Did Natural Selection Make the Dutch the Tallest People On the Planet? 298
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."
still ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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maybe something about modern technology, medicine, government and religion all somehow interfere and render evolution no longer applicable?
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As long as not everybody has the exact same amount of children that make it into adulthood, there's evolutionary pressure.
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Right but i think the general message has been there though the last decade at least. Doesn't mean it makes sense, but regular articles talk about the woe of technology and the modernization of mankind ruins the normal process of things. So perhaps this assumption that evolution no longer applies stems from this, and hence the data to the contrary that gives us examples in action does get this much of a reaction.
Re:still ? (Score:5, Insightful)
What has changed is the fitness function. Some time ago, resistance to diseases would have been a very good trait. Now, we can treat most diseases with antibiotics, so it's not longer a big deal to have natural resistance. On the other hand, qualities like "forgetting to take the pill and get pregnant", or "I don't give a fuck what my parents think, I want his babies" are more successful now. A lot of people only look at the old fitness, and ignore the new one.
Re:still ? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Evolution is still applicable, but modern technology, medicine, government and religion sure are interfering with natural selection.
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There are many things you can point to as proof that the human is not smart. But my personal favorite would have to be that we needed to invent the helmet. What was happening, apparently, was that we were involved in a lot of activities that were cracking our heads. We chose not to avoid doing those activities but, instead, to come up with some sort of device to help us enjo
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Wouldn't these things be part of our environment and just newer contributing factors for evolution?
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Why would they render it no-longer-applicable?
All they do is change the fitness function.
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If modern technology, medicine, government and religion all "somehow interfere" then they simply become part of the evolutionary process. They don't put an end to it.
Evolution just doesn't pack its suitcase and go home because it's no longer applicable. It's always applicable as long as there's life.
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Darwin and Wallace called this artificial selection. They might not have had any idea how prevalent artificial selection would become in a mere century. Today, it likely is the primary evolutionary process for almost all higher order species.
Natural selection is still valid - how could it be otherwise? It now selects for those who benefit from artificial selection.
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Natural selection is what happens if there is no special breeding goal.
Selective breeding does not require a goal (Score:3)
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 occu
Re:still ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution is always applicable.
So if you have a population of short, fat, uneducated people breeding like rabbits ... your population is going to skew to that.
If you have a population of tall, thin, athletic, smart and healthy people breeding, that's what you're going to be getting as well.
Any time a population selects based on a set of criteria, evolution happens and the traits selected become prominent.
Honestly, walk around a mall and look at who is pushing baby carriages. That is who is providing the inputs for evolution.
Evolution is pretty much a constant process. Whether or not it's choosing the "best" of the species or not depends on the population ... and birth rates by demographic for the last few decades suggests that it isn't the educated or wealthy who are producing offspring.
Saying that evolution might no longer be applicable is failing to understand what it is in the big picture in terms of evolution. It skews towards survival of the fittest. But modern society could be skewing it to "survival of the ones who fail to avoid having children".
Many many people simply self select out of the next iteration of evolution and choose not to have kids.
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Saying that evolution might no longer be applicable is failing to understand what it is in the big picture in terms of evolution.
And why I was thinking the article has the tone that it does. It conflicts with the concept that somehow evolution no longer applies because of . You don't have to look very hard to find articles that talk about how the natural process has halted or been perverted by technology or government programs, or whatever. But that data reported here helps oppose this.
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Well, quite honestly, evolution can be skewed by silly things unrelated to survival.
If a bird selected mates on pretty plumage which killed them faster, that's still the same mechanism.
if you look at the aggregate of who is procreating, do you conclude the fittest and best of humans are the ones procreating? Or do you conclude that it's pretty much the opposite?
Evolution never goes away. But that doesn't mean it can't end up explaining some trends.
Honestly, look at Wal Mart some day to see who is most con
Pressures change but still exist (Score:2)
maybe something about modern technology, medicine, government and religion all somehow interfere and render evolution no longer applicable?
That just changes the evolutionary pressures. It does not eliminate them altogether.
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Most people don't even believe in evolution on this planet, so yep, they don't think it applies to them.
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Exactly. I was going to post noting that I hadn't seen any credible claim from anyone qualified to speak on the issue, that humans were NOT still subject to selection...
Re: still ? (Score:4, Funny)
It's the water! (Score:5, Funny)
All the short Dutch are below sea level
YES (Score:3)
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?
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"I mean, who woulda thought that random mutations would actually make some people more or less likely to reproduce successfully?"
Few think so, here on Planet America. About as few elsewhere. We are outnumbered, and the enemy is increasing its numbers at a geometric pace. Stupid wins by the simple trick of having a hell of a lot more babies.
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Probably, yes. Existing genes for tall bodies got expressed due to better quality food. And because people like to date someone who doesn't differ much in length, the tall men dated tall women, and different tall-body genes got combined in their children, making them even taller.
Response to Rising Sea Levels (Score:3, Funny)
So why didn't other races select to be taller too? (Score:2, Interesting)
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...
Taller men get more girls the world over (Score:3, Informative)
But why would this preferentially affect this one country?
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But why would this preferentially affect this one country?
Inbreeding?
But seriously, that is a good question. North Koreans are not getting taller, its generally attributed to nutrition. That should be considered, as well as evidence that tall Dutch are more likely to reproduce.
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But why would this preferentially affect this one country?
Clearly more study is needed.
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Re:Taller men get more girls the world over (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt that this is right. It's just a misconception to say that in a first-world society, fertility is pretty much the same thing as attractiveness. It's not. In fact, the people who are broadly judged to be most desirable - the people with Ph.D's, sixpack abs and fancy jobs - have fewer children that the average. A much stronger driver of first-world fertility in a place like NL is: Who's sloppy with their birth control, who's impulsive enough to think things like "Yeah, I should just have the baby!", who's someone that thinks that having a child is going to fix the problems in their relationship, etc.
For these fertility increasers to be correlated with height is just weird and hard to explain, but it's obviously real, so there much be some mechanism. But that mechanism is not as simple as "Taller men get more girls".
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2a: See 1.
2b: The world over there is a documented correlation between income and height.
2c: Indeed, Dutch women have for generations been independent.
1 revisited, the Dutch public health system was since many years available to all and had from the beginning a strong emphasis on pre- and post natal care, including good nutrition for both mother and child.
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If this theory is right, the process can not be called natural selection. Uniformly distributed affluence, to the extent, height alone determines reproductive success, is very unnatural.
Not necessarily (Score:3)
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."
Have you ever noticed a counter-trend? (Score:2)
I've noticed a fair number of very attractive short women often end up with short men.
It may be that generally speaking people prefer a mate who is similar to them in size -- perhaps there's even some evolutionary biology explanation where small women prefer a smaller mate because it reduces the risk to her of having a large baby that is difficult to birth. Maybe it's some kind of social psychology, a small woman may believe a large man will be unpleasant to mate with because of his bulk or that somehow bi
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I am about 2.04 meter and let me assure you that length does matter.
Could be other causes too? (Score:3)
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?
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Maybe they're just exporting the ones who don't meet their unstated height requirements?
Right, thus increasing the average!
BTW: I'm Dutch, and way below average height.
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It is most certainly noticeable when you go over there. I'm 5'11.5 (that 0.5 is important, damnit!). That isn't huge, but most people are shorter, and I'm considered a "big" player on the soccer field. I went over there for business, got off the train in Leiden, and felt generally short for the first time since I was in 6th grade.
They were also ludicrously thin by US standards. At first I was like, "where are the older people? Where are the 40+ year olds? Do they euthanize them all? Should I go hide?" It t
Women like to look up - Science! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Tall men are percieved as more powerful, commanding -
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that's just not true.
The advantages of being tall are true, but so are the disadvantages. Being tall requires more food, for instance, so there's a natural limit on optimal body length.
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Being tall requires more food, for instance
which can be raided from the higher cupboards with impugnity.
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1. Not a lot of issues with food shortages in the Holland for the last 105 years or so except for those two big wars.
2. Taller is often also physically stronger which means you tend to have more access to food.
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1. Not a lot of issues with food shortages in the Holland for the last 105 years or so except for those two big wars.
One big war, since the Dutch managed to stay out of the first one. But according to this article that period coincides with increasing body length, so that supports the idea that food is a limiting factor.
2. Taller is often also physically stronger which means you tend to have more access to food.
You need to grow it first, and being tall doesn't help with that.
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Maybe in the far future humans will become like the Irken and the tallest will rule over us all :-P
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if what you are saying is true, then we would be much taller than we are.
I think your counter-argument is intrinsically nonsensical, or at least circular. "Taller than we are"? We can only be as tall as we are right now. If we were taller, we wouldn't know it, we'd just think it was average, and we could all still be having the same conversation. Only you'd be saying "we would be much taller than we are (6'6 average)" instead of "we would be much taller than we are (5'6" average)".
It feels like there's a connection here to the similarly ridiculous notion of the Doomsday Argument [wikipedia.org]
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Hormones in dairy? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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It is called sexual selection (Score:2)
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 aro
Avoids Drowning (Score:2)
Dutch Butt (Score:4, Funny)
So they can account for us Dutch folks being taller than other cultures through evolutionary forces, but can that account for Dutch Butt [hecktionary.com] too?
Maybe the taller ones (Score:2)
Diet (Score:3)
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.
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Yes I thought this was the prevailing understanding. 150 years is nothing but a blink of the eye for evolution, particularly when you consider human lifespan. So I would probably argue that it has very little if anything to do with it.
Over the last several hundred years most humans, particularly Europeans have increased in average height. Our ancestors even from the the age of enlightenment back to the dark ages, and into the classical ages, were down right short in comparison. This has less to do with bree
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umm (Score:2)
More children of tall men survive? (Score:2)
I assume this means a higher percentage survive. It wouldn't be very interesting to note that a higher overall number of people in a group survive when that group had more people to start with!
Anyway.. if a higher percentage really do survive then I find that much more interesting than the fact that taller men have more children.
I'm not sure I would even call taller men having more children "natural" selection. Modern society and technology means that women have a wider variety of men to chose from. They
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However.. if a higher percentage of tall men's children survive.. What's killing the short ones?
Tall men get better jobs, and have more money to take care of themselves.
Explained at Last (Score:2)
Evolving is unimportant. (Score:2)
We have sentience now. Human science will quickly eclipse any and all forms of random evolution.
It's disconcerting to see people treat evolution as if it's some sort of holy imperative decreed by Gaea.
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Human science will quickly eclipse any and all forms of random evolution.
Not until we are dictating exactly how many children you get, or manipulate their DNA. Otherwise, we just follow where the fitness function takes us.
Oxymoron: A short man (Score:2)
Not at all surprised by this. Men who are less than 6 feet tall are barely even men [imgur.com], and women would never be with them unless all the tall men are taken and they can't do any better.
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Dinos (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Re:Dinos (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dinos (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and if you're curious, I'm an American who's completed all my schooling exclusively in the USA, and I was only taught metric.
I had to learn to use that old imperial system to interact with you stubborn old fossils clinging to an incomprehensible hodgepodge.
Perhaps I should add that I graduated in 1984.
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If you can't do the conversion in your head, you need to turn in your geek card.
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They were selecting for taller people long before that- it's just that as nutrition changed the average height changed.
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This article supports your statement. http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]
Re: Evolution (Score:2)
Re: Evolution (Score:4, Informative)
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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.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Well, they DO have to keep their heads above the water in case a dike gives way.
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Mod this +1 insightful. Disclaimer: i am dutch.
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
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Natural selection can work in such time scales for humans, it is not like they are claiming that some random mutation generated all these super tall people that would have taken a few thousand years at least.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence
Well, we do have a lot of wheat here.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence.
I come to slashdot for the rye remarks.
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Don't dress up your sarcasm in floury language.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence.
The irony in this is absolutely priceless :-D
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
+5 Insightful
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At yeast he had a point.
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You wish that this is limited to the US. Sorry. Same shit here in the EU.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Look at the US. It took less time to bread out intelligence.
Intelligence is the yeast of our problems.
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It isn't evolution it is natural selection. Taller people are more fit (more babies) than shorter, this has continued for a few generations so shorter people are simply getting outbreed by taller people. So the average is going up.
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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.
Re: Selection, yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Societal pressures defy natural instinct.
They are vastly different things.
Then why would humans naturally form societies, if there were not some natural benefit from said 'societal pressures'? Evolutionary changes do not stem from natural instinct. They stem from differences that emerge in individuals within the group. Instinct is a result.
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It's a way of advertising that you have access to resources. Likewise, a woman's breasts (proportionally much larger than any other primate) does the same.