[thebadplus]

South korea has a far lower genetic diversity then a lot of european countries, and America for sure. In a totally non-racist way, the "all look same" stereotype may have more truth than it does for a lot of other countries.

[seanmcdirmid]

This is quite easy to test: just take 20 beauty queens from North Korea and see what diversity you get. I believe the genetic diversity in the two countries is about the same, but they have been isolated for around 50+ years, so there is some great science to be had once North Korea opens up (think Iceland).

[sliverstorm]

"Beauty queens" is a terrible group to sample from. It is not in any way whatsoever random, which is what you would need to study. "Beauty" has many subjective components, which can change rapidly.

[seanmcdirmid]

But that's not the point. Take 20 girls from each country who are considered by some popular standard to be beautiful, and measure variation. Since I'm assuming plastic surgery is not that widespread in DPRK, the results would be interesting, even if not very useful.

[sliverstorm]

But you aren't just measuring variation in the population. You're also measuring strictness of beauty standards.

[seanmcdirmid]

No, we just measure variation according to some algorithm. The beauty is subjective based on standards, and the results would definitely be biased by that subjectivity.