posted by
janrinok
on Thursday March 06 2014, @07:24PM
from the Crowd-of-small,-poor,-and-not-terribly-bright-people dept.
from the Crowd-of-small,-poor,-and-not-terribly-bright-people dept.
GungnirSniper writes:
"The link between height and income as well as height and leadership have been known for some time. Yet a new study published in Behavior Genetics has found a 'modest genetic correlation between height and intelligence with the majority of the phenotypic correlation being explained by shared genetic influences'. This seems to agree with a similar study done by the US National Institutes of Health that found a 'perceptual relationship between height and leadership ability.'
Discovery News has a lighter read on the new study's results."
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Height and Intelligence Genetically Linked
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 06 2014, @07:30PM
Genetic disorders that result in low intelligence are frequently associated with low at stature, and also malnutrition leading to low intelligence will do this.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 06 2014, @07:49PM
People with downs' syndrome may or may not be smart, but they are yoked with gorrilla-like strength and muscle tone. They may be short, but they can kick your ass.
I worked for a company which was 99% Vietnamese, and my second shift supervisor was a really, really short Vietnamese guy. We had a floor meeting one time and he kept glancing at me nervously and uneasily as I stood. I didn't figure out why until I remembered that the only other tall guy sat on the floor during the meeting so as not to tower over the diminutive supervisor. The supervisor did not have any supervisory skills, he was put in his position because he was related to Kim Lee Nguyen Da Nang, the company president.
My only friend in the company, an old lady named Nguyet, told me that in their culture their perceive short people to be "stingy." Ha!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 06 2014, @08:40PM
>> in their culture their perceive short people to be "stingy."
And yet there are so many tall Scotsmen.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday March 07 2014, @07:06AM
but they are pretty much all lying on the floor drunk out of their skulls.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday March 07 2014, @07:08AM
Sorry, my bad.
I was thinking of the Irish. ;-)
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday March 06 2014, @09:42PM
an old lady named Nguyet...
Wow, I've never heard the feminine version before, I thought everyone there was called Nguyen. a number of times I've come across the name Nguyen Nguyen (both first and last names) it must get confusing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by number6x on Thursday March 06 2014, @08:17PM
You have hit the nail on the head. The headline would be more accurate if it read like: "Genetic conditions that negatively affect physical development correlate with those that negatively affect mental development"
This is more a matter of something negatively affecting overall development than it is leading to tall people being smart people.
Stephen Hawking was 5 feet, 7 inches tall (now he's much shorter because he's all folded up). Einstein was 5 feet, 9 inches tall. Both very close to average for human males born in 20th century Europe. Both giants in terms of intelligence and imagination.
(Score: 1) by aiwarrior on Thursday March 06 2014, @10:42PM
i agree and it seems the most sensible phenomena(malnutrition) would create a relation between height and intelligence. So I wonder if absolute height was taken for the correlation or height relative to some average height of a population. This because i think there are some races which are typically taller than others. According to this research Would it be correct to state that these races are more intelligent.?
Sorry if i am making a stupid question, but i am curious.
(Score: 5, Funny) by middlemen on Thursday March 06 2014, @07:42PM
The height of intelligence is measurable, the depth of stupidity is not.
(Score: 2, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 06 2014, @07:50PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Angry Jesus on Thursday March 06 2014, @08:13PM
Here's a recent counterpoint. [slate.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by mrbluze on Thursday March 06 2014, @09:48PM
The reason being tall is linked to cancer is because growth hormone, which obviously promotes growth, requires that the immune system be suppressed during growth periods. This opens the door for cancers to develop. An interesting lead for this is the association with fasting and reduced cancer risk ie: Insulin-like Growth Factor.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Dunbal on Thursday March 06 2014, @08:27PM
If this was true then basketball players should be off the courts and put in research labs and university campuses everywhere.
(Score: 5, Funny) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 06 2014, @08:41PM
They are too intelligent to take an underpaid lab job when they can make a fortune throwing balls into baskets.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by tessellated on Thursday March 06 2014, @09:05PM
So, Futurama got this one right, all along...
'aware water' is an anagram for 'we are at war'
(Score: 2, Funny) by boris on Friday March 07 2014, @12:34AM
Well I have seen them do quantum physics. [comedycentral.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday March 06 2014, @09:47PM
In the US in particular, adults are on the average quite a lot taller than they were a couple hundred years ago. I don't think it's so much that most get enough to eat, but that we know what's important to eat. There are certain vital nutrients like Methylcobalamine - Vitamin B12 - without which you are screwed.
Tiny Tim from Charles Dickens' "The Night Before Christmas" was so tiny because he had Ricketts. It can be fatal, as would have happened to poor Tim had Ebenezer not seen the error of his ways. More commonly, bones do not develop and are very fragile.
Ricketts was at one time a scourge of industrial revolution cities because we make Vitamin D in our skin when it's exposed to sunlight. If one cannot go out to play in the sun, or if, as in London at the time, there is bad smog, one won't be exposed to enough sunlight.
In the US now, I expect many other countries, Vitamin D is commonly added to milk.
The smog in the larger Chinese cities now is quite severe; unless China too provides Vitamin D supplements to its children, they're all going to get Ricketts.
(I'm a former resident of Caltech's Ricketts House; we are known as Scurves. Actually, Ricketts House is named after Louis D. Ricketts.)
Someone either at Kuro5hin or Slashdot pointed out a while back, that a study in England somewhere around 1900, found that the average incoming student of the British Military Academy was fully eight inches taller than the average male British citizen of the same age. I expect that had a lot to do with the fact that, back then at least, it was a lot easier to get accepted to the Military Academy if one was a member of the nobility.
My point in writing all this is that the connection between height and intelligence may not be genetic. You don't need to harp on about correlation and causation I am a fucking physicist I mean copernicus knew all about that.
If you're short because you didn't get enough to eat as a child, then quite likely your brain was malnourished during its development, or perhaps you went to school without breakfast or lunch and so could not focus on your studies.
It is of vital importance that schoolchildren get enough to eat. There are some who are working to prevent free school lunches, free school breakfasts and so on. If the next Einstein or Martin Luther King has hunger pangs all day at school, he may be cast into destitution as an adult, even if he is still very intelligent.
I know right now I could use some grub, and so I'm having a hard time getting started on today's coding.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by velex on Friday March 07 2014, @02:28AM
My tallest! My tallest!
My tallest! My tallest! My tallest!
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
(Score: 2) by Boxzy on Friday March 07 2014, @08:55AM
this is just a perception defect in the dumb populace.
You say that the tall 'appear' to be better leaders.
Looks more like correlation not causation to me, a better explanation would be those desperate for a father/mother figure need someone to literally 'look up' to.
Go green, Go Soylent.
(Score: 1) by cafebabe on Friday March 07 2014, @02:23PM
In addition to a positive correlation between height and income, intelligence and leadership, I believe there is also a positive correlation between height and longevity.
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