On the notion of tall
Take a child. Show it two toy animals that differ in height and ask which is the mum and which is the dad. The youngster will probably point to the tallest and say: "That's the dad". Because that is what we see in real life. It is also the way humans, like animals, are usually depicted in children's books and films. Remember "Goldilocks and the three bears"? The bigness of Dad, the 'mediumness' of Mum and the littleness of Baby bear? It's not only fiction, though. On an average, men are indeed taller than women. Why? Undoubtedly, natural selection will have played a role. Tall men are imposing, and hence instinctively sensed as dominant figures that can offer protection. Over the course of time, female humans will have been attracted to them for status as well as to ensure their progeny's safety and, who knows, inheritance of the trait. But this doesn't explain the underlying biology that makes a man taller than a woman. Recently, an intriguing explanation emerged. We know that the SHOX protein is involved in bone growth and elongation. What was discovered is that the protein is less expressed in women than it is in men because of the chromosomal location of its gene.
