3 ms·

The article addresses that with this: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.1330620311 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.13306

The article addresses that with this: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.1330620311 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.1330620... Within one generation, the palate size decreased. So that can't be explained by natual selection. Well, unless small jaws killed a huge portion of the population before modern times.

keithwhor 8y ago
I'd love to read it, but it's not Open Access and I'm not a member of any academic institution. Do you have a copy of the paper? Edit: It's not that small jaws killed anybody, the hypothesis would be that in a pre-industrialized society sexual selective (behavioural) mechanisms favoured well-aligned jaws / teeth but with the rise of globalization stronger selective mechanisms superseded them. This would be mostly due to rapid real living standard + wealth accumulation gains more strongly correlated with other behaviours.
johnsimer 8y ago
IIRC the orthotropics explanation for this is because we have much easier to chew foods, we chew much less and have poor tongue posture, leading to skinnier inter-molar width (IMW) and jawbones that are more down and in as opposed to up and out