I noticed the forum was a bit quite so have given us something to talk about.
Lately when going to the shops at about 4pm (past 4 days) i have noticed few groups of the local highschool boys hanging out. One thing that i have noticed is that the lot of them are tall buggers. Like 70% 6ft, have i just run into the tallest blokes at school or have humans gotten taller?

I only graduated in 2007 and at 5'11 (182cm) i was one of the taller guys, But not anymore apparently.

If we are getting taller, Apart from having an advantage in many sports, i suppose it doesnt really mean anything. I just thought it was interesting.
What do you guys think?

I finished high school in 95. I'm 191cm, and I was very slightly taller than average for the guys in my year. Plenty taller than me.

That must've sucked!

Buster fin said..
Steroid chicken.
On a side note, children are often born recently without wisdom teeth. The thinking being that as our diet has softened, the jaw is becoming smaller and micro evolution has decided we don't need the teeth.

I would say that unless the people with wisdom teeth are not having kids and those that don't get them are having more kids than the average, that evolution would not change anything.

I thought the whole idea of wisdom teeth, at least in evolutionary terms, was that it was a replacement tooth as we lose others and the one at the back grows to push the others forward. For this to devleop, it would have added something decent to our survivability, or been a leftover from an ancestor. Having wisdom teeth doesn't really affect your reproductive success.

Carantoc said..

Flatty said..
.... I only graduated in 2007 and at 5'11 (182cm) i was ...

yep, something to talk about .......



Not sure what they are teaching at school but 5'11" is 180cm.

180.34cm rounded to two decimal places and 180.3cm truncated to one decimal place.

Don't worry - the inability to convert from imperial to metric seems to be a common problem these days

Maybe they only seem taller because you were actually shorter than you thought you were ?

182cm is 5'11.65" rounded to two decimal places. You are correct i am half an inch taller than i thought.
My shoes that i used to have probably gave me anothet inch of height. Therefore i was nearly 6'1" when walking around. Still there were plently of people taller than me.

EDIT: i re-read your post. I converted from metric to imperial instead of the other way round. Somehow i lost .65 of an inch along the way in the calculation.

Buster fin said..

FormulaNova said..

I would say that unless the people with wisdom teeth are not having kids and those that don't get them are having more kids than the average, that evolution would not change anything.

What?

Where do you want me to start? Do you understand evolution?

Carantoc said..

Flatty said..
.... I only graduated in 2007 and at 5'11 (182cm) i was ...

yep, something to talk about .......



Not sure what they are teaching at school but 5'11" is 180cm.

180.34cm rounded to two decimal places and 180.3cm truncated to one decimal place.

Don't worry - the inability to convert from imperial to metric seems to be a common problem these days

Maybe they only seem taller because you were actually shorter than you thought you were ?

yep, taller doesn't mean smarter.
Actually to stimulate almost unlimited growth only one single hormone is needed.
Naturally overproduced (by benign brain tumor) or injected artificially and you have all basket ball players at your wish.
So far nothing to inject to make somebody smarter, plenty to work the other way

empirically I put my year 7's ish in line before entering class and 50% of the boys are taller than me (I'm only 5'10 mind you).

By year 8 - 65% ish

By year 9 - near 100%.

Empirically they seem to be getting taller. Improved standing of living is the the reason I would say.

Macroscien said..
Actually to stimulate almost unlimited growth only one single hormone is needed.
Naturally overproduced (by benign brain tumor) or injected artificially and you have all basket ball players at your wish.
So far nothing to inject to make somebody smarter, plenty to work the other way

Does this work on the male reproductive organ? Asking for a friend.

Killbot said..

Macroscien said..
Actually to stimulate almost unlimited growth only one single hormone is needed.
Naturally overproduced (by benign brain tumor) or injected artificially and you have all basket ball players at your wish.
So far nothing to inject to make somebody smarter, plenty to work the other way

Does this work on the male reproductive organ? Asking for a friend.

You can tell your friend that insufficient supply of growth hormone may cause some problem in this matter

....
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6406387/
or
www.ageforce.com/blog/does-hgh-make-your-penis-bigger/

as evolutionary treat humans also enjoy bigger not only brains in comparison to ancestor monkey

psychojoe said..My kids were born without any teeth.

I was definitely getting taller until about 1994. Then it stopped. Maybe the steroids in the chicken was reduced in 1994.

psychojoe said..

Buster fin said..
Steroid chicken.
On a side note, children are often born recently without wisdom teeth. The thinking being that as our diet has softened, the jaw is becoming smaller and micro evolution has decided we don't need the teeth.

My kids were born without any teeth.

The Inuit would have put them out in the snow. (Anthony Quinn in movie The Savage Innocents 1960)