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Did Natural Selection Make the Dutch the Tallest People On the Planet?
sciencehabit writes The Dutch population has gained an impressive 20 centimeters in the past 150 years and is now officially the tallest on the planet. Scientists chalk up most of that increase to rising wealth, a rich diet, and good health care, but a new study suggests something else is going on as well: The Dutch growth spurt may be an example of human evolution in action. The study shows that tall Dutch men on average have more children than their shorter counterparts, and that more of their children survive. That suggests genes that help make people tall are becoming more frequent among the Dutch. "This study drives home the message that the human population is still subject to natural selection," says Stephen Stearns, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University who wasn't involved in the work. "It strikes at the core of our understanding of human nature, and how malleable it is."
This study drives home the message that the human population is still subject to natural selection
Obviously. It's surprising that some people think otherwise.
Well, 150 years is 6-8 human generations, so while selection certainly *could* happen, it would really have to be very strong to be observed. As in "tall Dutch people have twice as many healthy offspring".
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
All the short Dutch are below sea level
next they should do a study about how humans are also still subject to the law of gravity, and a study after that about how the laws of thermodynamics still hold sway over us.
I mean, who woulda thought that random mutations would actually make some people more or less likely to reproduce successfully?
As a low lying country Holland is at risk due to rising sea levels. Clearly being tall enough to keep your head above water is an advantage. ;-)
They were selecting for taller people long before that- it's just that as nutrition changed the average height changed.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Well, they DO have to keep their heads above the water in case a dike gives way.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If natural selection is the driving factor in increasing height among the Dutch, wouldn't other races have followed the same selection/mating patterns too? Especially in nearby nations with a similar cultural? Seems like there is some other factors involved...
But why would this preferentially affect this one country?
I have met several Dutch people in the US, and while all of them were very nice people, most of them were around average height.
Maybe they're just exporting the ones who don't meet their unstated height requirements?
Doesn't natural selection also include perception? Aren't there some species that choose mates based on colorful feathers or sounds, and those with the most colorful feathers or most desirable sounds tend to produce offspring more? So how is choosing a mate based on height any different?
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Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Tall men are percieved as more powerful, commanding - look among military commanders and corporate executives for the short guys. No so many. It's a pattern that just exists. Tall guys tend to be strong guys, and they win physical fights even if they have to sit on the opponent. They gain a sense of control and tend to have the advantage in negotiations.
Women - godz help me here - tend to mate up with the winners. Tall men tend to be winners. Tall men tend to have families with more children, even if they have to marry and reproduce with many women serially. They tend to have that ability because they tend to make more money than shorter men. The advantage isn't noticable in everyday life, but the advantage works over centuries to produce a taller people as the short dudes tend to lose out in the carnival. People get taller.
Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence
Well, we do have a lot of wheat here.
Dutch people ale avid milk drinkers and meat eaters. The average height of Dutch people has increased significantly over the past generations since WW-II, coinciding with the increasing availability of dairy products (there's been a surplus, referred to as 'The Milk Puddle' and the 'Butter Mountain') and cheaper meat ('Kilo Crackers' and 'Poof Chickens'). In the 60s and 70s there were elaborate national media campaigns to encourage milk consumption. Milk was even distributed for free by elementary schools in the 70s and early 80s. The use of growth hormone in dairy cattle is forbidden. Yet, it leaves me wondering whether there's a relation between hormones, dairy intake and increased height of Dutch people over the generations.
If this is a matter of existing genes being switched on or off, then 150 years isn't too short of a time.
There are two big drivers on the evolution of sexual species, natural selection and female choice.
The two don't always go in the same direction, and in some cases they can point into opposing paths leading the species into a dead end.
For example Elks compete on antler size, and females prefer large males with big antlers, these are good when it comes to ritual fights with competing males but are a big drawback when it comes to denser wood forests. And most of the time are a large dead weight to carry around.
Peacocks also carry around a big tail for basically the same reasons, and both are examples of adverse selection in which an overall negative trait gets perceived as a positive genetic proxy by females.
Height in humans has a big weight when it comes to female selection, it is considered by large as a positive trait. And we usually tend to defer to taller people, even if that behavior isn't justified on any other social attributes.
The problem with height is that it requires extra consumption of calories and protein to enable growth, besides extra changes in the population hormonal profile to enable accelerated growth. This is all fine on our present food production output, if that changes taller people are at a disadvantage.
So they can account for us Dutch folks being taller than other cultures through evolutionary forces, but can that account for Dutch Butt too?
Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence.
I come to slashdot for the rye remarks.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
In The Netherlands it's usually thought that diet was the most influencing factor behind this effect. Over the last centuries we have had plenty dairy products, no severe food shortages, in contrary, we had a reasonable high availability of varied food. Combined with relative welfare in the golden age. There are probably many other factors too, however, to grow tall you need more food on average, and so it must be available first.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence.
The irony in this is absolutely priceless :-D
There seems to be a cultural preference as well.
Stulp pointed to figures showing that, in the United States, shorter women and men of average height have the most reproductive success.
"There is much variation in what men and women want," he said.
"When it comes to choosing a mate, height tends to have (only) a small effect, which is not very surprising given the many other, more important, traits people value in their mate."
+5 Insightful
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
If the evolution of the Dinos is anything to go by, in 100 million years, the Dutch will be 25 meters tall and Americans will be 25 meters wide...
Why wouldn't it?
short timescale during which all dutch converted into having enough food from not having enough food.
same story as in Finland. beds just from 100 years ago are just ridiculous. I'm 20cm taller than my grandparents, few centimeters taller than my father and genes don't have so much to do with it vs. how we got fed when growing up.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
That's because scientists and/or journalist use Natural Selection and Evolution interchangeably, even though they are distinctly different. It makes it hard to trust these articles when they can't even use the right terms. This is a case of natural selection.
Notice that Netherlanders from outside Holland and North Holland aren't as tall as Hollanders... and these other states are above sea level. QED.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
You wish that this is limited to the US. Sorry. Same shit here in the EU.
There are social aspects to natural selection. In highschool and university, my female classmates (especially the tall ones) preferred taller males. Being significantly taller than average gave me a significant advantage in courting and retaining my girlfriend - despite me being a nerd.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
Don't dress up your sarcasm in floury language.
If you set a goal of what you expect from the offspring and then choose the parents accordingly, you are doing selective breeding.
The goal does not have to be intentional or explicit. Artificial selection can occur simply because the environment is controlled but no attempt is made to influence the outcome beyond the environmental constraints. Humans have controlled the environment for ourselves but we (generally) have not set a specific selection outcome. It's some times called controlled natural selection because it kind of shares traits of both natural and artificial selection. Selective breeding does not require a goal to occur.
Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence.
Intelligence is the yeast of our problems.
This article supports your statement. http://www.scientificamerican....
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