Mike Hawk Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 The real answer is we don’t know for sure, but there are two possible explanations. First, both height and intelligence may be indicators of underlying health. According to this view, people who are genetically and developmentally healthier simultaneously grow taller and become more intelligent than those who are less healthy, producing the positive correlation between height and intelligence. In our paper, Reyniers and I propose a second possible explanation. It consists of three separate mechanisms. 1. Assortative mating of tall men and beautiful women. Because height is desirable in men and physical attractiveness is desirable in women, there should be assortative mating between tall men and beautiful women (and short men and less beautiful women). Because both height and physical attractiveness are heritable, this will create an extrinsic (non-causal) correlation among their children between height and physical attractiveness, where tall people (both men and women) are more beautiful than short people. 2. Assortative mating of intelligent men and beautiful women. Because intelligent men tend to attain higher status, at least in the evolutionarily novel environment in recent history, and high status is desirable in men, and because physical attractiveness is desirable in women, there should be assortative mating between intelligent (and thus high-status) men and beautiful women. Because both intelligence and physical attractiveness are heritable, this will create an extrinsic (non-causal) correlation among their children between intelligence and physical attractiveness, where more attractive people are more intelligent than less attractive people. 3. Extrinsic correlation between height and physical attractiveness (produced by Mechanism 1 above) and extrinsic correlation between intelligence and physical attractiveness (produced by Mechanism 2 above) will create a second-order extrinsic correlation between height and intelligence. We believe that this may be why taller people are more intelligent than shorter people. Another factor contributing to the seeming male advantage in intelligence is that taller parents are more likely to have sons than shorter parents. So, over many generations, more sons will inherit their parents’ genes inclining them to be taller and more intelligent, and more daughters will inherit their parents’ genes inclining them to be shorter and less intelligent. But, once again, the crucial factor is height, not sex. In our paper, we present evidence for all of the crucial mechanisms: Taller people are on average physically more attractive than shorter people; physically more attractive people are on average more intelligent than physically less attractive people; taller people are on average more intelligent than shorter people; and taller parents are more likely to have sons than shorter parents. But the issue is far from resolved. While there is no doubt that taller people are indeed more intelligent than shorter people, the question of why this is so is one of the remaining puzzles in evolutionary psychology. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200901/why-are-taller-people-more-intelligent-shorter-people Discuss. Do you think this is true? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owner Real Deal Posted August 23, 2009 Owner Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 Well, I know a million smart Asians, and all of them are much shorter than the average man or woman, so I don't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Hawk Posted August 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 Well, I know a million smart Asians, and all of them are much shorter than the average man or woman, so I don't know. Eh true. I guess they are a rarity to the exception, this thing looks at the overall correlance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fish7718 Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 lol all tall people seem pretty doofy and dumb to me...who knows Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Hawk Posted August 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 lol all tall people seem pretty doofy and dumb to me...who knows Ehh, It seems to me that the taller couples having Sons thing hits home.Every tall family I know around me usually have sons, I dont know how thats not the case around you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sun Tzu Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 I don't think taller people are smater than shorter people. My school is part selective and part community. Selective meaning you need to do a test to make it into my school unless you live close like a 5-8km radius which is community. Most of the selective are mostly either average height or short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdog17k Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 I dunno, that's some really wacky research. Seems too disprovable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Penny Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 if this is true, then compared to shaq, stephen hawkins is an idiot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWaLL Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 As mentioned before, asians tended to be the smartest race at least back in high school for me, and they were all pretty small, I think I can count the number of asians from my school that were taller than me on one hand, and we had 2,300 students lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fish7718 Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 Ehh, It seems to me that the taller couples having Sons thing hits home.Every tall family I know around me usually have sons, I dont know how thats not the case around you?I dont really know a lot of tall couple but I do know short couples and they have like all males. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billt chamberlain Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 depends what you mean by smart or intelligent. anybody with enough time can read a book, cram it all in, and regurgitate it for a test, but i don't think that measures intelligence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Hawk Posted August 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 depends what you mean by smart or intelligent. anybody with enough time can read a book, cram it all in, and regurgitate it for a test, but i don't think that measures intelligence. They measured it by an IQ test I believe. Since males were taller than females, they got higher score. But if a male and female are the same height then the female is smarter, but that doesnt happen often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fly3rs18 Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 i dont even need to read that article to know this is just stupid and i cant do the poll because the answer to the last question is no correlation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRV Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 Well I am tall and I am pretty smart, as in I pay attention. If you ask me a random question about something I learned a long time ago, I will prob. not know the answer. Women are also usually smarter, they seem to study way more, while most guys [like me] wait until the last second to do things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YugoRocketsFan Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 Mexicans are also pretty short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManOnTheMoon Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 Woman are more organized, they don't procrastinate like many men. But this article seems to prove nothing to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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