One of the things I'm recurrently intrigued by, and have commented on in this blog, is the photograph of masses of people who have the same appearance. Usually these days the photo is of North Korean dancers or military performing in unison. (In older days it was the Chinese military.) Everyone is the same height and much the same physiognomy, though I'll quickly stipulate to a native of the country, everyone looks different, an individual.
The explanation I've heard for such uniformity, particularly of heights, is that when there are environmental constraints the phenotype is restricted, and the full potential of the genotype is not realized. But in an environment of abundance genes can exert their full influence. That could be an explanation why Americans come in such a variety of shapes and sizes and North Koreans don't.
I wonder: height and perhaps weight are the most evident characteristics, but are there other characteristics which are limited by the environment? Certainly we know that the society means Shakespeare's sister never wrote a play, but that's not quite what I'm looking at. Just a thought.
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