Genetically sound?

[Sandwich]

Like pink skin, blue eyes and blond hair appear most often among people whose work or social status keeps them indoors. Descendants of the Prophet, courtiers, and wealthy merchants are more often blond than farmers or camel drivers. In my opinion this does not mean that blonds are in any way superior to brunets, in the Middle East or elsewhere. It rather indicates that in a hot, brightly illuminated environment blonds are at a disadvantage when out of doors. Those who can manage it gravitate toward work in shaded quarters; furthermore the natural selection that may operate against them in the field and desert would fail to limit their increase in the shade. Middle Eastern urban civilization may thus have produced artificially an environment comparable to the Baltic fog, from which the Nordic emerged.

What would a modern population geneticist make of this? Coon once admitted he didn't understand genetics; does this quote suggest he was right?

[Cerdic]

Sounds like a load of utter rubbish. Loss of pigmentation is associated with living in low sunlight conditions. Contrary to received wisdom most blonds can tan reasonably well (its red-heads who tend not to) so outdoor living is no real problem. Indeed in the summer the people living in high latitudes (where blondism is commonest) have high exposure to sunlight due to the longer day (relative to lower lattudes).

Only in regions where light pigmented people have been artificially and recently introduced, as in Australia, does outdoor work become a potential problem.
Speaking of Australia, blond hair is relatively common in the native peoples of the central deserts. Where does the theory stand here? Admittedly blondism in Australian Aborigines is not associated with pale skin colouration.

[Graeme]

Loss of pigmentation in skin is just not from adaptation to severe cold, otherwise why aren't the Inuits as lightly pigmented as Europeans? It is due to very low light conditions due to heavy cloud, mists, fogs as well as the shortness of the daylight period. Arctic/Antarctic zones tend to be dry, desert like as far as precipitation with lots of sunny, bright days just freezingly cold. The weather in Northernwest Europe is more cloudy, overcast and misty than sunny and bright. Lightly pigmented skin allows maximum entry of UV light which in winter is necessary. Is it coincidental that redhair and very pale skin is found most commonly in Scotland and Ireland?