homer said:
Wow. So perhaps this does give credence to white people(or more specifically Germans) having superior genes? |
What it actually is, is that "white people", on average, live in locations with better access to higher quality food, resulting in better nutrition with regards to things needed for growth. Better nutrition when growing up = taller. Genetics does also play a part, but only on a person-by-person basis. More generally, countries that are poorer end up shorter, and it also works within populations.
Food quality is also why, if you look at averages in almost any country, the average over all adults is noticeably lower than the average for younger adults. Food quality across the world has been increasing.
Oh, and one extra factor - use of growth hormones in animal feeds has also become more common, and this is exhibited in rich countries, where we buy cuts of meat from a butcher, whereas in poor countries, they just buy an animal (dead or alive) and cut it up themselves. More exposure to growth hormones in our animal products = taller.
Badgenome - not bad (although Australia's closer to 23 million than 25 million). For the last two... the gender of our head of state should be fairly obvious, as the head of state recently celebrated their Diamond Jubilee (no harm in not knowing Governor-General, though - she's female, too). As for our national anthem and Gilligan's Island... it's completely true. Sadly, I can't find a video of it being performed in such a way... which is sad, because it sounds so cool. As an alternative, here's it being performed to the tune of a classic Australian rock song: Have a watch.
crissindahouse - the difference between Australia and Burundi is that Australia is a first-world english-speaking country that has close ties to America, significant political clout on the world stage, and is itself an entire continent as well (being the 6th largest country in the world, with the next largest, India, being about two fifths the size of Australia). Burundi, on the other hand, is a tiny African nation with few ties to the western world, no political clout, and speaks Kirundi and Swahili.
But then, the point of the quiz was to actually list off some of the fun facts about Australia, as well as two points that most Americans incorrectly believe (that Australia has few people - although they probably think the same of Madagascar, which is almost as populous as Australia - and that Sydney is the capital city).
A more telling point, though, is that a lot of Americans would have enough trouble naming the Canadian Prime Minister, let alone the Canadian Head of State. This, despite Canada being a large english-speaking nation that borders the US. And then there's the fun part, where Jay Leno got people to point out countries like North Korea on a globe of the world... and they pointed to Australia (thinking that Tasmania was actually South Korea).
Most Australians would have more chance of naming significant dates and events in American history than Americans, and that's kind of sad.
