Wendell, this is driving me crazy.
In the 1950s the average heights for females and males were 5’4" & 5’10" over the past odd thirty years the numbers changed adding an inch to each. I’m pretty sure this must be for the US of A but it might be world wide.
I know I’ve read it in the past twomonths and can’t find it anywhere. Can you find a source for average heights published after 1990?
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley
Obviously, not the source I had in mind!
For females I’d use the age 20 but for guys I’d go up to 30 since they do often keep growing into their early twenties.
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley
Jois,
Look at
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/1996/dom/961014/covereu.html
According to the article there, the average adult American male is 175 cm. tall. That’s about 5’8.9". The country with the tallest people at the moment is the Netherlands. The average height of an adult Dutch male is 179 cm. That’s about 5’10.5".
You just proved my point. The only advantage to the big plumage is that the chicks dig it, so to speak. 
By the same token, even if the only advantage to height is that it is sexually attractive, then those with genes for height are going to be more successful in passing their genes along. So, if women, on average, prefer tall men (even if it is only a slight preference), then our species will continue to grow larger over time.
Jois,
I can’t open the links you put in your post. Could you copy them into a post?
For most of human history, a person’s sexual desirability was usually in direct proportion to the amount of offspring they produced. However, since the advent of civilization, this is no longer true. These days people who are more sexually desireable have an easier time getting laid, but do not neccessarily have more children, and there is nothing to stop a couple of sexually repugnant people from producing a litter of ugly pups. For this reason, I find it unlikely that the human race is breeding for either greater or lesser height as a species in the long run. I feel it is likely that there are short term trends in both directions that should cancel each other out.
There is hope, however, for those of you who’d like to see an NBA superstar in the future dunking on a twenty foot rim. All it would take is the sterilization of all people of below average height. The non-sterile members of society would then have to porduce enough offspring to keep the population from declining. Each generation the average height would be taller, and after several generations the average height of the human race would be 16’8". (or a nice even 200") This would be a good place to stop the breeding program because an average height greater than 200" would be weird.
If we all work together, anything is possible.
Good point. Is birth control interfering with natural selection? Something to ponder.
I know several guys (modesty forbids my inclusion in their number; well, modesty and honesty) who have had multitudinous sexual partners, but zero children.
So it’s quite possible that the typical tall guy is getting some, but isn’t actually reproducing. Sexual selection thwarted???
Not necessarily. Somebody is reproducing, and as long as the majority of those somebodies are on the tall side, the trend would continue.
It is interesting to think about what birth control might be doing to the process of evolution, though…
Lance,
You don’t mean since the advent of civilization. You mean since the advent of reliable birth control, which is much more recent.
Wendell Wagner and others who might be interested, those two sites require Acrobat Reader. I’ll try to send them to WW by email and if anyone else is intersted I’ll email you copies, if they will email…
Basically they tied right into what Wendell said and I guess I’m going to have to give up reading comic books after all.
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley
spoke, I think you are viewing the birth control issue from the male perspective. IMO, birth control gives the female more freedom to choose who she reproduces with and who she just has casual sex with, resulting in more casual sex. 
No thwarting of evolution there.
When she decides to reproduce, if the tendency is to select taller men, then we should get taller as a species, just as you indicated.
Wendell Wagner, thank you for letting everyone know what I meant. I’ll also thank you in advance for not doing it again. When I posted, “…since the advent of civilization…,” I meant it. I could have possible made myself more clear and will do so post haste.
Before civilization, only the tall, or the clever, or the strong, or whatever was being naturally selected for that generation could produce offspring and provide enough food and shelter for that offspring to survive to adulthood. Once the human race became “civilized” all that stopped. Civilization takes care of it’s weakest members. Civilization allows for anyone to breed. Civilaztion allows all manner of genes to get passed willy nilly to the next generation.
As for birth control, I’m willing to guess that there have been methods of birth control as long as man has been civilized. The withdrawal method is not the most effective method in the world, but I’m sure man came up with this early on. I also remember reading about the use of a cervical plug made of crocodile dung in ancient Egypt, and sheep entrail condoms used by Vikings. (I don’t know if either of these is actually true, but it is not unreasonable to think that they may have been true. Also, I am aware that the Vikings are not all that ancient. However, there were many ancient cultures that were as technologically advanced as the Vikings. It does not seem like to great of a stretch of the imagination to to say that if the Vikings thought of condoms, older cultures that were as technologically advanced as the Vikings could also have used condoms.)
Therefore, I stand by my original statement that since the advent of civilization the human race as a whole has stopped genetically selecting greater height.
The advent of civilization would NOT preclude sexual selection based on height. It may help provide the female with more possible choices, but she is still free to choose however she wishes, barring forced reproduction.
Lance,
I’m sorry I misunderstood what you meant, but now that I do understand I disagree even more. I don’t think there’s any proof that “civilization” allows bad genes to be perpetuated in the gene pool (and I’m not sure that there is such a thing as a clear start to civilization). People continue to use the same unconscious factors that they did before in choosing a sexual partmer. If you’re a short male, you have less of a chance of having children, and if you’re as short as me, you don’t have a snowflakes’s chance in hell in getting laid. What’s more, I think the tendency toward prejudice against what I might lump together as “physically undesirable” people has been increasing in our society for decades. Name me any prominent short politician. In the '50’s, we had two bald men running against each other for President. Imagine that happening today. Being overweight is not just considered a unfortunate physical trait, but a proof of your indolence. There’s a bigger stress on excessive thinness for women. There’s a bigger stress on muscularity for men.
Nothing screws up a good theory like sexual selection! (Yikes)
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley