
Dutch went from shortest to tallest in Europe through sexual selection - econcon
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2015.0211
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tenant
This seems like a BS answer to me. Tall people in all societies have always
had an advantage in terms of status in society and therefore wealth and
health. But unless tall people were reproducing at an extraordinary rate
relative to small people there just hasn't been enough time elapsed to explain
the change on a society wide basis. English people were small by modern
standards at the time of Napoleonic wars as evidenced by e.g. the dimensions
of the living areas on board the ships of the time. OTOH Irish soldiers in the
service of various European countries in the 17th and 18th centuries were
noted as being tall for the time. They were mainly of rural stock and would
have been relatively well nourished in childhood compared to urban reared
children. Whereas today Irish people would be of just average height or maybe
even lower than average height by European standards. I suspect that the
reason for the Dutch being small then was poverty and that the relative rapid
growth in the meantime is due to improved nutrition which has allowed them to
grow to their genetic potential.

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rjsw
English people were small at the time of the Boer wars too, there were
problems finding enough suitable soldiers, the food rationing in WWII actually
improved diet for the average worker.

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tenant
Actually the Boer war brings to mind the fact that the Afrikaaner people of
South Africa are noted for being of large stature. They are primarily of Dutch
origin as well but have long been separated from Holland. So the fact that
these two societies would share the attribute of being tall suggests to me
that Dutch tallness compared to everyone else is genetic in origin

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FreekNortier
Afrikaner here. I'm 6 feet tall and I'm the "short" one in my family and
friend circle.

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JoeAltmaier
I'm an Iowan from USA. My 6' son is the shortest male in our entire extended
family. German ancestors.

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tenant
If it's not too personal, is your wife of German extraction too?

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JoeAltmaier
She's Italian and 5'3"

Three sons - 6', 6'3" and 6'4"

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tenant
Sounds like your line is secure for another few generations at least!

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JoeAltmaier
My eldest has married a 6'1" Amazon. So yeah.

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dcolkitt
Actually, although Netherlands still often gets cited as the tallest country,
it's recently been passed by Bosnia within the youngest cohorts.[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_human_height_by_countr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_human_height_by_country)

~~~
Freak_NL
I wonder if the modern genetic composition of Dutch society impacts that
statistic. The massive growth in length is something that happened to the
indigenous Dutch population, but the effect won't be present in the Dutch who
hail from immigrant stock.

Basically, when you are the tallest people in the world, any immigration will
tend to shorten the average length.

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levosmetalo
? I wonder if the modern genetic composition of Dutch society impacts that
statistic. The massive growth in length is something that happened to the
indigenous Dutch population, but the effect won't be present in the Dutch who
hail from immigrant stock.

> Basically, when you are the tallest people in the world, any immigration
> will tend to shorten the average length.

I know it's popular in Holland to blame the immigration on everything,
including destroying the average height, but since a significant part of the
population comes from Balkans, those immigrants are actually "improving" the
average.

~~~
econcon
>significant part of the population comes from Balkans, those immigrants are
actually "improving" the average.

Aren't Turks the biggest immigrant group?

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Freak_NL
Yes, Turks, Moroccans, and people from Surinam. They came as labourers in the
second part of the twentieth century. The medical growth charts used here to
chart the progress of children and detect potentially harmful deviations even
come in specific variants for children with their genetic heritage.

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pjc50
Conclusion:

> "Finally, it is important to emphasize again that our effect sizes are very
> small"

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ramblerman
This article tackles the 'simple' case of comparing Netherlands to the United
States.

It doesn't provide a motivation for why this phenomenon only happened in the
Netherlands, and not it's neighbors Belgium, Germany or Scandinavia.

Those would be much more similar in Social equality, and to some extent even
dairy consumption.

Edit: I've corrected Holland, to read Netherlands. Apologies for the
misnaming.

~~~
classified
> ... Holland ...

The Netherlands. "Holland" is the name of _one_ Province in the Netherlands.

Edit: I stand corrected. Actually two provinces.

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RmDen
two not one... Zuid Holland and Noord Holland

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lebuffon
Is this more common in English or does it happen in other languages also?

Example: Q: What you call your country? A: Deutschland Q: Ok, then we'll call
it Germany

???

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mumblemumble
Usually, at least in Europe, if it's not due to linguistic drift or somesuch,
it's because the name is just being translated. For example, the French name
for the Netherlands, "Pays-Bas", is just a literal translation of "nether
lands".

My guess for Germany, which certainly seems the weirdest, is that it's a
result of that process happening and the name getting fixed at different times
for different languages, combined with the region having a rather complicated
political history.

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blattimwind
Germany comes from Germania which is Latin. Deutschland is deutsch + land, and
deutsch can be traced to proto-germanic origins (common root with Dutch, I
believe). So Germany is not actually one of these cases; it's an externally
assigned name.

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stareatgoats
I find sexual selection an interesting albeit in popular science literature
underrepresented subject. It seems to me that this is the phenomenon that
links things like fashion, infatuation and other cultural expressions to our
biological evolution, and would explain the relative rapid adaption to various
climates that humans obviously have gone though over the last 50 000 years or
so, which the traditional evolutionary model (survival of the fittest) will
have trouble explaining.

I'm sure this is no secret among professional evolution scientists, but this
side of evolution has AFAICS not filtered into the general consciousness, for
some reason that I have yet to figure out.

Maybe because it would give women a more important role than we so far have
been willing to accept? Maybe because it would give animals an intuition and
intelligence that we traditionally have denied them?

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everdrive
>Maybe because it would give women a more important role than we so far have
been willing to accept?

I'm not so sure this isn't broadly accepted. As far as I understand it
everyone knows why the peacock has ridiculous (or beautiful, depending on your
sensibilities) feathers, or why male birds are beautiful, while female birds
are plain.

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manishsharan
If all the Dutch are so tall, then how do they decide who gets to be the CEO ?

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econcon
Even if average height is quite high. There will still be people on both sides
of the bell curve much taller and much shorter than average people exists.

So basically, it will look like as it looks anywhere else. Pretty sure there
are 6'3 Dutchmen who feel short in Netherlands.

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classified
What's it with the obsession with tallness? 300 years ago the Prussian kings
were already fans of "the long guys". Outside of basketball, what's the point?

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JoeAltmaier
Tall people get more respect in a conversation. Its a mammal thing?

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wenc
I think tall people get more _automatic_ respect. In a room where people don't
know each other that well and are trying to figure out status/hierarchy, tall
people are automatically advantaged.

That said, shorter people can cultivate presence and earn respect through
competence, people-skills and the like. There are many leaders in history and
today who are shorter than average who can command a room. But they've mostly
had to earn respect the hard way. They start off with negative points and have
to work hard to even get to zero. Tall people start off with positive points
is all.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
And its a lifelong thing. Not just an initial condition. Get another point or
two every day, for life.

~~~
econcon
In which case, only way forward for short people is to become very famous and
pray that atleast few people in the room know you.

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econcon
I don't understand, why tall people will have more kids?

And why they didn't have more kids before the time when they were shortest?

What could drive tall people having more kids in last 150 year when they went
from shortest to tallest?

Did anything big happen in last 150 year?

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akvadrako
It's basically just fashion. Tall men were preferred in the marriage market.

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econcon
Thinking about it more. I think tall men are not necessarily more successful
at warfare or sea faring where people of short stature might have more
advantage due to needing less food.

For example, Mongol archers could definitely kill enemies no matter how tall
they were. So there was no advantage of being tall once better weapons were
available.

Selection for tallness could have happened because of peace time.

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bashmelek
>Selection for tallness could have happened because of peace time.

This is an important observation and should be explored more deeply. When
there is more equality for gender/class, and more economic security, people,
viz. women, are freed to choose mates on other factors, such as attraction

~~~
econcon
"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create
weak men. And, weak men create hard times."

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noja
tl;dr it's because they are below sea-level

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tsukurimashou
have my upvote for all the downvotes you got, it made me laugh

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growlist
Eugenics: taboo everywhere apart from the dating market, wherein it is
celebrated ("what a catch!").

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awb
There's a big difference between a top-down and a bottom-up approach to
natural selection.

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growlist
It's just an interesting contradiction to me, and I also find it interesting
how upset some people seem to get when I point it out. Yet it's unarguable:
all else being equal everybody (without issues) should celebrate their friend,
relative etc. being with an obviously good catch. And nobody (without issues)
intentionally picks the inferior partner, beauty being in the eye of the
beholder arguments notwithstanding.

~~~
awb
From Wikipedia:

> programs included both positive measures, such as encouraging individuals
> deemed particularly "fit" to reproduce, and negative measures, such as
> marriage prohibitions and forced sterilization of people deemed unfit for
> reproduction. [0]

Eugenics refers to an organized and systematic (top-down) approach to
manipulating the genetics if a population. Obviously this is not good.

Competition and dating are good, I don't think anyone is arguing with that.

Confusing the two is like confusing capitalism and communism. Both systems
affect the economy but in very different ways for very different reasons.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics)

