Don’t Durex make different sizes for different global markets? That suggests there is some evidence for at least one body part being a different size….

The condition where the frenulum is short and hampers the movement of the tongue is called ankyloglossia. It might not be the case that your friend has a short tongue, just limited mobility.

anything that’s hereditary is based in genes.. doh! perhaps you are referring to more environment (cultural) vs genetic

one interesting examples of seemingly random traits being controlled for by genes… is they took flies and put them into a y-maze and let them go. some flies when right, some when left. they took the ones that went left, and bred them together and then ran the test again w/offspring, only keeping offspring that went left-again in the y-maze. they did this for many generations, for both left population and right population. over many generations they created flies that reliably went left or right based on the lineage >90% of the time. if the instinct to go right or left can be determined by genes, there’s no doubt in my mind that levels of fear can also be attributed partially to genes.

Kiwis (such as myself), on the other hand, have a very recent history. So taking everything in stride and without a care in the world is just a part of our cultural heritage. And so it is altogether natural for us to experience excitement or surprise more than fear.

When it comes down to it, it’s a psychologically hereditary matter, not a biologically hereditary one.

No.

“The average size of body parts defers among ethnic groups. You just cannot deny that.”
Actually, yes you can, as there is absolutely zero scientific basis for such a claim.

I too suffer from a short tongue. It has made my life as an Englishman very stressful.

Because they don’t realize those countries are multi-ethnic.

http://www.denverpost.com/politicswestnews/ci_10503487?source=bb

Jokes aside, the idea that the ONLY differences between different ethnicities and races of people are the kinds visible, like skin color and hair, doesn’t really make any sense. It seems like knee-jerk reaction under the political correctness flag, or some perceived association to eugenics.
It’s a fact that different races tend to have different levels of susceptibilities to various diseases and genetic disorders. So, IF it can be proven that behavioral differences can be attributed to genetics and not just culture, which does seem plausible, than at least this claim wouldn’t be totally absurd.

The video segment says that, serotonin transporters are a protein in the brain that reduces fear, and that genetics are responsible for how much is produced. It’s claimed that 97% of Japanese people have the gene that produces less. That certainly seems plausible to me.

I can’t tell from this video alone where any discrepancies may be, aside from the shoddy classifications of people around the world.

This is more and more the kind of recent bull masquerading as science that I’m coming across recently all over the web. It’s disturbing how much non-scientific methodology is being used in the name of science. Don’t these people get a drilling in the dangers of confirmation bias, conflict of interest, etc. in University? Or do they just spend 3 years @rsing around and then sit their final exams? Yep, that’d be it.

P.S. Can somebody turn down the insane spam filter? Quotation marks are part of the English language.

The truth is that 95% of human genomes are classified as “junk” by geneticists and the human genome project, which was so triumphant about their now “completed” mapping work, have only figured out and mapped the 5% which they feel is relevant at this time. That leaves a whole lot of wiggle room for hacks to assert that some of the remaining 95% controls whatever they say it does.

Fear is almost certainly related to culture and upbringing. If the Japanese are risk-averse and fearful, it’s because their culture inculcates them to be so.

I didn’t know that white American mice were more afraid of Plexiglas floors than black American mice.

If Uri Geller or James Hydrick ever showed up on some Japanese TV show, the country would go into a frenzy. They wouldn’t even think of inviting a kind of James Randi to check it out.

Not sure I give this any more credence than the very disappointing Boyd de Menthe with his “Why the Japanese are Superior People’ thing.

I live as if there are no superior or inferior people. Just people.

A “unique” fear gene? Gimme a break.

How do you explain the ethnic Japanese living abroad in, say, Hawaii and California?!

I know a guy with 2 Japanese parents born abroad now living in Japan, and he’s more courageous than me.