why are Asians shorter than Eurasians?
603879
I am southeast asian and yes I am short, BUT, I've seen plenty of tall Vietnamese over 5'10". I think it has a lot to do with the amount of food. Southeast asian countries are still very poor. Not much food means you can't grow as tall. Korea and Japan use to be known to have short people but since there economy is better people can eat better and the younger generation are as tall as everyone else. I'm taller than my dad (I'm not 2nd generation) and I bet my kids will be taller than me. So eventually southeast asians will be the same height as everyone else. The only truly short peole in the world are the pygmies which live in the west african forest.
214499
It all has to do with altitude. The higher you are from the earth, the colder it gets. Air is also thinner.
539343
Asian eyes are "thin" due to fatty deposits under the upper and lower eyelids.  They evolved this way because the Asian winters are bitterly cold and thus the fat helps to insulate the eyeball.  Aboriginal Americans are thought to have cross over from Asia on a land bridge in the Bering Straits therefore Amerinds also exhibit this trait.
301010
i think it's cultural. asians are sort of raised as polite little kids, and i guess its seen as more respectable around elders and everything. \n\ni think this is especially true in japanese culture... everyone there is taught to be really really really polite, to bow when greeting others, not to raise their voices, etc.
272085
It is impossible to say that all asians are smart because there is an overwhelming majority of asians who are not smart.  I believe it appears to many people that asians are smart for a few reasons.  First, mostly wealthy and succesful asians asre the ones who are lucky enough to immigrate to America, so it is only natural that many asians in America are the cream-of-the-crop.  Second, asian parents are very strict and have extremely high expectations for their children, so they push them to do well in school whether they like to or not.
957847
Contrary to what many people think, genetics is the primary cause of many of the gaps we see between races. I know many people want the "feel good" answer that any differences are caused by society and environmental differences and will accuse anyone that doesn't think as they do as "racist" but I will have to say this is a complete disservice to science. Blacks are not better in sports simply because they work harder at it nor do Asians thrive in academics simply because they study harder. Genetics play a vital role. There are many scientific studies done on the issue of race and intelligence.\n\nA general consenus among scientists as published in the Wall Street Journal in 1994 titled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" shows a consenus among scientists that average IQ are as followed in America. Blacks 85. Whites 100. East Asians 106. Further studies done and published in science journals show IQ to be overwhelmingly genetic. Minnesota Twins Study by Dr. Thomas Bouchard, the most famous twin study done, shows that identical twins separated at birth are significantly more similiar in IQ than fraternal twins raised together with a genetic correlation of .80. \n\nCranial size studies show published in the science journal Intelligence 1997, 25, pg 15 shows the average cranial size as followed. Blacks 1,267 cm3. Whites 1347 cm3. East Asians 1364 cm3. The link between cranial size and intelligence are strongly established in several scientific studies published in journals. "Brain Size and Cognitive Ability" in the 1996 issue of the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review surveyed all the published research on this topic. It included studies that used the state-of-the-art technique known as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which gives a very good image of the human brain. There were eight of these studies with a total sample size of 381 adults. The overall correlation between IQ and brain size measured by MRI is 0.44. \n\nA survey done among scientists in the intelligence field by Snyderman show that the majority of scientists believe that the White-Black IQ gap has a genetic basis by a 3-1 margin compared to scientists who believe the White-Black IQ gap is purely environmental.\n\nSo why are Asians smarter? More specifically Northeast Asians? The scientific theories among scientists today hold the notion that the humans that left Africa 110,000 years ago into colder climates of Europe and Northern Asia required more thought and planning to obtain food than that of Africa. And that Northern Asia had more drastic temperatures than that of Europe. It's evolution at work.\n\nThe absolute hypocrisy in all this is those who believe in evolution but yet believe human races that lived in drastically different environments for 110,000 years will have innate genetic abilities across the board that match exactly. Let's not sacrifice science for political correctness.\n\nIn the following link, this person does a good job listing the scientific evidence on this issue:\n\nhttp://boards.billmaher.com/showthread.php?t=12668
437855
Maybe the "survival of the fittest"-rule doesn't count for every little detail in the genetic code. Is this possible?\n\nMaybe there was no particular function for this. Maybe the forefathers of asians and caucasians where quite simply different looking, one moved west the other east. They had no more contact and so each developed into a distinct race, with their own features.\n\nI don't know, i'm neither a biologist, nor a historian, nor anything else. \nIntriguing question. congratulations.
1021344
It has something to do with the area they live in. Body types are based on climate, landscape, food, and way of life.  Like Eskimo's for an extreme example, they are short and chubby because their diet consist of mostly fish and to be short and fat gives you a smaller body area to keep you warm.  Where as in Africa the natives are tall and skinny giving them longer body area to keep them cool in hot climates.  These are extreme examples but the same applies to European white people, but it is not as noticeable because American white people come from Europe, but our features have changed over time because of food, climate and living conditions.  It all boils down to where people originated and evolved from.
147795
Not all white girls look better than asians, same applies vice versa. It all depends on the individuals you're comparing! Furthermore, even if you're comparing 2 equally beautiful girls, there won't be any conclusion. Both would be beautiful in their own ways.
976428
There are Mongoloid Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, etc.) and there are Caucasoid Asians (Persians, Arabs, Indians, etc.). Skin color has absolutely nothing to do with race. The term "white" is not meant to be taken literally. Race is more about skull size and bone structure. By definition, Caucasian ("white") people are those whose ancestry originated in not only Europe but North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia as well as much of Central Asia.
674300
>>>> Why do chinese people have chinky eyes?\n\nAcceptable common terms are slanted, slit or (preferably) Mongoloid. Chinky is just plain offensive.\n\nAnyway Chinese people have slit eyes because the skin beneath the eyelid fold  folds upwards over the eye to some degree, producing a partial third eyelid know as an epicanthic fold.\n\nWhy do Chinese people have an epicanthic fold? Because humans evolved with an epicanthic fold. That particular feature isn't restricted to the Chinese, it is found amongst all East Asians and Native Americans and perhaps most surprisingly is also normal in the Khoi-San peoples of Africa. It is assumed that the first humans had the same basic eye shape found today in Chinese and San. Other human populations have since mutated in such a way that the epicanthic fold has been lost while Asians and San retain the ancestral condition.\n\n>>>>Why are there white people and black people?\n\nThere aren't. There are only two major skin types in this world: brown and not-brown.\n\nThe ancestral skin colour is assumed to be the brown colouration seen mostly amongst the Khoi-San and some South-East Asian populations but also fairly common amongst North-Western Europeans.\n\nThe brown skin type maintains the colour producing units of the skin in discrete clusters. The non-brown skin types have those colour producing units spread throughout the skin evenly.\n\nBlack and white skin are both largely the same, and both are of the non-brown type. the only difference is how much melanin the skin produces. There is no point at which you can say that a skin type stops being brown and becomes white as there is with the difference between brown and non-brown skin colours.\n\n\nThe reason some people have darker skin is because the skin has produced more melanin. People at the equator tend to have darker skin than people living further north or south, but it's a very poor relationship.\n\n\nThose people telling you that black skin relates to life in warm climates obviously aren't thinking. Brazilian Indians live in warm climates but they don't have black skin, and Tasmanian Aborigines live in cold climates and they do have black skin.  Skin colour has very little to do with climate and a lot to do with ancestry.
623509
My answer to this would be because it was the least inhospitable.  If humans can survive walking around naked, hunting and gathering, they do so.  It's only the crazy ones who moved to cold places or dry places that had to figure out things like clothes and shelter...and this led to more tinkering and then started the road to 'development.'  The native cultures in America were low tech as well...yes they had tech, as many civilizations in Africa did, but they didn't keep up with the crazy Europeans and Asians, and the Americas had things the Others wanted, so they invaded and killed/enslaved the natives.\n\nAfrica didn't have as much in the ways of things that the Eurasians wanted, other than Africans, so they left them more alone.  The cultures that evolved then in the Americas had the baseline of Eurasian technological influence to catch them up.  Other than mining, Africa didn't have much that the Eurasians invested in, so they lagged, and after the colonial empires collapsed there, Eurasian interest waned...they got left to their own devices to try and figure ot where to go next.\n\nOkay so Asian cultures are not as easy to classify...fairly mild there too but the Koreans and Chinese live in cold regions too so we'll count them as at least partly inhospitable.
1122536
don't Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics or maybe Persians hang out together? And Actually I think you have poor observation skills (if you have any at all). The truth is Asians are the ones you will notice all over hanging out  with different kinds of people. Go out there, think about it and observe harder.
870811
That is an age-old question and many researches have been done on the subject. I think, first of all it depends on the place you are in, ethnic origin, etc. In the USA research was done on a vast number of male students. They came to the conclusion that the average length for a person of Oriental origin was 4.8 inches, for a Caucasian it was around 6 inches and for an African it was 7 inches.\n\nMore recently another study was done worldwide and the conclusion was that the European White (Caucasian) had the biggest average, followed by The African Black, followed by the South Americans etc. The only thing consistent was that the Asians (Orientals) were the smallest average in the world.
110632
Homogeneous just means the same, or uniform throughout.  It doesn't necessarily apply to race.  You can certainly have a genetically homogeneous population, but that is a much higher level of sameness than a racially homogeneous population.  Within any racial group there is a huge amount of genetic variability.  \n\nOK, Kurdiatcha's response to my analysis is entirely correct. I will point out, though, that I never said it was anything other than speculation.  At any rate, I hadn't slept in about 3 days, and in that context my analysis made perfect sense to me.  Sorry!\n\nNew theory: I think the perseption that there is more physical diversity in Europe than Africa or Asia could be partially explained by the fact that Europe is geographically smaller.  So it's just that all the different groups are more crammed together and it ends up looking more diverse.\n_________\n\n>>>It was one of the better responses I’ve seen on Yahoo\n>>>answers. It just happened to be incorrect.\nSo I never use the expression "lol," but it seems rather appropriate here.  That was well said.  Thanks : )\n\nYou're probably right on my other theory too.  I should just stop speculating on this entirely.  I do want to point out, though, that the guy who posted the question and said Europeans look more different than Asians is Asian (at least he said so in another question), so I don't think you're entirely correct that people are always more tuned in to difference within their own racial group.  I wouldn't have bothered to speculate on the issue at all (after you shoot down my first theory, that is) except I thought it could possibly hold some tinsy bit of truth because of that.
407132
Not all Asians have small eyes. In fact, some Asians have bigger eyes than any other culture. \n\nThis question is like saying "Why are African-Americans dark?" or "Why are your eyes blue?"\n\nThey just do.
468142
Us Asians r jus sexier than the rest... simple as that :)