Lloyd rants: It's not an 'ism', it's just a correlation!

[ASaxonAtHeart]

Why is it that whenever I watch one of your videos I find myself believing something that I could never have considered myself believing before?

Damn you!

[vanRijn64]

Comments now require approval? I have only just noticed this or is it a new thing? (Not that I am critical of it if applied correctly).

[lindybeige]

@vanRijn64 All channels have the option to set comments as requiring approval or not. I set mine to requiring approval, mainly because it means that they are drawn to my attention, and I can reply to them. I approve 99% of them.

[vanRijn64]

@lindybeige A good use of the feature, it seems to work! By the way, have you ever heard of a correlation between height and surname? For the life of me I cannot find a reference but I remember reading it in a book some years ago (Probably a book by Karl Kruszelnicki) which suggested that a study had found that 'Smith's were, on average, taller than 'Taylor's (in the UK) and that this might be due to the occupational description and the type of person typical of that occupation at the time.

[vanRijn64]

@lindybeige Although (unless I imagined it of course), you could probably 'find' this correlation if you compared enough names assuming a relatively small sample size. I think the sample size mentioned was reasonable, at least at the time I thought it was fair. Obviously it would not be surprising to find differences in the average height (weight, income, etc etc) of people with different cultural names. The average Schmidt is almost certainly taller than the average MacGowan. What's in a name?

[lindybeige]

@vanRijn64 Well, yes, some I would expect, such as the average Bjørnsen's being taller than the average Wu. Recent studies into men in Britain have found VERY percentages of men with the same surname sharing the same Y chromosome, suggesting that men are descended from very few male ancestors, so if, say a Mr Sykes were very tall...

[vanRijn64]

I agree with this video, at least the explanation that correlation does not imply causation.

[Maehedrose]

I think it safe to suggest that anyone who doesn't favor a meritocracy should immediately be pulled from the consideration for being anything important whatsoever. I mean, that doesn't say much about their own estimation of their merit then, does it?

[Maehedrose]

I thought it vaguely worth pointing out that young babies will respond to the picture of a face - such as the classic "smiley face" - more than they'll respond to human faces as well. Babies are predisposed to respond to faces and are only responding to the symmetry of the "prettier face" rather than anything else which might be considered "beautiful".

[Okaruwazashi]

To be fair, it might be heightism, but not the kind that comes from an ideology, just a subconscious favouratism. I doubt anyone on the show thought there was actual, conscious heightism.

[otnomnoraa]

@Okaruwazashi It also has to do with the fact that shortness correlates with lower socioeconomic factors, like being a recent immigrant, or being born with FAS. Remember, it's just a correlation.

[peanutbutterrob]

I too do not believe in the idea of political wings, or rather the validity of the idea of political wings.

[Andernerd]

@spawngts Pardon me for being skeptical, but you wouldn't happen to be short, would you?

[lindybeige]

@Andernerd No, I am not short.

[Andernerd]

@lindybeige I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about spawngts.

[madasnave]

height also means your noticed more and those who are unnoticed will likely not get promoted as they are UNNOTICED!

[Cstrife234]

I'd never even heard of such a phenomenon before this. What do they get paid more, a few cents? Who gives a flying nun? ;D It seems like they had no material to offer to the public, so they invented something by making the facts seem in favor of favoritism (oh noes, I used an ism :D).

[lindybeige]

@Cstrife234 Another correlation is that left handed people get paid more than right-handed people, but we don't get accused of being "rightist".

[fashionhistorylover]

@lindybeige People respect tall people more than short people so it is discrimination. A man was 5'5 before he had his legs lenthened and people treated him better when he grew to 5'8. Shorter people also have trouble finding dates unlike right handed people.

[lindybeige]

@fashionhistorylover If there is a correlation, then it is questionable that it is bad and irrational discrimination.  People discriminate against people who have been in prison several times. This is rational. A good shopper is a discriminating shopper.

[pedosintalgon]

@fashionhistorylover

This is normal. Self respecting women only want to spread good genes. Bearing a child is a tiresome thing and if possible, they want to get through this experience only for the best child possible.

If we didn't have this discrimination (in the broader sense) we wouldn't be as smart, sociable and healthy as we are today.

Generally, women that chose mates less attractive then they are, are looked down upon by our society.

[fairguynova]

@pedosintalgon,

So if a woman chooses a short man, she does not respect herself? Can you verify this?

[ajb7876]

@fashionhistorylover As a short arse myself(5"6) I can speak to the truth of this,people do tend to dismiss you and its really annoying,its the origin of the "small man syndrome" short men ARE more aggressive for the simple reason that we have to be,if you`re not ready to bare your teeth(as long as you can back it up with action) you`ll spend your whole life getting walked over.

[fashionhistorylover]

@lindybeige Short people are openly discriminated against unlike right handed people that is the difference.

[fairguynova]

@fashionhistorylover,

Bingo!

[DisgruntledPeasant]

a very good video, but QI is a comedy show and im more than sure stephens outrage was just for comic effect, he's an inteligent guy :P

[JayTsunDayVis]

Taller isn't really healthier if U take on the side of life span, aside from that. Shorter people tend 2 not exercise, & allot of them were in some aspect were discouraged N sports & physical activities N their childhood. Thus we all know tht thse who exercise tend 2B happier & tend 2 lean on 4 healthier diet. (In the western world @ least) But N the east, shorter people shows clear advantage N term of longer life over their taller counterparts. It's sad that this world thinks tall is superior.

[JayTsunDayVis]

Also, on top of tht, studies found tht people who exercise & have a healthier diet perform better N school. Now another thing that I caught on, is tht shorter people tend 2 lack confidence & I can see tht just by looking @ their body language. People with a lower self image tend 2 do much poorer N school than those who have a good self image. So w these combination, the theory of shorter is less healthy is blown out of the water. Its really the attitude f this society tht effects shorter people.

[lindybeige]

@JayTsunDayVis Do not confuse correlation with cause and effect. If shorter people are less able, then they may be less confident. If one observes this lack of confidence, then one might confuse the correlation with a cause. Do they lack confidence because they are short or because they are not so able? They may be doubly disadvantaged if their lack of ability is publicly labelled by their shortness. Plenty of short people are very confident, so shortness does not CAUSE shyness.

[JayTsunDayVis]

I'm not saying being short is the cause but rather what society around them asserts, core confidence seem to be something that ALLOT of shorter men lack and with that high number, it will greatly effect statistic. First of all, allot of children @ a young age if they're short, their esteem get beat down over little thing that he couldn't do by not able to reach things, taller kids laugh @ them & now he thinks he is less capable. I've seen it happen too many times, I know the cause.

[JayTsunDayVis]

The I.Q. argument would makes sense, since women have lower IQ then men on average and blacks on average have lower IQ than whites.

So I guess people just pay intelligent people more money. The world really gotta change, and yes that is still heightism, racism sexism, etc. Intelligence is NO excuse, the performance on the job is what makes the company good, sure intelligence can help... But people can learn.

[lindybeige]

@JayTsunDayVis Where do you get that women have lower IQs than men on average? I think you have been misinformed.

[JayTsunDayVis]

Go look it up, the last time I was carious about IQ statistic, women globally falls shorter than the men.

[lindybeige]

@JayTsunDayVis I have read quite widely about IQ, and the consistent finding is that IQ average out the same for men and women. This is partly because they devise the tests so that this happens, as men do better in the spatial stuff, but women do better in the language stuff.

[JayTsunDayVis]

True, but I'm talking about the I.Q. itself, men tend to score up with a higher IQ overall.

[lindybeige]

@JayTsunDayVis Clearly you have been reading different texts.  Possibly you are confused by the fact that men dominate at the high end of IQ, but this is balanced by the fact that they also dominate at the low end (most geniuses and dunces are male).

[GasPoweredWitch]

Short arses are whining bastards.

[sparks12001]

:D your awesome, such a voice of reason, a person with actual intelligence in a sea of fake and gay. The world certainly is getting dumber :(.

[spawngts]

I'm confused by your assertions.

Are you saying that heightism doesn't exist if there is an innate human preference for taller height, due to natural selection?

If so...your logic is flawed.

Suppose that there is an innate human preference for lighter skin over darker skin because of natural selection. Would this mean that there is no such thing as racism?

You act as if evolutionary biology and sociology are mutually exclusive. Maybe what you say is true AND height bigotry exists.

[lindybeige]

No, I am saying that if there were some job for which being tall is irrelevant, but which was demanding in other ways and therefore well-paid, then there is a small statistical bias towards that job's going to a taller person, since height correlates with other factors that actually got the person the job.

There cannot be an innate preference for light skin over dark across the whole of humanity. If there were, we would all be albinos.

[lindybeige]

If something is a genuine indicator of something else, then it is rational and good to use it as a guide, and it is therefore not bigotry.

[spawngts]

You're applying a macro correlation to individual social interactions. So you're saying that it's O.K. to deny a qualified individual a job due to their height because short people (as a group) tend to possess less of these mysterious qualities that tall people possess that allow them to get jobs more often and promoted more?

Are you serious?

What do you say about the studies which show actual animus against short people? (See: Harvard's Implicit Association Test) Is that justified too?

[lindybeige]

No I am not saying that. Let us imagine that every job interview in the USA is completely effective at finding the best people for the job. If this were the case, then taller people would get paid more, because they would be good in other ways. I never said that anyone should deny a good candidate a job because of their lack of height. That would be plain stupid.

[spawngts]

Why assume something that we know to be false? I could just as easily assert that there is no racism by saying "let us imagine that every American has equal access to resources and opportunities to develop and foster their talents". But such an argument cannot be supported because it is based on a hypothetical which is a complete lie.

Job markets are inefficient. People are often influenced by false prejudices, such as "short people lack mysterious characteristics that tall people possess".

[lindybeige]

Okay, let me come at this from another angle then: the conclusion that hightism is the explanation for the observation is a bad conclusion based on false logic. One would expect taller people to be paid more anyway, because of the correlates.  It could of course be that irrational prejudice exists as well.

[spawngts]

I think we sort of agree on this. However, for your theory to have any merit, you'd have to conclude that (on average) a slightly more intelligent short person would fair better than a slightly less intelligent tall person. If the height/wage gap is due merely to a correlation with I.Q., then this would have to be the case.

However, I doubt that you'd find that to be true. Employers (on average) would pick the less intelligent taller candidate due to the social stigma against short people.

[johnsmith99ify]

This video is bullshit, some tall guy tellingme that tall people (on average) are superior.

Tall people are less intelligent on average and it is very obvious.

[lindybeige]

Given that superior means "above" I suppose that tall people are on average superior. So had I been short, would the argument have then made sense to you?

[LordyCyrus]

I'm somewhat sceptical about the cause of this "height-ism" being entirely physical. If I have understood you correctly then the point you are forwarding is that taller people will, because of their better health, become richer.

I would forward that height is often an indicator of good, varied diet (especially during childhood) which in turn is a good indicator of somebody from a richer background. It's quite amazing the nutrient deficiencies that can be found even today in the USA.

[lindybeige]

Yes, and that's a correlation too. If you are more successful, then you are more likely to be well fed, and so on and so on.

[LordyCyrus]

@lindybeige

Too true, I was just tweaking the order of cause and effect. So the groundbreaking news from QI is that people from wealthier backgrounds tend to, on average, become more wealthy than those from poor backgrounds.

Truly Earth-shattering stuff. I can appreciate your grumblings.

[duran3d]

Could it be that healthier people, in average, are also slighty better workers (for whatever reason) than unhealthy people (and that's why they get paid more)?

[lindybeige]

Well, on average, yes. People in poor health will be trying to rest to recover. Healthy people are more alert and energetic for a start. Again, if you look at a sufficiently enormous sample of people, you'll pick up the correlation.

[darkJohnSmith]

Good call, Loyd! I'm in a Statistics class and what you say is true. Too often do statisticians confuse correlation or association with causation. What you've done is revealed a hidden variable that somebody was to daft to notice.

[burren1]

Hah! Resorting to subliminal images are we :)

[Thesumofallthings]

You are ugly and daft, and if you'd have lived in Hitler's Germany you'd have been swooning over him, you goose-stepping nazi wannabe.

[lindybeige]

Very profoundly I hope that I would never have liked Hitler. We had an equivalent of him in Britain: Oswald Mosely, and he never became popular largely because the British found him ridiculous, which I think says good things about the Brits. If you think that what I have said makes me a Nazi-wannabe, then you have not understood what I have said. I have a video about the Nazis coming soon that you might like to watch.

[Supermikhail]

So, suppose, there was a fashion or a government instruction, that short and ugly people should be favoured over tall and beautiful. And tall and beautiful people somehow prevented from reproduction. There may be then a dramatic increase of birth mortality and genetic diseases. Or the ugly and the short become the tomorrows beautiful, and that would prove that the human genome has become a mish-mash of good and bad genes due to the lack of natural selection. Wouldn't it?

[lindybeige]

Those ugly people would still have the same preferences in mate choices: healthy-looking types. It would be a set-back for humanity, yes. Selection is selection, regardless of whether it is natural. In 1914 it was good to be short and flat-footed in Britain, because they were rejecting these men from the army.

[meversbergii]

Appearance is everything. I stand at 5'3" and have lost out various positions to taller people, including those not so clever.

M.

[lindybeige]

And I am 6' 3" and have so far always lost out to a shorter person.

[youmaus]

The biggest lies that have ever been told are the ones that a new vocabulary of jargon had to be coined in order to tell them. One of the hallmarks of bullshit jargon is that the term ends in "ist" or "ïsm".

[asdfers]

Well that's all well and good, but if the best man is a short man but a taller bloke get's the job, then it is still an 'ism'.

[lindybeige]

In an isolated case, this could be true. Do you know anyone who would hire someone just because he was tall (not a basketball coach)?

[stonehartfloydfan]

Well said!

[aikifox85]

Part 4 (Last)

I'm currently reading "The Mismeasure of Man" by Stephen Jay Gould... I'm only about a quarter into it so far, but it's been fairly enlightening for me personally thus far. A lot of what he talks about could be tied into this discussion.

[lindybeige]

Be VERY wary of SJG. I used to subscribe to the human behaviour and evolution mailing list, and every day there would be an e-mail titled "Latest howler from Gould". His basic problem seems to have been that he never "got" evolution. The public's problem seems to be that he wrote well, and on time, so newspaper editors loved him.

[aikifox85]

I'm always very wary of everything I read or listen to (including you, despite the fact that I generally find you likable and intelligent).

As I said I haven't yet finished the book, but from what I have read so far, I tend to agree with him.

So, I have to ask, do you also believe that intelligence/ beauty/ ability/ etc. are inherent to race/ gender? Do you think I am necessarily dumber than you because I am female?

[lindybeige]

An awful lot of work has been done on the intelligence of men and women, and the results are pretty consistent: in terms of basic common sense, there is no measurable difference between men and women. Women score higher in language related tasks, especially as they get older, and men score better in spatial tasks. As ever, the extreme results are dominated by men.

[aikifox85]

That isn't what I'd asked you. Not everything can be determined by a test. I might do well on some test, but if you drop me off in the middle of some Central American jungle how long would I last? And yet there are people living there (that I have witnessed myself) that can very easily and casually tell you which plants are for what and can build just about anything (and sturdy too!) with just the vegetation that surround them. It's not as easy to measure potential. I want your personal belief.

[lindybeige]

While I disagree with you about the tests, I can say that my personal belief is that men and women's brains basically work the same way, and that intelligent parents tend to beget intelligent children, so both sexes can pass on intelligence to children of both sexes. Also, men and women evolved alongside each other. If women got clever enough to fool men consistently, men would then evolve to see through their wiles, so there is an arms race, and the overall result is a draw.

[lindybeige]

And yes, be wary of what I say. I am aware that for the sake on concision in these videos and comments, I sometimes have to cut corners a bit.

[aikifox85]

Part 3

Granted, beautiful and/or rich people have access to better educational resources and opportunities, but that says nothing about their actual potential... consider the babies of a beautiful/ tall family and an ugly/ short family being somehow switched at birth. The ugly/short baby would likely have a greater chance at getting a better job than the pretty/tall baby due to environment/ resources/ connections.

[lindybeige]

Studies on twins reared apart show this to be untrue to a surprising degree.

[aikifox85]

Would you mind sharing a reference or two about this? I'm curious and would like to read it/ them.

[lindybeige]

I'm afraid I don't have them to hand at the minute.  I'm sure Google would turn up quite a bit, some of which might not be rubbish .

[aikifox85]

Are there any keywords or names I should look under? Anything you can recall?

[lindybeige]

I'm on the case, but please don't hold your breath.

[lindybeige]

Actually, a great book which covers the general topic is "The Nurture Assumption" by Barbara someone, and another is the good but rather long "The Blank Slate" by Steven/Stephan Pinker.

For attraction/beauty see "The Mating Mind" by Geoff Miller, and "The Evolution of Desire" by David M Buss. I may have misremembered these details a bit.

[lindybeige]

Nurture Assumption is by Judith Rich Harris. Probably the best one of the above to start with.

If you have access to scientific papers, try

Tellegen A et al 1988

Personality Similarity in Twins Reared Apart and Together. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 54, No. 6, 1031-1039.

[aikifox85]

Part 2

Just considering the Western world, it used to be that fatter women were considered more attractive because it meant they could afford more food... now, fatter is ugly and slim/ athletic is attractive because it indicates that you can afford the time to work out and the cost of healthier (ie organic) foods.

However, I have to disagree when it comes to linking beauty (or height) with intelligence or ability.

[lindybeige]

"Organic" foods have been shown time and time again to be less or no more healthy than normal food. Good traits all link. IQ correlates with pay, it also correlates to health, beauty etc. Wishing that this were not so does not make it untrue.

[aikifox85]

As an amusing aside (ie not so much an argument, just a funny thought), if IQ really mattered with regard to pay, my college professors would be making more money than the (American) football coach. Yet he makes roughly 3 times more than they do.

[lindybeige]

It does relate to pay. The top football coaches (and players!) have on average higher IQs, and so this will affect the national averages.

[aikifox85]

And yet, so many of the jocks I had classes with seemed to be total brainless goons... (insert deity or personal hero here) save us if we ever have to rely on them for survival! lol :)

[lindybeige]

Pretending to be stupid is a very clever tactic.

[lindybeige]

So is pretending to be clever (like I do).

[aikifox85]

Part 1

I agree with you to some extent. I agree that there really isn't any "heightism", it's just coincidental. And I'll give you that we use beauty as an indicator of health, wealth, etc... that's just basic sexual selection. However, I would like to point out that what is considered beautiful varies by culture (and time period for that matter).

[lindybeige]

Many studies have looked into this, and found that all periods and cultures today value the same basic elements of beauty. The main variable seems to be how thin a person should be, and this correlates with wealth and what is known as "female stress". For more on this see the paper "Was the Duchess of Windsor right?"

[anachronisticon]

I think people are getting confused between proximate & ultimate causation & I would recommend you trust Lloyd on this as his videos & articles on evolution are very well thought out, though we must always beware of adaptationist thinking.

[MrMonkeybat]

Thank you its nice to know there are some sensible people in the world. It drives me crazy all these people who want to "fight prejudice" by using "affirmative action" to give important jobs to people with features that correlate with low IQ's.

[hathiphnath]

... and this is why NBA has been driving those MENSA-people nuts for decades! =)

[animerox1341]

So you're a eugenicist?

[lindybeige]

Not exactly.  I plan to do a video about that.

[ajaxtorbin]

Just in case it hasn't been said yet, its a bad almost pun based on 'racism' . Racism, sexism, heightism. Yes its a tortured mash of the English language, but it's not unique to Mr. Fry; blame pop culture.

[taitungknight]

My goodness Lindy, you've really been barking up the wrong tree on this one, and confusing all kinds of issues.

Beauty is not a sign of either health, or of intelligence. All three are quite separate. They are however, all evolutional survival strategies that allow one to be able to choose a better mate. There's also a whole heap of weird stuff, like skipped generations and so on.

As for tall people, I think that's because at school they're naturally good at sport, and then become leaders.

[lindybeige]

No, you must understand that the physical shape of faces evolves AND the instincts of people to appreciate that shape. The most beautiful giraffe isn't going to attract me a mate. Beauty is in the instincts of the beholder. Beauty is a very good predictor of fitness. If it were not, it would be disastrous for us to have evolved to find it beautiful. Indeed it is beautiful only BECAUSE it is a good truthful advertisement of quality.

[taitungknight]

@lindybeige

Why?

I don't think you're right at all. If it were a predictor of UNfitness, it would certainly be disastrous, but not if it's neutral. It's enough that it's aesthetically pleasing.

Let's say I have a beauty gauge of 1-10. Women who are 5 or over are pretty, 7 + hot, and 9+ stunning. Now when I get a long term partner, I want to be physically attracted to her, and want to stay attracted. I don't want to spend 50 years married to a hippo. It's not about health at all.

[taitungknight]

@lindybeige

Beauty is a factor in my choice of mate, but not the only factor. It's a survival strategy in it's own right. Often, the only thing beauty does is gets you into round two of the dating (or employment) selection process. As such, it's valuable, and is not necessarily an indicator of health or intelligence or other fitness. They are separate.

[lindybeige]

Sorry, but you really haven't got it at all. I can recommend some books on this if you are interested.

WHY is it aesthetically pleasing? Because you have evolved to find it so, and why have you done that?

[letmeinyourwindow]

@lindybeige

There are certain features that we as a species instinctively value, such as symmetry and proportion. These values do give us some clues about health and reproductive fitness. However, the idea of "beauty" is a cultural construct, the definition of which varies through time and across cultures. We have evolved the ability to appreciate beauty, but what is beautiful is culturally defined.

[lindybeige]

The evidence against this out-dated theory is over-whelming.

[Garbeld]

The point is that we evolved to appreciate beauty for a reason:

Yes, the exact definition of "beautiful" varies - but so do the circumstances in which these definitions form.

Aside from that, evolution is a slow process, and natural selection extremely messy; the drive towards 'perfection' is only measurable when averaging out over a very large timescale, relative to which cultural 'fads' are quite transient.

[Tripyourift2]

LMao! the ugly ass woman at 2:06 right after the hot one

[CountArtha]

I keep trying to explain that it's not sexist when a woman leaves work to have kids and men get promoted ahead of her.

[Loveyouall91]

@CountArtha Women have jobs?What barbaric country do you live in?

[rawrbbqsawce]

someone has to make teh sammiches