science.slashdot.org/story/09/11/01/0027242/Evolutions-Path-May-Lead-To-Shorter-Heavier-Women?from=rss
Evolution's Path May Lead ToShorter, Heavier Women on Sunday November 01, @08:31AM Posted by kdawson on Sunday November 01, @08:31AM from the short-but-neither-brutish-nor-nasty dept.
shorter, heavier women had more children than lighter, taller ones. Women with lower blood pressure and cholesterol were also more likely to have large families as were women who gave birth early or had a late menopause.
these traits are then passed on to their daughters, who also, on average, had more children. The study has not determined why these factors are linked to reproductive success, but it is likely that they indicate genetic, rather than environmental, effects.
And, based on many studies I read about in college, wealthy people tend to have fewer children, if any at all. And here's the kicker: in western culture (not just America) the abundance of cheap fattening food combined with jobs that are not physically intensive means the poor can get fat. Once-upon-a-time the poor were all farmers and therefore got enough exercise to stay thin. Now the poor all work in retail (or similar) and can get quite fat. But the trend in rich families will still be for tall, thin women. I wonder if our race will bifurcate into two separate species someday.
Homepage Poor people, on the other hand, breed like rabbits. You should consider reading something that actually quotes facts someday, instead of Rush Limbaugh, or whoever it is you get your made-up facts from. But the trend in rich families will still be for tall, thin women. I wonder if our race will bifurcate into two separate species someday. No, by the logic you just quoted, the fat women are fat because they're poor-- you just told me that the fatness was because of "the abundance of cheap fattening food combined with jobs that are not physically intensive means the poor can get fat.
Homepage There's no need to bring Rush Limbaugh into this. It's not universally true, but it is more or less an accepted fact. In the modern world there are a lot of reasons for this. therefore, they tend to try to start a career before a family (illustrated in comedic fashion by the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy). Then with their career dominating their lives, they usually only have a couple kids at the most. On the extreme end of the spectrum, you have folks who have superstitious beliefs. That doesn't help keep their fertility rates down any... Economists and demographers have known about this correlation for centuries. And it's interesting because it goes across religions, across nationalities, race, and other factors. Poor Americans are just as likely to have a higher fertility rate as poor French, or Japanese. Poor Nigerians or Indians are even more likely because a poor American is fairly well off by Nigerian standards. Side Rant: The Israelis in particular are worried about this effect because Israel is a democracy. And the Israeli Palestinians have a fertility rate several times that of Israeli Jews. Again, the average Israeli Palestinian is much poorer than the average Israeli Jew. The Israelis are concerned because with the higher fertility rates of the Palestinian Israeli citizens, the Palestinians may become a majority in the "Jewish State" in a couple generations. This brings up all kinds of moral dilemmas for the Israeli government, who must try to balance it's commitment to a homeland for the Jews to it's commitment to democracy for all it's citizens.
Also, I have no idea why you brought Rush Limbaugh into this. I'm about as progressive a character as you're likely to meet. Progressives would tend to contend that the reason is education, the nature of pre-industrialized societies, higher mortality rates among poor nations, the tempo of life in wealthy nations and classes. And Rush would say they all want their welfare checks or something. You're right about the lack of heredity for short-fatness though.
Dysphoric1 (1641793) Idiocracy is classist bullshit that comforts rich wankers who desperately want to believe that they're rich because of some inherent superiority The part that I find most humorous about this fact is that our DNA doesn't care what we do for a living or how big our houses are. So if the rich have fewer children than the poor, then the rich are, by definition, genetically inferior to the poor, and it is natural selection that makes them a minority.
"The movement of families up and down the economic ladder is the promise that lies at the heart of the American dream. But it does not seem to be happening quite as often as it used to."
Eighty percent of Americans still believe it's possible to pull yourself up by the proverbial bootstraps. That's according to a New York Times poll reported last week, but a recent mobility study suggests the American Dream may be more style than substance.
As his father did before him, Hurd attended the Browning School - a prestigious all-boys school where classmate Jamie Dimon, now CEO of JP Morgan Chase, remembers seventh-grader Hurd as a good basketball player The wealthy own the media and push the "you could be wealthy!" It helps keep the lower class folks voting against their own self interests. It's why the wizard of wall street pays a lower tax rate on his monumental earnings than his secretary pays on her salary. There is a tiny chance you will break into the wealthy classes. But, for the most part, they pass the good jobs down to their own. Just look at the way hollywood has been taken over by 2nd and 3rd generation actors. Any idiot can bankrupt themselves-- but it takes a lot more than simple hard work to get into the executive class.
blahplusplus (757119) Except most people today are moving from ABSOLUTE poverty to a developed nation poor, does not mean that classes will not solidify over time as the rest of the world becomes fully developed like the west. In the west we have a reversing trend, more people are getting poorer. Social mobility cuts both ways (ie person in developed country gets job, x amount of workers lose their jobs in USA/Canada, Europe).
First, modern humans have been in our current form for something like ten thousand generations; Second, Framingham MA is a far too small a portion the human ecological range to extrapolate from-- unless this trend holds equally well in Addis Ababa, Singapore, Kiev, Kyoto, and the Brazilian rainforest, it has no meaning to human evolution whatsoever. Giving birth earlier and later menopause all sound like things that would improve selective fitness... but the question is, if they really are selected for, why weren't they selected for five thousand years ago?
forand (530402) The variations that are being discussed in the article are not all all outside the variations already observed in humans over that period of time. While our DNA has been reasonably set for ten thousand generations, as you say, the dominance of certain phenotypes varies with time and location. For instance many humans have dramatically different skin tones and facial structures.
Alsee (515537) First, modern humans have been in our current form for something like ten thousand generations We obviously haven't grow wings lately, but it would be a mistake to think we haven't changed at all. A rather substantial number of genes have been identified as having been selected during the last several tens of thousands of years, and in fact quite a few genes have been identified undergoing current positive or negative selection.
C'mon we're geeks No need for such crudities: - Donate sperm to a bunch of banks (this should be easy for us) - Hack the computer and replace your specs with some hot-looking guy's specs - Unsuspecting women pick the man of their dreams, and instead get your sperm.
I have something on the order of 5,000 children, who will be tall, skinny, and insanely intelligent. I've also created 3 biological children (the old fashion way).
Reproductive "success" is not genetic anymore, its based on social factors. The goal of most humans is no longer to spawn the most progeny. I come from a small backwoods town and women in these areas (eg low income, low education) have more children, and have them at a younger age. And no I don't f...
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