Our faces: Why blacks, whites, and East Asians look so differently

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Summary: Studies report major physiological differences across populations labeled white, East Asian, and black, challenging the notion that race is a social construct. We are different. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.

There is no right or wrong look. (Just ask Netflix.) There are, however, adaptations for environments, an argument for races to live in homelands suited for them by nature over countless millennia.

Critics, who thrive in YouTube’s cancel culture, attribute findings to environment, nutrition, socioeconomic factors, and flawed categorizations rather than biological races, stressing vast individual overlap and clinical adaptations. With confirmation bias as their guide, modern genetics rejects racial biology.

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Still, there it is staring us literally in the face.

Facial differences: Blacks

There are key characteristics of West African facial features, along with their commonly discussed evolutionary benefits, based on anthropological and genetic studies. These traits show variation across ethnic groups but are often linked to adaptations in tropical, hot-humid environments.

Broad or wide nose with flared nostrils — This is characterized by a high nasal index (wider nasal apertures relative to height) and lower nasal bridge projection.

Benefit — In hot, humid climates typical of West Africa, wider nostrils allow easier, unrestricted airflow with less need to warm or humidify incoming air, aiding efficient breathing and heat dissipation to prevent overheating.

Full or large lips — Thicker, more prominent lips with greater volume and eversion.

Benefit — They provide increased surface area for evaporative cooling and enhance airflow during respiration in warm conditions, complementing nasal adaptations for thermoregulation.

Prognathous (forward-projecting) jaw and mid-face — Alveolar prognathism with a more projecting lower face and robust mandible.

Benefit — This supports greater chewing force for processing fibrous, tough plant-based diets common in ancestral tropical environments, along with structural robustness.

Other associated traits — Prominent cheekbones, dark skin pigmentation, and tightly coiled hair.

Coiled hair functions similar to coiled handles

Benefits — Dark skin offers UV protection against intense equatorial sunlight (reducing skin damage and folate depletion), while coiled hair improves scalp ventilation and heat deflection. Think of coiled handles on cooking utensils.

These features reflect natural selection in equatorial West African climates over millennia.

Facial differences: Whites

There are also key characteristics of white Europeans (often termed Northern/Western European or Caucasian) facial features, based on anthropological, genetic, and 3D morphometric studies. These traits show variation across subgroups (e.g., Northern vs. Southern Europeans), but common patterns emerge, especially in Northern European populations.

Narrow or long nose with higher bridge and narrower nostrils — Often described as leptorrhine (narrow-nosed), with a prominent, projecting nasal bridge, longer nose length, and less flaring at the base.

Benefit — In cold, dry climates typical of much of Europe (especially northern regions), narrower nostrils and a higher/narrower nasal passage increase turbulence in airflow. This allows the mucus-lined nasal membranes to more efficiently warm and humidify incoming air before it reaches the lungs, preventing irritation, dryness, or respiratory issues in low-temperature, low-humidity environments. Wider noses, by contrast, suit hot-humid conditions with unrestricted airflow.

Thin or less full lips — Thinner vermilion borders, less eversion, and reduced overall lip volume compared to many other populations.

Benefit — While less directly tied to climate than nose shape, thinner lips may reduce surface area for heat loss in colder environments and align with overall facial gracilization (less robust features) seen in white European groups. Evolutionary pressures due to climate, along with dietary shifts and/or sexual selection, may be at play, but they complement adaptations for conserving body heat.

Orthognathic (less projecting) mid-face and jaw — Reduced prognathism (less forward projection of the jaw and mid-face), often with a more vertical profile, narrower jaw in some northern groups, and prominent chin in others.

Benefit — This may relate to softer, processed diets in post-agricultural Europe (reducing need for heavy masticatory force) and overall craniofacial changes. In cold climates, a less projecting face could minimize frostbite exposure on protruding areas.

Other associated traits — Lighter skin tones (for vitamin D synthesis in low-sunlight latitudes), higher/prominent cheekbones in some regions, varied eye shapes (often hooded or almond), and oval or longer facial shapes with taller foreheads in certain subgroups.

Benefits — Lighter skin enhances UV absorption for vitamin D production in cloudy, northern latitudes (reducing rickets risk). Facial structure overall reflects adaptations to temperate/cold environments, with sexual selection and genetic drift influencing variations.

In white populations, straight or wavy hair is primarily linked to a mutation in the Trichohyalin gene (TCHH), specifically the variant rs11803731, which is most frequent in Northern Europeans and explains about 6% of hair curl variation. Nature likely selected straight hair to provide covering in cold climates.

These features result from natural selection over tens of thousands of years as human populations migrated into and adapted to Eurasian climates, though modern admixture and lifestyle changes add variation. As a white person, you are the product of countless millennia of your ancestors’ adaptations, refined to create the best possible you.

Facial differences: East Asian

And, there are the key characteristics of facial features of East Asians (primarily populations from China, Japan, Korea, and related groups), based on anthropological, genetic, and 3D morphometric studies. These traits show variation due to genetic diversity, historical migrations, and regional climates (often temperate to subtropical in East Asia, with colder influences in northern areas), but common patterns include flatter profiles and specific nasal traits.

Flat or low-bridged nose with minimal projection (often mesorrhine or intermediate) — Characterized by a lower nasal bridge (depressed radix), shorter nasal tip protrusion, smaller overall external nose surface area, and sometimes a wider base or slightly flared nostrils relative to height. East Asians often have among the smallest nasal tip protrusion and overall nose size in global comparisons.

Benefit — In temperate East Asian climates (milder than extreme cold-dry northern regions or hot-humid equatorial zones), a flatter, less projecting nose reduces surface area exposed to environmental stresses like wind or variable humidity. Studies suggest nasal differences between East Asians and Europeans may stem more from genetic drift in East Asia than strong directional selection for climate, though the smaller, less protruding form aligns with adaptations in humid-temperate conditions where extreme warming/humidifying of air is less critical.

Thinner or less full lips — Generally, thinner vermilion borders and reduced lip volume compared to many other populations.

Benefit — Thinner lips may reduce heat loss in cooler seasons or align with overall facial flattening for minimizing exposed surface area in variable climates. Evolutionary pressures are less strongly tied to climate here than to other factors like diet or sexual selection.

Flatter mid-face with prominent cheekbones (high zygomatic bones) — Reduced prognathism (less forward projection), broader and flatter mid-face, higher/prominent cheekbones, and often a more rounded or square facial shape.

Benefit — In colder northern East Asian or Siberian-influenced groups, a flatter face with forward-extended cheekbones minimizes protuberances to reduce frostbite risk and exposed surface area in extreme cold. Enlarged malars (cheekbones) help set the nasal cavity deeper for better air warming while maintaining facial width for speech resonance. This pattern is more pronounced in extreme cold adaptations (e.g., northern Asians) but influences broader East Asian morphology through shared ancestry.

Other associated traits — Epicanthic folds (monolids or single eyelids), darker straight hair, lighter skin in northern groups (for vitamin D in lower sunlight), and often a broader face overall.

Benefits — Epicanthic folds protect against glare (e.g., snow reflection in northern regions) and cold winds, with fatty tissue aiding insulation. Lighter skin aids vitamin D synthesis in higher latitudes with less UV exposure.

What about hair? The EDAR gene mutation is responsible for thick, straight hair in East Asian populations, indicating convergent evolution where similar traits developed separately.

These features are polygenic and reflect a mix of natural selection (especially for cold/dry extremes in northern/ancestral groups), genetic drift, dietary influences, and neutral evolution over tens of thousands of years. Modern variation exists due to admixture and lifestyle changes.

Face Processing and Neural Responses

White people often note that blacks appear so similar that they are often indistinguishable. The same is noted about East Asians.

Neurophysiological studies highlight the “other-race effect,” where people process same-race faces more individually:

White and East Asian participants show reduced accuracy in identifying other-race faces, with EEG revealing larger N200/P2* responses for same-race encoding, indicating individuating features, and decreased N170 repetition suppression for other-race faces, suggesting categorical rather than individual processing.

*N200 (N2) and P2 are components of an event-related potential (ERP) — brain responses measured with electroencephalography that are time-locked to a stimulus (like a sound, image, or word).

This may stem from experience-based perceptual tuning rather than biological differences. However, the “they all look alike” phenomenon seems most common among whites unaccustomed to being around blacks and/or East Asians.

Counterviews note these effects are cultural/experiential, not genetic, and race categories fail to capture true human variation. “other-race effect,” where people process same-race faces more individually:

White and East Asian participants show reduced accuracy in identifying other-race faces, with EEG revealing larger N200/P2 responses for same-race encoding (indicating individuating features) and decreased N170 repetition suppression for other-race faces (suggesting categorical rather than individual processing).

This may stem from experience-based perceptual tuning rather than biological differences.

Counterviews note these effects are cultural/experiential, not genetic, and race categories fail to capture true human variation.

Broader Health and Physiological Contexts

This topic I discussed in earlier posts, but it remains fitting to mention here.

Some sources report higher risks in certain groups, like vitamin D deficiency in darker-skinned populations or bone density variations, but attribute them to environments (e.g., latitude, diet) rather than race. Race corrections in metrics like lung/kidney function are criticized for worsening inequalities, with race-free references often more accurate. Such is the stuff of race-deniers seeking to sidestep the obvious to align outcomes with Marxist notions of social causes for economic disparities.

In summary, while some studies document average differences, the consensus in modern genetics is that these do not validate biological races; they reflect clinal (gradual) adaptations and social influences. Again, an effort to align science with Marxist dogma.

Skin Properties and Pigmentation

Race is only skin deep, they say, as if skin color is the sole demarcation of race. It isn’t alone in determining biological race, but it is the most obvious. Skin differences are among the most studied, often tied to adaptations for UV protection and vitamin D synthesis:

• Melanin content varies, with darker pigmentation in African-descended populations providing UV protection but increasing vitamin D deficiency risk in low-UV environments; this can affect endothelial function and vascular health.

• Genetic variants explain much of this: Most sub-Saharan Africans have the G variant of SLC24A5 (darkening), while Europeans have the A variant (lightening, arisen ~29,000 years ago); East Asians retain the G variant but have other lightening mutations (e.g., in EDAR, or ectodysplasin A receptor, a protein that is crucial for the development of hair, teeth, and sweat glands.)

Bill Burr

• Objective measures show black skin often has higher transepidermal water loss (TEWL), lower surface pH, variable blood vessel reactivity, larger mast cell granules, and 2.5 times higher spontaneous desquamation than white or Asian skin, potentially explaining higher xerosis (dry skin) rates in blacks; Asian skin TEWL is variably reported as equal to or higher/lower than others.

Consequently, blacks in America are notorious users of skin lotion, as noted by comedian Bill Burr.

However, these are averages with some overlap, and sources emphasize that skin color genes predate modern humans and occur across species; variations reflect migration and selection, not discrete races, with more diversity within Africa than elsewhere.

Overview of Physiological Differences and Debates

While race is sometimes regarded as a social construct without a firm biological basis, with genetic variation within racial groups often exceeding that between them, scientific studies have reported average physiological differences across populations commonly categorized as White (European-descended), East Asian, and Black (African-descended).

But wait. There’s more.

Brain Size and Related Traits

Several studies, including reviews of autopsy, MRI, and cranial data, reveal average differences in brain size (cranial capacity) that correlate with musculoskeletal traits and are hypothesized to link to cognitive measures like IQ. For instance:

• East Asian populations average larger cranial capacities (around 1364–1415 cm³) than Whites (1347–1362 cm³), who in turn average larger than Blacks (1267–1268 cm³), based on global literature reviews and U.S. military data.

• These differences are present from birth, with East Asian children showing larger cranial volumes than White children, and White children larger than Black children, independent of body size (e.g., East Asians are often shorter and lighter overall).

• Correlations between brain size and 37 musculoskeletal traits (e.g., jaw size, pelvic width, tooth size) across populations average r = 0.94, suggesting systematic evolutionary patterns; larger brains align with reduced postcranial robusticity.

• Some link this to IQ averages: East Asians ~106, Whites ~100, Blacks ~85 in the U.S. (with heritability estimates of 50–80%), though these are controversial and often attributed to environmental factors like education and nutrition rather than genetics. But when black children are adopted by white parents, racial disparities remain fixed regardless of environmental factors.

Conclusion:

Nature has crafted us in our own lands for our own lands.

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Black facial characteristics: