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I agree that diet and other environmental factors definitely contribute to appearance. For example, even though many Americans are largely European stock, there are certain developmental tendencies in some areas that I feel like it's possible to, with a better than chance guess and based on a little observation, tell if somebody is American or European - it can be something in the food, or differences in popular sports, or social body language, but all leading to developmental differences. Of course I'm generalizing a bit, but I'm almost as good as my native South Korean wife at guessing where a person from East Asia is from. It's a combination of factors, height, facial features, but often as not it's fashion (which includes hair, eyebrows, facial hair, glasses style) etc. An interesting test is found here http://alllooksame.com/ I can guess it pretty above average. But it's a pretty big jump from guessing what stock a person is from to predicting what they look like based on their stock. The problem with the examples in the article of course is that the example really looks very little like the actual woman. In fact, it's a pretty terrible likeness, especially in the eyes. About the only part that's debatable is the nose. I wouldn't rely on it for a police sketch. Another challenge will be in populations with large groups of "mixed" children. Americans are a reasonable example, even though we're largely Europeans at this point in history, that's changing quickly, and even in the Caucasian population, there are very few who don't have ancestors from all over the place. What about my children? Will they have red hair or dark hair, epicanthic folds or not? Will they be barrel chested like my father's side, or have a physique more like my wife's? Even dominant genes can be suppressed in the right hormonal and developmental environment. This sounds very sci-fi, but it's as long away off as those novelty "what will your children look like" facial morphers that were so popular in the 90s. |