I’ve heard this for years. And our daughter, who is a combination of Euorpean/Puerto Rican/Korean does indeed require orthodontia, but then so did I - and I’m just a mix of Irish + German (but in my case that’s nurture not nature: as a German, my mother required the house to be spotless, and true to his Irish, Dad would beat the shit out of us if Mom was upset, so in the ensuing stress I sucked my thumb and bent my teeth).
But has anyone else heard this theory, and is there anything to it?
No, never heard of it. There’s a big chunk of the population that is “mixed race”… or shall I say: not pure-blooded X. Not to start a debate, but just think of where the English (or British… I’m not really up on stereotypes) might fit into your question.
I’ve not heard of it, and just for a data point, I am probably about 90% English/Irish and I had really bad teeth. (Thank god for orthodontists)
Wasn’t there some king in Europe who’s teeth were so bad that he couldn’t chew meat?
by what exact mechanism might ‘interracial’ offspring have dental problems?
Seeing as how there is no biological basis to race it can’t be genetic.
Given the huge cultural diversity of interracial children it can’t be cultural.
Given the worldwide geographic distribution of ‘imterracial’ children it can’t be environmental.
If the UL had even suggetsed certain racial groups or in certain nations there might be a possibility, but just interracial children generally? It’s obviously BS.
mmmiiikkkeee got it right, although somewhat understated. There is a big chunk of the population that is “mixed race”… or shall I say: not pure-blooded X. The entire species is ‘mixed race’.
In the case of Eurasian people, I know that the presence of the so called “wisdom teeth” varies on average between Asian and European people. I dont know how that would contribute to crooked teeth though.
As for Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rico is officially about 60% Spanish (which is just as European as any “Anglo”), with a large minority of people with mixed African and Spanish ancestry, and some more or less “black” people. And a few Asians, as well as strong traces of Taino Indian in many families. So who can tell whether being part Puerto Rican is a factor or not. Its almost like saying a person is “part American”.
I got a bit worked up at first here, but after reading the rest of the post. I am hoping you were being tongue in cheek…or thumb in cheek as it were.
IANAD, but I have heard that “bad teeth” can result from a mismatch between jaw size and tooth size, which can occur when people of different backgrounds marry. What I do know from my experience is that the Kenyans I met when I was there had great teeth. They did not, by and large, get good dental care, but they did tend to marry within their own ethnic group/tribe within Kenya. When I asked a dentist about it, he gave me the explanation that mismatches more often occur in hybrid cultures like the US.
Hmm, there alway WAS the chance that my OP was an open invitation to post-in and pat your back on what an anti-racist you are, but that wasn’t my intention. Please excuse me for not being more candid in the reason for my OP:
My daugter’s teeth are crooked.
My wife ascribes this to her mixed race parentage.
I called bullshit on that, even though it wasn’t the first time I’d heard it myself. Since it’s a law of nature that no man can win an argument with his wife, I resolved to consult a resource base of intelligent people dedicated to fighting ignorance.
For the record, I do know that here are a quarter million different bits of geneteic information on a strand of DNA, all of, oh, six, are based on racial differences, so yes, I know were just one human family who just needs a big hug.
But I also know that different races’ skulls are shaped diferently (has anyone else been following the Kenewick Man battle, or is it just a story local to us in Washington/Oregon?)
Okay, so the reasoning from those with whom I DISAGREE opine that, after centuries of intermingling a Celt can mate with a Teuton with no misalignment. But, according to your average barstool anthropologist, mix a seven-foot Swede with a four-foot Balinese and you might as well try to drop an air-cooled VW bug engine into a 57 Chevy.
Franky, I don’t have a killer argument against this reasoning. Sure, it sounds racist to me too, but I find it harder and harder to simply walk in righteousness without some talking points in my pocket.
<<Over the years Carlos (Charles II of Spain) grew steadily worse. He was lame, epileptic and bald at the age of 35. His hair had fallen out, his teeth were nearly gone and his eyesight was failing…>>
From “Mad Monarchs”
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvenjb/madmonarchs/carlos2/carlos2_bio.htm
This article also describe some of the king’s all too linear genealogy. So inbreeding isn’t too good for the teeth either.
Try this. I haven’t had time to read it all, but it’s a discussion of the reasons for malocclusion being so much more common in people with modern lifestyles than it was in the past. It says the racial mixing theories are old and thoroughly invalidated, and it has references you could use to refute them. One of the references is from 1948, so it’s been a while since this was taken seriously. The argument seems to have been that you’d get genes for your jaws from one parent and genes for your teeth from the other parent, and such as that. Besides the fact that we know genetics doesn’t work that way, they also have an actual study of mixed-race children that invalidates it.
Bob, your link’s broken.
I hope I didn’t come across too strongly as being vehemently anti-racist. I was trying for vehemently pro-logic. There’s no plausible raeson for this, and the term ‘mixed race’ is so vague as to be meaningless, hence the reason I too called bullshit. Of course Slithey Tove isn’t my wife, so I’m safe.
I hate to inflict them on you Slithey, but if you search theough the dreaded RACE THREADS you will find huge amounts of information, evidence, cites and even talking points discrediting any genetic baiss for height differences between Balinese and Europeans. The difference appears to be, as in almost all cases, dietary. There seems to be still some debate as to whether the Khoi-san are gentically short, but due to the fact that this is due to the nature of puberty it wouldn’t make any difference. The teeth will grow at the same rate even if you do get the molar gene from your father and your incisors from your mother.
Added to this the suggetsion was tht this was based on mixing races, not skull types or heights. There are four foot and seven foot caucasians too, so if height was a factor thie problem would occur equally amongst children of one ‘race’. The same goes for skull shape, which doesn’t particularly map onto any race although it may map onto certain groups.(What the hell is a Kenewick Man?)
All of which tells me that the traditional Kenyan diet and lifestyle are good for one’s teeth, not that interracial marriage or the lack thereof plays any role.
Well, my link works for me, but I’m not surprised it doesn’t work for everyone else because it’s a long URL pointing to a Google cache of a page that isn’t there anymore. I don’t know how else to link to it, but anyone who wants to read it can go to Google and enter the phrase Hunt described numerous studies where primitive populations adopted civilized diets. The first thing that pops up says “Increase of malocclusion.” Click where it says “cached” and you can read it.
Here is the most relevant passage:
The reference is to: Chung CS, Niswander JD, Runck DW, Bilben SE, Kau MCW. Genetic and epidemiologic studies or oral characteristics in Hawaii’s schoolchildren. II. Malocclusion. Am J Hum Genet 1971;23:471-95.
I think I was wrong when I said this theory was discredited by 1948. Apparently it was still taken seriously in the sixties. Whoever told Slithy this, rather than being a festering racist, could have just been repeating something they were taught in school. When it was discredited, I’m sure the news never made it to all the people who had ever heard it, or even all of the people who were teaching it. I know at least one person who got an anthropology degree in the early seventies and was taught all kinds of weird and patently false stuff about racial characteristics.
saudade, I would tend to think that Puerto Ricans are more mixed than that. Yes, many of the ancestry came from Spain, but I think the percent of people with mixed ancentry is much higher than that.
And about Spain being as European as England, far from it, I will say. For about 8 centuries there were Muslim kingdoms in the area now called Spain. It would be naive to think that both populations didn’t mix. Furthermore, the southern area of Spain, were many of the New World immigrants came from, was the area last conquered by the northern monarchs. So Spanish people, when they set out to conquer the world, were already interracial.
well, most chinese have crooked teeth… most of my friends needed braces when they were young, and their kid sisters mostly have big buck teeth in a “V” shape. I don’t know why, though.
these days, everybody requires orthodontia, americans have an obsession with perfect teeth.
You know wrong in re diff races skulls. There are regional differences to be sure, but they don’t break down by race and there is large variation. Somewhere in those debates I cited to a number of articles on this. Too lazy in this little pre-beddie-by time post to dig that stuff out again.
I beleive some cites to — oh damn the name escapes me, but in any case 1960s and 1970s French research on neolithic populations in the Sahara, North Africa and West Africa. Usual story of smooth skeletal transitions with around 1/3 of remains in each region being of indeterminate type – I think the particular author had three “types” based on the theoretical propisition at the time of three races vertically distributed 'white, ‘negro’ and Saharan. Been a while since I read the article. Well, the meat is at least a third of the skeletons --typing based largely on crania-- could have been anyone.
K-man: yup, he’s the perfect example of why cranial typing by race is a crock. Initial ID by Chatham (Chatters? Damn names escape me late at night) was “caucasiodal.” That’s been discarded. You can check out the science through some of the links in past discussions. If not, there is also the link to genome.org where if I recall you can pull up some articles on K-man. I think, don’t hold me to that.
Of course the “sacred lands and origins” arguments by some NativAm is another game entirely.
My good comrade Gaspode has provided the links, follow through, have fun. Hopefully the debates are entertaining as well as informative. Of course they’re also responsible for my perfectly atrocious reputation, but what can one do?
My God, Collounsbury.
Long time no see.
it is sickening that you can’t ask a racial question w/o all the anti-racist jumping on you (who IMHO are racists themselves)- hey it’s a fact of life that everyone’s different - get over it.
I have heard of the bad teeth theory but it was a long time ago. I would say that there is possible a genetic basis for this. When the races were separated they chose who they found desirable. Those people reproduced more then the ‘ugly’ ones. those traits were reinforced. When you have interracial unions you have 2 people that were 'genetically tuned to look a certain way, to be a certain height range. Think about it this way if a race that is on average 4.5 ft tall and a race that is on ave. 6ft tall it is not inconceivable that the offspring would be 6 ft tall with size 5 shoes or 4.5 ft tall with size 12. The same can be inferred to the jaw.
Again I don’t know if this actually has anything to do w/ it - just a possibility.
Racists? Oh that is rich. Rationalists, certainly. Racists? Hard to fathom given the ordinary plain English meaning of the word.
So, the meat, genetics is fact of life, K2dave. Science and all that. Ignorance of genetics is ignorance. Get over ignorance. That is what this board is all about, yes?
Yeah, and we can see from this post how learned in genetics you are. Thanks for the opinion, it’s always encouraging to see we still have some closed minds on the board.
My father is French-German and 6 feet 2 inches tall.
My mother is Korean and 5 feet tall.
I am 5 feet, 5 inches tall.
No braces for me or my sister and we have perfectly straight teeth.
caveats: Neither of my parents ever required braces. My mother never had wisdom teeth though my father had all four. I have all four but have not have them removed and they aren’t causing damage to my jaw/teeth/mouth.
Tibs.
p.s. I included height only for shits and giggles.
Does this mean you’re a pro-racist?
When people ask “Does race affect health/other physical traits/other genetically influenced traits” there are always people who answer (correctly) that “race” does not have enough correlation to genes to be useful. Sadly, there are people who aren’t willing to accept this - after all, if they look the same, they must have all the same genes :rolleyes:
Here is an interesting and somewhat to the point article on genes, “race” and medicine: Genes, Not Race, Best Way to Analyze Drug Effect This article uses the more accurate term “ethnic label”
I’ll agree that in cultural terms there are races. But the only real affect that race has is that it affects the way we interact. What we perceive to be race is in reality only minor but highly visible surface characteristics - to infer deeper differences based on such surface characteristics is simply bad logic.