View source for SGU Episode 852

=== Cara's Response ===

'''C:''' OK, so I agree with the guys that the US government didn't poison the alcohol. I do think that poisoning happened. And I think that the government was aware of the poisoning and didn't do anything about it. But I don't think that they actually actively put methanol into and, yeah, Evan, I think you're right, it's methanol. That was like one of the big causes of toxicity at the time. So it's really between it's between the damn hat and the height, the hat and height. OK, so I just one more time I have to reread this. The average height of Europeans in the Middle Ages was actually greater than in the 16th and 19th centuries, with average height not returning to Middle Age average until the late 20th century and still only slightly less than modern Europeans. That is so-

'''E:''' A bit convoluted.

'''S:''' I know, that's why, I know that. And so there was a lot of information I was trying to pack into one paragraph.

'''C:''' Because I think most of us go to Napoleon, right? We say, oh, Napoleon wasn't actually short. He was the average height for his time. And that's like a myth that we've busted and we're comfortable with that.

'''S:''' But what I'm saying here is that if you map out the average height of Europeans, it was in the Middle Ages, it was only a little bit less than the average height today. It then dipped for 300 years and then recovered, but not really getting back to Middle Age height until the late 20th century and then slightly exceeding the Middle Age average height in now in the 21st century. Does that make sense? As opposed to the myth, then, therefore, is that people in the Middle Ages were shorter than people today.

'''C:''' Right. I'm wondering if that one isn't true because of drought and serious events, historical events that have caused, like nutritional events that have caused dips, but that like humans are humans. And unless there's an external cue, we haven't evolved that much in 400 years. There hasn't been a big change in our DNA. It's really like these are epiphenomena. And so was the diet in the Middle Ages so poor? Did it gradually improve or have we had had these dips where there were these global food shortages and people just dramatically shrunk because of these effects, like these grandfather effects of that or grandmother effects, and then came back around? That one could be true. So the cowboy hat thing, it was introduced in 1865. It did not become popular until the 20th century. Most popular hat for cowboys in the... And to be clear, OK, so I grew up in Texas and I think of the cowboy hat as a very Mexican thing, like Vaquero, like Caballero, like like these bros wore these hats during all these wars and during like I thought that the Mexican farmers and like cattle herders brought us the cowboy hat and that would fly in the face of this. So maybe I'll say that that one is the fiction, but I don't know if I'm right. I think that, yeah, I think we got it from Mexico.

'''S:''' OK, and Jay.