Comments on: Taller people are smarter; shorter women more likely to marry.

By: gwallan

gwallan — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:33:16 +0000

@wolfe
It’s probably more a hopeful argument than anything else. There are times when I do seek a rational for belief or to convince myself that my agnosticism is flawed. Unfortunately it’s always based on sentimentality rather than science.

To be honest I posted a hasty stream of consiousness which led me to that conclusion. I left it rather than try to expand it because it was new to me and I thought others may be able to help me expand the thinking.

By: wolfe

wolfe — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:09:12 +0000

Very interesting argument gwallan. In ignoring the ‘God’ argument, I could argue we fit a niche of generalists — not very fast runners (but fast), not best tree climbers (but good), not very good swimmers (but can do it) — and that for a species trying to fill a generalist role you either need massive breeding (not possible given female shape, size, development of young, and limitations of human female pelvis) or intelligence. (Or something).

That’s a very hasty off the cuff devil’s advocate argument.

I lean, personally, to the view that it’s a decent argument for the existence of God; though hardly a scientific one, merely a rational one.
-wolfe

By: gwallan

gwallan — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 04:27:14 +0000

@wolfe
The blokes responsible for the Wiz also did the BC series which I prefer.
Genetic contribution to intelligence. We had a chat about this a while back in the forum. I maintain that early in our evolution womens’ choice of more intelligent mates was part of the reason for our climb as a successful species. Whether it can actually be considered “runaway sexual selection” is a different matter. I still don’t see any reason for nature to “treat” intelligence as a desirable quality(there a quite a few species which have thrived without it). God however would be a different matter. In fact in my mind it’s the best argument FOR the existence of God.

By: wolfe

wolfe — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:02:20 +0000

@Post 27 by Z, pfft, comment on the rest of the site as you wish (as long as within the rules which it manifestly overwhelmingly is. Redirects to Russian spam trojans, porn, no that wouldn’t be).

@Gwallan despite being a Christian, I never much liked Wizard of Id. Go figure.

@Z — genetic contribution to height? Seems to be minimal on the part of the woman. Odd, I know. Almost counter intuitive. What’s even more bizarre — I don’t get this at all — female genetic contribution to intelligence seems low… yet female environmental contribution to intelligence seems incredibly high.

This… makes… no… sense.

I guess it means be a good mother. But… shouldn’t men be more encouraged to look for intelligent women than dumb women?

And yet it seems at every turn in society and evolution the contrapositive is pushed. Go figure.
-wolfe

By: zogmama

zogmama — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 18:44:27 +0000

@gwallan: I recently went to a website that purported to accurately predict a child’s adult height by a series of calculations. The prediction is for them to top out at 6′1″ and 6′3″ - equal to and taller than their father.

Which leads me to ask where my genetic contribution to height ended up. Not that it’s a bad thing for boys to be tall, but when your shoe size exceeds your age (my elder son at 12), I think that perhaps I should have sprung for the organic milk with no rBGH when the public panicked several years ago.

~Z~

By: gwallan

gwallan — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 05:28:44 +0000

When the Wizard of Id told the King that the odds against a short man outliving a tall man were 5-1 he had the royal basket ball team report to the gallows.

Anyone notice how tall the kids are these days. I’m 6′1 and as a teenager was easily among the tallest in my school. I was at the local high school the other day and actually felt small. Quite disconcerting.

By: zogmama

zogmama — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 11:57:16 +0000

I don’t have to coach football, I just do. Seriously, I didn’t read all the statistics (or even all the posts) related. Too much a busman’s holiday for me. Hope I didn’t sound “embittered” re my ex, either. Using the word welfare is not my style - however, I think the first year (or three) you are “unemployed.” After that, the terminology changes.

And BTW, my sons have blue eyes and green eyes. They both play the line, and I have my own equipment so we can hit each other with impunity to practice. There’s only one truly effective way to instill respect for women in our young boys. That makes me suicidally curious about what drives Dick.

Forgive me my mucking around on the rest of the site.

~Z~

By: wolfe

wolfe — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:28:04 +0000

@Teri /chuckle.
@Megan hey, welcome to the blog. Hope you’ll post more. The problem is that’s anecdotal evidence. These longtitudinal studies have SOME scientific validity. Some. If it’s any consolation, I was bloody short pre-puberty, but still smart. I agree though, the whole thing is a bit ’silly season’ August style journalism with few stories.

@Zogmama Heh, zog. You know statistics as well as I do (and probably better). My specialty was in communications, but honestly, I found stats deathly dull. Seriously, it seems an interesting longitudinal study, and, somewhat disturbingly it suggests women are very slightly counter-selected for intelligence. Which makes no bloody sense to me.

In any event, you’re pretty smart (for someone who isn’t an engineer, of course! ).

As I said to Megan, above, it’s silly season journalism on a reasonable survey/paper. I actually DO think there’s some there there, but again…

Variation within a height group would overwhelm variation between height groups

In other words, if you take a million 5′3″ women, and a million 5′9″ women, it might well be that you’d get more talented physicists out of the 5′9″ ers. But only a few more.

Or even another way — lets stipulate men have a 5-6 point IQ advantage (unproven in my reading to date) over women. And let’s stipulate taller people tend to be smarter (also weak postulate) Take a 6′1″ man and a 5′3″ woman. Who’s brighter? Yeah, maybe stats say the man is 54% likely to be brighter, but those aren’t great odds.

In your case, I’ll go with the woman, zogmama.

Especially if she has to coach football.

Regards,
-wolfe

By: zogmama

zogmama — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 05:15:57 +0000

My head is spinning. Wolfe - clarify for me. I am 5′3″ and a physicist. My ex-husband is 6′2″ and living on welfare. Will my children have blue eyes?

By: Megan

Megan — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:58:42 +0000

I dont think height has anything to do with intelligence, and even if it did, i find that there are many more people i know that are smart that are short rather than tall. Especially important historical figures.