A Conversation about Height

I would like to reproduce here, in it's entirety, an email discussion that I had with a friend a few months ago. It all began with my sending him an interesting article discussing some obviously valid scientific research. The fact that I'm 6'8" and he is 5'7" had nothing to do with it.


Start discussion:

Jeff:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2357983

"...tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds."

Friend:

I tried to find the heights of various famous thinkers in the world, but found only one. Albert Einstein was 5’-9”. Okay, he’s got about 2” on me but Stephen Hawking’s in a wheelchair that’s much shorter than I am. I’ll accept my intelligence as being somewhere in between the two. Incidentally, did you know Napoleon was 5’-6”? I’m only 1” taller than Napoleon? No wonder Steve thinks I have a complex!

Jeff:

Unfortunately, your research was incomplete. I suppose that can be explained by your limited height/intelligence. Let's look more deeply at your arguments.

Napoleon is commonly thought of as being short. However, that was not the case. The average height of French men from 1800-1820 was 5'4" to 5'5". How tall was Napoleon? Here is an interesting statement.

"Napoléon's English detractors often took pleasure in caricaturing him as below average height. What they failed to take into account was that the diminutive height of 5 feet 2 inches he measured was in the French measure of the Paris foot, which is equivalent to 12.789 inches in English measurement. In fact, Napoléon was roughly 5 feet 6 inches which was quite standard for his time. "

So, Napoleon was actually somewhat tall when compared to his peers. I suppose you could make the argument that his intelligence was still low compared to modern man due to his height deformity (5'6", wow that is short!). However, compared to everyone else at the time, his height/intelligence was over average.

Einstein lived from 1879-1955. If we follow the same logical path as with Napoleon, we must examine the common height of men during that time. Of course, you must know that Einstein was born in Germany, and later emigrated to the United States. Let us review the average height for men in those two countries during that time. In Germany, the average height for military recruits in 1900 was 5'6". In the US, the average height for adult males in 1900 was 5'6" to 5'7". Einstein, as admitted in your argument, was 5'9". That is clearly far above average for both his country of birth and his adopted homeland. How he must have towered both mentally and vertically over the diminutive pigmies that surrounded him.

Your Stephen Hawking example is just sad.

Of course, our discussion cannot be complete without looking at the current expectations for height development in the modern world. The current average height for white males in the US is 5'10". Sadly, you fall far below this mark.

Here are a couple of links that might help you...
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=96896
http://www.abchomeopathy.com/forum2.php/43229/


with these at least you'd LOOK smarter...
http://www.increasingshoes.com/

(editor's note: I really like that last zinger!)

Friend:

“height deformity” !?! “diminutive pigmies” !?! I found the following web site in hopes of refuting your obviously flawed logic, but instead I am disgusted that a support group for short people actually exists. Take a look at the environmental advantages of being short – it’s as if they’re saying “smaller is better, we have less influence on the world!” Notable short people include Dudley Moore – GREAT! >:-(

http://www.shortsupport.org/Research/samaras.html

This conversation sucks.

(editor's note: observe that as he begins to lose the argument, he substitutes emotion and false outrage for logic!)

Previous Boss (about 6'5"):

Please remember that it is only a shell. I am sure that you're comfortable with your handicap.

Good for you!

PS - you guys need more work.

end discussion

At this point we both slink back to work.

I think it is simple to decide which argument was stronger. If you don't think I won, I'll have to assume that you are short and therefore couldn't understand what we were discussing!