Thanks for that correction
[QUOTE=JjBee62;2699712]I think you'll find that Puerto Rico, when adjusted for population is the clear winner based on crowns won. Venezuela has 12 crowns, 6 of each, with a population of 28 million. Puerto Rico has 7, 5 from Miss Universe, with only 3 million people. The Vennies need roughly 50 more winners to match them.[/QUOTE]I think technically Puerto Rico gets gypped out of the crown because it is considered part of the United States, but yours is a good point.
Either one of our points is impossible to disprove at this time
[QUOTE=JustTK;2699857]I don't think I am focussing in on a non-relevant point here, but I do think that the idea of a "Vennie beauty chromosome" is a ridiculous idea. Maybe if the USA had enforced its embargo and barrackeded the people in for for a few thousand years, but that is just not the case. Based on this logic, we would also say that, ignoring crappy clothes / hair fashion, accents, and size of belly, we would be able to tell who was an Aussie, a NZer, a Brit, a Canadian and a USAn. This is clearly not the case. The reason Venezuela does well in beapoints uty contests is simply that their culture is highly patriarchal, meaning they value beauty very highly. Beauties from most other countries would never consider entering a beauty contest bcos they quite rightly view it as demeaning and objectifying to women.
A parrellel can be drawn with atheltics and sprinting. Is there a Jamaican 100 m gene? Of course not. It's simply bcos their society has come to value and motivate that event above others.[/QUOTE]As the revered biology teacher Solomon Malinsky taught me, "Everything you are and everything you will ever be can be boiled down to two factors," Heredity or Environment or the so called "Nature versus Nurture" or genetic versus familial, argument. That pendulum has swung back and forth even before Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize for describing DNA in 1962. Lately, the pendulum has swung heavily toward heredity with the mapping of the human genome being completed officially as far as current technology will allow in 2003. Obviously, your bias is toward environment but stating that either side is "ridiculous" is poisoning the well. My usual way to back out of that debate is to claim it is 50/50 genetic or familial, which I am doing now and you may certainly have the last word if you wish.