Why don’t we grow to be 10 feet tall?

Pedro_P

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Thank millions of years of evolution. And your parents.

Our genes account for about 70 to 80 percent of our eventual height.
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▼ We all know the families populated by towering basketball players versus the petite households with builds best suited for, say, horse jockeying or wrestling. There’s probably a fair amount of height variation within friend groups, too: The tallest friend takes the selfies, while the shortest struggles to fit in the frame. But despite these drastic variations, humans pretty much fall within a normal height range: In the United States, healthy men are, on average, 5 feet and 9 inches tall while women are typically 5 feet and 4 inches. Thanks to middle school science class, we know that we inherit height from our parents. Why, though, do most people stay within these standard limits? Why don’t we all grow to be 10 feet tall?
Why we will likely never reach extreme heights
We can thank evolution for this, says Terence D. Capellini, a human evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. “Height is not just about height,” Capellini says. “It’s about the overall biological growth of an organism, at least in humans.” Researchers surmise that how tall we become isn’t an isolated piece of our extremely intricate genome. Rather, it’s intertwined with other growth processes, like organ development. Over millions of years, natural selection has forged the blueprint for the human genome and therefore influenced body and organ growth through linked genes and subsequent tissue growth. Our height, then, is simply a byproduct.
Besides genetics, environmental factors like proper nutrition and modern healthcare can impact height.  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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KH_Hirsch

I seem to have learned in biology class that in the Nordics animals are smaller compared to their brethren in warmer areas of the world. One reason being that if you are tall you have a greater skin exposure to wheather and being cold you would need to eat substantially more to keep yourself alive. Obviously this is more an approach for animals living outside and not having access to a food market. My assumption on why people in the Nordics would be that their diet seems to be somewhat more healthier from an early start and adding fish or similar high protein food may make a difference in such case.

ssangra

I wonder then why nordic men and women are generally more than 6 ft tall. Is height then a function( temperature outside, gravity at location,  hormonal setup coded in the genes) ?

Pedro_P

ssangra 7-5-2019 01:33 AM
I wonder then why nordic men and women are generally more than 6 ft tall. Is height then a function( ...

My wife is 1.82m (5.97 ft), 5cm more than me , but she has German and Latin ancestors... I barely measure 1.77m (5.81 ft) and my ancestors are a mixture of Spaniards and Germans and Latinos... My father is 1.85m, and I measure less than he.
On the other hand, I think the Dutch have the highest average height in the world, but a while ago I read that the Dutch consume a lot of milk and cheeses, and that could be the reason why they are So high... But in other places the human being has much lower stature... So, it is very likely that there is a combination of factors that make people have different statures, diet, genes, environment, etc.
But being much taller, maybe it is not so convenient, if humans were too high on average, we would be heavier and would require much more energy to keep us alive to move, and everything would have to be bigger.

Rhett_Bassard

I only know a few Nordic animals:
- Polar bears...and they are larger than Brown, Black, and Grizzly bears from warmer climes.
- Moose and Elk...larger than White-tailed deer (US) or Spotted deer (India).

Regarding Nordic humans being taller...maybe it relates to greater skin area needed for Vitamin D function.
No, I'm not a doctor...I just play one with your lady friend

Pedro_P

Rhett Bassard 7-5-2019 02:11 AM
I only know a few Nordic animals:
- Polar bears...and they are larger than Brown, Black, and Grizzl ...

Polar bears feed on fat seals full of delicious fat ... But if true size is the issue, then the giraffes are the champions of this matter, and they are in Africa and only eat leaves of trees and shrubs (the middle environment and the availability of resources, influences).
Certainly, vitamin D has an important role in fixing calcium in bones, but, that would mean that people who live in very sunny places like in the tropics or in equatorial areas , they should be higher, and that is not necessarily true.
But, on the other hand, there are social prejudices, often higher people tend to be better perceived than lower people, especially in those places where the average of height is generally low.

Rhett_Bassard

Pedro_P 7-5-2019 01:43 AM
Polar bears feed on fat seals full of delicious fat ... But if true size is the issue, then the  ...

Dr. Rhett is "chewing the (seal) fat" and thinking:
- polar bear beats giraffe in ThunderDome
- Homo sapiens gets more direct Sun in the tropics and doesn't need to be taller/have extra skin for Vitamin D production.
- Excessive Vitamin D is toxic therefore those in tropics develop pigmentation and smaller stature, e.g. pygmies.

However, the African Watusi tribe is tall, perhaps thru selective genetics. Their oppression of the Hutu tribe is a whole separate story, but it isn't fashionable to publicize pigmented-on-pigmented crime. Pigmented-on-nonpigmented crime makes the news frequently.

Pedro_P

Rhett Bassard 7-5-2019 01:24 PM
Dr. Rhett is "chewing the (seal) fat" and thinking:
- polar bear beats giraffe in ThunderDome
- ...

Well, I'm thinking about which of the following meats will be the most delicious: seal meat, polar bear meat or giraffe meat... And how much coal will be necessary to roast on my grill ... Anyway... God should not have made some animals so delicious.
Hmm... Most likely a polar bear dies of heat in Africa before finding a giraffe, or that the giraffe dies freezing cold in the Arctic, before encountering a polar bear... However, a Giraffe can (eventually) kill a lion with a kick, or escape quickly thanks to its long legs. Do not underestimate the power of long legs, I know from experience, LOL
Certainly, in general, anything in excess can be harmful, and that includes vitamins... But the pigmentation of the skin has no to do with the amount of vitamin D produced, but rather with the protection factor against solar radiation, so in the sunniest areas, the skin reacts pigmenting.
In areas where the days are shorter than night, the evolution has made the pigmentation of the skin less, the pupils of clear tones, are more related to the protection against the reflections of light on surfaces such as snow.
The evolution that allows adaptation to changes to ensure the survival of the fittest, is responsible for the great variety of adaptations that the human species and all other living species have... Darwin deduced that when he observed the finches that they live in the Galapagos. Being high or low, is determined by a set of factors, but perhaps the human being is the only animal that has tried to determine and influence these factors to obtain an additional and marginal benefit to what naturally occurs. For example, from the great variety of breeds in dogs, selective farming, to manipulation of genetics destined to cure congenital diseases.
People are short in the tropics, (it is my guess), because the environment of dense forests, they need to be small to move without difficulty, also because of the limited access to calcium, for example, obtained from dairy products, there is to bear in mind that evolutionary physical changes take many thousands of years to manifest themselves and become noticeable ... Most likely, with the native people of the tropics living in urban areas and with access to better food, their average height will increase. For example, humans who initially inhabited Europe, were not white or tall, were copper skin and short stature, whitening and increased height of these humans was given by direct influence of the environment.
Well, the oppression of a human towards another human, is basically a racist expression, and my opinion is blunt about it, racism like other beliefs are mental illness, and at some point science will determine that these stupidities, will be considered as mental illnesses equal to schizophrenia or dementia.
In the same way that nobody is born believing in God, nobody is born being a racist, unfortunately, those stupid things are taught and learned.
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By the way... Who could resist the power of long legs? The Peruvian Alberto Vargas knew it very well...

ssangra

Pedro_P 7-5-2019 12:27 PM
My wife is 1.82m (5.97 ft), 5cm more than me , but she has German and Latin ancestors... I barel ...

so the wife has the great opportunity to always b looking down on u and u can have the pleasure of being with someone u always look up to . I agree with the milk , milk products and cheese angle because possibly all animal husbandry around the world today use hormone therapy to increase milk production and it also impacts humans greatly....and yes more surface area may be one factor though it gets a wee bit negated by the fact that because of the cold most of it is covered and not exposed to sunlight...unlike that last post of someone who has put up a near naughty photo on a serious discussion

Pedro_P

ssangra 11-5-2019 08:57 AM
so the wife has the great opportunity to always b looking down on u and u can have the pleasure ...

My wife almost always agrees with me, however, my mother-in-law seems to always disagree with me...
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Female beauty is always a cause of admiration, at least in much of the world, except for a few societies where misogyny, machismo and censorship prevail... And certainly, the graphic and artistic representations of that beauty, always They have existed throughout humanity, in many ways, from painting, sculpture, literature, among other arts.
Unfortunately, the beauty and the feminine body have always been condemned and reprobated because of the moral and mainly of the religion, which are a reflection of retrograde mentalities machista and misogynist.
In relation to the illustration, it belongs to Alberto Vargas, who is a prominent artist and one of the main representatives of the artistic movement called «Pin-Up» with the technique of the airbrush, as it is described in his biography.
Maybe the pictorial and sculptural arts are those who have better appreciated, expressing and representing feminine beauty, many artists since antiquity, they have shown it, but as I said above, morality, especially religious morals, has placed a veil of condemnation on women... A free woman, educated, independent, self-sufficient, owner and responsible for herself, they has always been seen as a threat, and condemned by those misogynist and macho societies.
True, all subjects or topics can be treated seriously, however, a dose of good humor, prevents the treatment of a subject or topic falls into the plain of boredom and monotony.