
Will humans keep getting taller? - davnn
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150513-will-humans-keep-getting-taller
======
FilterSweep
As an extremely "average" height guy, height has been one "human variable"
that has always confused me - anecdote after anecdote after anecdote from both
proclamations from women, professional sports, and more importantly,
our(Western) culture in general have made height seem to be the most important
physical trait in a male; yet this article, along with actual research have
time and time again either demonstrated this to not be the case[0] or
relatively mixed [1] in preference.

Anecdotally, the answer to the article seems to be "yes" due to selective
pressures, but the data suggests otherwise.

[0] (meta study)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277695/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277695/)

[1]
[http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ebs/7/2/121.pdf&productCode=...](http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ebs/7/2/121.pdf&productCode=pa)

~~~
selectron
There is pretty conclusive evidence that taller men are on average more
attractive than shorter men. However being more attractive does not
necessarily mean you will have more kids. My theory is that people want to
marry people of similar attractiveness, so if for very attractive people the
pool of potential matches could actually be smaller, in part because
attractive people are more choosy. Also in terms of evolution, if you have sex
it doesn't matter how attractive your partner was.

~~~
davnn
From the article: In fact, from a pure Darwinian perspective of fitter
organisms producing more offspring, the opposite is happening with modern Homo
sapiens. Impoverished, less healthy, and thus typically shorter families tend
to have more children than prosperous families.

Everybody knows it, but it's pretty crazy when you think about it. However
with a generally increasing standard of living that factor should still get
smaller and smaller and the people thus taller and taller.

~~~
galtwho
I think the confusion comes from defining what is a "fitter" organism?

and if we keep to trend, its quite likely we will bring Idiocracy[1] to
fruition

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)

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throwaway13337
Interestingly, the article fails to mention the strong correlation between
height and longevity - not in the positive direction.[0]

If you want to live longer, shorter is better when controlled for other
factors like nutrition.

[0][http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/)

~~~
danieltillett
Body size and cancer rates is correlated within a species (bigger individuals
get cancer at a great rate than smaller individuals).

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teraformer

      2004 study found that for 
      each extra inch of height 
      above average, someone could 
      expect to earn per working 
      year of his or her life up 
      to $789 more (about $976 in
      today's money)
    

The disturbing statistic there is that in 2004, whatever you could get with
$789, now you need $976 to do the same thing.

Kind of terrifying.

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madengr
Height can also be a pain. I'm 6'5" and have lower back and sciatica pain,
probably since most of my height is in my torso. Fitting into some cars is
horrible. Airline seats are hell. My son is short for his age; go figure.

~~~
Snowdax
I would imagine as the average height increases, from a product design point
of view, cars, planes, etc. will become more accommodating for people who
would be considered very tall today's standards

~~~
madengr
Cars have become worse, probably due to safety standards. The lower ceiling
height, thicker pillars, and cab-forward massive dash boards with highly
sloped windshields. I'm thinking about getting a Mercedes commercial van; that
ought to fit, and I can sit upright.

~~~
douche
This is the main reason I will only consider full-size pickups for my primary
driver going forward. I cannot accept the limited visibility and poor
ergonomics of sedans. I'm not exceptionally tall, at only 6'2".

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pklausler
No.

A human being 4.12E+12 meters tall, standing on the equator, would have their
head moving at the speed of light due to the rotation of the earth. At that
point, their experience of time would essentially stop, and reproduction would
cease. Also, cosmic rays and lack of O2 would begin to distract the subject
from reproduction with cumulative effects from suffocation and radiation burns
long before evolution could raise humans to the aforementioned 4 billion km
height.

There are other considerations (viz. angular momentum, occasionally passing
the human through the Sun at roughly knee height, lunar collisions, &c.) So,
anyway, no, we can't keep getting taller.

~~~
dkbrk
You ignore that it's entirely possible to have an infinite, monotonically
increasing sequence with a fixed upper bound. Yes, people could keep getting
taller without ever exceeding some defined limit.

However we would begin to encounter problems as the sequence of heights
approached said limit. The deltas would become smaller than the precision of
our equipment, and later would become smaller than physically meaningful
scales (i.e. length scale of an atom). In this limit, I think it would be
reasonable to generalise "keep getting taller" to "probabilistically grow by
the smallest physically meaningful amount on an arbitrarily long timescale",
in which case this continues to be well defined as t→∞ even if it would be
difficult to physically observe.

~~~
personjerry
Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but isn't your proposed problem akin to
Zeno's paradox of infinite distance, where we never reach anywhere because
first we need to go 1/2 the distance, then 1/2 of that, etc.?

Which, of course, is resolved in math by limits, and in the real world by
discrete units (i.e. atoms).

~~~
vacri
Zeno's paradox also conveniently ignores that the time chunks are getting
smaller alongside the distance chunks.

An item going at 1m/s will cover half a meter in half a second, and still have
half a meter to go. Then after another quarter of a meter, it still has a
quarter of a meter to go... but now only a quarter of a second has passed. If
you keep on making the time units smaller, then of course it will 'never
arrive'. It's not much of a paradox if you take a time-based characteristic
and then don't give it enough time to occur :)

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pizza
Can I replace your "studies" with [[citation needed]]

~~~
robotkilla
6'2" here. attractive females regularly select me for mating purposes and I
make a large sum of money annually.

~~~
seibelj
Where are your [citations]?

