God Fearing Atheist

You're right on both counts, i think. The large genetic similarity between human beings does not diminish the fact that people of a specific geographic (or ancestrial geographic) origin tend to share certain traits; traits which are probably the result of mutation and selection.

Unfortunately for racists though, different doesnt mean better. Caucasoids tend to have higher IQs than Negroids on average; so what? This is no more a sign of "superiority" than the higher black twinning rate, smaller Asian hip-size, or birds having wings. They are simply different traits evolved to fill some ecological niche.

Wyz_sub10

Not to digress from the topic, but with reagrds to 'race', I don't think anyone disputes the genetic disparities among populations.

For instance, every legal time ever recorded under 10.00 for the men's 100 metre sprint has been accomplished by a sprinter of West African descent (Frankie Fredericks of Namibia *may* be an exception).

It seems that the West African population group may have a higher density of the short muscle fibres conducive to sprinting. But it isn't a "race" issue. This genetic condition does not apply to East Africans, South-Central Africans, Papuans or Australian Aborigines. It isn't a "black" thing. It is a West African thing.

Godot

I'm too lazy to gather the references for you, but have a look at the changes in anthropometry for pre-WWII Japan and at present. The stereotypical small Japanese was largely restricted by limited access to dairy and meat (to some extent). The import of these foods post-war has assisted in having Japanese youth attain their full growth potential.

Jackalope

On the other hand, at 4'11", I was still on the tall side for a female when I was visiting Japan. And my 6'5" husband had little children following him around on the street in awe. They were sure he was a giant. But he's tall even for someone of northern european ancestry. So while the japanese are getting taller, they're still closer to what folks in the US would think of as "average" size rather than tall.

ps418

Last night as I was looking for information about height and nutrition, I read that in a population where nutrition is adequate, which includes most of the western world, the distribution of height follows a normal, bell-shaped curve, whereas in populations with signficant numbers of malnourished/undernourished people, the distribution is left-skewed (higher prevalence of stunted individuals). The degree to which the height distribution in a population approximates a normal distribution is used a measure of the health of a population by some organizations, such as the WHO.

Therefore, when comparing the average heights of two populations, the height distribution could be used as an indicator of the nutritional status of the population. If two populations both have normal height distributions, then it becomes more likely that any residual average height differences are due to genetic differences, whereas if the distributions are left-skewed in one population and normal in the other, nutritional differences probably account for at least part, maybe a major part, of the average height differences.

Patrick

LeftCoast

I saw a good example of this a few (5 to 8 years) ago on one of those TV Magazine shows. They followed a young man and woman (early 20's) who had been evacuated from Vietnam during the American withdrawal who traveled back to find their family. They found them and the comparison between the young man and his brothers was striking. He was at least 6 or 8 inches taller and must have been at least 50 to 75 lbs heavier (muscular not fat) than his siblings. Presumably most of the height difference can be attributed to diet.

6748_smith_w

While nutrition has been partly responsible for people's increasing height, don't forget that women are biologically "programmed" to seek out dominant (tall) men to mate with. And not tall in an absolute sense, but tall relative to other men. Scientific studies have shown that the taller men of the world enjoy more mating opportunities than short men and when they reproduce, they have more offspring than shorter men.

_______________________________________________

Tall men get the girls and have more kids than short guys
By Rick Callahan
Associated Press

If it seemed as if the tall guys got all the girls in high school, it wasn't your imagination. New research suggests taller men are more likely to marry and tend to have more children than short guys.

What's behind the phenomenon -- whether women prefer taller men or those men are simply more outgoing -- is up for debate. But the numbers clearly stack up against shorter guys.

Polish and British scientists studied the medical records of about 3,200 Polish men ages 25 to 60 and found that childless men were on average 1.2 inches shorter than men who had at least one child.

Bachelors were about an inch shorter on average than married men. That was true even after researchers took into account the fact that men's heights increased in recent decades because of better nutrition and health care.

The records, which were collected in Wroclaw, Poland, from 1983 to 1989, showed that tall men in their 20s, 30s and 40s all had more children than their shorter peers.

Height didn't seem to matter for men in their 50s. Robin I.M. Dunbar of the University of Liverpool said that is because those men came of age after World War II -- a catastrophe that claimed the lives of many Polish men and reduced women's mating options.

However, Dunbar said the numbers clearly show that women favor taller men -- something that other research suggests is true across all cultures.

"Basically, height is a proxy for other variables that women find desirable -- men who can protect them, provide them with resources, have good social status and aren't easily dominated by other men," said Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology and the study's co-author.

The findings were published in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Out of the military service records of 4,400 men, the researchers excluded men who were abnormally short or tall. The average height of the 3,200 men whose records were part of their final sample was 5-foot-6.

The researchers meant to study men whose height and reproductive success were not so gargantuan, or so small, as to have skewed their results. Their methodology would have excluded someone like Wilt Chamberlain, the 7-foot-1 basketball star who bragged of sleeping with 20,000 women.

While other studies have shown that taller-than-average men have higher incomes and social status than shorter men, this study is the first to demonstrate a direct link between height and reproductive success, said David Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Buss, who has written two books on human mating habits, said the female preference for taller males harkens back to the earliest stages of human evolution. That was a time when prehistoric women chose mates who could offer them the best protection and provide for their needs.

"This study shows that even in modern times the kind of selection we might think of as prehistoric continues to operate," he said.

Dunbar said he undertook the research after noticing that in personal ads men advertised their height only if they were tall or taller than average.

"You didn't see any advertisements saying, `I'm 5-foot-3, give me a call,"' he said.

Distributed by The Associated Press (AP)

Straight Hate

Can this information on height be applied to others areas such as shoulder width? I ask for the reason that I have a very narrow build, yet both my grandfathers and father were/are significantly broader (at 20, I am certain there is little-to-no chance for me to 'catch up').