Does dark matter? Well perhaps global warming will settle it all. BG

As I am a member of the most rare, visible minority on earth, I feel I can speak with some authority on a few aspects of this matter too. The minority to which I belong, makes up only 1 to 4 percent of the entire world's population, depending on whose figures you wish to believe.

According to some sources, in a few generations, we will be an even less visible minority, than we are today and we will soon disappear, within the melting pot of human life because of more dominant genes within the world's populations.

I'm a redhead, perceived to be a fairly recent genetic mutation, in the grand scheme of human evolution, according to some current scientific thought. I exist only because of genetic drift.

In northern climates, the very fair skin associated with the mutant gene for red hair was thought to have been an advantage in preventing rickets, due to its ability to produce higher levels of Vitamin D at lower light levels. The fair skin is is also thought to be more adaptable to cold, (yeah, right, LOL). The red hair color was a resultant byproduct of this mutant gene and because this "byproduct" was of no genetic disadvantage, in some areas of world climate, red hair continues to persist.

Whether or not redheads ever existed in prehistory as something that could be considered a distinct racial group or collective is a matter open to speculation.

Myths regarding wild hordes of red headed warriors roaming the Asian steppes and harassing prehistoric Mediterranean cultures exist. Perhaps recent discoveries of occasional prehistoric burial sites on the steppes, with the possibility of genetic testing, now that the mutant red haired gene has been isolated, might eventually prove possible.

Or perhaps the recent scientific speculation that red hair is a remnant gene within the human gene pool courtesy of the Neanderthal, might one day be proved. Or pushing the envelope even further, perhaps I personally owe something to my fellow red headed primate, the orangutan. LOL      

Before you dismiss this as making light of more recent historical persecution of minority groups of humanity for their differences within a dominant culture, based upon ethnicity, skin color or religion, consider this:

As a young child I was bullied and physically harassed, subjected to taunts from my peers and teased by my elders and generally made to feel the outsider, because I was not the norm and this within a population where my coloring was considered more common. I think a lot of red heads can attest to this.

In most cultures and we crop up within all, red heads are and have been subjected to some sort of negative personality stereotyping based their skin and hair coloring.....fiery tempers, etc. etc.

Historically, redheads have been persecuted as witches, burned because of their freckled skin, considered bad luck, subjected to infanticide, portrayed in Christian mythology and western art as cohorts of Satan, in some cultures thought to have been the result of sex during menses and apparently Hitler banned the marriage of two red heads, lest they produce deviant offspring.

Back to global warming….If humanity is eventually doomed to a world of smog and cloud by either our own activities or just a natural cycle of earth's constant climate change, the red haired gene might still prove useful. If changes in the Earth's climate bring about a world of unrelenting, baking sun and continuing thinning ozone, our (the red head's) extreme sensitivity to UV light will eventually also cause our elimination from the human gene pool, where even more protection from the sun is needed. Red could prove the canary in the mine.

So does dark matter? Yes, it could matter a great deal, as far as human survival is concerned and then again, it might not.