Why do we see different race at different NFL positions?

[Two and a Half Inches of Fun]

I was just looking at the SI top running backs for the NFL draft. They are all black. This got me thinking, why are different positions filed by different races in the NFL. As far as I know all the cornerbacks are black. All the halfbacks are, too. Maybe there are few white players at these positions that I do not know. But other other positions are different. There are very few black punters or place kickers. Quarterbacks are more mixed. There is some level mixing at wide receivers, but when you think the best deep threat receivers they are almost all black.

So what is going on? Why don't we see white halfbacks or cornerbacks? Why don't see black punters or place kickers? Are there physical difference between the elite black athlete and elite white athlete? Is it a cultural thing?



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0801/nfl.top12.rb.prospects/content.1.html

[Huerta88]

Uh oh.

I'm going to stay away from this other than to note that the proportions of players are not static over time.

If you had been looking at this twenty years ago, you would have seen more whites at some position (offensive lineman and quarterback, and even linebacker to some extent, were heavily "white" positions back then, not totally so much now -- but twenty years ago, you might have seen a few more black kickers -- Reggie Roby, Donald Igwebuike).

Nor are trends over time one way. My perception (I haven't seen the stats) is that the NBA has in recent years gotten somewhat "whiter" with an influx of good European players.

[John Mace]

Come on Two, tell us what you think. Are we to believe that you started this thread without the slightest idea of what you believe the reason to be?

[Marley23]

Given the size of the NFL, are there even enough players to get a reliable read on this? There are about 100 active QBs, for example, and far fewer punters... I don't think any conclusions would be reliable.

Even then, it's a big stretch to interpret the makeup of each position as reflecting anything about different races. There are just too many other factors involved, like geography, weather, the views of scouts, changing trends or opinions of what kind of players are best for any given position and so on.

[AskNott]

At the risk of going the way of Jimmy The Greek, I'll give you my opinion. This is one of the rare instances where one racial group has an inherent advantage. A great running back must be a great sprinter. Great sprinters need big strong butts and thighs. They need light, small calves. By a happy coincidence, those traits are found more often in black people.

I worked in the factory with two state champ level bodybuilders. Both men told me they had to avoid too much glute work, and they struggled to get more muscle mass on their calves. They are both black.

[El Zagna]

Given the size of the NFL, are there even enough players to get a reliable read on this? There are about 100 active QBs... A sample size of 100 is actually pretty large for most studies, and you can get perfectly good results from these numbers. Even if you only had one person per team for a particular position you'd have a sample size of 32, and that's plenty big to get statistically significant results from.

[John Mace]

At the risk of going the way of Jimmy The Greek, I'll give you my opinion. This is one of the rare instances where one racial group has an inherent advantage. A great running back must be a great sprinter. Great sprinters need big strong butts and thighs. They need light, small calves. By a happy coincidence, those traits are found more often in black people.
If it was that simple, then there would be some scientific evidence to support it. Is there? (Not saying I know there isn't, just wondering.)

[Huerta88]

A sample size of 100 is actually pretty large for most studies, and you can get perfectly good results from these numbers. Even if you only had one person per team for a particular position you'd have a sample size of 32, and that's plenty big to get statistically significant results from.
I think the problem the OP is going to run into is that the sample size is probably quite adequate to establish the prevalence of the demographic pattern, but that this doesn't establish the causal link he seeks for that pattern.

There's lots of variables too: kickers -- mostly white. Why? One possibility -- all kickers now are soccer style kickers. I'm not sure that all or even most soccer-style football kickers grew up actually playing soccer, but I know a good number did. Soccer is perceived as more a sport of the middle class suburbs than of the inner city (in America). Ergo, perhaps, a larger pool of white soccer-trained kickers. Or: quarterbacks -- historically pretty white. Well, maybe that's the Bobby Hurley phenomenon (Hurley was a point guard, sort of the basketball equivalent of quarterback in terms of leading the offense). Hurley was also the son of a famed coach, who imparted to him the strategic and field-generalship skills he'd gained over the years. Let's say lots of (not all) high school and college coaches in the past were white. Let's say quarterback's the most prestigious and important position on offense. What position is a coach dad going to encourage his son to take up? John Elway's son is about to become the third generation of Elway to play quarterback in college (and was in fact coached by his dad), for instance.

[El Zagna]

I think the problem the OP is going to run into is that the sample size is probably quite adequate to establish the prevalence of the demographic pattern, but that this doesn't establish the causal link he seeks for that pattern.Well, the standard caveat about correlation and causation should be applied here. Still the "Coach's Son" theory could be tested if anyone wanted to do the background checks.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

A lot of the demographics that you see in sport aren't down to any innate differences in athletic ability, but are due to subtler forces at work. Why play sport at all?

1 You have the opportunity to play it

2 You're good at at it and you think you have a shot a becoming a pro.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 When was the last time you saw a black swimmer, pro cyclist or NASCAR* driver? I'm sure there are some, but there are factors other than purely athletic ability that might preclude minorities disproportionately.

* NB in Formula 1 racing, there is a huge diversity of drivers, but the pool of "talent" is easy to break into if daddy is willing to pay $10,000,000 a year for a drive. Racing teams are often sponsored by eccentric foreign billionaires who have dilettante offspring

2 Most team sports in the US draw almost exclusively from college athletes. What drives a college kid to concentrate on sports rather than academic studies? Surely the biggest incentives are the money and the fame. But the downside is that the chances of success are very, very slim. If daddy is a member of Skull and Bones, why risk blowing out your ACLs when you already have a decent job lined up? Since I doubt that there are many African American Bonesmen, they "gain" an advantage on the Football field.

Finally. if there were any kind of truth in the whole "race X" is better than "race y" at sports, how does that explain the dominance of Jewish basketball players (http://www.aish.com/societyWork/arts/Jewish_Basketball_Giants.asp) in the 1920s? Did they suddenly forget how to be great doctors and bankers for a few decades? :dubious:

[Cheesesteak]

If it was that simple, then there would be some scientific evidence to support it. Is there? (Not saying I know there isn't, just wondering.)Science isn't just in a lab. There is a pretty well verifiable fact that when it comes to running very fast for short periods of time, the very very very best we see are more often black than white. Thousands upon thousands of trials (races/games/practices) where people are tested in an unbiased fashion have shown this outcome. If you were going to "scientifically" test how fast people can run, what would be better than the 100M dash, as it's run in track meets all across the globe?

It's not necessarily true that blacks are always faster than whites, nor is it necessarily true that blacks are on average faster than whites, but it sure as hell seems to be true that for the extreme outlying value, the fastest .001% of the population, blacks are more represented than whites. Maybe it's only a .001% difference, and it shows up at the tail end of the curve, but you can't argue that years upon years of track meets and other athletic competitions don't provide any legitimate probative value.

Selection bias works to explain it if we can point to populations avoiding the events in large numbers. You may be able to say this about blacks and Hockey, I doubt this is the case with white folks and running.

[Two and a Half Inches of Fun]

Come on Two, tell us what you think. Are we to believe that you started this thread without the slightest idea of what you believe the reason to be?

Actually, I do not know.

I would think that someone has studied this issue, but I cannot find any research.

[glee]

It's so obvious that race decides what you're good at. :rolleyes:

This why people of the Soviet race are good at chess and why only male white Americans have been US President. :smack:

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

It's so obvious that race decides what you're good at. :rolleyes:

This why people of the Soviet race are good at chess and why only male white Americans have been US President. :smack:

But that analogy is a bad one and doesn't explain the racial breakdowns in US pro sports, particularly certain positions in the NFL and the NBA as a whole.
However, does this question apply to baseball? Now there's a pretty equal appearing sport. Whites, Latinos, black Latinos, African black people, Asians...

My guess as to the OP's question is that it is a mixture of factors...cultural, a matter of opportunity, perhaps some genetic predisposition to certain body shapes amongst the races...

[chrisk]

Maybe it's only a .001% difference, and it shows up at the tail end of the curve, but you can't argue that years upon years of track meets and other athletic competitions don't provide any legitimate probative value.

Selection bias works to explain it if we can point to populations avoiding the events in large numbers. You may be able to say this about blacks and Hockey, I doubt this is the case with white folks and running.

Hmm... interesting, but 'track meets and athletic competitions' certainly are loose enough experiments, as it were, that there are other possible variables acting on the results than simple physical ability, I would say.

For instance, you could probably build a convincing case that in a lot of communities, athletic competitions attract more attention from from black individuals than white, because it's one area of achievement where they aren't discouraged and might even be encouraged to participate, as opposed to areas intellectual or financial, say. With more blacks participating and more blacks *driven* to succed in that particular area, more of them are represented among the winners.

Not saying that this is the explanation, just wanted to throw out the thought.

[astorian]

A lot of the demographics that you see in sport aren't down to any innate differences in athletic ability, but are due to subtler forces at work. Why play sport at all?

1 You have the opportunity to play it

2 You're good at at it and you think you have a shot a becoming a pro.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 When was the last time you saw a black swimmer, pro cyclist or NASCAR* driver? I'm sure there are some, but there are factors other than purely athletic ability that might preclude minorities disproportionately.

* NB in Formula 1 racing, there is a huge diversity of drivers, but the pool of "talent" is easy to break into if daddy is willing to pay $10,000,000 a year for a drive. Racing teams are often sponsored by eccentric foreign billionaires who have dilettante offspring

2 Most team sports in the US draw almost exclusively from college athletes. What drives a college kid to concentrate on sports rather than academic studies? Surely the biggest incentives are the money and the fame. But the downside is that the chances of success are very, very slim. If daddy is a member of Skull and Bones, why risk blowing out your ACLs when you already have a decent job lined up? Since I doubt that there are many African American Bonesmen, they "gain" an advantage on the Football field.

Finally. if there were any kind of truth in the whole "race X" is better than "race y" at sports, how does that explain the dominance of Jewish basketball players (http://www.aish.com/societyWork/arts/Jewish_Basketball_Giants.asp) in the 1920s? Did they suddenly forget how to be great doctors and bankers for a few decades? :dubious:


Basketball was a fringe sport in the 1920s. There was no significant pro basketball league until much later.

Jews didn't dominate basketball then because they were better than all the other races- they dominated because the game was confined to a relatively small number of urban athletic clubs. Once the game was played more widely, Jewish dominance vanished.

[RickJay]

But that analogy is a bad one and doesn't explain the racial breakdowns in US pro sports, particularly certain positions in the NFL and the NBA as a whole.
The NBA as a whole is pretty easy to explain; blacks play basketball more than whites. Basketball isn't a one-talent deal like sprinting, it's a sport where a multitude of physical attributes are important, and it's dominated by an ethnic group that plays it a lot. The NHL is dominated by Canadians for the same reason.

Volleyball, a sport that favours the same basic athletic traits as basketball, is NOT dominated by blacks.

However, does this question apply to baseball? Now there's a pretty equal appearing sport. Whites, Latinos, black Latinos, African black people, Asians...
Latinos are heavily overrepresented in baseball as compared to their population, especially Dominicans and Puerto Ricans.

As to the issue of blacks in various football positions, it's pretty commonly known that they're strongly discouraged from playing quarterback. Warren Moon wasn't welcome in the NFL coming out of college because NFL teams didn't think a black man could be a QB. Some of that thinking still prevails out there, although it's dying off.

[astorian]

The NBA as a whole is pretty easy to explain; blacks play basketball more than whites. Basketball isn't a one-talent deal like sprinting, it's a sport where a multitude of physical attributes are important, and it's dominated by an ethnic group that plays it a lot. The NHL is dominated by Canadians for the same reason.

Volleyball, a sport that favours the same basic athletic traits as basketball, is NOT dominated by blacks.


Latinos are heavily overrepresented in baseball as compared to their population, especially Dominicans and Puerto Ricans.

As to the issue of blacks in various football positions, it's pretty commonly known that they're strongly discouraged from playing quarterback. Warren Moon wasn't welcome in the NFL coming out of college because NFL teams didn't think a black man could be a QB. Some of that thinking still prevails out there, although it's dying off.

Not just dying off, DEAD. And the reason was NEVER as simple as mere racism. Come on, Deep South schools that ran the wishbone had black quarterbacks more than 30 years ago.

When John Robinson was the coach at USC, he turned a successful black high school quarterback named Marcus Allen into a running back. For that matter, Yale turned a successful black high school quarterback named Calvin Hill into a running back.

Were the coaches wrong to do so? Were they racist to do so? I think not, considering that Allen won the Heisman Trophy and made the Hall of Fame as an NFL running back, and Calvin Hill led the Cowboys to a Super Bowl as a running back.

When Robinson coached in the NFL, he made a black man (Tony Banks) his starting quarterback, so it's not a simple matter of racism. Robinson made an informed decision- in the Seventies and early Eighties, speed was deemed a very valuable commodity for a running back or receiver, but NOT for a quarterback. Robinson figured that Marcus Allen's speed would be put to better use at a different position.

The reason we see many more black QBs in the NFL is NOT so much that coaches are now more enlightened- it's that speed is no longer an unnecessary luxury in a quarterback. The pass rush today is so fast and so intense that a quarterback who can't run at all is increasingly a sitting duck.

Today, coaches see the value of a mobile quarterback. THAT's why Mike Vick and Vince Young were drafted so high. If they'd come along when the pass rush wasn't so fast, they'd have been moved to wide receiver or running back.

[stw004]

Well....I really don't want to sound racist but the way my great-grandfather explained it to me was like this. (many years ago)

In the olden days people owned slaves. (they were black)

It was cheaper to breed new slaves than to buy new ones when the old ones died

So since slaves were treated pretty much like livestock it made sense that they would be bred like livestock (if you have bunch of horses and you want to breed the strongest possible offspring than you breed your biggest strongest stud with the biggest strongest mare)

After multiple generations of selective breeding you are left with mostly bigger,stronger,faster slaves who can work more efficiently.

These slaves eventually became the african-americans we now how have in the united states. So it stands to reason that a larger percentage would have more athletic traits than people of other races (size, strength. speed.)

Now granted probably nothing I just said has any scientific or historical merit, and might just be the delusions of an old codger who died when I was 12, but it does present a theory.

[El Zagna]

Well, I just went over to NFL.com and came up with these numbers based on the pictures on the rosters:


Position % Black
QB 17%
RB 78%
OL 35%
TE 36%
WR 77%

It's interesting that the positions that favor speed and agility (RB and WR) have over twice the percentage of blacks than those positions favoring size and strength (TE and OL).

I didn't look at the defensive positions because it's late and I'm tired. Maybe tomorrow.

[Larry Borgia]

I don't buy the cultural explanation. If the answer is just "Blacks play more football than whites," the disproportion should be across the board, not just in the speed positions. I don't know what the explanation is, but I don't see why a physical one should be dismissed out of hand. There are physical differences between blacks and whites; skin color, for one, as well as other features. Why is it impossible that Blacks and whites would differ in muscle distribution, as Asknott suggests above.

[DJ Motorbike]

Since possible racial differences may be detected at the highest levels of professional athletic competition the does that mean that there is little comparison to the general population? I'm asking rhetorically as I think the answer is definitively yes. But, still there is that question and I think it makes people feel uncomfortable. But why?

[The Flying Dutchman]

Come on Two, tell us what you think. Are we to believe that you started this thread without the slightest idea of what you believe the reason to be? Come on. Tell us why you need to know. Are we to believe you're not itching to label the OP ?

[brickbacon]

I don't buy the cultural explanation. If the answer is just "Blacks play more football than whites," the disproportion should be across the board, not just in the speed positions. I don't know what the explanation is, but I don't see why a physical one should be dismissed out of hand. There are physical differences between blacks and whites; skin color, for one, as well as other features. Why is it impossible that Blacks and whites would differ in muscle distribution, as Asknott suggests above.

One interesting stat is that, as far as I can tell, there has only been one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Johnson_%28sprinter%29) sprinter of non-West African decent to run a sub-10 second 100m dash. The fastest time for a white athlete is currently 10.03 (AFAICT). It may dip to 10.0s if this time (http://www.runnersworld.co.za/wheres/index.php?miles=632) is verified. There have been at least 52 sprinters of West African decent to do so. Chance alone would not explain that disparity. This article (http://run-down.com/guests/je_black_athletes_p2.php) examines the disparities in fast-twitch muscle fibers in people of different ethnicities. As far as football is concerned, I think it's probably a matter of the above and culture.

[Cheesesteak]

Not saying that this is the explanation, just wanted to throw out the thought.It absolutely needs to be considered, just like you would in any lab experiment. I just don't think that participation levels can explain the vast differences you see. When you look at the 100m dash finals, at the highest levels, there aren't going to be many white faces there. White folks participate in track and field, and many other sports that require speed, but simply do not show themselves to be fast enough to compete at the highest levels.

[El Zagna]

Why is it impossible that Blacks and whites would differ in muscle distribution, as Asknott suggests above.My brother, Bubba Zagna, is an orthopedic surgeon, and, as it happens, a white guy. Many, many years ago he was at a medical convention where one of the speakers was to talk about the differences between Black and White body types and how that led to differences in sports injuries, particularly football injuries this being Texas and all, and he asked Bubba if he would serve as a model for his talk.

As the talk proceeded the speaker would say things like (and I'm just pulling this stuff out of my ass), "Blacks tend to have a more pronounced gleutial vortex which helps to stabilize the flagettal merticulum, leading to fewer injuries to the upper transcribulum, but subjecting the lateral probisculum to greater stress. Now the gleutial vortex in the typical white man is, uhm... well, Dr. Zagna isn't a very good example of this. His gleutial vortex is more typical of the Black body type..." And on and on it went with my brother serving as a miserable example of the White body type but typifying the Black body type. By the end of the talk it was almost a comedy routine.

So I guess there are a couple of lessons from this. One is that, yes, there was a time when scientists and other professionals could talk about this kind of thing without fear of being driven out of the field. The other point is that individual differences will always far exceed group differences.

[El Zagna]

The numbers I posted last night strike me as pretty definitive evidence that there is a genetic component to this phenomenon. There is, after all, only one sport we are talking about here. There's not blocking-and-tackling football and running-and-catching football. Kids go out for football and drift to the positions they are best suited for.

I suppose you could claim that culture contributes to a particular mind set that serves a running back better than a down lineman, but that seems a stretch to me.

[LionelHutz405]

Not just dying off, DEAD. And the reason was NEVER as simple as mere racism. Come on, Deep South schools that ran the wishbone had black quarterbacks more than 30 years ago.


Warren Moon would disagree with you. He stated "In Canada I was able to play without stereotypes or racism". His desire to remain a quarterback was well known and I don't think it's a coincidence that he wasn't drafted by any NFL team. It was racism.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1326075/posts

[El Zagna]

Since possible racial differences may be detected at the highest levels of professional athletic competition the does that mean that there is little comparison to the general population? I'm asking rhetorically as I think the answer is definitively yes. But, still there is that question and I think it makes people feel uncomfortable. But why?If it can be shown that there are genetic differences between Blacks and Whites that lead to superior performance at the physical level, then that lends support to the claim that there are genetic differences in intelligence, also, and that's the concept that makes people uncomfortable.

Whether or not that is a legitimate leap of logic is debatable, but that's clearly where the discussion will go next.

[Fiveyearlurker]

Warren Moon would disagree with you. He stated "In Canada I was able to play without stereotypes or racism". His desire to remain a quarterback was well known and I don't think it's a coincidence that he wasn't drafted by any NFL team. It was racism.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1326075/posts

An NFL team today would plant Al Sharpton as their quarterback if they thought that he could bring them to the superbowl and put butts in the seats.

[kidchameleon]

Perhaps the use of coffee is benificial to kicking but detrimental to speed. :p

[misterW]

First, I think it is meaningless to discuss this issue in terms of physical advantages that "whites" or "blacks" might have. These categories based on color of skin are way too broad. There are many populations with wide ranges of traits within each "white" and "black" race. "White" and "Black" are not biologically useful terms.

However, it is obvious that populations around the world DO have physical differences. And, we would expect these differences will help or handicap individuals with those traits during different activities (ie one would not expect a population that tends to be much shorter than average, such as pygmies, to be well suited for activities that reward height, such as basketball).

I have seen studies ( i will try to find a cite -- maybe someone else on here has seen these?) that studied anatomical traits of certain west african populations and found traits that would provide advantages in events such as sprinting. And, sprinting events HAVE been dominated by these populations or their descendants (african americans and blacks in the caribbean).

So, it may be that the ancestors of the majority of blacks in the US were from these populations, providing blacks in the US with a small advantage in events that require sprinting, etc.

Note: this has nothing to do with skin color, just whether one has genes that may be more common in a particular population. I would not expect blacks from other populations in the world to share this advantage and it may be that certain white populations also have similar advantages in such events.

As for traditionally "white" positions, such as quarterback or kicker, I suspect that social forces are more responsible.

[Huerta88]

I would not expect blacks from other populations in the world to share this advantage and it may be that certain white populations also have similar advantages in such events.
Not a lot of Kenyan sprinters or NFLers, tons of Kenyan marathoners. Some of that must be cultural (they do have a fanatical distance running/training culture it seems, and no parallel sprinting obsession).

[John Mace]

Science isn't just in a lab.
Never said it was. But...

There is a pretty well verifiable fact that when it comes to running very fast for short periods of time, the very very very best we see are more often black than white. Thousands upon thousands of trials (races/games/practices) where people are tested in an unbiased fashion have shown this outcome. If you were going to "scientifically" test how fast people can run, what would be better than the 100M dash, as it's run in track meets all across the globe?
What you wrote there is not science-- it's anecdote. Or, at best, it's the begining of science. Science is where you make a hypothesis, and then test it. All you've done at this point is make a hypothesis. I'll be convinced when I see some tests done. Real tests, using scientific methods.

Now, it could very well be that the population "African-Americans" is skewed toward certain physical advantages as compared to "White Americans". I think there have been some studies on this, although I don't recall the results. And keep in mind that the population "African-American" has a significant amount of European ancestry in it, and what is true of that population may not be true of any particular African population.

[Cheesesteak]

What you wrote there is not science-- it's anecdote.I would prefer to call it observation. Anecdote is "the black guys in my school were faster than the white guys" Observation is hundreds of thousands of races, with people from vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds, under strictly controlled conditions, showing a general trend.

We may not be able to identify exactly why this trend exists, but don't try to claim that the trend itself is fraudulent. We have very large, diverse populations of people being tested under controlled conditions, and we see the far outliers of the test tend to have a particular ancestry in common.

It's like measuring tallness. If 90 of the 100 tallest people of the world were black, would you claim there's no racial component to extreme tallness?

[John Mace]

I would prefer to call it observation. Anecdote is "the black guys in my school were faster than the white guys" Observation is hundreds of thousands of races, with people from vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds, under strictly controlled conditions, showing a general trend.
As I said, it is at best a hypothesis. Hypotheses are made from observations. But that is the beginning of science, not the end.

We may not be able to identify exactly why this trend exists, but don't try to claim that the trend itself is fraudulent. We have very large, diverse populations of people being tested under controlled conditions, and we see the far outliers of the test tend to have a particular ancestry in common.
I did not try to claim it was fraudulent. Please do not imply that I said something that I clearly did not.

It's like measuring tallness. If 90 of the 100 tallest people of the world were black, would you claim there's no racial component to extreme tallness?I haven't made any claims. Please go back and read my post again. I explicitly said that there could be some racial component that is causing the observed phenomenon.

[Slypork]

God help me for asking this but has anyone ever performed a genetic comparison of African American football players against native Africans to see if they could trace their ancestry? I wonder if it would be possible to determine if the players in the running positions came from West African roots and players in the blocking positions came from different areas. Just a wild idea.

[John Mace]

God help me for asking this but has anyone ever performed a genetic comparison of African American football players against native Africans to see if they could trace their ancestry? I wonder if it would be possible to determine if the players in the running positions came from West African roots and players in the blocking positions came from different areas. Just a wild idea.
I don't think we have the ability to do that. When people trace their ancestry through genetic testing, it generally is done by tracing the paternal line (through the Y chromosome) or their maternal line (through mitochondrial DNA). But that only tells you that one of your great-great-...-great-grandparents came from some general area (with a certain probability). It doesn't tell you where all the other ancestors came from.

And even if we had the technology, most Blacks in the US have been living here for a long time, and they are unlikely to be representative of any existing or past population of Africans (even if you ignore all the European ancestry mixed in). There's been too much time for everyone to mix it up, so to speak.

[Marley23]

If it can be shown that there are genetic differences between Blacks and Whites that lead to superior performance at the physical level, then that lends support to the claim that there are genetic differences in intelligence, also, and that's the concept that makes people uncomfortable.

Whether or not that is a legitimate leap of logic is debatable, but that's clearly where the discussion will go next.
There's also a fear, I suspect, that the idea of black athletes having "genetic advantages" would be used to diminish their accomplishments. As it is, sports culture generally holds that white athletes are scrappy and smart and work hard and play the game right, while black athletes have all the physical advantages.

[Huerta88]

God help me for asking this but has anyone ever performed a genetic comparison of African American football players against native Africans to see if they could trace their ancestry? I wonder if it would be possible to determine if the players in the running positions came from West African roots and players in the blocking positions came from different areas. Just a wild idea.
Historically I think you are going to find that most slaves in N. America came from Western Africa. This page seems to support that notion:

http://wysinger.homestead.com/mapofafricadiaspora.html

Now -- what proportion of the black American populace today may have roots elsewhere in Africa, or are not descended from slaves, I don't know. And of the handful of African Africans who have played in the NFL, I'm aware only of West Africans (Igwebuike, Okoye, Ogunlewe) -- though now I see at least (and perhaps at most) one Ugandan made it . . . .

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=2434221

[Cheesesteak]

As I said, it is at best a hypothesis. Hypotheses are made from observations. But that is the beginning of science, not the end.


I did not try to claim it was fraudulent. Please do not imply that I said something that I clearly did not.

I haven't made any claims. Please go back and read my post again. I explicitly said that there could be some racial component that is causing the observed phenomenon.Fair point on the claims, you have not claimed the hypothesis is incorrect.

What I'm not sure of is the end point. You said that you'd be convinced when someone did real scientific tests to prove the hypothesis. I wonder what kind of test a scientist could come up with to prove a race's dominance in running speed that would be different than taking hundreds of thousands of young men and women, and asking them to run for 100 meters while timing them closely.

[John Mace]

What I'm not sure of is the end point. You said that you'd be convinced when someone did real scientific tests to prove the hypothesis. I wonder what kind of test a scientist could come up with to prove a race's dominance in running speed that would be different than taking hundreds of thousands of young men and women, and asking them to run for 100 meters while timing them closely.
Yes, that's the problem. We can't assume that pro football players represent some random sample from the general population. You wouldn't need hundred of thousands, though. You'd just need to make sure you were taking random samples and that you had some control over what "race" meant. Afterall, in the US "race" is more about physical appearance than genetic ancestry. Tiger Woods is generally considered to be Black, but he probably only traces 25% of his ancestry to Africa (maybe less). If we went by genetic heritage, he'd be considered Asian-- he's more that than anything.

In the end, you might only be able to reach the conclusion that people of mixed African/European ancestry tend to have better skills at some athletic activities. It's another issue entirely to ask if some population of Africans (actual Africans, not African-Americans) has a genetic advantage to some population of Europeans. And, of course, it's not like White Americans represent some genetic population that traces its ancestry to some unique European population, either. Just thinking of myself, the ancestors I have (that I know of) come from all over Europe.

[John Mace]

For anyone interested, here is a Scientific American (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=000BD235-1F76-1C75-9B81809EC588EF21&page=1) article (actually a book review) on the subject. The author makes many of the same arguments I have made in this thread. It's a subject fraught with scientific difficulties, and about which it is easy to jump to unwarranted conclusions.

[misterW]

If it can be shown that there are genetic differences between Blacks and Whites that lead to superior performance at the physical level, then that lends support to the claim that there are genetic differences in intelligence, also, and that's the concept that makes people uncomfortable.

Whether or not that is a legitimate leap of logic is debatable, but that's clearly where the discussion will go next.

But we are not talking about races in this case. We are talking about populations. Blacks in america, who may be traced to w. african roots, do not represent all blacks. E. africans are not known for their sprinting. Broadening the discussion to include the attributes of all black people in the world is very difficult to do since there are so many varied populations within that group.

So a discovery that african americans tend to have genes that give advantage in sprinting events really says nothing about the genetic traits of black people as a whole -- and cuts short the leap that you worry about people making.

[Really Not All That Bright]

I don't think we have the ability to do that. When people trace their ancestry through genetic testing, it generally is done by tracing the paternal line (through the Y chromosome) or their maternal line (through mitochondrial DNA). But that only tells you that one of your great-great-...-great-grandparents came from some general area (with a certain probability). It doesn't tell you where all the other ancestors came from.

And even if we had the technology, most Blacks in the US have been living here for a long time, and they are unlikely to be representative of any existing or past population of Africans (even if you ignore all the European ancestry mixed in). There's been too much time for everyone to mix it up, so to speak.
Look, while I appreciate that nothing is "proven" until you obtain empirical evidence to back it up, with a control, it is possible to know something without having it proven.

I know that my hot tap is likely to produce warmer water than the cold tap, even though I have no evidence to back that up.

I know, as a football fan, that there are perhaps three or four players of European descent capable of "deep-threat" speed - ie. a sub-4.4 second 40-yard dash time. I also know that there are at least thirty and probably closer to a hundred players of African or Caribbean descent capable of doing the same thing.

Sure, social pressure can explain some of the disparity, but if there's a white kid at XYZ High who can run a 4.4-second 40 and bench 275 pounds, he's going to end up playing football most of the time. These kids aren't not playing football because they're off running Fortune 500 companies or whatever- they simply don't exist, for the most part.

If you have more of the alleles likely to be found in North/West African peoples, you're more likely to run fast and jump high. That's it.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Whether or not that is a legitimate leap of logic is debatable, but that's clearly where the discussion will go next.
And yet, it need not. Differences in academic and/or intellectual performance are readily explained by social phenomena - American blacks are likely to attend poorer schools, use poorer educational materials, and have fewer role models who clearly demonstrate the value of an education.

In fact, the proclivity of African-Americans to excel in sports may hamper their academic achievement most of all; if you live in the projects, you see others who "got out" through sports daily on ESPN, but you're hardly likely to see other blacks who "got out" through business, beyond, say, Russell Simmons.

[El Zagna]

But we are not talking about races in this case. We are talking about populations. Blacks in america, who may be traced to w. african roots, do not represent all blacks. E. africans are not known for their sprinting. Broadening the discussion to include the attributes of all black people in the world is very difficult to do since there are so many varied populations within that group.

So a discovery that african americans tend to have genes that give advantage in sprinting events really says nothing about the genetic traits of black people as a whole -- and cuts short the leap that you worry about people making.Well, sure. Since the OP was about American football, I assume we all are limiting our discussion to American Blacks.

[John Mace]

Look, while I appreciate that nothing is "proven" until you obtain empirical evidence to back it up, with a control, it is possible to know something without having it proven.
I'm not sure why you linked to that post of mine for your comment. I was giving a factual answer to someone who asked a question about genetics.

I know that my hot tap is likely to produce warmer water than the cold tap, even though I have no evidence to back that up.

I know, as a football fan, that there are perhaps three or four players of European descent capable of "deep-threat" speed - ie. a sub-4.4 second 40-yard dash time. I also know that there are at least thirty and probably closer to a hundred players of African or Caribbean descent capable of doing the same thing.

Sure, social pressure can explain some of the disparity, but if there's a white kid at XYZ High who can run a 4.4-second 40 and bench 275 pounds, he's going to end up playing football most of the time. These kids aren't not playing football because they're off running Fortune 500 companies or whatever- they simply don't exist, for the most part.
Biology, genetics and the physiology of sports is a lot more complicated that you think. Read the link to the Scientific American article in my earlier post.

If you have more of the alleles likely to be found in North/West African peoples, you're more likely to run fast and jump high. That's it.
Publish your findings in a scientific journal, and then get back to us on how that went.

[Moriarty]

Well....I really don't want to sound racist but the way my great-grandfather explained it to me was like this. (many years ago)

In the olden days people owned slaves. (they were black)

It was cheaper to breed new slaves than to buy new ones when the old ones died

So since slaves were treated pretty much like livestock it made sense that they would be bred like livestock (if you have bunch of horses and you want to breed the strongest possible offspring than you breed your biggest strongest stud with the biggest strongest mare)

After multiple generations of selective breeding you are left with mostly bigger,stronger,faster slaves who can work more efficiently.

These slaves eventually became the african-americans we now how have in the united states. So it stands to reason that a larger percentage would have more athletic traits than people of other races (size, strength. speed.)

Now granted probably nothing I just said has any scientific or historical merit, and might just be the delusions of an old codger who died when I was 12, but it does present a theory.

This hasn't been responded to (probably for good reason), but I do want to dispel the idea that slaves were "bred". Slave populations had a definitive culture, which included marriage and other traditional familail relationships. The notion that a slave master selected which slaves mated, as if they were livestock, is, at best, ignorant.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Publish your findings in a scientific journal, and then get back to us on how that went.
Put together an all-white Olympic team and get back to us on how that went.

Or better yet, an NFL team.

[Telemark]

Put together an all-white Olympic team and get back to us on how that went.
The Soviets did pretty well with that for many years.

[Two and a Half Inches of Fun]

For anyone interested, here is a Scientific American (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=000BD235-1F76-1C75-9B81809EC588EF21&page=1) article (actually a book review) on the subject. The author makes many of the same arguments I have made in this thread. It's a subject fraught with scientific difficulties, and about which it is easy to jump to unwarranted conclusions.


Thanks for the link. This really is a complicated issue.

[Huerta88]

The Soviets did pretty well with that for many years.
Did well in certain sports, yes. Not all. I am not sure how many male Soviet/DDR sprinters won crowns even at the height of the dope-fueled Eastern Bloc Olympics Blitz.

[jimmmy]

I just want to point out that the 8 fastest men on earth lined up last March and raced 60 meters at the World Championship. 2 of those 8 - whittled down from many prior events and races were "white" men. You can watch the race here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SKPb0PyCog&mode=related&search=) (an African American former Steeler wins) & a white man is 3rd.

I think this just demonstrates how hard it is to talk about race and who has speed and who doesn't as a racial group in any meaningful way. It really is a complex thing

[El Zagna]

I think this just demonstrates how hard it is to talk about race and who has speed and who doesn't as a racial group in any meaningful way. It really is a complex thingWhile this may be a complex thing, it's not so complex that we can't talk about it "in any meaningful way." No one is suggesting that all blacks are faster than all whites, but rather that there are group tendencies among certain white populations and certain black populations that give those black populations a competitive advantage.

In fact the racial makeup of the event you point to supports and actually extends that claim. The OP was limited to Americans playing an American sport, but here we have a truly international sport, and even then Black participants outnumber white participants 8 to 2. I know that Blacks make up about 12% of the population in America, but I don't know what their world-wide percentage is. I suspect it's nowhere near 80%, though.

[The Flying Dutchman]

If you were going to "scientifically" test how fast people can run, what would be better than the 100M dash, as it's run in track meets all across the globe?

In reply
What you wrote there is not science-- it's anecdote. Or, at best, it's the begining of science. Science is where you make a hypothesis, and then test it. All you've done at this point is make a hypothesis. I'll be convinced when I see some tests done. Real tests, using scientific methods.

This is just silly. The technology to measure the speeds of athletes and rigorous controls employed by Olympic officials can not be improved upon by scientists. Tabulation of sport results have yielded a data base that can only be envied by researchers.

Following Mace's argument, I suppose we can't be sure that the cheetah is the fastest animal on earth . We'll have to genetically test every cheetah to make sure it is a cheetah and run a significant sample of cheetahs against a significant sample of genetically tested animals of every other species of animal. Even then, who's to say that the tiger might not be the fastest mammal on earth. After all, environment might have slowed down the tiger which learned to run in tall grasslands while the cheetah runs on much shorter grass.





Here's one more point in favour of the physiological advantage of elite black athletes over whites.

This is from Jon Entine, the subject of Mace's Scientific American link.

Blacks (http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/elsevier.htm) have from 3 to 19% more of the sex hormone testosterone than Whites or East Asians

I don't think there is any argument that suggests that steroids are not an advantage. After all, steroid doping is considered cheating for undue advantage. But just in case, I'll provide a reference (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=287623) to two studies measuring the relationship of elite athletic performance and testosterone levels.

A significant
positive relationship was identified between testosterone
levels and vertical jump performance when all data where
considered (r = 0.61, p < 0.001, n = 70).



Serum levels of C and T were in
negative correlation (r= -0.40 and r= -0.49, respectively)
with the results of Cooper's test. It was concluded that
athletes with better explosive strength and sprint running
performances have a higher basal level of testosterone. The
results suggest a relationship between testosterone production
and development of fast twitch muscle fibres in athletes.



I triend to find a more "scientific" link to improve the veracity of the claim that blacks had more testosterone, but all I could come up with are prostate cancer studies claiming that there are no testosterone differences between blackand white prostate cancer patients

CONCLUSIONS: ("http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10604704') Although several studies have suggested that African-American men have higher serum testosterone levels than white men, these differences were noted only in men 40 years of age or younger. As was noted in our study, after age 40, African-American and white men have comparable serum testosterone levels.


It seems that during the formative years as well as the age range of elite athletes blacks have higher testosterone levels. Testosterone affects both aggressiveness and physiological characteristics. I don't think this contributor can be ignored.

[Really Not All That Bright]

While this may be a complex thing, it's not so complex that we can't talk about it "in any meaningful way." No one is suggesting that all blacks are faster than all whites, but rather that there are group tendencies among certain white populations and certain black populations that give those black populations a competitive advantage.
Similarly, you have to acknowledge that Chinese people, in general, just don't make good sprinters. The Chinese athletic talent-spotting programs are brilliant and intensive, but AFAIK no Chinese male has won gold at the Olympics or World Championships in a sprinting event.

Given the sheer numbers of Chinese, absent any inherent genetic disadvantage there ought to be at least a few.

My own people- Indians- face the same disadvantage. The best athletic talent in India is playing cricket or (field) hockey- niche sports elsewhere- and yet Indian teams don't dominate these sports.

Conversely, you can look at New Zealand, where Maoris (pop. circa 250,000) are vastly outnumbered by the "white" population (a little under 5,000,000), yet make up just under a third of the current 30-man national rugby squad.

[Really Not All That Bright]

I agree with the rest of your post, but this....

Following Mace's argument, I suppose we can't be sure that the cheetah is the fastest animal on earth . We'll have to genetically test every cheetah to make sure it is a cheetah and run a significant sample of cheetahs against a significant sample of genetically tested animals of every other species of animal. Even then, who's to say that the tiger might not be the fastest mammal on earth. After all, environment might have slowed down the tiger which learned to run in tall grasslands while the cheetah runs on much shorter grass.

....is a really, really bad argument. Cheetahs cannot produce viable offspring with other large cats, even if they were to breed with them (which they don't). The amount of genetic variation between even human populations which have been isolated from others for 30,000 years would be negligible compared to the amount of genetic variation between, say, cheetahs and lions, which have inhabited the same ranges for at least the span of human existence.

[jimmmy]

I'm making a note to get to the feedstore to get some more straw for you since you must be running out after building those two big strawmen:
While this may be a complex thing, it's not so complex that we can't talk about it "in any meaningful way

I said it is hard to talk about it in any meaningful way


No one is suggesting that all blacks are faster than all whites,
.

Yeah including me.


The point of the post was to answer people like yourself who were clearly veering toward the blacks as a group are inherently genetically faster than whites as a partial answer to the OP. Were that true there should be NO whites in the higher level meets because the whites would always be slower at the elite levels no matter how much training or coaching or equipment they had – the muscle distribution or quick twitch muscle or breeding or whatever genetic sh^t would always win out at the elite level. It would be like trying to train sprinters to win the Kentucky Derby.

That clearly isn’t happening anywhere in track at the elite levels. Right ? Is anyone sane going to offer anything different? Clearly there is more going on here & its very complex.

[Really Not All That Bright]

The point of the post was to answer people like yourself who were clearly veering toward the blacks as a group are inherently genetically faster than whites as a partial answer to the OP. Were that true there should be NO whites in the higher level meets because the whites would always be slower at the elite levels no matter how much training or coaching or equipment they had – the muscle distribution or quick twitch muscle or breeding or whatever genetic sh^t would always win out at the elite level. It would be like trying to train sprinters to win the Kentucky Derby.

That clearly isn’t happening anywhere in track at the elite levels. Right ? Is anyone sane going to offer anything different? Clearly there is more going on here & its very complex.
Um... what?

Ridiculous. He's not saying "all white people are slow", he's saying "black people are more likely to be fast". He clearly referred to a tendency, not an absolute.

[El Zagna]

The point of the post was to answer people like yourself who were clearly veering toward the blacks as a group are inherently genetically faster than whites as a partial answer to the OP. Were that true there should be NO whites in the higher level meets because the whites would always be slower at the elite levels Well, let's think about that. Consider the following. Let's take two different populations and test them for some attribute. After testing, the scores for the attribute fall along the standard normal curve, but the curve is slightly offset for the two groups. Let's say the median for group A is one point better than that for group B, but everything else - standard deviation, kurtosis, etc - is the same.

While the difference in the attribute would have no practical consequence in the day to day lives of the two populations, at the tail end of the distribution, i.e., the elite end, there would be considerable differences between the two populations. I think we're in agreement so far.

So the question becomes - will the 1 point difference essentially eliminate the lower tested group from the elite levels? And what if the population for the lower tested group, Group B, was, say, 8 times greater than group A? What would you expect the makeup of the elite group to be?

I suspect that someone with enough of a statistical background could give a definitive answer to this.

[brazil84]

The point of the post was to answer people like yourself who were clearly veering toward the blacks as a group are inherently genetically faster than whites as a partial answer to the OP. Were that true there should be NO whites in the higher level meets because the whites would always be slower at the elite levels no matter how much training or coaching or equipment they had – the muscle distribution or quick twitch muscle or breeding or whatever genetic sh^t would always win out at the elite level. It would be like trying to train sprinters to win the Kentucky Derby.

That clearly isn’t happening anywhere in track at the elite levels. Right ? Is anyone sane going to offer anything different? Clearly there is more going on here & its very complex.

Well, very complex if you had trouble when you took Stat 101.

[jimmmy]

EL Zanga think of it like this: If you want say that some Athletic skill is genetically pre-determined and that is the driving factor and that’s it and you pick the 8 top guys at it in the world – through multiple trials and events be it long jump, high jump, whatever you can’t have 25%ish from other geneotypes. That can’t happen. If it does we would have to say has to be more complex than that.




Really Not All That Bright -You clearly don’t understand the argument going on and I am not sure how to respond. I guess its best to say : If you see something above you disagree with form a real non-bombastic argument against it and I will try to respond.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Really Not All That Bright -You clearly don’t understand the argument going on and I am not sure how to respond.

I'm afraid you just don't understand his point which is clear as a bell to me. Your argument requires looking at attributes of whole populations to make any sense at all, while his argument focus's on bell curve outliers which is far more relevant to the discussion when we are talking about elite athletes.

[brazil84]

One can measure the sprinting speed of healthy 20-year-old men in meters per second and then plot the result in a graph. The result will be bell shaped, with most people falling in the middle, and smaller numbers of outliers on the right and left sides of the curve.

For various reasons, it is very likely that the distribution can be approximately but reasonably accurately modeled with a so-called "normal" distribution, which has certain mathematical properties.

Now, suppose one asserts that Group X is slightly faster than Group Y. What that means is that the distribution curve for group X is slightly to the right of the distribution curve for Group Y.

What are the mathematical implications of such a difference? Well, among average people, there won't be much of a noticeable difference. But as you look at more and more elite groups of sprinters, you would expect to see higher and higher proportions of people from Group X, compared to their numbers in the general population.

(This is a result of simple mathematics that you can learn in a basic class on statistics. It's really not that complicated, but to some it may seem counter-intuitive.)

Indeed, in American and international track and field, I do see this sort of a pattern, looking at high school track and field; NCAA track and field; international track and field; and Olympic competition.

Also, I feel pretty confident in predicting that you would see a similar pattern if you looked at running-back type football positions (which require a lot of speed) in high school football; NCAA football; and the NFL.

[Contrapuntal]

Warren Moon wasn't welcome in the NFL coming out of college because NFL teams didn't think a black man could be a QB. Some of that thinking still prevails out there, although it's dying off.Warren Moon is from Samoa. He is not considered to be Black by the U.S, Census, nor is he genetically related to black Africans, AFAIK.

[ElvisL1ves]

1. There's no rationality involved in such an assessment. Moon was black as far as football was concerned.

2. When he came out, the dominant style of offense in the NFL required dropback passers with strong arms. Moon was a scrambler, and that meant his arm was considered suspect, properly or not.


Has the OP noticed that there are now quite a few white receivers in the league? Racial profiling is breaking down all over.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Warren Moon is from Samoa. He is not considered to be Black by the U.S, Census, nor is he genetically related to black Africans, AFAIK.
Warren Moon may be of Samoan descent but he was born in LA. I highly doubt more than a couple of the coaches/general managers who spurned him had any idea he was Samoan (if he was- Google doesn't seem to know much about his ancestry).
Has the OP noticed that there are now quite a few white receivers in the league? Racial profiling is breaking down all over.
"Quite a few"?

There were two white wide receivers starting in the NFL this season - Kevin Curtis of the Eagles, and Joe Jurevicius of the Browns. There are four if you count slot receivers on teams which run a lot of 3-wide formations, as the list then swells to include Wes Welker of the Pats and Anthony Gonzalez of the Colts. Brandon Stokley started a few games for the Broncos while Javon Walker was injured. We'll include Matt Jones of the Jaguars, who used to start and at least appeared in every game this season.

That makes six. There are 32 NFL teams, each starting at least 2 wideouts...

So we've got six white guys (by the most generous accounting, out of a possible 64.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Warren Moon is from Samoa. He is not considered to be Black by the U.S, Census, nor is he genetically related to black Africans, AFAIK.
We are not talking about that Warren Moon (http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=0-1001-0-0-0&sID=12574&articleID=151980&news_task=DETAIL)

There is a difference between football and American football. Your Warren Moon is a second string midfielder not a quarterback. :D

Queensland midfielder Massimo Murdocca is in doubt for the Roar's game in Perth, because of a virus, with Warren Moon included in the squad as cover.


Wikipedia says our Warren Moon is African American

Moon was also the first, and currently only, modern African-American quarterback elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

[El Zagna]

EL Zanga think of it like this: If you want say that some Athletic skill is genetically pre-determined and that is the driving factor... No! Nobody is saying that! We're saying that certain athletic skills are genetically influenced and that certain groups appear to be more inclined than others to have these genetic attributes. Big difference between being pre-determined and influenced.

Has the OP noticed that there are now quite a few white receivers in the league? Racial profiling is breaking down all over. I think you're making the same mistake as jimmmy. The fact that there are some white receivers in the NFL in no way undermines the genetic argument.

[The Flying Dutchman]

I just want to point out that the 8 fastest men on earth lined up last March and raced 60 meters at the World Championship. 2 of those 8 - whittled down from many prior events and races were "white" men. You can watch the race here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SKPb0PyCog&mode=related&search=) (an African American former Steeler wins) & a white man is 3rd.

I think this just demonstrates how hard it is to talk about race and who has speed and who doesn't as a racial group in any meaningful way. It really is a complex thing

Oh please.

A white guy actually finish second in that race. His name is Andrey Yepishin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Yepishin)

In 2006 he finished second in the 60 metres at the World Indoor Championships in Moscow to clock a new personal best and national record time of 6.52 seconds. He won the silver medal in the 100 m at the 2006 European Athletics Championships and recorded a new national record of 10.10 seconds.

10.10 second record for the 100 meters? That doesn't come within 1609 meters of the worlds best.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

1. There's no rationality involved in such an assessment. Moon was black as far as football was concerned.

2. When he came out, the dominant style of offense in the NFL required dropback passers with strong arms. Moon was a scrambler, and that meant his arm was considered suspect, properly or not.


Has the OP noticed that there are now quite a few white receivers in the league? Racial profiling is breaking down all over.
Name 5 WR's in the NFL that are considered among the best. You can't? It's because they don't exist.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Name 5 WR's in the NFL that are considered among the best. You can't? It's because they don't exist.
I meant 5 WHITE WR's....dammit....

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Who was the comedian that said that a "black man's butt is higher-up than a white man's butt"?
Or was that Jimmy the Greek?
:dubious:

[jimmmy]

Flying Dutchman the "mistake" that I think you are making is saying that "groups" of people that you are identifying as African/black have an inherent genetic advantage over whites in speed. You are saying that -- right? If I am mischaracterizing it tell me.

Now don't turn that around and try and talk about Bell Curves or that I am saying you are saying all blacks are faster than all whites. I am not saying that you are saying that - OK? I don't wish to keep going over and over that. I think I am being fair in saying that the first paragraph is your argument.

If it is, I think it can be demonstrated to be false simply by showing that the World Championships - are 25% white as roughly all International Track Championships/men and women turn out to be. Your answer to that is to mischaracterize it & to provide some variant answer as in the second paragraph - I don't see that as a logical answer. You apparently do, if that is your answer lets agree to disagree.

----------------------------------------

ElZanaga we may be close to some agreement. If all you want to say is that genes may be one influence among many complex factors then I am with you.

When we began to debate, I say it is hard to talk about meaningfully in these discussions. I said that because, I don’t doubt you know this, the genes of the Black guys lined up are likely to be more different than the genes of the white guys. There is a great deal of genetic diversity in Africa and, by comparison almost homogeneity outside of it. If fact, if the entire world disappeared except sub-Saharan Africans almost all of the worlds’ human genetic diversity would still be preserved – they use the number 99% in peer reviewed journals.

So how are we going to identify the “groups” that people would identify as athletically superior? An example: the odds would be pretty overwhelming that those 5 “black” guys lined up at the world Championship last year were more genetically different from each other than they were from the white guys or the Cuban black guy. That’s amazing isn’t it? But the odds are its true. That makes talking about genes and athletic ability very difficult to talk about in any meaningful way – no?

Given that the whites would be very close to genetically homogenous and the “blacks” and black Cuban genetically diverse – you might even say the genotype most represented at this elite level are the genotype shared by the whites – we couldn’t be sure by eyeballing it – we would need to do genetic tests to prove it – but the odds are that would prove to be true.

This isn't some squishy sensitivity seminar offered by an associate Berkley "Professor of Diversity" this is the hardest peer-reviewed science on earth.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E7DB1F39F937A35755C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990125073157.htm

http://www.rps.psu.edu/0101/africa.html

[brazil84]

Flying Dutchman the "mistake" that I think you are making is saying that "groups" of people that you are identifying as African/black have an inherent genetic advantage over whites in speed. You are saying that -- right? If I am mischaracterizing it tell me.

Now don't turn that around and try and talk about Bell Curves or that I am saying you are saying all blacks are faster than all whites. I am not saying that you are saying that - OK? I don't wish to keep going over and over that. I think I am being fair in saying that the first paragraph is your argument.

If it is, I think it can be demonstrated to be false simply by showing that the World Championships - are 25% white as roughly all International Track Championships/men and women turn out to be. Your answer to that is to mischaracterize it & to provide some variant answer as in the second paragraph - I don't see that as a logical answer. You apparently do, if that is your answer lets agree to disagree.

For what it's worth, you are in the wrong here. If Group X has a slight advantage in speed over Group Y, it does not necessarily follow that the fastest people in the world will all come from Group X.

To see why, you would need to unerstand that "bell curve" stuff, which apparently you are not interested in.

[ElvisL1ves]

Name 5 {white} WR's in the NFL that are considered among the best.You guys don't go back very far, do you? It wasn't all that long ago you couldn't name 5 white WR's or 5 black QB's in the NFL, because there weren't any at all.

That's the point here.

[jimmmy]

For what it's worth, you are in the wrong here. If Group X has a slight advantage in speed over Group Y, it does not necessarily follow that the fastest people in the world will all come from Group X.

To see why, you would need to unerstand that "bell curve" stuff, which apparently you are not interested in.

I understand what you are saying. Flying Dutchman and others are saying that that "groups" of people that they are identifying as African/black have an inherent genetic advantage over whites in speed. They are not quantifying as a slight advantage. They are saying that there is an inherent genetic advantage in speed in being black (NB I am not saying that they are saying all Blacks are faster than all whites or anything like that). Given that isn't the burden of a 25% outlier an argument against that? It is an argument that more is going on than genes - right? (and to be accurate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Normal_distribution_pdf.png) 25% at the elite end isn't a true Bell Curve and saying a distribution curve would be more accurate but I didn't want to be a d^ck about it).

If you think that all the variation can be explained by genes God Bless you. I understand what you are saying but I think that is wacky.

[brazil84]

Flying Dutchman and others are saying that that "groups" of people that they are identifying as African/black have an inherent genetic advantage over whites in speed. They are not quantifying as a slight advantage.

I can't speak for anyone besides myself.

They are saying that there is an inherent genetic advantage in speed in being black (NB I am not saying that they are saying all Blacks are faster than all whites or anything like that). Given that isn't the burden of a 25% outlier an argument against that?

Not if the difference is small and the "faster" group is a minority in the general population.

It is an argument that more is going on than genes - right? (and to be accurate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Normal_distribution_pdf.png) 25% at the elite end isn't a true Bell Curve and saying a distribution curve would be more accurate but I didn't want to be a d^ck about it).

:confused: I have no idea what your point is here.

If you think that all the variation can be explained by genes God Bless you.

What variation are you talking about?

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

Perhaps the use of coffee is benificial to kicking but detrimental to speed. :pJoin The Coffee Achievers! (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7747989554798258213) Bengals QB Kenny Anderson did, as did Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Why do we see the same race at different quirky American novelist positions?

Oooooooh! here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0vuEzdCvoQ) one more spot. Jane Curtain reminds us that with coffee, "you can do it."

Hijack over.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Flying Dutchman the "mistake" that I think you are making is saying that "groups" of people that you are identifying as African/black have an inherent genetic advantage over whites in speed. You are saying that -- right? If I am mischaracterizing it tell me.

No. I will rewrite your statement so that it will be correct.

I am saying that "a subset of a group" of people that I have identified as West African descended have an inherent advantage over all other groups of people (including their own) in speed.


Now don't turn that around and try and talk about Bell Curves or that I am saying you are saying all blacks are faster than all whites. I am not saying that you are saying that - OK? I don't wish to keep going over and over that. I think I am being fair in saying that the first paragraph is your argument.

If you believe bell curves are meaningless , I won't pursue it.


If it is, I think it can be demonstrated to be false simply by showing that the World Championships - are 25% white as roughly all International Track Championships/men and women turn out to be.

So you take one race, not the Olympics, in Moscow with two Russians running, and base an argument on that. Not all the best athletes bother to compete in the world championships. And the Russian presence might suggest a bias in the eligibility rules for the host country. In any case, if I made an argument based on the results of one World Championship, I'd rightly be heavily criticized.

Let me demonstrate as follows (http://run-down.com/guests/je_black_athletes_p1.php)
All of the thirty-two finalists in the last four Olympic men's 100-meter races are of West African descent. The likelihood of that based on population numbers alone-blacks with ancestral roots in that region represent 8 percent of the world's population - is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 percent.

There's no need to count the zeros. That number is really a dramatic picture worth a thousand words.

0.08 no genetic advantage(theoretical)
0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 genetic advantage(fact)

[jimmmy]

Dutchman Cool and OK. I am pretty fine with all you said in the last post.

I know I should leave this at that but I seem to be constitutionally unable to leave it when someone misrepresents what I said [and in fact that is how I got so far into this in the first place]. I guess I would say that I never said Bell Curves are meaningless. I said, and am still saying, a distribution curve that is shaped like the NYC skyline or the Pyramid of Khufu (exaggeration for effect) is not a Bell curve. The end of a true "bell curve" should be tapered off and that is not what we see in what we are talking about --- not even close. The elite 1-2% are still one quarter non-"black"


brazil84 I am not ignoring you but think I'd rather leave it. I don't think we are connecting and I bet sitting across a table we would find we don't disagree about much and/or would reach some level a mutual eye rolling and move on to other topics and I appreciate the low key tone you have taken.

[Really Not All That Bright]

You guys don't go back very far, do you? It wasn't all that long ago you couldn't name 5 white WR's or 5 black QB's in the NFL, because there weren't any at all.
White wide receivers over the last thirty-something years - Ed Mcaffrey, Steve Largent, Ray Berry, Don Hudson, Lance Alworth, Fred Biletnikoff, Wayne Chrebet, Chris Collinsworth, Mark Boerighter, Dwight Clark, Tim Dwight, Danny Abramowicz, Roger Carr, Steve Watson...

Black quarterbacks over the last twentysomething years - Doug Williams, Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, Joe Gilliam, James Harris....

The above are from memory. I could go do some research if those aren't long enough lists for you....

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

White wide receivers over the last thirty-something years - Ed Mcaffrey, Steve Largent, Ray Berry, Don Hudson, Lance Alworth, Fred Biletnikoff, Wayne Chrebet, Chris Collinsworth, Mark Boerighter, Dwight Clark, Tim Dwight, Danny Abramowicz, Roger Carr, Steve Watson...

Black quarterbacks over the last twentysomething years - Doug Williams, Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, Joe Gilliam, James Harris....

The above are from memory. I could go do some research if those aren't long enough lists for you....
Thanks. I wasn't really sure what Elvis was saying. Of course there were more white WR's back in the day...there was LESS ethnic diversity in the league then than there is NOW.

Back then, you could point to the Biletnikoffs, the Alworth's of the game and say "those are the best WR's in the NFL" (along with the occaisonal Swan and Stallworth, who were actually considered something of an anomoly due to their incredibly athletic, leaping receptions...)
Now, you cannot include a white WR in that statement and have it be true. Now it's Moss, Owens, Chad Johnson, etc...

And FTR, I don't care that it became this way, it just is and that's fine. But it bears pointing out due to the OP's origiinal question and I thought that the WR position group is one of the better suited ones to show the paradigm shift in racial makeup of the position.

[The Flying Dutchman]

The end of a true "bell curve" should be tapered off and that is not what we see in what we are talking about --- not even close. The elite 1-2% are still one quarter non-"black"


We aren't talking about 1 to 2 percent. For America alone that would suggest 400,000 elite African descended runners. If that was the case, we'd have better quality football in Canada.

If you continue to insist on the 1/4 non black elite based on the video of one world championship finals as a basis for defining the "elite" then either of us have no traction in convincing the other to their view.

[brazil84]

The end of a true "bell curve" should be tapered off and that is not what we see in what we are talking about --- not even close. The elite 1-2% are still one quarter non-"black"

Such an observation is consistent with a "bell curve" scenario.

brazil84 I am not ignoring you but think I'd rather leave it. I don't think we are connecting

Whatever. With all due respect, I suggest you learn some basic statistics.

[jimmmy]

Dutchman and Brazil84:

No we are not seeing a bell curve. We are seeing a scenario where the elite are 25% white not where 1-2% are. That is not a "Bell Curve". For it to be a "bell curve" you would need a bell shape. What we have is decidedly not a Bell shape. It is a distribution curve with 25% in one end. Not 1-2%. 25%not 1-2%. I agree that if that can't be grasped and understood we can't talk about this.

Dutchman I agree that the "1/4 non black" of one championship as a basis for defining the "elite" is too small it was the best I can do without going through and finding all the World Championships over a reasonable period of time and doing some kind of analysis. The whole thing just kind of swept along.

Then again, we would be back to what I believe is a logical flaw - that by eyeballing these folks you can somehow identify their genotypes as a subset of a group" of people that you would have identified as West African descended have an inherent advantage over all other groups of people (including their own) in speed.

[brazil84]

No we are not seeing a bell curve. We are seeing a scenario where the elite are 25% white not where 1-2% are. That is not a "Bell Curve". For it to be a "bell curve" you would need a bell shape. What we have is decidedly not a Bell shape. It is a distribution curve with 25% in one end. Not 1-2%. 25%not 1-2%.

Dude, here's a puzzle for you:

Suppose there are 10,000,00 people in the population. 1,000,000 from Group X; and 9,000,000 from Group Y. The height of people in Group X is normally distributed with mean 5'6" and standard deviation 6 inches. The height of people from Group Y is normally distributed with mean 5'0" and standard deviation of 6 inches.

Three questions:

1. Is it fair to characterize Group X as being, on average, significantly taller than Group Y?

2. What percentage of the total population (from either group) can be expected to be 7'0" or taller?

3. Of all the people who are 7'0" or taller, what percentage can be expected to come from Group Y?

[Really Not All That Bright]

Then again, we would be back to what I believe is a logical flaw - that by eyeballing these folks you can somehow identify their genotypes as a subset of a group" of people that you would have identified as West African descended have an inherent advantage over all other groups of people (including their own) in speed.
I'm starting to think you're being deliberately obtuse.

Of course we can't precisely identify individuals of mostly West African descent by eyeballing them - but you can certainly identify those who definitely are not.

[John Mace]

It's interesting to see how many people in this thread "know" things about genetics that geneticists themselves don't know. I look forward to a flurry of papers being published and seeing the scientific community rocked to it foundation with all this new "knowledge".

[The Flying Dutchman]

Dutchman and Brazil84:

No we are not seeing a bell curve. We are seeing a scenario where the elite are 25% white not where 1-2% are. That is not a "Bell Curve". For it to be a "bell curve" you would need a bell shape. What we have is decidedly not a Bell shape. It is a distribution curve with 25% in one end. Not 1-2%. 25%not 1-2%. I agree that if that can't be grasped and understood we can't talk about this.


Lets define the "elite" 100m sprinters as those who have cracked the 9.8 second barrier. There's at least a couple I know of. On second thought, lets include those who've cracked the 9.9 second barrier. On further thought lets include those who have cracked the 10 second barrier. Okay,now lets plot two graphs representing frequency and best 100 meter times representing West African descended people and other people. As the graph progresses horizontally you will see the non west African bell curve peter completely to zero at ten seconds while the other graph doesn't hit zero for another full quarter second.

Dutchman I agree that the "1/4 non black" of one championship as a basis for defining the "elite" is too small it was the best I can do without going through and finding all the World Championships over a reasonable period of time and doing some kind of analysis. The whole thing just kind of swept along.

The world championships do not always attract the top competitors. No one turns down the opportunity to compete in the olympics


Then again, we would be back to what I believe is a logical flaw - that by eyeballing these folks you can somehow identify their genotypes as a subset of a group" of people that you would have identified as West African descended...

I'm not relying on eyeballing. I'm mostly relying on the observations and facts as presented by Jon Entine, and I know his works have been thouroughly investigated by others because he originally was quite controversial.

have an inherent advantage over all other groups of people (including their own) in speed.

Well, I'm not convinced that you or I when we are in our prime could compete with the elite sprinters no matter how intensively we train or inject steroids.

[The Flying Dutchman]

And keep in mind that the population "African-American" has a significant amount of European ancestry in it, and what is true of that population may not be true of any particular African population.
Aziz Zakari at 9.99, and Leonard Myles-Mills at 9.98 are African , from, Ghana , not African American and are in the under 10 second club where you won't find any "pure" Europeans.

It helps to get the facts before making misleading suggestions.

It's interesting to see how many people in this thread "know" things about genetics that geneticists themselves don't know. I look forward to a flurry of papers being published and seeing the scientific community rocked to it foundation with all this new "knowledge".

Great debating point John. Good job!

[jimmmy]

Brazil84. Dude. I said 25% was what we could see in the very small sample in a single race of the fastest people on earth was not a "Bell curve". Do you disagree? If you do OK.
If not we are cool.

Really all not that bright and Flying Dutchman I will just repeat what I said before - Again I need to say you are in fact eyeballing them - you are making assumptions of the genotype based on how they appear right? I mean there really isn't anyway around that


Given that the whites would be very close to genetically homogenous and the “blacks” and black Cuban genetically diverse – you might even say the genotype most represented at this elite level [ed in this race] are the genotype shared by the whites – we couldn’t be sure by eyeballing it – we would need to do genetic tests to prove it – but the odds are that would prove to be true.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E7DB1F39F937A35755C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990125073157.htm

http://www.rps.psu.edu/0101/africa.html

Dutchman
Jon Entine has a degree from Trinity College (Hartford) in philosophy - doesn't mean he is crazy or wrong or not a first class sh^t stirrer. But he hasn't done "work" in this area.

I think this is a very complex area - genes may play a part but I do not believe that is the whole story and certainly no some reverse-PC kneejerk idea that there is evidence that "a subset of a group" of people that you would have identified as West African descended have an inherent advantage over all other groups of people (including their own) in speed.

[brazil84]

Brazil84. Dude. I said 25% was what we could see in the very small sample in a single race of the fastest people on earth was not a "Bell curve". Do you disagree?

I can't disagree or agree because your statement makes no sense at all.

Please try to answer my question, even if you are just estimating the answers. If you truly understand the concepts you are discussing, you should be able to do so:

Suppose there are 10,000,00 people in the population. 1,000,000 from Group X; and 9,000,000 from Group Y. The height of people in Group X is normally distributed with mean 5'6" and standard deviation 6 inches. The height of people from Group Y is normally distributed with mean 5'0" and standard deviation of 6 inches.

Three questions:

1. Is it fair to characterize Group X as being, on average, significantly taller than Group Y?

2. What percentage of the total population (from either group) can be expected to be 7'0" or taller?

3. Of all the people who are 7'0" or taller, what percentage can be expected to come from Group Y?

___________

It's really a simple question for anyone who understands how normal distributions work.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Really all not that bright and Flying Dutchman I will just repeat what I said before - Again I need to say you are in fact eyeballing them - you are making assumptions of the genotype based on how they appear right? I mean there really isn't anyway around that
I don't know what most of these under 10 second athletes look like. even in Wikipedia you often don't get their pictures.

Given that the whites would be very close to genetically homogenous and the “blacks” and black Cuban genetically diverse – you might even say the genotype most represented at this elite level [ed in this race] are the genotype shared by the whites – we couldn’t be sure by eyeballing it – we would need to do genetic tests to prove it – but the odds are that would prove to be true. Not one of your whites belongs in the under 10 second club. Sure, they may all share a particular white genotype, but there is no evidece that there is a white genotype for superior speed over blacks. The hypothesis fails in a split second after contemplation..

Dutchman
Jon Entine has a degree from Trinity College (Hartford) in philosophy - doesn't mean he is crazy or wrong or not a first class sh^t stirrer. But he hasn't done "work" in this area.
He refers to scientists who've done the work.

I am saying that "a subset of a group" of people that I have identified as West African descended have an inherent advantage over all other groups of people (including their own) in speed.
Dutchman Cool and OK. I am pretty fine with all you said in the last post.
but I do not believe that is the whole story and certainly no some reverse-PC kneejerk idea that there is evidence that "a subset of a group" of people that you would have identified as West African descended have an inherent advantage over all other groups of people (including their own) in speed.
I don't know what your up to, but you are contradicting yourself.

[tomndebb]

Given that the whites would be very close to genetically homogenous and the “blacks” and black Cuban genetically diverse. . . This is the second time you have attempted to make this point, but it simply means that you do not understand the actual discussion taking place, here.

In bullet fashion: Africa holds the widest genetic distribution of humans. (OK)
Anyone making a claim that "Africans" or even "Sub-Saharan blacks" are some sort of monolithic group about whom one may draw any broad conclusions would have to ignore that genetic diversity. (OK)
The genetic diversity of Africa is manifested in the large number of ethnic groups or genetic populations on the African continent; it does not manifest in some sort of random genetic spray in which neighbors in African cities or villages are more unlike than people from separate countries in Europe or Asia or the Americas. The issue is not that Africa has more distinct individuals, it is that Africa has a greater number of distinct populations.
This topic does not address Africans or sub-Saharan Africans or blacks.
This topic addresses the specific people whose ancestors, prior to the slave trade, lived along the Western coast of Africa from (roughly) Senegal, around the bulge and past Congo. Those people compose a group that, while not uniform, appears to be sufficiently related to allow some comparison and analysis.If anyone on the "pro" side of this discussion were to claim that any random black person from Senegal, Kenya, Angola, or Madagascar had a statistically better chance to be a great sprinter than any random person from Sweden, Thailand, Fiji, Iran, or Kalaalit Nunaat, then your objection would have weight.
However, we know from the historical record that well over 95% (probably over 99%) of people imported as slaves to the U.S. were taken from the specific range of places I noted above. The U.S. did not import slaves from Madagascar. The U.S. did not import slaves from Somalia. The U.S. did not import slaves from Botswana. Therefore, when we look at two black sprinters from the U.S., we already have a pretty good idea (based on actual history) that their ancestors were more closely related than random Europeans or Asians--the overall genetic diversity of Africa notwithstanding.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Thanks. I wasn't really sure what Elvis was saying. Of course there were more white WR's back in the day...there was LESS ethnic diversity in the league then than there is NOW.

Back then, you could point to the Biletnikoffs, the Alworth's of the game and say "those are the best WR's in the NFL" (along with the occaisonal Swan and Stallworth, who were actually considered something of an anomoly due to their incredibly athletic, leaping receptions...)
Now, you cannot include a white WR in that statement and have it be true. Now it's Moss, Owens, Chad Johnson, etc...
Right. In any case, the number of black quarterbacks in the league is pretty obviously not a similar scenario to the numbers of white wide receivers.

Until fairly recently, coaches simply didn't put black players under center, because "they weren't smart enough" :rolleyes: to play quarterback.

In the modern NFL, and to a lesser extent, college and high school, coaches don't give a crap what color you are as long as you can throw the ball, make good reads, and grasp the offense.

[Huerta88]

Until fairly recently, coaches simply didn't put black players under center, because "they weren't smart enough" :rolleyes: to play quarterback.

In the modern NFL, and to a lesser extent, college and high school, coaches don't give a crap what color you are as long as you can throw the ball, make good reads, and grasp the offense.
I don't think you need to assume racial animus or distrust of black intellectual abilities to explain the historical lack of black NFL quarterbacks.

First of all, "smart" is a relative term, esp. when applied to athletes. I do not think I've ever heard (nor do I expect to hear) the word "cerebral" in the same sentence or even paragraph as the names "Marino," "Namath," or "Unitas." These guys certainly had "football smarts," but they were not thought of as (nor did they need to be) "intelligent" in the classical "Bell Curve" IQ sense.

Second, since the end of Jim Crow, there were plenty of black QBs in the high school and even college ranks. By the early 1980s, when Doug Williams was considered something of a pioneer in the NFL, it was fairly unremarkable to see a J.C. Watts or Turner Gill at QB in the Big 8. What's the difference?

The difference had largely to do with the styles of offense. Very, very few high school or college teams ran a pro-style, dropback passing offensive scheme till the mid-1980s (if not later -- the option offense persisted at elite college programs into the '90s, and I'm sure some high schools were running the single wing within living memory). Time and again, you would see black QBs moved to other positions when they moved up in the ranks. The handful of lower-level programs that were running an offense that might effectively groom a guy to play pro QB were (for whatever reason) heavily white.

Now, that raises a different question: why were blacks able to thrive in option or other offenses where a running QB was an asset, but not in dropback passing offenses? The perceived reason had little to do with smarts, a lot to do with speed (which is why black guys pushed out of the QB position were often converted to receivers or running backs). I have no idea whether there is a genetic basis for black guys being faster, but I know that a lot of black guys who were faster thrived in offenses where footspeed and running were rewarded (and hence would have had little incentive to develop pass-rush-reading or receiver-targeting skills). Slow white guys with bad knees who found themselves as QB didn't have the option of scrambling, so they had to make a virtue of necessity with passing skills. The stereotypical knock on black QBs was not "he's dumb." It's "he won't stay in the damn pocket."

Now, with more lower-level programs deploying sophisticated passing schemes, there's more and more black (and white) guys who have the opportunity to develop those skills rather than just being a de facto running back at QB. At the same time, interestingly, the NFL has discovered that QBs can actually be an asset as runners (classsic dropback passers usually ran only of necessity, and with poor results), so being a speedy scrambling guy willing to take the ball and run when your receivers aren't open is an asset for a black or white QB, rather than the knock that it used to be.

[Really Not All That Bright]

I don't think you need to assume racial animus or distrust of black intellectual abilities to explain the historical lack of black NFL quarterbacks.

While the rest of your post is pretty good, and I'd agree with a lot of it...

...with regard to the above, I'm not assuming racial animus or distrust of black intellects.

Googling "black quarterback not smart" returns an endless stream of hits on the topic of how African-Americans were moved to other positions because of a percieved lack of intelligence.

[Huerta88]

Googling "black quarterback not smart" returns an endless stream of hits on the topic of how African-Americans were moved to other positions because of a percieved lack of intelligence.
I am sure there are/were some black and white QBs who did/do have low intelligence, objectively measured. I am not putting my money on Vince Young in an IQ derby, but nor am I putting it on Todd Marinovich.

I still think speed is a big issue. A fast guy (of whatever race) could get by on his athletic abilities in high school and college (where the difference between the fastest guy on the field and the slowest could be pretty huge). In the NFL, everyone's fast, everyone's strong, and just outrunning everyone is no longer a very good alternative. Now -- I would be willing to say that in that context, people may have criticized blacks (disproportionately) for not understanding that in the bigs, you need to bring something more than raw speed/athleticism, just as a Marinovich or Chuck Long (to name two physically-imposing but ultimately-unsuccessful white QBs) never really developed their game much beyond "look how far I can chuck the ball."

The passing game was developed in the first place as a way to get the ball further downfield, faster, than running. To the extent black QBs were perceived as defaulting to a scramble that might net them four yards rather than setting up a longer gain by staying in the pocket, I guess that could be perceived as lacking in "football smarts." I've also heard anguished cries of "why'd he do that?" when a kick returner runs backward and loses yardage in an attempt to get to the outside of the pursuit and make a huge gain, or when a defender loses a chance at recovering a fumble by trying to pick it up on the fly and go for a touchdown rather than just fall on it. A lot of this may have to do with the fact that some black kids grow up playing more of a playground/"street" style of ball, which doesn't emphasize particularly sophisticated playbook-style offensive schemes but does amply reward the fastest kid on the block.

[LionelHutz405]

There was a time when blacks were underrepresented at the other 'smart' positions in pro football as well as quarterback. (Head coach, middle linebacker, centre).

I think it 's a stretch to try and justify that as anything other than racism.

[Huerta88]

There was a time when blacks were underrepresented at the other 'smart' positions in pro football as well as quarterback. (Head coach, middle linebacker, centre).

I think it 's a stretch to try and justify that as anything other than racism.
I'm not justifying or defending the result in any way. I'm offering an explanation for another factor that played into it.

Mind you, my speed-based explanation still is predicated on people's (possibly erroneous) assumption that black guys are often faster -- so maybe I'm saying that there were a couple of distinct and possibly-prejudicial stereotypes at work.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Mind you, my speed-based explanation still is predicated on people's (possibly erroneous) assumption that black guys are often faster -- so maybe I'm saying that there were a couple of distinct and possibly-prejudicial stereotypes at work.
Well, nobody looks for a quarterback by picking the very fastest guy he can find. Among quarterbacks, at least, I highly doubt that the fastest black quarterbacks are much quicker than the fastest white ones (with the obvious exception of Michael Vick).

After all, Byron Leftwich is widely regarded as the least mobile quarterback in the league.

I think a lot of this has to do with the traditional progression of player assignments in youth football:

The most athletic guy on the team plays quarterback, unless he can't throw, in which case he plays running back.

The next part is purely speculation on my part: white players are more likely to quickly progress to affluent programs with better coaching - better coaching usually (though not always) = more complex playbooks and/or play design. Thus, when they get to high school, they're better prepared for pro-style offenses than the average black quarterback is, since he's probably been stuck in an option- or at least run-based offense, so he's had to make things happen by himself at times. Thus, he is used to scrambling.

[El Zagna]

When talking about quarterbacks, let's make sure we're not overlooking the obvious, and that is that the primary skill required by a quarterback is to be able to throw the ball accurately and over long distances. QB is the only position on the field that uses the upper body in that way.

It's quite possible that the physical attributes needed for that position just happen to be those that are more likely found in the white population.

[brazil84]

When talking about quarterbacks, let's make sure we're not overlooking the obvious, and that is that the primary skill required by a quarterback is to be able to throw the ball accurately and over long distances. QB is the only position on the field that uses the upper body in that way.

It's quite possible that the physical attributes needed for that position just happen to be those that are more likely found in the white population.

That thought occurred to me too. I recall reading that the track and field events that involve throwing something -- discus, shot put, javelin, and hammer -- tend to be dominated by whites. Also, I recall reading somewhere that white NBA players tend to have higher free throw percentages than blacks.

[Huerta88]

That thought occurred to me too. I recall reading that the track and field events that involve throwing something -- discus, shot put, javelin, and hammer -- tend to be dominated by whites.
True enough. But this could be a phenomenon of blacks-can't-afford-specialized-training-in-obscure-sports (the field events are hardly popular faves and it's probably harder to find good coaches/programs for them) or blacks-are-too-smart-to-waste-time-on-a-sport-that-can't-possibly-make-you-money (not a lot of black biathletes either).

Also, I recall reading somewhere that white NBA players tend to have higher free throw percentages than blacks.
This gets controversial. Either it leads to positing a genetic basis, always controversial, or to faulting the practice-habits/work ethic of the guys who shoot worse (European BB players I've listened to seem to think all Americans are lousy at shooting accuracy, FTs, because they favor a flashy and physical, but sloppy, style of play), as free throw performance can in most instance be improved very significantly by sheer repetitive practice.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Also, I recall reading somewhere that white NBA players tend to have higher free throw percentages than blacks.
I think this can be readily explained by the "And 1 Mixtape" philosophy that inner-city basketball players tend to adopt- forget the fundamentals, work on those flashy post moves, etc.

Safe to say that most white NBA players are either suburban kids who got coached well from an early age, or foreigners, who'd also be coached well.

I read an interview with Tracy McGrady a few years ago in which he mentioned that nobody ever bothered to teach him how to shoot a free throw until he reached high school.

[jimmmy]

Tomndeb in post #54 I said at the World championships last year with the 8 fastest sprinters on earth –one of whom was a Nigerian- just demonstrates how hard it is to talk about race and who has speed and who doesn't as a racial group in any meaningful way. It really is a complex thing. Using that as an example in this discussion was Ridiculous! As Not Too Bright might say. I know that and a man with a higher EQ would have long ago walked away.

From that stupid $0.02 in post #54 I was swept into a debate defending my post as others tried to extrapolate my highjack to the thread at large. But I hung in. And that makes me the assh^le - not them because it was a highjack and I should have just gone away. The thread went back to the OP as soon as I stopped.

But I can't let your your snooty and condescending post go unremarked upon.

Those people compose a group that, while not uniform, appears to be sufficiently related to allow some comparison and analysis.

I submit then when you re-read your post and you realize that you lump this as one genetic subset you demonstrate that you really don’t understand the research cited on African genetic diversity (a little shot back atcha Chief). That the scores (not 1-2) of groups that were made slaves from West Africa are not likely to be closely related – in fact they are more likely to be different from each other genetically than you and the Hispanic neighbor who you Cliff Clavin about his lawn & the Asian guy you corner at parties and talk at about theology at until Deb pulls you away. I think you probably know that and you just wanted to speak superciliously to me as is your wont. If you really want to defend that position lets go.

Everyone else you all make good points. You take the last word.

[tomndebb]

Tomndeb in post #54 I said at the World championships last year with the 8 fastest sprinters on earth –one of whom was a Nigerian- just demonstrates how hard it is to talk about race and who has speed and who doesn't as a racial group in any meaningful way.It may or may not be difficult, but you have provided no reason for us to believe that your point has any validity. Dig out a map and look up Nigeria, then note where it lies in terms of the coast running from Senegal to Congo. This discussion focuses on people from the west coast of Africa and every one of the sprinters under discussion has ancestors from that region.But I can't let your your snooty and condescending post go unremarked upon.

Those people compose a group that, while not uniform, appears to be sufficiently related to allow some comparison and analysis.

I submit then when you re-read your post and you realize that you lump this as one genetic subset you demonstrate that you really don’t understand the research cited on African genetic diversity (a little shot back atcha Chief). That the scores (not 1-2) of groups that were made slaves from West Africa are not likely to be closely related – in fact they are more likely to be different from each other genetically than you and the Hispanic neighbor who you Cliff Clavin about his lawn & the Asian guy you corner at parties and talk at about theology at until Deb pulls you away. I think you probably know that and you just wanted to speak superciliously to me as is your wont. If you really want to defend that position lets go.I was not attempting to be snooty or supercilious, just attempting to keep the thread from being hijacked. However, if you wish to make an issue of this, please provide documentation that the African diversity (which is real) actually applies to the specific population of the African West coast (which you continue to assert, but which you have failed to demonstrate).

[RickJay]

That thought occurred to me too. I recall reading that the track and field events that involve throwing something -- discus, shot put, javelin, and hammer -- tend to be dominated by whites. Also, I recall reading somewhere that white NBA players tend to have higher free throw percentages than blacks.
However, those events tend to be heavily dominated by European whites, specifically, and (at least in the past) the winners were hugely overrepresented by Communist nations who engaged in mass cheating operations. You didn't see a lot of Australian champions in such events, even though Australia has as many white people as East Germany did. I can't remember a Canadian white guy ever winning a medal in those events but we've got lots of white guys. And, considering their utter dominance in so many events, even American white guys are surprisingly underrepresented in such events.

But you do see a lot of Australian swimming champions, Canadian hockey stars, and American gymnastics champions. Again, a sport's popularity has to be considered.

[brazil84]

However, those events tend to be heavily dominated by European whites, specifically, and (at least in the past) the winners were hugely overrepresented by Communist nations who engaged in mass cheating operations.

I pulled up the world record progression for discus throw in Wikipedia. There were plenty of American world record holders.

But you do see a lot of Australian swimming champions, Canadian hockey stars, and American gymnastics champions. Again, a sport's popularity has to be considered.

Of course. Popularity counts for a lot. Nevertheless, the disparity is suggestive.

[jimmmy]

However, if you wish to make an issue of this, please provide documentation that the African diversity (which is real) actually applies to the specific population of the African West coast (which you continue to assert, but which you have failed to demonstrate).


I most certainly did. Twice. I even provided a non-scientific journal cite so that I wouldn’t confuse people who at an emotional level didn’t want to deal with the truth of the matter by citing a lot of “scientific facts” that they would be suspicious of.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990125073157.htm

"Most African Americans in the U.S. came from West Africa and are undoubtedly as diverse, genetically, as those individuals who remained in Africa," says Tishkoff. "The causes of genetically based diseases in African Americans may be different from the causes of the same diseases in Americans whose roots are in Europe."


Dr. Sarah Tishkoff Penn State

You sir “do not understand” the extent of African human diversity nor did you even read my post or cites before you simply piled on.

I now invite you to provide a cite that your genetically ridiculous assertion :
Those people compose a group that, while not uniform, appears to be sufficiently related to allow some comparison and analysis.

is true (its not btw) or let me go in peace & don't jump in my sh^t like that again unless you know what you are talking about.

I'll even offer this backward compliment - my apelike sh^t throwing fury at your post was based in part that you knew and understood the genetics of this -if you really did not I apologize to you for about 60% of my "edge".

[tomndebb]

I most certainly did. Twice. I even provided a non-scientific journal cite so that I wouldn’t confuse people who at an emotional level didn’t want to deal with the truth of the matter by citing a lot of “scientific facts” that they would be suspicious of.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990125073157.htm

"Most African Americans in the U.S. came from West Africa and are undoubtedly as diverse, genetically, as those individuals who remained in Africa," says Tishkoff. "The causes of genetically based diseases in African Americans may be different from the causes of the same diseases in Americans whose roots are in Europe."


Dr. Sarah Tishkoff Penn StateAnd then the article goes on to claim The incidence of hypertension in African Americans is quite high and probably not caused by the same mechanism as in Europeans. Understanding the underlying genetic cause, could lead to more effective treatments. If hypertension is endemic to the people imported from Africa, then it is a uniform characteristic of that group. Only if hypertension (or sprint speed) was limited to a single population of Africa (as long-distance running appears to be limited to a single, rather small population in the region of Kenya) would it be possible to rule out a "West African/sprint" connection. While the American and Canadian sprinters may have had their origins obscured in the slave trade, there is no similar vagueness regarding African sprinters who do not all come from a Ghana or Cameroon or Lesotho. (Similarly, there are no record holding sprinters from Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, or other locations outside the West African coastal region which further strongly suggests (not proves) a West African connection.)

[astorian]

However, those events tend to be heavily dominated by European whites, specifically, and (at least in the past) the winners were hugely overrepresented by Communist nations who engaged in mass cheating operations. You didn't see a lot of Australian champions in such events, even though Australia has as many white people as East Germany did. I can't remember a Canadian white guy ever winning a medal in those events but we've got lots of white guys. And, considering their utter dominance in so many events, even American white guys are surprisingly underrepresented in such events.

But you do see a lot of Australian swimming champions, Canadian hockey stars, and American gymnastics champions. Again, a sport's popularity has to be considered.

Quite so- in the U.S., there are lots of athletes who'd probably make great discus throwers or shot putters or Greco-Roman wrestlers. And you you know what they're doing? They're protecting Tony Romo and opening up holes for LaDainian Tomlinson. Americans who are big and strong enough to be champions at those sports gravitate to the offensive and defensive lines of the NFL.

In the same way, there are loads of Americans who'd make great decathletes- but they wind up playing baseball or football! Bo Jackson would probably have been a superb decathlete, but he knew he could make a heck of a lot more money playing for the KC Royals.

[Really Not All That Bright]

In the same way, there are loads of Americans who'd make great decathletes- but they wind up playing baseball or football! Bo Jackson would probably have been a superb decathlete, but he knew he could make a heck of a lot more money playing for the KC Royals.
Or not playing for the Buccaneers. I hate Bo.

[MichaelQReilly]

I think inevitably, as others have said, people are for various reasons reluctant to admit that there is a race factor in athletic performance. But if we move away from focusing on blacks of West African descent, our politically correct tendencies go away a little bit. Look at this (http://www.theworldsstrongestman.com/wsm/2006/final.html) for last years World's Strongest Man competition. 6 out of the 10 best are from Poland or Latvia, Baltic coat countries. If you poke around on the site, the majority of top 10 finishers from the last 10 years are from Baltic Sea countries. I think many people might agree that there is a bit of a correlation there.

[tomndebb]

I think inevitably, as others have said, people are for various reasons reluctant to admit that there is a race factor in athletic performance.
. . .
I think many people might agree that there is a bit of a correlation there.Without commenting on the Baltic dominance of weightlifting, (since I do not follow it and do not know how true it is, how lasting it is, or what other factors enter into it), I will point out that that is not a "racial" situation.

The whole point of the wrangling over West African presence among sprinters is that "West Africans" are not a race. Science recognizes populations and if someone can set up sufficiently bright boundaries, we can examine groups of people as populations. Where race gets thrown into the mix is when someone makes a claim that "blacks" or "whites" or "Asians" or whomever have some trait that sets them apart from the rest of humanity. The term "race" has been clouded by too many all-encompassing claims for the many and disparate populations that have been gathered under the umbrella of race at one time or another, making the word useless in any biological context.

[Really Not All That Bright]

I think inevitably, as others have said, people are for various reasons reluctant to admit that there is a race factor in athletic performance. But if we move away from focusing on blacks of West African descent, our politically correct tendencies go away a little bit. Look at this (http://www.theworldsstrongestman.com/wsm/2006/final.html) for last years World's Strongest Man competition. 6 out of the 10 best are from Poland or Latvia, Baltic coat countries. If you poke around on the site, the majority of top 10 finishers from the last 10 years are from Baltic Sea countries. I think many people might agree that there is a bit of a correlation there.
Prior to this decade, the same contest was dominated by Scandinavians. Not a big enough statistical sample, then.

[MichaelQReilly]

Without commenting on the Baltic dominance of weightlifting, (since I do not follow it and do not know how true it is, how lasting it is, or what other factors enter into it), I will point out that that is not a "racial" situation.

The whole point of the wrangling over West African presence among sprinters is that "West Africans" are not a race. Science recognizes populations and if someone can set up sufficiently bright boundaries, we can examine groups of people as populations. Where race gets thrown into the mix is when someone makes a claim that "blacks" or "whites" or "Asians" or whomever have some trait that sets them apart from the rest of humanity. The term "race" has been clouded by too many all-encompassing claims for the many and disparate populations that have been gathered under the umbrella of race at one time or another, making the word useless in any biological context.

Race was the wrong choice of word. I should have said population.

[MichaelQReilly]

Prior to this decade, the same contest was dominated by Scandinavians. Not a big enough statistical sample, then.

Two areas that are pretty close to each other really. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't quite a bit of similarity in the two populations.

[John Mace]

I think inevitably, as others have said, people are for various reasons reluctant to admit that there is a race factor in athletic performance. But if we move away from focusing on blacks of West African descent, our politically correct tendencies go away a little bit. Look at this (http://www.theworldsstrongestman.com/wsm/2006/final.html) for last years World's Strongest Man competition. 6 out of the 10 best are from Poland or Latvia, Baltic coat countries. If you poke around on the site, the majority of top 10 finishers from the last 10 years are from Baltic Sea countries. I think many people might agree that there is a bit of a correlation there.
Fortunately, we all know that correlation does not always mean causation. At least we should know that.

Tom has it right. There is nothing inherently "bad" about the idea that some populations are going to be better at certain sports than others. I would be surprised if it were not so. But you have to define the population you are talking about, make sure that is in, indeed, a genetically distinct population, and then take some scientific measurements. That is, random, controlled experiments. Observations we make in everyday life can be strongly suggestive, but not scientifically conclusive.

[brazil84]

Race was the wrong choice of word. I should have said population.

You can call it whatever you want, but it doesn't change the underlying reality, which is that sprinting ability is not distributed randomly among the world's populations.