Sunday, April 17, 2011

Are younger generations getting shorter or taller? (Short Time)


If you think that kids are now shorter or taller than how your generation used to be, read this:

Galton’s experiment:

In 1875, Galton (Google Him) distributed packets of sweet pea pods of uniform size and weight to seven friends. Galton then measured the seeds of the successive generation. He noticed that the median diameter of the large seeds was less than that of the parents while the median diameter of the small seeds were greater that of the parents.

He continued to notice the same effect in the height of humans that is if one’s measurement is far from its mean, the other will closer to its mean “regression toward the mean”. The process doesn’t go out of control. People don’t get dumber or smarter over short periods of time. And the same can be applied to intelligence, artistic talent, etc.

So for example, if the parents are tall, their kids would not necessarily be as tall and if the parents are short, their kids would not be necessarily as short.

Source: Book: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

7 comments:

FashionateFix said...

Good to know, i thought the opposite! thanx for the info!

Ra-1 said...

ما فهمت! يعني الطول مو وراثة؟

Nemo said...

it is but sometimes you hear friends saying that highschool kids nowadays are shorter than how our generation was used to be and that younger generations are becoming shorter and shorter which is not correct ...

Muna said...

Very interesting! :)

I think that generations are getting shorter... not because I have any scientific evidence to be honest, but because there is a hadith from out prophet about it: :)

خلق الله آدم على صورته ، طوله ستون ذراعا ، فلما خلقه قال : اذهب فسلم على أولئك ، نفر من الملائكة ، جلوس ، فاستمع ما يحيونك ، فإنها تحيتك وتحية ذريتك ، فقال : السلام عليكم ، فقالوا : السلام عليك ورحمة الله ، فزادوه : ورحمة الله ، فكل من يدخل الجنة على صورة آدم ، فلم يزل الخلق ينقص بعد حتى الآن
الراوي: أبو هريرة المحدث: البخاري - المصدر: صحيح البخاري - الصفحة أو الرقم: 6227
خلاصة حكم المحدث: [صحيح]

Nemo said...

thank you Muna :)

Anonymous said...

hhhmmm interesting info . . . thanx for sharing :)

but they're really getting shorter n shorter :P

Shayouma said...

LoL 3abali they are getting taller hmmm.. or maybe those little kids who were little became men and women before i knew it lol