Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: xrtoronto on August 26, 2006, 12:39:54 PM
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Fri Aug 25, 5:53 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it's not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality -- tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds.
"As early as age three -- before schooling has had a chance to play a role -- and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The findings were based primarily on two British studies that followed children born in 1958 and 1970, respectively, through adulthood and a U.S. study on height and occupational choice.
Other studies have pointed to low self-esteem, better health that accompanies greater height, and social discrimination as culprits for lower pay for shorter people.
But researchers Case and Paxson believe the height advantage in the job world is more than just a question of image.
"As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns," they wrote.
For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages on average.
But the researchers said the differences in performance crop up long before the tall people enter the job force. Prenatal care and the time between birth and the age of 3 are critical periods for determining future cognitive ability and height.
"The speed of growth is more rapid during this period than at any other during the life course, and nutritional needs are greatest at this point," the researchers wrote.
The research confirms previous studies that show that early nutrition is an important predictor of intelligence and height.
"Prenatal care and prenatal nutrition are just incredibly important, even more so than we already knew," Case said in an interview.
Since the study's data only included populations in the United Kingdom and the United States, the findings could not be applied to other regions, Case said.
And how tall are the researchers?
They are both about 5 feet 8 inches tall, well above the average height of 5 feet 4 inches for American women.
A copy of the paper can be found at http://papers.nber.org/papers/w12466.pdf.
c&p (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060825/ts_nm/economy_height_dc;_ylt=Ar9W88oTR3L78nwCiwq28uSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-)
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No surprise here. I'm 6'10"
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Brain to body size is what counts.
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And Albert Einstein was 5'9" tall.
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most basket-ball players dont strike me as all to smart...
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They make lots of money from playing with a ball. That's smart
I'm tall and smart myself :aok
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<<"As early as age three -- before schooling has had a chance to play a role -- and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.>>
i wonder who paid for that "study", must have been short stupid people.:rolleyes:
i'm going to try to get a govt grant to do "research" on some irrelevant subject.
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Originally posted by xrtoronto
Taller people are smarter
i know
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Yes, Length can come in handy in many forms :D
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most basket-ball players dont strike me as all to smart...
Look at the biography of Kobe Bryant. Yes, he is extremely intellignet. He knows about 6 languages.
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I'm 6'3" and not at all to smart....
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Originally posted by nirvana
I'm 6'3" and not at all to smart....
That would be all too smart. 5'11" here:D
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"Short people have no reason to live"
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Originally posted by Shifty
That would be all too smart. 5'11" here:D
Point proven.
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Originally posted by nirvana
Point proven.
JK bud. Tihs thrade ith stewped.;)
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Oh I hardly ever take anything serious on here, no big deal:aok
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Originally posted by ViZeen
"Short people have no reason to live"
5"5" and I can stop you from killing little old me
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What about guys like me with long men downstairs?
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Correlating these findings with The Bell Curve, another work of impeccably objective statistical research, one would expect Jews and Eastern-Asians to be the tallest people on the planet.
Unless this study took extreme care to plot the participants' height percentiles against known averages of the various ethnicities predominant in the participants' respective bloodlines, I'd be pretty wary of taking any of these conclusions to heart.
For example: John, a 7 year old whose bloodline can be traced back to a specific region of the British Isles for 20 generations, and is more than a standard deviation taller than an average 7-year-old with the same ethnic profile, possesses an IQ that is more than a standard deviation higher than average for a 7-year old fitting that exact description.
If a coherent pattern emerges after considering a couple hundred such cases(I picked 7 year old because that's about the youngest age afterwhich IQ will not significantly change), then maybe there's something to this theory. If they're just comparing people from across the spectrum of backgrounds--backgrounds which, by virtue of evolution, will invariably favor height differently--then I think these researchers are better off getting back to their true calling:
MAKING ME DINNER
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Originally posted by ViZeen
"Short people have no reason to live"
Randy Newman wrote "short people"..... shrimp
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Originally posted by Regular
What about guys like me with long men downstairs?
you have the gimp in your basement, you sick midget freak
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I dunno about smarter but I think that anyone who needs a physical attribute to convince them of their superiority is insecure.
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...says the short man...
It's a study Lukster! They didn't go in with the results, but instead came out with them.
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
...says the short man...
It's a study Lukster! They didn't go in with the results, but instead came out with them.
Hehe, I'm average height, 5'10". Whether I'm smart or stupid depends on whether you ask me or my wife.
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Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Randy Newman wrote "short people"..... shrimp
Stop trying to spin everything, Holden. A recent poll confirms that a plurality of people think Billy Joel wrote "Short People," therefore, it must be true. ;)
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I think Forest Gump's mama was pretty smart, although not very tall. Seems to me that the corollary to her "saying" about stupidness applies to smartness. Smart is more about what one does than what one is. Just my additional 2 cents.
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Don't want no short people round here!
(Unless they are blonde and female under 5' 2")
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I'm 6'1''. Yay?
Of my 2 best friends, one is 6'4'', the other is 6'8''. They're both ****ing idiots.
Originally posted by lukster
Hehe, I'm average height, 5'10".
Stop lying to yourself. You're short. Shorty. Short Short.
Short.
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Originally posted by wetrat
They're both ****ing idiots.
Hey...I know those guys!:cool:
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Originally posted by FUNKED1
No surprise here. I'm 6'10"
You still wearing them high heels fatty's mum gave you for christmas?
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w00t!!! Im 5'9.5 already and im only 14! Ima be smarts! yall hear the meester bush?
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Where I work I’ve noticed major correlations between people’s intellectual abilities and their height. We have a number of very short people who are borderline illiterate and have trouble with basic math. Even the ones who are average height are noticeably lacking in comparison to the tallest. We taller folk spend a great deal of our time teaching and training the shorties on basic concepts; it can be frustrating. I really wish they would all just pull their own weight.
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The tallest inmate at our unit is 6'4" tall and enrolled in our special education class. He's sixteen years old and functions on the third grade level in math.
Tall people are the result of recessive genetic disorders triggered by an unfortunate combination of junk DNA. In other words, they come from the genetic scrap heap.
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Originally posted by rpm
Don't want no short people round here!
(Unless they are blonde and female under 5' 2")
careful rpm, most people under 5'2 and blonde are in the 5th grade :)
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Originally posted by 68Turbo
Look at the biography of Kobe Bryant. Yes, he is extremely intellignet. He knows about 6 languages.
Hell, he was smart enough to get off on a rape charge too!
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Originally posted by 68Turbo
Look at the biography of Kobe Bryant. Yes, he is extremely intellignet. He knows about 6 languages.
You're kidding right--basing a theory on one example(and it's 3 languages)? If your approach works, then Shaq should be brilliant, and the now defunct Shawn Bradley should be able to move objects with his mind.
Here's a perfectly valid counter-example:
My ex-roommate is 6'8''. Total moron.
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Japanese people are on average shorter than those people of many countries. I think you'd be foolish to consider them less than of average intelligence.
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Originally posted by dmf
careful rpm, most people under 5'2" and blonde are in the 5th grade :)
I was refering to those that have graduated high school, dmf.
My last 2 girlfriends were both under 5'2" and over 30. :cool:
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Originally posted by lukster
Japanese people are on average shorter than those people of many countries. I think you'd be foolish to consider them less than of average intelligence.
Which is exactly why if you wanted to test the validity of this theory, you'd have to test Japanese people against other Japanese people, finding out if serious hieght deviations among that specific population accounted for any serious deviationsin IQ. Comparing Scandinavians to, say, Koreans, and trying to collect any significant data would be plain silly.
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Originally posted by rpm
I was refering to those that have graduated high school, dmf.
My last 2 girlfriends were both under 5'2" and over 30. :cool:
Just had to clarify rpm, you gotta be careful what you wish for nowdays
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I totally agree!
(http://www.bartcop.com/kristen-chenoweth-bikini.jpg)
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Originally posted by rpm
I totally agree!
(http://www.bartcop.com/kristen-chenoweth-bikini.jpg)
Damn.... other than the fake boobies, that chick is UGLY as sin and looks as though she needs a meal or 6....
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Originally posted by Neubob
Which is exactly why if you wanted to test the validity of this theory, you'd have to test Japanese people against other Japanese people, finding out if serious hieght deviations among that specific population accounted for any serious deviationsin IQ. Comparing Scandinavians to, say, Koreans, and trying to collect any significant data would be plain silly.
Which goes back to how you measure "smartness". If it is an absolute and quantifiable "ability" then one race that is on average taller than another should on average be smarter. Perhaps their theory doesn't take into account other factors which may be more relavent.
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since the term "short" describes a minority of people, and since the term "tall" describes a minority of people, what is the intelligence of "normal" height people when compared to both the shortest and tallest segments of the population?
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Originally posted by lukster
Which goes back to how you measure "smartness". If it is an absolute and quantifiable "ability" then one race that is on average taller than another should on average be smarter. Perhaps their theory doesn't take into account other factors which may be more relavent.
They mentioned something about cognative tests. I'm assuming that these are variations on the IQ tests that many of us are familiar with where the subject is asked to complete a pattern of numbers, letters, designs, or something of the like. There're also ways to measure short-term memory, as well as the ability to mentally organize pieces of information, to make logical conclusions based on loosely-related facts, or to draw parallels from totally different situations(anyone here ever take the LSAT?). All these tests, however, generally measure different types of intelligence, of which there are several (linguistic, logical-mathematical, kinesthetic, spatial, musical, intepersonal, intrapersonal link (http://www.professorlamp.com/ed/TAG/7_Intelligences.html)). It has been proven, however, that the most successful people are those who take these innate talents and combine them in the most pragmatic ways. Put plainly, somebody who is mathematically brilliant, but an inter/intrapersonal moron, might not do as well as somebody with less mathematical ability but a better pre-disposition for activities like marketing (Bill Gates is a perfect example of how it's better to combine than to merely specialize).
Personally, I think this study is questionable at best. Being tall is definitely a social advantage--which I think accounts for most of whatever disparities were observed. On the flip side, you take a look at most of the world's mega-successful individuals, from Alexander the Great to Bill Gates, I'd be willing to bet that they're of average if not below average stature. The reason is simple:
An inferiority complex coupled with too much testosterone and tempered with a decent intellect will get you farther than raw brains alone.
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rpm, that woman is as real as a 3 dollar bill.
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oh, "taller" people, i thought you said "trailer" people. my bad,:O