All love for my short kings
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Is being tall uncommon or has the average height increased?
Humans are steadily becoming taller over – even historical – time. There could be a selection component (tall people getting laid more and thus breeding more), but also there’s way less malnutrition for pregnant women and children nowadays.
That said, men that are tall *in comparison* are supposedly attractive. Meaning, if you’re medium heigh now, you’re medium height now, doesn’t matter if you would be considered “tall” in ancient Rome. Plus of course the population matters.
So there. Go find a time machine to go someplace or sometime where you’re the tall guy.
EDIT: huh, Hausa people aren’t *that* tall, I guess my anecdotal evidence wasn’t representative.
It is fairly common these days to be tall as a man. Go anywhere in Europe for example, or just look at the average male heights in Europe. Almost every teenager is 180cm and above, and I think people will just progress to being taller and taller
Your question is about the genetic traits that cause people to grow taller (compared to other people in that area). And the genetic selection of said traits.
I do not think it is only to do with genetics but also the environment. Such an influence lowers the selection of the genetic traits. So if you are taken care of well as a kid: Low stress, inspiring education, sports, good food (i.e. not too much as well) you grow taller. My son of 14 is already taller than me or my wife.
Evolutionarily, I guess it’s expensive to be tall – so any advantages in terms if heing chosen as a procreative partner are mitigated by the need for more nutrients, and things like that.
Natural selection is mostly about _dying_ before you have a chance to pass on your genes. Let’s say you’re right that taller men “have been seen as more desirable since ancient times.” Since taller men are, as you say, uncommon, then women are still mating en masse with shorter men. There’s nothing stopping shorter men from passing on their short genes.
Beyond that, you’re talking about the span of a few thousand years. That’s nothing on an evolutionary scale, and in the modern era we’ve built up entire industries around circumventing natural selection.
Do you know what needs to happen for people to be tall/bigger?
Food, a lot of it.
And also its not that the “short gene” is being weeded out, short people still get laid. For society to “weed out” shorter men, it would literally require short people to stop breeding, or it will take Millenium to actually notice a genetic drift in the gene pool.
Short men are not being selected AGAINST. Populations change as one trait is being chosen over another so much so that the other trait prevents those men with it from reproducing. For our population to drastically change height, short men overall would need to be prevented from having kids while tall men having more kids.
This is the same reason left handedness still exists. It’s not selected for or really against. It’s just kind of there.
That doesn’t even consider tall/short women into the equation. All it takes is one 6’ tall man to mate with a 5’ woman to have potentially short children. Height is such a complicated genetic trait that it’s not necessarily tall man = tall child.
We are a species are getting taller, but at a very slow rate.
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