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My new theory is that, Dutch were already selecting for "tall strature" for long time (maybe 10 generations) even when they were on average much shorter than re
by econcon 7y ago
My new theory is that, Dutch were already selecting for "tall strature" for long time (maybe 10 generations) even when they were on average much shorter than rest of the Europe because of mostly malnutrition.
But why were they aggressively selecting for tall stature? Perhaps because they were on average shorter than rest of Europeans, so they felt there is something wrong with them? Which isn't unbelievable, I've seen shortest girls demand the tallest men.
So when nutrition improved those already tall genes which were there, got time to express themselves to the fullest.
Here is some acecdote:
In my village, people mostly select average height partner. And tall people aren't considered more desirable. No one compared height or thought of it as some advantage but when men from other tribes started appearing near the village, suddenly they started thinking of how to increase their height, some are now drinking gallons of milk in effort to improve their height because they are lagging, while women want the tall men now. My grandma tells me, they never thought about "height" as a trait they select in their partner, they never thought about it. To her, any man who was average and could work on farm (not crippled), was not very ugly was a good partner.
- abandonliberty 7y agoYou're conflating natural selection with sexual selection. Overall, the paper argues that taller people have more offspring who survive to reproductive age.