[Avodah] Do gentiles have more teeth than Jews? Do they have less?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 01:15:59PM -0500, Yitzchok Levine wrote:
: From 
: http://parsha.blogspot.com/2009/06/do-gentiles-have-more-teeth-than-jews.html
: 
: There is a famous position of Aristotle.
: Why have men more teeth than women?
: By reason of the abundance of heat and blood which is more in men 
: than in women.
: -- "<http://www.exclassics.com/arist/arist37.htm>Of the Teeth.", Aristotle

: And the following from Bertrand Russell:
: Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although 
: he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this 
: statement by examining his wives' mouths.
: <http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Bertrand_Russell/>Bertrand 
: Russell, Impact of Science on Society (1952) ch. 1
: British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

How many people had a full set of teeth. And of those who did, would
Aristotle know they did? And given where money would be spent by Greeks
of his period, I would bet far more men had more teeth than women.

It is thus unlike the verifiability of:
: As someone noted in a comment recently, Rav Kanievsky similarly 
: believes that Jews differ physically from gentiles in the number of 
: teeth, on the basis of a midrash Talpiyot combined with another 
: rabbi's testimony. Midrash Talpiyot was authored by Rabbi Eliyahu ben 
: Shlomo Avraham, and was published in 1698

But if Medras Talpiot is a true medrash, the 33rd tooth it ascribes to
nakhriim is not talking about dentition.

BTW, we discussed this back in Nov 2001.
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=T#TALMUD%20AND%20SCIENCE

There the primary topic was 8th month babies, and I wrote:
: On Thu, Nov 01, 2001 at 01:29:06PM -0500, Gil Student wrote:
...
:: However, this is generally an observable phenomenon. Could Chazal not
:: have observed whether this was true or not?

: Quite possibly not. The experimental method was not invented yet.
: Infant mortality was high, I am sure it was higher for 8th and 7th month
: babies. But until someone actually sits down and collects statistics,
: it is quite possible no one noticed that 8th month babies are more
: likely to survive than 7th.

: BTW, an interesting problem for those of us who deny nishtaneh hateva --
: Aristotle writes that women have fewer teeth than men. Okay, teeth did
: not last as long as they do now. But still, how could you not know?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes
micha at aishdas.org        "I am thought about, therefore I am -
http://www.aishdas.org   my existence depends upon the thought of a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch