tiles up next the skin and chose the one that matched the best. Note that only one of the maps uses the von Luschan Scale.
however these are up in the article, despite having the same issues for which you attack the Hagos map, shouldn't these be taken down too?
"he is just ilustrating the data from national census"
No he's not, that's my point. The national censuses don't have any data about skin colour.
yes, that's the only thing he is doing, if he have made his maps based upon ethnicies and genetic data that he made up just from census then he would be doing stuff he is not qualified to do, but he is just ilustrating the conclusions of the census.
"I already explained why national borders are necessary: because the census are also done on a national level"
Then perhaps you should find one based on actual skin colour measurements, not best-guess averages from census data.
A map as complex as that doesn't exist, and by that logic the maps already up were guessings too.
"You clearly don't know what a middle ground is"
Any middle ground has to be within the parameters of the WP:Verifiability guidelines, if you start so far outside them then you can't expect the middle to be close to your original position.
The map meet all the criteria regarding reliable sources on wikipedia: It's made by a proffesional in the subject of architecture and cartography whose work has been featured in publications related to the topic before, i don't know really, i've tryed to make you understand for so long, but it's not that you can't, it's that you don't want to. The map meets wikipedia's reliable sources crieria, it will be added, what i'm doing here is trying to explain to you why it is an ok map so you can accept it, but you clearly wont, you will have to learn how wiki policies work on first hand. All that you've said has been arbitrary (like saying that the map is not accurace because it is a interpretation of von Luschan's scale that isn't 100% linked to genetical studies, when the two map already up weren't either, with the 1920 map being almost completely wrong according to the census of many latin american countries) and poorly or not sourced at all. Czixhc (talk) 03:54, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
You say it's impossible not to intersperse your comments, but some how I manage to do it.
Did you not read: "They held coloured tiles up next the skin and chose the one that matched the best". Compare this to your map where the source has taken a tick in the "African-American" box and assigned a colour to it from his own personal subjective opinion of what colour "African-Amercians" are. Also the authors of the other maps were both published experts in the field of anthropology while your source is an architect. So these maps don't "have the same issues" as the your map does.
If all the map is doing is "illustrating the conclusion of the census" then can you please show me some census data that states which color Von Luschan tile belongs to each of the self-identified ancestry options provided.
I've already explained the maps already up weren't "guessings", they used empirical measurements of the actual skin colour of the actual people who live in the places on the map.
The map doesn't meet any of the requirements for a reliable source. These are that it a) has to have been made by an expert on the subject matter (that means an expert on human skin colour, not mapmaking), and b) has to have been published by a reliable publisher in the field (and that means appeared in a scientific journal/book on human skin colour, not featured in an architecture or design exhibition). It fulfills neither of these two requirements so it's not a reliable source.
these maps don't "have the same issues" as the your map does yes they do, in fact the 1920 was as flawled that it was already removed, now let's give a look to the 1940 map:
The date the study which this one is based upon is said to be 1940, and the author seems to be called Renatto Luschan, well, you attack my map for saying that the interpretation of the Luschan's scale isn't 100% genetically exact, to which i have to let you know that competent genetic studies didn't existed in 1940, also the map don't cites any census, therefore is beyond obvious that this map is much more guess-based than mine. Not only that, but the source that it cites: looks dubious, i'd like to see a link to the 1940 book on which this map was published, though that don't makes it less flawled, because maybe it was acceptable in 1940 to publish a map like this, but not today.
It fulfills neither of these two requirements so it's not a reliable source. it's the opposite actually, it meets all the requirements, I will cite Misplaced Pages:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source here: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Jonathan Hagos is recognized by the Oxford Brookes University as an expert in the architecture and cartography fields, specializing in themes such as freedom of speech and expression, identity and migration which are executed through diverse media such as cartography film, full-scale installations and architectural interventions. themes on which he is a consultancy expertise, his works have also been featured in several publications akin to the topic, and have been featured in seminars and exhibitions. Having even colaborated in the production of films regarding migration trends. He meets all the criteria, there is no real discussion here, you just keep saying that he is not reliable because he isn't a geneticist, which is nonsense, because:
1-His map is not a diagram regarding haplogroups or DNA structures, it's about migration collecting data from national census.
2-There is no official 100% genetically exact stablished criteria to apply the Von Luschan's chromatic scale (and never will because that would be extremely complex)
3-The maps already up are outdated and didn't applied the scale on a 100% genetically exact way (simply because genetical studies didn't existed back then)
Again, did you not read: "They held coloured tiles up next the skin and chose the one that matched the best" and "the authors of the other maps were both published experts in the field of anthropology". The existing map uses an empirical measurement of skin colour made by an expert in anthropology. Your map uses a subjective assumption of skin colour made by someone with zero expertise in anthropology. Can you see the difference?
I see that neither of the authors used a genetical level accuracy to apply the Von luschan's chromatic scale, because genetical studies didn't even existed back then, and by saying "they chose the one that matched best" which means guessing, and again, his knowledge of antrophology is irrelevant because he took the information from national census, which did the racial research for him.
You seem to think this article is about architecture of cartography. It's not, it's about human skin colour. I'm questioning the ability of your source to accurately decide which von Luschan skin colour applies to each of the various self-identified ancestries in each census, not his ability to draw maps accurately. Your source is not an established expert in any field that gives him the ability to make such decisions accurately and none of his work has been published by anybody with the authority to verify that his decisions are accurate. In terms of its ability to accurately represent the skin colours of the world today, your map relies on a single self-published source that does not meet the criteria wikipedia sets down for the use of self-published sources. It's unverifiable original research.
The map is about how migration has impacted the average skin color on each country, and he happens to be an expert on this topic, again you are saying that you question his ability of your source to accurately decide which von Luschan skin colour applies to each of the various self-identified ancestries in each census, but i don't see you questioning that on any other map, and that claim is non-sense, because there is no official genetically exact equivalents to apply the Von Luschan scale, this map is as reliable as any other up.
1. Your map is claiming that the colours in each country accurately represent the skin colour of the people in that country. These colours don't come from the census data, so you need a reliable third party source published by a reputable publisher in the field that can verify the skin colours you have used are accurate.
it does exactly what the other maps do, i already told you above, i want to see the sources on which renato luschan based his conclusions
2. The official way to apply the Von Luschan scale is to compare coloured tiles against the skin of the person being measured. As you agree, there's no accurate or official way to assign von Luschan skin colours to self-reported ancestry from census data. That's why your map cannot be verified by any reliable third-party source.
Again, you have to preove that back on 1940 that person travalled around every country of the world and did it personally on each population, until then, it is as realiable as my map.
3. We're discussing the problems with your map, pointing out that other maps have problems doesn't in any way help to verify that your map is reliable. In any case the existing map uses empirical data from a published book written by an expert anthropologist, a totally different case to your map.
The problems of the other maps have to be pointed out in order to make everyone (you included) see that you are being ridiculously over demanding here. picking up the minimal detail on the map but letting pass other maps that have same issues or even worse issues up.
I hope you can see that your map is effectively stating things like "The skin colour of people in India today is Von Luschan tile #xxx". These are contentious statements likely to be challenged and thus require verification from reliable sources. The only source you have provided is self-published by someone with no established expertise in using the von Luschan scale nor in any field relating to human skin colour. His source is national census data which doesn't use skin colour or the von Luschan scale in any of their categories. So we have a problem, you're making controversial statements citing a non-reliable source. Your non-reliable source cites a reliable source but that reliable source doesn't support the claims being made. There has been WP:Synth on the part of your source and since it's self-published by a non-expert it fails to meet the WP guidelines for reliability. It's a great looking map and would be perfect for the section you placed it in, unfortunately we can't verify that it is accurate so we can't use it.
your map is effectively stating things like "The skin colour of people in India today is Von Luschan tile #xxx". These are contentious statements likely to be challenged and thus require verification from reliable sources. Do you realize that this is exactly the same thing that the other map does? And for the book you brought up, you know, inline citations are necessary, and you have to prove that Reanato Luschan travelled around every population in the world and did the measurements by himsefl without guessing any of these.
3. The other maps are irrelevent.And you are saying it is unreliable again, here this is why it is reliable: I will cite Misplaced Pages:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source here: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Jonathan Hagos is recognized by the Oxford Brookes University as an expert in the architecture and cartography fields, specializing in themes such as freedom of speech and expression, identity and migration which are executed through diverse media such as cartography film, full-scale installations and architectural interventions. themes on which he is a consultancy expertise, his works have also been featured in several publications akin to the topic, and have been featured in seminars and exhibitions. Having even colaborated in the production of films regarding migration trends. He meets all the criteria, there is no real discussion here, you just keep saying that he is not reliable because he isn't a geneticist, which is nonsense, because:
1-His map is not a diagram regarding haplogroups or DNA structures, it's about migration collecting data from national census.
2-There is no official 100% genetically exact stablished criteria to apply the Von Luschan's chromatic scale (and never will because that would be extremely complex)
3-The maps already up are outdated and didn't applied the scale on a 100% genetically exact way (simply because genetical studies didn't existed back then)
1. Your source can't be using data from the national censuses because no national census reports skin colour or uses the von Luschan Scale.
False, the skin color is implied by stating the race, in USA is one of the most obvious for example, exists white american (white skin), african american (very dark skin), asian (yellow), hispanic (taned skin), native american (brownish skin) and white hispanic (white skin), in UK the category british white exists, and i could go on with every country existant but it's unnecesary. The Von luschan is not stated because there is not exact way to determine what color belongs by who.
2. There is an exact established criteria to apply the von Luschan Scale and your map doesn't use it.
Citing the Von Luschan's chromatic scale article: it was considered problematic, even by its practitioners, because it was very inconsistent. In many instances, different investigators would give different readings of the same person. The von Luschan scale was largely abandoned by the early 1950s what you are saying is a lie, exact established criteria doesn't exists, the criteria used by hagos is even more accurace than the 40s method, for taking information related to ethnicy in consideration (So it doesn't matters if a person whit exclusively germanic ethnicy got a heavy tan, he stills counts as light skinned) as opposed to the old unreliable method, which didn't took ethnicy in consideration and whose direct performance in a world scale (having to travel to every population in the world to collect data of the skin tone of it's populators) was impossible.
Accord to Misplaced Pages:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source policy the map is reliable, i will cite it here: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Jonathan Hagos is recognized by the Oxford Brookes University as an expert in the architecture and cartography fields, specializing in themes such as freedom of speech and expression, identity and migration which are executed through diverse media such as cartography film, full-scale installations and architectural interventions. themes on which he is a consultancy expertise, his works have also been featured in several publications akin to the topic, and have been featured in seminars and exhibitions. Having even colaborated in the production of films regarding migration trends. He meets all the criteria, there is no real discussion here, you just keep saying that he is not reliable because he isn't a geneticist, which is nonsense, because:
1-His map is not a diagram regarding haplogroups or DNA structures, it's about migration collecting data from national census (which is a more precise way to measure the average skin tone than the old method because:
2-There is no official 100% genetically exact stablished criteria to apply the Von Luschan's chromatic scale (and never will because that would be extremely complex). Aditionally, the old official method was abandoned for being considered too imprecise, if anything the new method based in racial information is more accurate, because a person with germanic ethnicy who happened to have a heavy tan during the time of the census might still be considered white-skinned, thing that wouldn't have happebed with the old method.
3-The maps already up are outdated and didn't applied the scale on a 100% genetically exact way either (simply because genetical studies didn't existed back then) and Hagos' procedure is more accurace for the reasons already stated above.
This map is one if not the most precise maps regarding skin tone to have ever been done, and meets wikipedia criteria to be a reliable source. Czixhc (talk) 00:04, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
We've been through your sources before and none of them show that he is an "established expert in the subject matter" nor that his "work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications", the two criteria that you yourself have stated are required by Misplaced Pages policy. His education and professional experience is in architecture (which has nothing to do with this page) and all his listed publications are either architecture related or catalogs for art and design exhibitions. Looking through his work on his website, this map is the first serious map he has ever done - the other "Cartography" works are clearly concpetual art pieces, eg . It also appears to be the only work he has done on human skin colour or migration. Since this map is the only work he's done on the subject matter, he is clearly a beginner, not an expert.
He is an expertise consultant in fields such as inmigration, his work has been feautred in publications and seminars, he gave advise in a film regarding the impact of migration which is due to be premiered in 2014, and the Oxford Brookes University calls him an expert, and it is more reliable than you.
1. Your map claims to accurately represent human skin colour in each country and that needs verification from a reliable source. Using ancestry information from census data to determine skin colour is not a "more precise" method, because people of different skin colours will report the same ancestry.
It's objetivelly more precise than the old method, because as i said above, the old method would qualify a germanic person who got a heavy tan as "dark skinned" by taking ethnicy in consideration the information is more consistent, this is a fact.
2. There is an established method for using the von Luschan Scale, but yes, it is no longer considered accurate enough for scientific use. Modern skin colour studies use dermospectography samples on unexposed skin, usually under the arm. Out of the three methods, assuming colour based on self-reported ancestry (the method your map uses) is the least accurate since there is no imperical measurement being done and it's all up to the preconvceived notions of the observer who, in this case, has no experience in the area.
That's false, citing again the Von Luschan's chromatic scale: The equipment consists of 36 opaque glass tiles which were compared to the subject's skin, ideally in a place which would not be exposed to the sun (such as under the arm). The von Luschan scale was used to establish racial classifications of populations according to skin color; in this respect it is in contrast to the Fitzpatrick scale intended for the classification of the skin type of individuals introduced in 1975 by Harvard dermatologist Thomas B. Fitzpatrick to describe sun tanning behavior. The von Luschan scale was used extensively throughout the first half of the 20th century in race studies and anthropometry. However, it was considered problematic, even by its practitioners, because it was very inconsistent. In many instances, different investigators would give different readings of the same person. The von Luschan scale was largely abandoned by the early 1950s, what you called "modern procedure" is in fact the one that was considered unacurate and abandoned, in no way there is any mention of a "modern procedure" don't lie.
3. Hagos' procedure is not accurate enough for you to use as the single self-published source for your map.
He is regarded as an expert by the Oxford Brookes University, and his procedure is more accurate than the old one, this is unquestionable
No, this map is certainly not the most precise map of skin tone ever done and no, it doesn't meet Misplaced Pages's criteria for reliable sources.
I don't see any other map which is more accurate, do you know any? and accord to the Misplaced Pages:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source policy the map is reliable, i will cite it here: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Jonathan Hagos is recognized by the Oxford Brookes University as an expert in the architecture and cartography fields, specializing in themes such as freedom of speech and expression, identity and migration which are executed through diverse media such as cartography film, full-scale installations and architectural interventions. themes on which he is a consultancy expertise, his works have also been featured in several publications akin to the topic, and have been featured in seminars and exhibitions. Having even colaborated in the production of films regarding migration trends. He meets all the criteria, there is no real discussion here, you just keep saying that he is not reliable because he isn't a geneticist, which is nonsense, because:
1-His map is not a diagram regarding haplogroups or DNA structures, it's about migration collecting data from national census (which is a more precise way to measure the average skin tone than the old method because:
2-There is no official 100% genetically exact stablished criteria to apply the Von Luschan's chromatic scale (and never will because that would be extremely complex). Aditionally, the old official method was abandoned for being considered too imprecise, if anything the new method based in racial information is more accurate, because a person with germanic ethnicy who happened to have a heavy tan during the time of the census might still be considered white-skinned, thing that wouldn't have happebed with the old method.
3-The maps already up are outdated and didn't applied the scale on a 100% genetically exact way either (simply because genetical studies didn't existed back then) and Hagos' procedure is more accurace for the reasons already stated above.
The map meets all the wikipedia requirements, i don't know why do you keep saying it doesn't, is the part of text that i've rewrite like three times above me invisible for you or something? or you just ignore facts and wikipedia's policies? i mean, at this point you are clearly starting to lie. Czixhc (talk) 02:04, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I've made it very clear why the map doesn't meet the wikipedia requirements.
You're just saying the same things over and over now, if you don't have anything new to add please don't just cut and paste your previous comments. In an effort to end this, can you please provide links to the sources that show:
that Jonathon Hagos is an expert in determining human skin colour from census data
that work by Jonothan Hagos in the field of human skin colour has been published by a reliable 3rd party source
Please don't use Jonathon Hagos' personal or professional websites - anybody can make a web page saying they're an expert in anything.
Please don't use the Oxford Brookes Uni's School of Architecture page you've already posted - I've already been through the publications it mentions and none relate to human skin colour.
Tobus2 (talk) 03:03, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
that Jonathon Hagos is an expert in determining human skin colour from census data I was revisiting the sources and i noticed something i haven't seen before, the map on which he completely based the skin color he applied was the Reantto Luschan's 1940 map for native populations (which is already up and you consider completely reliable) , this completely changes the perception of the map, for example, when a census says "white european descent" or "african descent" he don't determines by himself what color belongs to that ethnicy, but uses the color that Luschan (even you consider him an expert) asigned to it years ago, so he is not doing it by himself, but completely using the information provided by Luschan himself, who is the expert on the field. The only thing he is contributing with is his knowledge about migration and cartography,he basing his map in a map published by an expert on skin color makes this point to be completely covered. that work by Jonothan Hagos in the field of human skin colour has been published by a reliable 3rd party source, Please don't use the Oxford Brookes Uni's School of Architecture page you've already posted University pages are as reliable as it can get, so i have to disagree, and this point is covered too (for the aforementioned reasons: He is not adding skin colors in a random or personal manner, but using the colors provided and patterns provided by an expert in the field) and because he is an expert regarding migration (his advise even was solicited on the film industry, this map itself has been featured in a seminary) with both fields being recognized by the Oxford Brookes University. I think this is finally seetled. His map is reliable because the color distribution for each race is based on the Renatto's Luschan map which is an expert on human skin color, what he only does is to apply his knowledge on cartography and migration, nothing else, I should have realised this before so we could have save many time and words. Czixhc (talk) 03:41, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
So your source for him being an expert in human skin colour is his own map.
Do you have a source for his work on human skin colour having being published by a reliable third party source?
No, look closely to the small map here: (bottom left). It's the same map that it's up in this article, if you have good sight you can even see that the name Renatto Luschan appears, he is entirely basing the colors he gives to each race on the color that the skin color expert Renatto Luschan gave to each race. As i said above, the only thing he did was to apply his cartography skills and his knowledge of migration (both of which he is an expert) to elaborate the map, it's completely reliable. Czixhc (talk) 05:14, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
A more accurate term would be "Hagos's map is no longer a self-made source" because he based the skin distribution on Luschan's early map, so he no longer "decided" what ethnicy had what color" his work is on his personal site, but that isn't an issue, citing Misplaced Pages:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications since what he adds to the map is his knowledge on cartography and migration which are backed up by the Oxford Brookes University (he is recognized as a consultant expertise, with even the film industry soliciting his advise) whit his work on both areas being featured on seminars and magazines, all the requirements are covered. Czixhc (talk) 23:47, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
So... please provide links to sources that show:
He is an "established expert in the subject matter" of human skin colour, and
His "work in the relevant field" (ie human skin colour) "has previously been published by reliable third-party publications"
Remembering that his own website can't be used to vouch for his own expertise, and that none of his "publications" listed by the School of Architecture at Oxford Brooks are in the relevant field.
that's unnecessary, he didn't asigned the skin colors by himself, but used the ones the Luschan asigned to each race, Luschan being an expert on the field validates his work because it's based on it, all the requirements are covered. Czixhc (talk) 01:14, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Von Luschan didn't apply colours to any "race", he created the system of numbered tiles that used to be used to define skin colours for different populations. This scale to make measurements of some of the indigenous populations of the world before 1940 and Rennto Biasutti collated these and presented his findings in a map. The von Luschan scale is now considered obsolete and modern scientists use dermospectrography instead. Since it was published and widely cited, Biasutti's map is verifiable as an example of the scientific consensus in the 1950's, however it is not considered accurate by today's scientists and would not be considered suitable for publication by any today's scientific publications except as a historical referece. The notes on the image confirm this: "Use with caution; The best known of these maps is that composed by the Italian geographer Renato Biasutti, which was based on von Luschan's chromatic scale. This map has gained broad circulation in several widely distributed publications (Barsh 2003, Lewontin 1995, Roberts 1977, Walter 1971), despite the fact that, for areas with no data, Biasutti simply filled in the map by extrapolation from findings obtained in other areas" and "The map's intended use is in articles dealing with the history of the notion of race, and it should not be used as an up-to-date reference."
Your source has taken self-identified ancestry from various national censuses (each with their own varying options for reporting ancestry), combined this with a 70-year old map derived from an obsolete measurement system and claims that it accurately represents the average skin colour of countries today (countries which may not have existed or had the same boundaries in 1940 as they do now - see List_of_world_map_changes). This is a contentious claim and so needs to be verified by a reliable source. The only source you have provided is self-published and so needs to meet wikipedia's criteria for self-published sources before it can be used. I've investigated the source and it doesn't seem to meet the criteria specified by the policy, you keep claiming it does so please prove it:
Please provide links that show a) Jonathan Hagos is an expert in human skin colour, and b) that Jonathan Hagos's previous work on human skin colour has been published by a reliable third party source.
If you can't do this then there's no point discussing the accuracy of your map since wikipedia policy means we can't use it anyway.
So, in short, what you said up there is that the map is made Renatto Biasutti using the Von Luschan chromatic scale and for being cited in multiple publications it has gained reliability? that's good, because tha means that Hagos based the coloring of his map on a very reliable source, making it reliable too, even if he is not a geneticist but an expert on migration. To answer your question for the third time: Hagos don't needs to be a complete expert about skin color because he is using Biasutti's map as a reference, that makes his work valid, your claim regarding political boundaries is pointless because ethnicy isn't defined by borders, only nationality, more than one country can share the same ethnicy. And don't attemp to change your posture towards Renatto's map because until yesterday you defended it very bravely, Renatto's map is reliable, therefore a map based on it made by a consultancy expertise on cartography and migration is reliable, don't ask for things that wikipedia's policies for reliable sources don't ask for, that goes against WP:BOLD and verifiability policies states that self published documents are reliable as long as these are made by an expert on the field, with Hagos being that on cartography and migration, and the map he uses as a source being made by an expert too, therefore it's reliable. Don't try to find voids where there isn't any, you only clog the improvements to the article, i don't care if the map don't meet your extreme and arbitrary notions of what is reliable and what is not, as long as it meets wikipedia's ones it's alright to use it, and it does that very well. Czixhc (talk) 04:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
The source is there, it's Renatto's map, which is reliable, if you can't grasp that and wikipedia's policies i think it's better for you to step aside. Czixhc (talk) 05:24, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
So which of the requirements for self-published sources does Renatto's map show, that Hagos is an expert in the subject matter or that his work in the field has been published by a reliable third party source? Tobus2 (talk) 06:15, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure you understand - Biasutto's map doesn't mention Hagos or his work (which is expected, since Biasutto died more than 15 years before Hagos was born). You need something that shows Hagos is an expert in the subject matter and that he's been published in the field. Do you have any sources that show either of those two? Tobus2 (talk) 23:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
There is no need for a source declaring Hagos skin genetics expert, because he is basing his work entirely on a work made by an expert, not asigning the colors by himself, what's so hard to understand for you? Czixhc (talk) 23:49, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes there is, because Hagos's map is a self-published source. Misplaced Pages policy is very clear on this, as you yourself have quoted several times. Hagos's map is not based "entirely" on Biasutti's map, it's a synthesis of self-identified ancestry from census data and the von Luschan tones used on Biasutti's map (if it were "entirely" based on Baisutti's map then we could just use Biasutti's map instead). I have major issues with such a synthesis, but as I stated before, there's not much point discussing those issues if the source isn't usable in the first place.
So please, if you can, provide evidence to show that Hagos is an expert in human skin colour and that his previous work on human skin colour has been published in reliable third party sources. If you can't do so then we can't use his map as a source.
for the sixth time: Hagos don't needs to be an expert on skin genetics because his work is based on Biasutti's map, the only thing he is contributing with is his knowledge about migration and cartography, fields on which he is an expert, this is more than enough to fulfill wikipedias reliability policies. If you aren't able to grasp this concept you clearly have some issues regarding reading comprehension or you are just playing the fool card here to clog the improvements on this article, either way an user with a behaviour such as yours certainly shouldn't be on wikipedia, mind you the only reason for which i haven't just ignored you and added the map (and reported you in case of you removing it) it's because i want to let clear how uncivil and ridiculous your posture and demandings are, thing that becomes more evident everytime that you basically write the same response ignoring wikipedia's policies and all that these imply, at this point everybody can see how intransigent and biased you are. Soon i will get done with you if you keep your clearly non-neutral posture. Czixhc (talk) 04:59, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Citing Misplaced Pages:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source for the I-actually-don't-know-what-time-again: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications since what he adds to the map is his knowledge on cartography and migration which are backed up by the Oxford Brookes University (he is recognized as a consultant expertise, with even the film industry soliciting his advise) whit his work on both areas being featured on seminars and magazines, all the requirements are covered. But yeah, keep playing the fool card for a time more, that's what i want you to do. Czixhc (talk) 23:22, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
Good, you agree that Hagos's map is a self published source.
Hagos has not simply added "his knowledge of cartography and migration" to an existing map, he has created a new map from scratch by WP:Synthing data from two unconnected sources. Neither of these sources explicitly states what his map states, so we need to verify that the conclusions he draws on his map are accurate.
Misplaced Pages policy is very clear on what is required to verify a self-published source before we can use it. To satisfy wikipedia policy can you please provide links to sources that show:
That Hagos is an established expert in the subject matter, and
That Hagos's previous work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications.
Note that the "subject matter" and "relevant field" in this context are not migration or cartography, they're human skin colour.
Misplaced Pages's WP:synth policy applies only to editors, not investigators, i already told it to you above, Hagos is a recognized expert on cartography and migration, and his work is based on the work of an expert on skin tone with previosly published works, thus his map is reliable, it's clear that you understand this, you are not fool. But let's waste some time more, every time you reply with that flawled logic (because to attemp to apply a wikipedia guideline directed to editors to investigators isn't something that someone sees everyday) you are taking away your own credibility. Czixhc (talk) 01:32, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
There are no sources that show Hagos is an "established expert in the subject matter" and none that show his "work in the relevant field has been published by a reliable third party source". Do you agree? Tobus2 (talk) 02:02, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
I don't agee because they have, the list is on Oxford brookes Universoty website, he gave advise in a movie and this map itself was featured on an exhibition. I just really don't want you to bring all this non-sensical drama to the vandalism noticeboard once i report you for removing it, so, i'm leting you waste space here over a map that has been proven reliable on everyway. Czixhc (talk) 02:35, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
So, again, please provide links to the sources that you believe show:
that Jonathan Hagos is an established expert in human skin colour, and
that Jonathan Hagos's previous work on human skin colour has been published by a reliable third party source.
why would he need to? he is basing his work on data from an expert, not doing it by himself, about what he is an expert is on the fields of migration and cartography, which is what he adds to the map, so he is reliable. Czixhc (talk) 03:42, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Why? Because it's a self-published source and the Misplaced Pages policy concerning self-published sources is very clear. If his work really is based on data from an expert and he hasn't done it himself, then you should be able to use the expert's work as your source instead. Tobus2 (talk) 04:32, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
He is basing his work completely on one made by an expert on the field of skin color, the only things he is adding are his skills at tracing maps and his knoweledge about migration and how it modifies the society, reflected on the alterations of the colors in each country based from census data whose root information for color comes from Renatto's map, it's about time for you to stop pretending, though it really doesn't makes any difference if you don't. Czixhc (talk) 04:52, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Can you provide an alternative source that verifies what your map is presenting, or his Hagos's map the only place it is presented? Tobus2 (talk) 04:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
There is the national census data of each country, which is an inmense amount of information considering that the work is done on a worldwide scale, which is the basis to his work, with Renattos data being the other. Czixhc (talk) 01:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for that. Neither of these two sources presents the same data as your map. Your map claims to show the average von Luschan skin colour for countries today. The census data state proportions of self-identified ancestry in various countries over the last 10 or so years, and Biasutti's map shows extrapolated von Luschan skin colour for indigenous populations in 1940. There are issues with using either of these sources as a basis for skin colour in modern times, but there's no point arguing about that until we establish if there is a usable source for your map.
Do you have any others or is Hagos's map the only place where the skin colours shown for each country are the same as on your map?
Neither of these two sources presents the same data as your map now you got something to prove and i hope you can, i'll wait a bit for you to do so. Czixhc (talk) 02:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
I've already explained this:
Your map says "the average skin colour in Country X today is von Luschan skin tone Y".
Biasutti's map has different skin colours in different places to what your map does.
The census data doesn't mention skin colour or the von Luschan scale at all.
You need a source that says the same thing as your map and neither of these two do. To date the only source supplied that directly supports the claims in your map is Hagos's map.
Do you agree that it is the only place that says what your map says?
the skin tone for each race/location is stated in Renatto's map, the amount of each race per country comes from national census data. It's correct. Czixhc (talk) 02:50, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
The information definitely no, it's widespread worldwide. Now, do you agree that Misplaced Pages:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source states that a selfpublished source done by somebody with previous expertise on the field and who cites another experts is largely reliable despite the document in question being self-published? Czixhc (talk) 03:08, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
If it's widespread around the world then it should easy for you to provide another source that says it.
No, as we both know the Misplaced Pages policy states "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications" - nothing there about citing other experts.
So, do agree Hagos's map is the only source that makes the same claims as your map, or do you have an alternative source that says the same thing?
There is places where you can find the same information, here is an example: ], going accord to the policy, Hagos does have works recognized and published on migration and cartography, and the study on which he bases the skin tone distribution is from a reliable investigator who also has published material. And don't dodge the question, do you agree that a selfpublished source done by somebody with previous expertise on the field and who cites another experts is largely reliable despite the document in question being self-published?Czixhc (talk) 03:37, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
The example you give does not mention skin colour or the von Luschan Scale.
The topic of the article is human skin colour, not migration or cartography.
I didn't dodge the question, I said "No" and then corrected your rephrasing of the Misplaced Pages policy, pointing out that citing experts is not one of the criteria that validates self-published sources. The reason for this is that self-published sources often cite experts but then draw their own conclusions or interpretations, eg I could put up a website saying "Mars is the 4th planet from the sun and is called the red planet(cite NASA). That's because people on Mars have red hair". Even though I've based my website on data from NASA, Misplaced Pages policy won't accept my website as a source because I'm not a published expert in the field - the conclusions I've drawn from the sources a not necessarily the same conclusions that experts in the field would make, so any claims I make need to be verified before they can be used. In a sense this is what Hagos has done - he's taken data from 2 legitimate sources but then made a map that neither source can verify. That's why we can't accept his map unless he himself is a proven expert in the field. If there's another, more reliable, source that says the same thing then we can use that source instead.
To get back on topic, Hagos's map is still the only source you've provided that claims the same skin colours as your map does. Are you ready to accept that no other source exists?
The example you give does not mention skin colour or the von Luschan Scale The Von Luschan chromatic scale parametters are taken from Renatto's map, The topic of the article is human skin colour, not migration or cartography He is in fact, citing an expert on the human skin color field, I could put up a website saying "Mars is the 4th planet from the sun and is called the red planet(cite NASA). That's because people on Mars have red hair". Even though I've based my website on data from NASA, Misplaced Pages policy won't accept my website as a source because I'm not a published expert in the field... In a sense this is what Hagos has done - he's taken data from 2 legitimate sources but then made a map that neither source can verify it's not the same, to be the same you would need to have a study that confirms that the hair color of martians is red, if you cite a published study saying that martians have red hair then it will be reliable. Now, you certainly didn't answered the question but found a tangent, answer it this time without a tangent: Do you agree that wikipedia accepts as reliable sources work done by a specialist who have published works in the respective fields? Czixhc (talk) 01:03, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
"if you cite a published study saying that martians have red hair then it will be reliable": Exactly my point - if you can cite a published study saying that the average skin colour in each country today is what Hagos's map says it is then we can accept Hagos's map as a source (although we'd probably just use that study instead). Does such a study exist, or is Hagos's map the only place that uses those colours for each country?
You're asking a different question now (this one doesn't mention self-published sources). Yes, I agree that wikipedia accepts as reliable sources work done by a specialist who has published works in the field. To clarify my response to your original question: No, I don't agree that a self-published source is considered reliable by Misplaced Pages policy just because it cites other expert sources.
Biasutti's map uses different colours for the countries than your map does (eg North America/Australia), so it doesn't verify the colours that you've used.
You just quoted the WP policy on self-published sources yourself and there's clearly nothing in there saying a self-published source is allowed if it cites other expert sources. Perhaps you can quote the part of WP policy makes you think the policy for self-published sources (the one you just quoted) doesn't apply if the self-published source cites expert sources?
Biasutti's map uses different colours for the countries than your map does (eg North America/Australia), so it doesn't verify the colours that you've used. It does, you can compare homogeneous countries from the old world such as Germany or Poland and you will get the same tone, there are different colors in countries such as United States because it is less homogeneous. There's clearly nothing in there saying a self-published source is allowed if it cites other expert sources as i said above, to do so is a very common practice among proffesionals, easily one out of three documents used as reference do it. if you want to take advantage of something that is clearly implied in wikipedia´s policies you might have to prove it textually. Czixhc (talk) 03:13, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
So you agree that Biasutto's map doesn't say the same thing as Hagos's. Whatever the reasons for the differences, this means that Biasutti doesn't verify what Hagos's map is saying, so it needs to be verified by some other source.
I agree, let's only use wikipedia policy that actually appears in the wikipedia policy text.
Let's recap. You have agreed that Hagos's map is self-published, and we have both quoted, multiple times, Misplaced Pages's requirements for self-published sources. When asked to prove that Hagos satisfies these requirements you failed to do so and claimed that they aren't needed because his work is completely based on an expert's work. When asked to provide the expert's work that Hagos's map is the same as, you failed to do so and instead are now claiming that Misplaced Pages policy is that his map can be used because he cites expert sources. I am still waiting on you to provide sources that show one of the following:
1. That Hagos's map meets the Misplaced Pages policy for self-published sources - ie, that Hagos is an extablished expert in human skin colour and his previous work on human skin colour has been published by a reliable source.
2. That Hagos's map is completely based on the work of an expert - ie. that a published map by established expert in human skin colour uses the same skin colours for the same countries that Hagos's map does. You should be able to use this source instead of Hagos for your map.
3. That Misplaced Pages policy for self-published sources states they can be used on the basis that they cite other expert sources - ie a quote from WP policy that shows the rules in Misplaced Pages:V#Self-published_sources don't apply if the self-published source cites expert sources. Note that there are different policies for published and self-published sources - be careful not to confuse them.
So you agree that Biasutto's map doesn't say the same thing as Hagos's. Whatever the reasons for the differences, this means that Biasutti doesn't verify what Hagos's map is saying, so it needs to be verified by some other source. - I've never agreed on such thing, in fact, my posture have always been the opposite: That Hagos map is based on Biasutto's work, making it reliable. When asked to prove that Hagos satisfies these requirements you failed to do so - Did you forgot that the map has been festured on exhibitions already? claimed that they aren't needed because his work is completely based on an expert's work. I say this because that's how wikipedia's policy on verifiability works. When asked to provide the expert's work that Hagos's map is the same as, you failed to do so - I didn't failed here either, i already told you that the colors asigned to each race are based on the color that renatto asigned to them, it's the same information, adapted to modern times via census data, and you can confirm it by yourself. and instead are now claiming that Misplaced Pages policy is that his map can be used because he cites expert sources. - I claim this because that's how the policy works, and i can prove it by citing documents that are alredy featured on this site that have internal citations. If i recall correctly you have failed at proving that it doesn't. 1. That Hagos's map meets the Misplaced Pages policy for self-published sources - ie, that Hagos is an extablished expert in human skin colour and his previous work on human skin colour has been published by a reliable source. -Hagos is basing his work completely on the work done by an skin color expert, he is not pulling the colors by himself, internal citations is a common practice in several documents, and it's accepted on wikipedia, again i can prove it right now by bringing investigations and books who do so. 2. That Hagos's map is completely based on the work of an expert - ie. that a published map by established expert in human skin colour uses the same skin colours for the same countries that Hagos's map does. You should be able to use this source instead of Hagos for your map. - This claim don' has much logic at all, Hagos work is proven to be based on the work of an expert, and it happens to be his original work, to ask for the existence of a work identical to his original work done before by somebody else is bizarre, and wikipedia guideline to self published sources does not require this. 3. That Misplaced Pages policy for self-published sources states they can be used on the basis that they cite other expert sources - ie a quote from WP policy that shows the rules in Misplaced Pages:V#Self-published_sources don't apply if the self-published source cites expert sources. Note that there are different policies for published and self-published sources - be careful not to confuse them. -You might need to use sematic tought here: as i told you two times above, to use internal citations is a common practice among accepted sources on wikipedia, this means, it's acceptance it's implied on sources in general (i can prove it right now, bringing documents and books featuring internal citations), with self published sources being a small part of the entire field related to sources, not something apart, therefore the acceptance of internal sources inside self-published sources is implied for these being inside the semantic group on which all sorces belong. If this weren't the case it would be explicitly stated on the section of the policy regarding self-published works, however, as far as i know it doesn't, and you are yet to prove it is this way, by citing the part of wikipedia policies where in fact, what you say it's clearly stated, as long as you don't do this what you are claiming remains out and apart of any of wikipedia's guidelines. Czixhc (talk) 01:19, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
My bad, I thought when you said "there are different colors in countries such as United States" you were saying that there are different colours in countries such as the United States.
1. WP policy says nothing about "being based completely on the work of an expert". It states the work itself must be done by an expert (and that that expert's similar work must have been published).
2. You are trying to avoid the WP self-published policy by saying that Hagos's work is "completely" based on the work of an expert. If this is true then you need to show me an expert's work that is "completely" the same (in terms of content, not necessarily style) and then we'll use that for your source instead of Hagos's map. You can't use Biasutti as your source because his map uses different colours to yours, and since the colours are the whole point of the map, this would mean your map is WP:OR.
3. Self-published sources aren't considered part of the "semantic group" of acceptable sources on WP. If you read WP:V you will see that the "Reliable sources" section doesn't include self-published sources. Self-published sources are included under "Sources that are usually not reliable", so self-published sources belong to the "semantic group" of unusable sources - we don't use them unless the specific criteria set down by the policy are met. Note that other documents and books used on Misplaced Pages that use internal citations are all published sources. This means they've been fact-checked and verified by a 3rd party publisher (and often peer-reviewed before publication) so we know what they say has some level of acceptance by experts in the field. Self-published sources don't undergo this degree of scrutiny, which is why they aren't considered reliable enough for use.
WP policy says nothing about "being based completely on the work of an expert". It states the work itself must be done by an expert (and that that expert's similar work must have been published). -It in no way states that it can't be partially based (because to point this out is very important) either, and regarding wikipedia's guidelines for reliable sources it's acceptance is implied, also you are ignoring that Hagos is an expert on migration and cartography-related topics, which why he is able to modify the colors to nowaday's reallity, Biasutti's map constitutes only a small (the base colors) Hagos does the rest, and he is an expert on that. You need to show me an expert's work that is "completely" the same (in terms of content, not necessarily style) - There is expert's works that are already up on wikipedia and that states the same information that Hagos map does, just with a different style: they are called census data. Self-published sources aren't considered part of the "semantic group" of acceptable sources on WP. If you read WP:V you will see that the "Reliable sources" section doesn't include self-published sources. Self-published sources are included under "Sources that are usually not reliable", so self-published sources belong to the "semantic group" of unusable sources - They do belong to the sources semantic group: wheter they might be found reliable or not doesn't affect that in the end they are sources. Note that other documents and books used on Misplaced Pages that use internal citations are all published sources. This means they've been fact-checked and verified by a 3rd party publisher (and often peer-reviewed before publication) so we know what they say has some level of acceptance by experts in the field. Self-published sources don't undergo this degree of scrutiny, which is why they aren't considered reliable enough for use. - This is not true at all, non-published and online sources do it too, and again, you are implying things that are never said on any guideline or policy on wikipedia, and you are yet to prove it textually, and, judging how far this discussion has gone without you doing seems like you wouldn't be able to do it, which means that your criteria for reliable sources isn't the same as the one set by wikipedia. Quote the policy that states that self-published sources done by recognized proffesionals can't partially cite previously published expert works and you'll be right on this. Czixhc (talk) 05:08, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages policy doesn't say anything about whether a self-published source can or can't partially cite previously published experts because it makes no difference - self-published sources, whether they cite experts or not, are "are largely not acceptable". The policy says you can only use a self-published source (whether it cites 1000 experts or none) if it is by an established expert in the topic whose previous work in the field has been published by reliable third-party publications. Your argument about citing experts is completely irrelevant to the issue... let's get back on track:
1. Do you accept that Hagos is not an established expert on human skin colour and that he has no previous published work in the area of human skin colour, or do you have some sources to show me otherwise?
2. Do you accept that Hagos's map is the only place that uses those particular von Luschan tones for each country, or do you have a source that also uses the same ones?
1. Do you accept that Hagos is not an established expert on human skin colour and that he has no previous published work in the area of human skin colour, or do you have some sources to show me otherwise? - Completely unrelated and pointless, he is citing an expert in the topic which has works published on the field, and on what he is an expert is on migration and it's impact, which is what modifies the original colors, in fact yes, he is a complete expert on the topic at hand. 2. Do you accept that Hagos's map is the only place that uses those particular von Luschan tones for each country, or do you have a source that also uses the same ones? you asked for the same thing yesterday, and i directed you to national census that do expose the same information, but with a different style,so yes, there is information. Misplaced Pages policy doesn't say anything about whether a self-published source can or can't partially cite previously published experts because it makes no difference - self-published sources, whether they cite experts or not, are "are largely not acceptable". The policy says you can only use a self-published source (whether it cites 1000 experts or none) if it is by an established expert in the topic whose previous work in the field has been published by reliable third-party publications. Your argument about citing experts is completely irrelevant to the issue... You are making this up by bending and interpreting the policy to your convenience, show me the textual evidence, not your personal interpretations, because you have misinterpreted policies multiple times before in this discussion. And as I told you above, Hagos is an expertise consultant in both: migration and cartography, with the point of the map being how the original skin tones have been affected by migration trends the skin color bases aren't the main point here, just a reference, with Hagos being an expert on the main point and content of the map, therefore the map being largely reliable. In short what you are doing right here is equal to you attacking and calling unreliable an investigation made by an oncologist stating that Lung cancer might be a latent risk on "X country" 30% of population, because the large amounts of toxines in the air (70% of toxines on the air according to "X country" ambiental agency) because he used numbers given by the ambiental agency with him not being 100% expert on air toxicity, see? it's simply non-sense and unacceptable. Czixhc (talk) 00:23, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
1. Misplaced Pages policy is that a self-published source has to be created by an established and published expert in the subject matter, so my question is completely related and not at all pointless. Unless you can show that Hagos is a published expert in human skin colour then we can't use his map on this page. He can cite experts, you can claim he's an expert in other areas like cartography and migration (which he's not, but no point arguing about irrelevancies), but it makes no difference - WP policy is that he needs to be an expert in human skin colour for his self-published map to be considered a reliable source for this article. You aren't even arguing that he is an expert in human skin colour, so I don't know why you can't agree that he isn't one.
2. As I said last time you cited it as a source, the national census data don't say anything about skin colour. All they have is self-identified ancestry. A person ticking "African-American" (or "Hispanic" or "Australian Aboriginal" or "South Asian" etc. etc.) as their ancestry can be any skin colour from very dark to very light. It's totally inaccurate (not to mention racist) to assume somebody's von Luschan skin colour based on what they say their ancestry is. So, no, the national census doesn't use the same skin colours for the same countries that your map does and we've already established that Biasutti's map doesn't either. Unless you have another source, it's pretty obvious that Hagos's map is the only place that uses the same skin colours for the same countries that you do.
If the "oncologist" was really a graphic designer and the "investigation" was really a picture he'd made and put in an exhibition and the only source showing that the "toxins" actually cause cancer was 70 years old, discussed different isotopes of the chemicals and used methods that aren't used anymore because they're unreliable, then you might have a suitable analogy. I hope you agree that it would be nonsense and unacceptable to treat such a source as reliable.
WP policy is that he needs to be an expert in human skin colour for his self-published map to be considered a reliable source for this article. - No it doesn't, you are misinterpreting (either premeditely or because you can't understand it) the policy again, it does say that it has to be an expert recognized on the field, thing that he does, what you fail to realize is that migration trends is what modifies the skin tones, while the original skin tones asigned to each race by an expert are cited as a source, migration is the main point of the map, it's what makes it different from Biasutti's map, and he is an expert on that, the skin tones he uses as a base is a small part of it, he is an expert in what the map is about, and nowhere on the policy is said that an expert can't cite other experts as sources to complement his work, you are making this up and until you bring a textual citation you are wrong.
A person ticking "African-American" (or "Hispanic" or "Australian Aboriginal" or "South Asian" etc. etc.) as their ancestry can be any skin colour from very dark to very light. It's totally inaccurate - I already explained this before (and also proved you that african-americans' skin tone don't varies greatly at all, south asians don't vary greatly in tone either, and for hispanic the category "white hispanic" exists) in fact it's the opposite, it's more accurate to base the skin tone on ancestry than on what is seen by simple sight, because this way it doesn't matters if a person with german ancestry got a heavy than, he/she still will be counted as light skinned this way (thing that wouldn't happen if we use another method, leading to way more inaccurrate information). The national census data don't say anything about skin colour - This was already discussed, the colors for each race are based on the colors that Biasutti asigned to them, and the analogy is reliable, simply because it's the same base: an expert that partially cites another expert source to create a new work. If you don't like the source or you think that the source is bad that's merely your opinion, because the source itself on this case has been used extensively and has multiple articles on wikipedia based on it (this one included), once you remove all the sources on wikipedia that are "experts partially citing another experts to create their work" you would be on the right of saying that this is unreliable, but as long as you don't do it and also you fail at textually cite the imaginary policy on which you base upon you are wrong. Czixhc (talk) 01:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
So, if I understand correctly, you agree that Hagos is not a published, established expert in human skin colour, your argument is that he doesn't need to be, because, in this case, the phrase "in the subject matter" doesn't mean "in human skin colour"... correct?
Your "proof" that African-Americans don't vary much in skin colour was two cherry-picked photos of Halle Berry and Samuel L Jackson in which they clearly have different skin colours (it's impossible to be anywhere near accurate because of the lighting and because we can't see under their arms, but from the midpoints of skin visible on these photos, I'd put Sam at around 35 on the von Luschan Scale and Halle on about 25). That's subjective though, reliable proof that African-American have a wide range of skin colours can be found in various research papers (). Similar studies (like ) show South Asian populations have a wide range of skin colours as well. Also note that I'm not suggesting we base skin colours on simple sight (like your tanned German example) I'm saying we can't assume skin colour on the self-reported ancestry from census data at all.
It's not just my opinion that the von Luschan colours on Biasutti's map are unreliable, it's stated on the the map description itself: "The map's intended use is in articles dealing with the history of the notion of race, and it should not be used as an up-to-date reference." and on Hagos's description of the map too: "Though the 'von Luschan scale' was used extensively throughout the first half of the twentieth century in the study of race and anthropometry, it was considered problematic, even by its practitioners, because it was very inconsistent. In many instances, different investigators would give different readings of the same person. It was largely abandoned by the early 1950s, replaced instead by methods utilizing reflectance spectrophotometry."
I'm not suggesting we remove all the sources on Misplaced Pages that cite other experts, I'm saying that the policy for self-published sources is that they must be done by an established and published expert in the field, whether they cite experts or not.
To reiterate the only relevant point in this, are you saying that Hagos is not an expert in human skin colour and that he doesn't need to be because "in the subject matter" and "in the relevant field" in the WP policy for self-published sources do not mean "in human skin colour" in this case?
Reliable proof that African-American have a wide range of skin colours can be found in various research papers - Why are you citing genetic studies when you himself have said that to base on mere looks is better, and you are ignoring half of the issue here: You are worried that a somehow lighter skinned person fills "african-american" in the box, thus making USA darker, but what about people that is dark skinned but fills in white anyway? because of these exist many, it's, in overall a very precise way to get racial information, because the large majority will meet the criteria and visual expectancies of a "white" and a "black" small anomalies does not have a notable impact at all. It's not just my opinion that the von Luschan colours on Biasutti's map are unreliable Well, it stills being used in many articles, even here, and it's curious that you find it outdated (because that is the correct term) but oppose to the installation of a map that updates it. "in the relevant field" in the WP policy for self-published sources do not mean "in human skin colour" in this case? - The map is about the alteration of skin tone due migratory trends, both being extremely related, and you are yet to cite the policy on wiki that states that "experts citing another experts" is forbid, prove it or you are wrong, remove all the sources who do so or you are wrong, i'll wait. Czixhc (talk) 03:38, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
I think you've completely misunderstood what I'm saying - I haven't said anything about basing skin colour on mere looks. What I am saying is that you can't assume skin colour based on self-reported ancestry in census data. The genetic studies are to show that your statement "that african-americans' skin tone don't varies greatly at all, south asians don't vary greatly in tone either" is completely false.
Again you've completely misunderstood - I haven't said anything about wikipedia forbidding experts citing other experts. What I am saying is that wikipedia only accepts self-published sources if they are by an established and published expert in the field, it makes no difference if they cite other experts or don't cite other experts.
You totally failed to answer my question, I'll split it into two to make it easier for you:
1. Are you saying that "in the subject matter" and "in the relevant field" as used in the WP policy for self-published sources does not mean "in human skin colour" in this case?
2. Do you accept that Hagos is not an established and published expert in human skin colour?
I've detected that, so far, the issue here is that your arguments are completely based on personal assumptions, this must be pointed out right now. What I am saying is that you can't assume skin colour based on self-reported ancestry in census data - Hold on there, i'm not the one doing it, it was done on based on biasutti's study, which has been published before, no one of the links you brought calls self reported census imprecise, that's something that you are making up, and until you bring sources that say otherwise it's only your opinion
1. Are you saying that "in the subject matter" and "in the relevant field" as used in the WP policy for self-published sources does not mean "in human skin colour" in this case? 2. Do you accept that Hagos is not an established and published expert in human skin colour?
you answered your own questions here: I haven't said anything about wikipedia forbidding experts citing other experts - you just said that it´s reliable. Czixhc (talk) 01:02, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
The issue here is that you've created a map that contains controversial claims which can't be verified by a reliable source.
Please answer the questions. Please stop misrepresenting what I'm saying.
You already answered the question by yourself by admiting that experts citing another expertes are reliable, therefore the answer is this: Hagos map is reliable because it's made by an expert on migration and cartography (which is what modifies the colors) who also bases his work on studies done by another expert who has works published in the field (which sets the standards for each race). You've said it by yourself, it's reliable, question answered. Czixhc (talk) 03:12, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
The questions are:
1. Are you saying that "in the subject matter" and "in the relevant field" in this case mean something other than "in human skin colour"?, and,
2. Do you agree that Jonothan Hagos is not an established and published expert in human skin colour?
Again, please answer these questions and please stop saying that I've said things that I haven't.
stop saying that I've said things that I haven't Yes you did, here - I haven't said anything about wikipedia forbidding experts citing other experts - And i already answered the question, the map is reliable. Czixhc (talk) 04:00, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
I said wikipedia doesn't forbid a source from citing an expert. This doesn't mean I said a self-published source is reliable just because it cites an expert. If I say the law against underage drinking doesn't forbid people wearing shirts from drinking beer, that doesn't mean I think that a 12yo is allowed to drink beer just because he's wearing a shirt. A self-published source has to be created by an established and published expert in the field. Whether it cites other experts or not is not part of the criteria.
Which question do you think you answered? The questions I'm asking are whether you accept that Hagos isn't an expert in human skin colour and whether your think wikipedia policy means human skin colour when it says "in the subject matter". You haven't answered either of these.
I've already replied to your questions and i will do it again: The map is reliable. The problem here is that you have a very particular and whimsy definition of "reliable" which does not adhere to wikipedia policies. I said wikipedia doesn't forbid a source from citing an expert. - So it's setled, experts who cite other experts are reliable. A self-published source has to be created by an established and published expert in the field. Whether it cites other experts or not is not part of the criteria. - Answer this question: Can you textually cite the wikipedia policy that backs up your point or not? Czixhc (talk) 01:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I can't understand how what you are saying answers my questions. To make it easy for me, can you please say either "Yes" or "No" to the following:
1. Is Jonathan Hagos an extablished and published expert in human skin colour?
2. In the WP policy for self-published sources, where it says "on the subject matter" and "in the relevant field" does this mean "in human skin colour" in regards to this particular case?
No, you've misunderstood: "wikipedia doesn't forbid a source from citing an expert" does not mean "experts who cite other experts are reliable".
To answer your question: Yes I can, and have many times already: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." (from Misplaced Pages:Verifiability#Self-published_sources)
"Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." (from Misplaced Pages:Verifiability#Self-published_sources) - I don't see nothing here about forbiding experts citing another experts. No, you've misunderstood: "wikipedia doesn't forbid a source from citing an expert" does not mean "experts who cite other experts are reliable". - You will have to explain how one thing is different from the other because both look like the same from here. *In order for you to understand why I, infact already answered these questions you must answer this question first because it's linked to yours: Does the Renatto Biasutti's map meet the criteria to be reliable? Czixhc (talk) 02:54, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
That's right - it doesn't forbid citing experts, in fact it doesn't mention citing experts at all. What is does says is that a self-published source must be by a published expert in the subject matter. That's why you need to show that Hagos is an expert in human skin colour or find a different source.
The difference between what I said and what you think it means is that WP policy sets down clear criteria for what makes a source reliable - for a source to be reliable it has to meet these criteria, even if it does other things that wikipedia doesn't forbid. For instance the policy doesn't forbid sources from being written in blue pen, or from being drawn in cartoon form, or from being created by a left-handed person... but by themselves none of these things make a source reliable. Even if a source cites experts (or is written in blue pen, or is a cartoon, or the author was left-handed) it still has to meet the WP reliability criteria before it becomes reliable. For your position to be true the WP policy would have to say something like "self published sources are considered reliable when they cite other experts", and it doesn't. It says self-published sources are considered reliable if they are by an established and published expert in the subject matter.
I don't need to answer any questions for you to answer mine, a simple "Yes" or "No" will do.
To answer another of your questions (would be nice if you'd return the favour!), "Sometimes" - it depends on the context it's being used in. Biasutti's map is known to have accuracy issues and is very outdated. At the same time it's by an expert and has been published and widely cited so it satisfies the WP reliability criteria - so if it's presented for what it is, a historical map, then yes it's reliable, but if it's presented as a modern-day consensus of global skin colours, then no it's not. I think that's pretty clearly stated in the comments on the file's page .
it's by an expert and has been published and widely cited so it satisfies the WP reliability criteria - Ok, this is easy since i already have your answer, well, Yes, Hagos map is reliable, he is an expert on carthography and on migration, (which is what modifies the colors on first place), and since he is citing an expert on skin color and you have already said that it's reliable, the map meets the complete criteria. You already admited here by saying That's right it doesn't forbid citing experts, in fact it doesn't mention citing experts at all - That you can't prove that self-published sources can't cite another experts, that's a great improvement, so it's decided, the map is reliable, anything else you like'd to add before reincorporing it to the article?. Czixhc (talk) 05:09, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
Do you genuinely not understand what I'm saying or are you misrepresenting me on purpose? I'm happy to explain it again if you really don't get it.
You still haven't answered my questions. Perhaps asking two at once is confusing for you, so let's just keep it simple: Is Hagos an expert in human skin colour? Yes or no?
Already told you so, the work is based on a document created by an expert on skin color, with hagos being a proffesional on migration, therefore being able to modify the colors (something that biasutti wouldn't be able to do), the map is the combination of the work of two reliable experts, and since you've admited that you can't prove that wikipedia forbids experts citing experts it's reliable, Yes, the map is reliable and is about skin color and the impacts of migratory trends on it. Czixhc (talk) 00:02, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
So are you saying that Jonathan Hagos is an expert in human skin colour or that is he is not an expert in human skin colour? Tobus2 (talk) 00:24, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
No, he is an expert on this case because his work is the amalgamation of a work of an expert in skin color, since wikipedia does not forbids experts citing experts his work is the work of an expert. Czixhc (talk) 01:42, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
OK, I disagree, so can you please point me to the sources that make you think Jonathon Hagos is an expert in human skin colour. Tobus2 (talk) 02:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
You can't disagree, since you admited that you couldn't prove that wikipedia forbids experts citing another experts. Czixhc (talk) 03:13, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
Citing an expert doesn't make someone an expert themself. Is that the only reason you think Jonathon Hagos is an expert in human skin colour or are there others? Tobus2 (talk) 03:20, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
Can you cite the policy where that is stated?, you also shouldn't dismiss Hagos, he is an expert on migration topics (which is what modifies the colors). Czixhc (talk) 03:36, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
Are you really going to argue with me that anyone who cites an expert is considered an expert themself? If that were true then everybody would be an expert in everything, all they'd need to do is say "Einstein said xyz" and they'd be an expert in Quantum Physics. Can we agree that citing an expert does not make someone an expert themself? Tobus2 (talk) 03:49, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
Don't dismiss Hagos, he is an expert on migration, cartography architecture etc. If he didn't had any experience on these fields i would agree with you, but since he is an expert too, and he only happens to base the skin color on what an expert on the field said he is reliable, he does like 80% of the job here, remember the analogy of the oncologist who cites the ambiental agency, it's the same, because he don't relies totally on one source but uses his own knowledge too. Czixhc (talk) 23:08, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
You say Hagos is "is an expert on migration, cartography architecture etc." - I notice you don't include human skin colour in the list. Does this mean you accept that Hagos is not an expert in human skin colour? Tobus2 (talk) 23:22, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
As i told you above, not in this particular case, since the work that we are discussing here is the summatory of multiple data brought by experts, similar to the analogy of the oncolgist and the ambiental agency, if Hagos does a work on the future on skin color field lacking the respective references then it would. Czixhc (talk) 23:28, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
OK, so we've agreed that Hagos map is a self-published source, and we've agreed that Hagos is not an expert in human skin colour. By my reading of the WP policy quoted many times above, this would mean his map can't be considered a reliable source for your map. You obviously disagree, so can please state your reasons (with sources!) why the WP doesn't/shouldn't apply in this case? Tobus2 (talk) 23:38, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
*and we've agreed that Hagos is not an expert in human skin colour - I didn't, i clearly told you that he qualifies as such on this case. By my reading of the WP policy quoted many times above, this would mean his map can't be considered a reliable source for your map. - Can you cite the part on which it textually states that experts can't partially cite another experts? Czixhc (talk) 23:48, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I misunderstood what you mean in your last post. To clarify, you are saying that in this case he is an expert in human skin colour because his work is a summation of multiple sources that are by experts, is that correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tobus2 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm confused, are you saying that Hagos himself qualifies as an expert in human skin colour in this case, or that in this case his work qualifies as an 'expert work' in human skin colour even though he himself is not an expert in human skin color? Tobus2 (talk) 00:21, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
Both, his work and him are qualified as experts on this case, i rather reffer to the work than to the person, because this is not an article about him. Czixhc (talk) 00:29, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
OK, and the reason you think he qualifies as an expert in this case is because the work is a summation of the work of other experts, correct? Tobus2 (talk) 00:32, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean because your analogy doesn't correlate very well with the situation for me. Are you saying that Hagos qualifies as an expert in human skin colour in this case because his work is a summation of work by experts, or are you saying something else? Tobus2 (talk) 00:58, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
The analogy is fine, and yes, Hagos qualifies as an expert in this particular case. 01:04, 15 August 2013 (UTC)Czixhc (talk)
For me the analogy doesn't fit very well - an oncologist making a statement about cancer is very different to an architect making a statement about human skin colour.
You say Hagos qualifies as an expert in this case and I want to know your reasoning behind that statement - what makes you think Hagos is an expert in this case? It it because he cites experts in the field as you've previously hinted, or is it something else?
Yes, but I disagree. So please tell why (with sources) you think he qualifies as an expert in human skin in this case. Tobus2 (talk) 01:40, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
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