Any given set of statistics can be used to support or refute just about any arguement, depending on interpretation. For instance, the quote above,
One possible explanation lies with immigration. As more Mexicans and Chinese enter the US, these individuals may lower the average height, it is argued. But statisticians dismiss this suggestion. During the 19th century the country took in millions of malnourished, and therefore small, people. Yet Americans remained the tallest people in the world at that time.
entirely dismisses the obvious fact that the vast, vast majority of immigrants to the US during the later part of the 19th and early 20th Centuries were European, ie, Italian, German, Slav, etc. Height comparisons between an undernourished Slav and an undernourished Asia are, in the very least, misleading. And to automatically assume that you MUST be diminitive if malnourished is folly. Man, I live with these folks. My wife is of Eastern European descent. I've met her family, seen pics of the ancestors, etc. Believe me, these folks were not dwarfs. Most statisticians would close their minds to the possibility that one set of immigrants were different--in any way--from another. Sorry, but no matter how politically correct one wants to be, there's just no denying the fact that Europeans are taller than Asians and Central & South Americans--ON AVERAGE. That's not bias, or racial or ethnic preference. Just fact. But, in any event, this doesn't have much to do with the average size of a Roman circa 50 BC. Yes, BC, not BCE. Always wanted to say that somewhere, so there it is.