Whether or not blacks are better overall athletes than whites is questionable. What is NOT questionable is that black men, specifically black men from West Africa, are a lot faster than white men, on the whole. And hence…
Any sport in which speed is of the essence will be dominated by black men.
In team sports, every position in which speed is of the essence (center field, halfback, wide receiver, cornerback) will be dominated by black men.
It’s NOT a coincidence that white men dominate the football positions in which speed is not critical: punter, kicker, offensive linemen, and (until recently) quarterback. There’s only ONE white cornerback starting in the NFL (Jason Sehorn). Even IF you buy the argument that blacks are driven by poverty to succeed in sports, you can’t explain why they dominate the speed positions so thoroughly. Or why no white sprinter has ever cracked the 10 second barrier in the 100 meter dash.
THough it’s considered racist to point out differences in speed, NOBODY is more aware of it than black athletes themselves. At NFL training camps, when a receiver is slow or can’t jump high, black teammates will laugh that he has “the white man’s disease.”
I respect your basic ideas but I really must reply that you are arguing a very different topic than the spirit of the original question. The OP has theorized that race plays a role in prowess in some sports, particularly in track and field events. This is born out through casual observation and through many studies (and there are studies to support the idea that different “races” tend to have different muscle composition). Indeed, the statistical evidence is overwhelming and not sociological.
You, on the other hand, argue that there is no such thing as race per se. Instead, you argue that no race has a monopoly on any particular gene and that all genes are dispersed throughout all of mankind. This is also true but it does not directly address the original question. The way to get around these problems is to acknowledge that:
Race may be a poor scientific construct. Let me feed your argument for a moment. People of African descent and aboriginal people of Australia are the most genetically separated groups that we know of but I have heard Olympic commentators refer to Aborigines as “Black” even though this label has no use scientifically or culturally.
However it is foolish to deny that there are certainly Homo sapiens groups that have evolved certain traits to survive in their environment. “Race” is a convenient term in the English language to describe these groups. Whether or not this is the appropriate construct is a topic for another debate but the fact remains that, certain groups possess physical features that differentiate themselves from other groups.
Statistical genetics offers a logical solution to all of these problems. For this type of debate, it is irrelevant that all genes CAN be found throughout all human groups. What really matters is the probability that those genes will appear in any individual within that group. In this case, we can easily find that sickle cell anemia is overwhelmingly found in people of West African descent. Likewise, we find that that the PROBABILITY that a person from Kenya will have the 90% slow-twitch leg muscles necessary to be a marathon champion are much higher than a person of Swedish descent. It is foolish to insist that the probability of all genes is equally likely among all groups.
In order to set this debate straight, all we need to do is replace “race” with the construct “genetically probable group”. This argument takes away the political connotation of race and also removes the stigma of the individual because any person is allowed to inherit any individual trait.
Jman,
I really really really have to disagree with you concerning your “motor control” thesis.
I think that you have created a very arbitrary definition of motor control.
Quote…
“Most quarterbacks are white. Requires more precision and accuracy (fine motoer control). Blacks tend to be running backs and recievers. I don’t think this is by coincidence. Look at hockey: almost entirely white. Hockey requires very fine reflexes and control.”
What is your basis for claiming that QB position is more dependent upon fine motor control than say WR or RB? Why is hockey more dependent on these things than say, basketball?
I think what really bothers me about your argument is that fencing, one of the sports demanding some of the finest motor control, is populated by many black athletes.
Please go to http://www.usfencing.org/Misc/OlympicTeam.asp
Also, the only American athlete in decades to win a fencing gold medal is Peter Westbrook, who is, you guessed it, black.
Ahem…excuse me, but the Olympics were always dominated by the Soviet Union and East Germany. Come to think of it, China was always right up there too. After some social changes, that dominance changed - somewhat.
I think it’s great that black athletes do well. Problem is, when black athletes do well, it’s because they are just better athletes? That’s okay? We are not supposed to look into socio-economic/environmental factors?
When whites outperform blacks in testing (SATs are one example, graduation rates, IQ scores, entrance exams, Trivia shows) it’s because whites are just smarter, have better brains?
Seems to me you want to have your cake and eat it too.
I SAY: If you would like to stick to your contention that blacks are better athletes naturally, then I say that whites are smarter naturally.
I ALSO SAY; If you are willing to accept the fact that environmental factors have an influence on why black athletes are dominant, then I say that there are environmental factors that lead to better test scores for whites.
Even when the Iron Curtain countries were at the height of their Olympic success, they rarely produced champion sprinters. There hasn’t been a Russian gold medalist in the 100 meter dash since Valery Borzov in 1972, and there hasn’t been a German gold medallist since WAY before that.
Even with ALL the effort and chemistry the Russians put into creating sports champions, they could never find a white man who could run the 100 meters in under 10 seconds.
Today, China is producing champions in a host of sports, but they don’t have anyone who comes CLOSE to gold medal speed in the 100 meter dash. It’s NOT because they haven’t tried.
Tell me this: is it “racist” or even inaccurate to say that the Japanese are, as a whole, much shorter than the Swedes? OF COURSE NOT! Even though a Japanese man’s DNA may be, for the most part, indistinguishable from a Swede’s, the fact remains, the Japanese tend to be much shorter.
Is it “racist” to say that, because of the height differential, the Japanese will never win the gold medal in basketball? No, it’s not racist, it’s common sense.
Statistical studies prove nothing until you prove the underlying categories upon which you are basing your analysis. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand. I can design a statistical analysis which will correlate between green eyes and car crashes, etc. ad nauseum. Until I locate causation, I am doing nothing more than creating castles in the air. Casual observation gets us nowhere – casual observation is what led medievals to postulate maggots spontaneously generated in spoiled foods for crizake. As for studies supporting ‘races’ having different muscle composition, I once again request citations and note that without a coherent definition of race on a biological basis we have a non-coherent category which does not allow us to conclude anything at all
As race is itself sociologically defined (in the sense it is non-coherent and non-diagnostic of common or coherent genetic relatedness, any study which presupposes the category such as “black” --above all with New World populations has already begged the question which it is addressing. Tautologies teach us very little.
When you have a coherent and clear definition for the population based on objective biological charecterstics which is diagnostic of actual relatedness, then we can talk races, but present definitions are not useful.
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(1) Start with the realization that (a) variability, as noted in my prior post does not map onto regional variation (that which might be called race) except at a trivial 6% or so. Some value greater than 90% of human variability is non-regional or intra-group.
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It is a useless concept as indicated by this. Even more stark is the comparision with the Negrito populations of South Asia whose morphology, as the old fashioned name implies is “Negro” – i.e. stereotypically sub-Saharan black African. However, despite surface morphologies which led them to be classified by ‘race’ scientists as “negroids” in fact their descent is quite seperate from sub-Saharan (within the larger caveat there is little overall genetic distance between any human groups.)
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(a) I do not deny that human populations are structured and that environment has had the effect of creating marginally differentiated populations.
(b) I do deny that the race concept has any use in describing this structuring. For the following reasons
(i) beyond gross similarities in surface morphologies for a category such as black sub-Saharan African (or blacks) there is no underlying unity.
(ii) both intra-group variability and elevated levels of African diversity (the most diverse sector of human populations, as noted) renders none-sensical their treatment as a coherent genetic entity
(iii) the proper basis for differentiation is on genetically based populations as defined by patterns of allelic distribution. Gross morphological (surface) differences (and similarities) have already proved not to be diagnostic of relatedness (strange as this may sound.).
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I invite you to read the literature referenced before making these statements.
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False: Neither overwhelming nor does it map unto undifferentiated West African descent. It maps onto populations who have lived for substantial time periods in malaria zones. This does not charecterize Sahel (dry steppe) nor Saharan (desert and pre-desert) populations, non-trivial components of West African populations. I might add highland populations also, unsurprisingly do not show sickle cell. Of course inter-breeding blurs this, but the same can be said for the high expression rates in the ‘caucasian’ populations who are also sickle cell carries: Mediterranean, many Middle Eastern and Indian sub-Continental zone populations. The same pattern emerges. Ergo, sickle cell trait is non-diagnostic of race, but is diagnostic of historical residence in endemic malaria zone.
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An assertion with what basis? Who has undertaken controlled peer reviewed research on muscle composition of Kenyans? I’ll note ahead of time that a study based on African Americans fails on the face of it for the reasons already iterated.
Never did that, I do assert that (1) allelic (gene varientes) distribution, as discussed in the literature cited above does not map unto races in any coherent fashion. (2) without coherent clines based on regional population structure, all this is nonesense. Read the literature instead of making a priori assertions.
Population is the preferred term already extent. No genetic bases have been found for defined populations at the “race” level, where race is taken to mean the popular big four or whatever races. None, nada, zero. Quite useful work really. Read the literature and you’ll learn quite a lot.
Again, read the genetic literature. The literature is far beyond this point now. If popular knowledge would catch up with what is already known we could get beyond this kind of conversation.
A final comment for those who have noted recent poor performance of European “whites” in running events. Here we have a morphological question.
Simply, one can presume that longer, more tropical body forms will have an advantage in certain running conditions and distances. This, however, if one steps back and thinks logically, is not a racial question. “Racially” North Africans are “caucasian” --if one accepts these categories. However, these populations are also partially characterized by the lanky, long-legged tropical body type --heat losing. Paleological evidence suggests these body types have been present since very, very ancient times and cannot be attributed to recent influxes. The same body type is shared by some but by no means all “black Africans” – indeed forest zone people for variety of reasons have a stockier body type, in large part. Clearly what we are seeing is an advantage based not on race but on a specific morphology tied to climate. And again, we see how thinking in racial terms does not lead to greater clarity but actually – as in the case of sickle cell traits – obscures the truth and prevents us from an accurate and coherent understanding of the phenomena. That is what science is about.
Do any of us have enough familiarity with Chinese sports training to make a reasoned judgement? Do I know reasons why perhaps Manchus are not extensively used in training (tall lanky fellows that they are?) or perhaps sensitivity in using Tibetans? Are evaluating a fixed difference or a passing moment which merely captures China’s attepts to hit upon a good formula for training runners?
My issue is not with the observation itself but rather the various posters inability to analyse the situation in logical manner outside the blinders of race.
Think diet. Compare heights of third and fourth generation Japanese Americans to Japanese. Note the increasing hieghts registered in Japan as their national diet shifts to a more Europeanized diet. Tend to be shorter, yes, but to what degree. Simplistic thinking.
No its mild racism for you are mistaking several items as “racial”
(1) Diet has immense influence on the expression of traits such as height (and intelligence etc.) which are multivariable. Changes in diet are producing non-trivial changes in average height in Japan.
(2) you equate height with skill – it is not inconcievable a basketball obsessed short country could do a decent job of challenging Americans
(3) mistake lack of interest for lack of ability. Football (soccer) is the world’s obsession, not basketball. Resources devoted to a sport are usually commensurate with popular interest. Japanese will probably never win a Gold Medal because of all of the above combined, not because of race (or regional genetic variation) which is but one factor among many.
I think everyone who has tried to constructively contribute to this debate acknowledges that skin colour per se is an irrelevance when considering athletic performance. The issue is how regional environmental variations have, over generations, have influenced human development.
Some think that influence must have reached a genetic level as the only explanation for relative athletic performance while others maintain social and environmental influence can be the only rationale as no genetic differences have been scientifically established.
It might be reasonable to think the scientific community is not particularly keen to research the issue because of the unfortunate racial undertones.
I don’t have any time today but I am left pondering this:
To argue that there is no significant regional difference is to say an Eskimo is as comfortable living at the equator as would be an African living inside the Artic Circle and a South Seas pearl diver would be equally at home swapping environments with a Nepali hill farmer. The notion that we are all at home equally in every environment does not sit well with me.
Given the human capacity to physically adapt to whatever environment it finds itself (which means to some extent accepting Darwinism), it still seems likely to me that that climatic factors and wider environmental factors do influence performance.
I recently read the opinion of leading golfers who felt that the difference - in terms of pure ability - between the top players was no more than ½ a club per tournament round (Tiger Woods being exceptional). If the difference is that - at the very top of a sport - we can see that it really does not take very much of a percentage edge to dominate.
I disagree: the definitions proposed by the “blacks performing different” group are definitions bounded by skin color: regional variations are important, but they do not map unto racial groups as I have clearly noted above.
We of course may expect that tropical and sub-tropical adapted populations will have some morphological variations which may give them marginal advantages in certain sports, but that is population specific (e.g. Saharan Africans with long lanky body types, not universal "black body type, which is also shared by morpholigically ‘caucasian’ sub-tropical populations.).
That is my objection. Structured populations is not an issue of controversy, the mirage of the great races is.
You misunderstand the issue: of course underlying genetic variation may effect sports achievements. When there is coherent population structure (as I have noted above) of course I have no problem with analyzing that. Of course, as anyone actually familiar with genetic expression will tell you, you CANNOT seperate in a discrete manner genetic expression from environment. They are in a feedback loop.
Actually there is a lot of research in population genetics, and I have posted several links to online articles about this. It is just that the science does not back up the races crowd, so they go whinging on about politics and the like, indicating in my mind where the political correctness lies. This in part stems from most people’s lack of understanding of how genetics works and misunderstanding of the objection to races as categories.
That would not sit well with me, but then that is not the argument. If you would read the literature on the issue it would be clearer for you. I think, although perhaps I am wrong, that I have clearly stated the issue is that the traits you want to describe do not map reliably on the macro-populations you want to call races, however populations which you might call “sub-races” give us a much better picture, although becuase intra-group variablility exceeds inter-group variability, its not all that meaningful even at this level except for some narrow areas (e.g. body type adaption to specific climate zones).
Your statement is obscure to me. Do you mean humans have adapted to various climates under selective pressures? Yes of course. This has been mitigated by two factors: (1) our brief, relative to forces of natural selection, out of Africa time (2) cultural capacity to dampen selective pressures (3) consistently high rates of inter-regional gene flow as evidenced in allelic distribution which does not coherently map unto regionally definable populations.
You all seem to be under the impression that somehow this human genetics stuff is non-Darwinian. Quite the contrary, its just you’re not understanding the science. I invite everyone to read the fairly copious citations I’ve posted. You’ll learn alot.
So, what you have been trying to say is that the term “black”, or the other popular ideas of race, are too wide in scope to make any statements about, since their variability is so great? That when you look at their genes, you cannot determine a commonality that is different from any of the other so-called “races”?
That’s fine, and it does make sense to me. Are you also saying that what people are saying about some races being better at sports could be true about “sub-races”, or smaller groups of people than the too wide term of race?
If so, why didn’t you say so in the first place? You don’t have to get all arrogant about it. If not, could you explain where I went wrong?
Also, you have pointed out something that leads me to believe I’ve been misunderstanding something for a long time. I always thought that all our physcial (and probably much of our mental) characteristics were determined by our genes, besides some variations based on diet and activity. It seems to me you are saying this is not true - that in fact facial characteristics and skin color and such may be determined some other way. I would appreciate it if you could explain this concept better. If I misunderstood, could you point that out (as if I have to ask )?
Precisely! The way black is used, it encompasses populations which have no more inherent commonality than any other two groups of humans. We’re fooled by our culturally conditioned grouping into thinking there are fundamental similarities which just do not exist.
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Yes, although I find the possibility not highly likely. I would expect that it is nigh impossible to unentagle environment from genes (except obvious connections like hot dry climate = long legs = better runner all other variables being equal)
Thus, it does not strike me as illogical that the ethnic groups in Kenya which have lately supplied so many runners might have some slight genetic edge as compared with others (including other groups of what we would lump as blacks!).
At the same time, American black populations are just to diverse and intermarried or interbred with other populations in the Americas for there to be any coherent genetic reason for the sports dominance. Whereas we do find fairly homogenous sociological reasons: a fairly homogenous and widespread sense of social exclusion and discrimination etc. (Note: I make no value judgement about that, the perception is enough for me in terms of finding a motivating factor) The commonality appears to lie at the social level.
That’s why its important to critique one’s categories.
My apologies, I just get very frustrated with this topic since it seems very obvious to me. I probably could have been clearer from the start but the clearest way of expressing this doesn’t always occur to me right off the bat.
So, once again, my apologies if my explanations came off in the wrong way, I was trying to reduce admittedly complex ideas in a really quick way, and I must admit I get frustrated with the discussion much in the way I find creationists frustrating. There is a body of people out there who just don’t want to accept this no matter what.
Mental characteristics being clearly multivarient are highly unlikely to be determined by genes in the way most people understand determined. Bounded yes, determined no. It’s likely that everyone has a genetically bounded range, which may vary according to intelligence type or domain. I don’t buy the “g” story, too simplistic. However it is equally likely that this range is quite large and that environment plays a fundamental role in the expression: diet, stimulating environment etc.
Even very fundamental physical charecteristics can be altered through such things as poor diet. Genetic expression and environment are in a constant feedback loop. It’s not nurture vs nature, its both in a tangled ball of string.
Well, obviously skin color and basic facial characteristics are genetically encoded, but yes their expression may be altered through environmental influences (poor diet springs to mind, either at an infantile stage or before.) Not two characteristics I would choose for being extremely sensitive in the short term (although clearly in the long term) but yes even here. That’s not to say that things aren’t bounded by genes, that environment trumps the genes. No, rather there is, as I said before, a feedback loop. And of course, different traits may be more (or less) effected by environmental influences. Height is quite clearly very heavily influenced by diet. We can see that in historical transitions in diets, and even now the shift in Japanese diet is clearly producing a large shift in average height (compared by generation.)
Frankly, at this level, there is not a super-great understanding of how this operates. That is what the genome project is going to answer, how the genetic soup works at a micro level.
Okay, fair enough. Saying “blacks are the best athletes” is nonsensical then. Which blacks? Who are you talking about? Do you really mean “people who have long legs are the best athletes?”
I do think you understate the possibility that some small groups of people may be faster than others on average, though. It is undeniable that some people have more strength, quickness or whatever than others. And that despite the fact that these qualities are only “bounded” by their genes, some people will have a higher upper bound than others. It is also likely that their children will be somewhat similar to them in what their “bounds” are.
It doesn’t seem that unlikely that some family that was stronger and faster on average than your average family were very successful (in the evolutionary sense), and that now people from their locality can average faster speeds when running than the average of most other areas.
In fact, it is a certainty that if you take every village, town, settlement, and city in the world, somehow measured their “athleticism” level, that one of those places would have the highest level.
I’m thinking that if that were possible, we would find some areas in Africa that are in the top 5% in the world, but of course there’s no way to be sure. But at least I will agree that to claim blacks in general are better athletes doesn’t really make any sense.
Well as for altitude helping Kenyans become successful long distance runners, I don’t think that’s true or we’d see the same from people that live in towns with high altitude in Colorado or Mexico or Nepal. A lot of it has to do with muscle fiber. In Entine’s book he said that West Africans have more fast twitch muscle fibers. Kenyans have more slow twitch.
The reason why people are so touchy about this subject is because of skin color. It’s too bad that skin color doesn’t effect how fast you run or how high you jump, if it did there would be a lot of people trying to gain an edge by tanning.
We don’t see more black athletes in hockey, golf, tennis, swimming is because of stacking. Entine describes it more in his book. Also blacks have been shown to have smaller lung capacity, this might be why we don’t see black swimmers.
Another interesting study that Entine mentioned in his book was that Morgan Worthy, some kind of doctor I think, showed blacks excelled at reflexive sports, and that whites that were at the “reflexive” positions like running back, cornerback, etc. had dark eye color, like the blacks. Entine said that Worthy’s studies were flawed. Something that’s interesting though is that Jason Sehorn (only white starting CB) has brown eyes.
There’s more I just can’t think to post right now.
I await with baited breath the actual citations for Entine, including upon what work he bases these absurd contentions. Over-gernalizations based on un-examined categories. In re high altitude, of course simply living at high altitudes does not produce good long distance runners. (Do note, training at such altidues is a feature of many top training programs, or so I am led to understand. Physiological reaction to high altitudes, increased oxygen carrying capacity) Obviously we need training as well as perhaps advantageous morphology – stubby legs don’t help. Why do people continually search for single causes? Boggles the mind.
I’m touchy about the subject because of the unscientific over-generalizations made on the basis of race. When I see an objective, genetic reason to treat West Africans, let alone god damned American blacks as a homogeneous group, then I’ll consider this to be science. Otherwise it’s just folk superstition and dressed up racism.
“Blacks” have NOT been shown to have any such thing. Smaller lung capacity my ass. (1) Did you read a god damned thing I posted on the genetics of this all? If so you might ask how, given that variability does not map unto anything approaching races, and that gross morphological differences such as consistently different lung sizes between “blacks” and other “races” would require clear differentiation in some kind of allelic distribution… Absurdities, let me cut myself short and say the assertion is absurd on its face: no genetic evidence for any such sharp variation and American blacks would be too mixed to consistently show this even if there were sharp divides between say Africans and the rest of the world – which there is not.
The same idiotic arguments about tennis and motor control were made in the past as about this swimming nonesense. I submit that perhaps cultural barriers such as few American blacks learning to swim, few having access to swimming programs etc. is a rational explantion.
Crap racial pseudo-science. My god what kind of crap is this fool Entine relying on?
This is moronic. PQ, you wanted to know why I get mad and rude. Well, the above is the perfect example. Is no one paying attention?
I said it was interesting I didn’t say it was true. I said that the studies were proven to be inaccurate, but pointed out that the only starting white CB in the NFL has dark eyes.
Some people are born with six fingers. This is due to genetics. Let’s make all six-fingered people into a new race. Why not?
Then, when the six-fingered people are noticed for their superior typing skills we can all point to race and say “see, I told you race makes a difference” and the PC crowd will have to eat their words.
Causal observation is (1) subject to selection bias (2) not a valid sample.
Just to make the critics happy, now I have read, or rather skimmed the book. I just passed by a nice little bookstore and browsed through a copy. I also looked up some of his other writing. I was underwhelmed, and passed up the chance to clutter my collection with another journalistic abuse of science.
I did however take some quick, and brief notes. The arguments, to my eyes, do not merit any more attention, they go so fundamentally wrong. As a sports journalist, I suppose it’s not surprising that he did not handle scientific topics well. There are good journalists out there, and perhaps he’s a good sports journalist, but he’s not well versed in genetics, or even science to be frank. In fact his argumentation looks a lot like “creation science” in its structure and use of actual science. Full of tautologies.
I’ll comment on a few items, and ask tolerance if I forgo citations and perhaps have a bad quote here and there. As I said, I took notes quickly, there’s only so much note taking one can do in a bookstore before you have to buy. I’ll comment on the body of work to the extent it was worthy of paying attention to.
(1) His characterization and contrast between hard and soft sciences (Anthropology and Biology) in regards to race is quite frankly fraudulent and deceptive. He should have spoken with some of the big names in population genetics. Or perhaps their responses did not fit his narrative — it is a narrative more than any thing else.
(2) His assertion (and this is both the crux of his thesis, and his fundamental failure) that “Blacks” of “exclusively West African descent” make up 13% of North American and Caribbean population is absurd for as I have already pointed out
(a) None of these populations can be characterized as even necessarily majority West African — leaving aside that is such a broad category as to be meaningless in population terms — (i) They have mixed African backgrounds, per Curtin et al (and Thorton as memory serves) from West (dominant), Central and South Africa. Of course none of these regions themselves are homogenous and historical records suggest great heterogeniety in the origins of slaves even within a region.
(b) It is well know that none of the New World populations descended from African populations come anywhere near exclusivity in African descent, in fact as already noted, they may be among the MOST mixed people in the world in terms of ancestry from varied regions of the world — substantial European, Native American and even Asian (in the Caribbean ) admixture. The idea they represent some coherent genetic population is Laughable on its face. (Never mind we already know it is not the case)
Importance: One first justifies, not assumes the categories used.
(2) He makes the bizarre assertion that the Human Genome Project has indicated that functional charecteristics do differentiate population clusters — such as diseases & athletic ability.
This is simply a lie. Firstly, the HGP does not deal in population genetics, but rather the mapping of a sample set of human genes in order to understand the basic structure. No population clusters are studied in this context, nor has HGP studied any functional charecteristics. Its work has been SEQUENCING. Functional studies are coming. Other work has done population structures. I have cited some of this work for the board. You will find that NO SUCH conclusions have been reached. Moreover there are no such things as racial genetic diseases, as we have already discussed but I’ll get back to that. He states that the classic racial trichotomy, as he puts it, is fuzzy around the edges and ‘potentially misleading’ — I have already dealt with this. In order to make this statement he must have fundamental misunderstood his sources or gone only to the most tendatious racial sources.
Now, on diseases, I have already dispensed with the assertion that Sickle Cell maps onto Africans as a whole (on some but not all, and on many extra-African populations). The Tay Sachs diseases mentioned is of the same order. Tay Sachs is not diagnostic of Jewishness. It is diagnostic of inbreeding which allows a certain recessive allele to express. A restricted group of Eastern European Jews – the Orthodox among them – are particularly prone to it. What does that prove? Marry tighyly enough in a small community you get serious problems. It is not a Jewish disease as most Jewish populations have no issues with it at all.
All this is well-known if he had been truly looking to examine his hypothesis.
This kind of deceptive or sloppy work makes me boil.
(3) His breezy assertion of the confidence of simple causal links between expressed charecteristics and genes (or rather alleles, the variations thereof) is nothing but a maddening recitation of the typical unjustifiably simplistic and mechanistic conception of genetic expression. It is unwarrented.
(4) His assertions connecting polynesians / south asian and aboriginal populations closely to Africans has LONG been disproven by genetic studies. If he is going to make such ridiculous statements he needs to do the BASIC F’ING RESEARCH. This is either dishonest or it is sloppy and stupid, reflecting poorly on the work.
(5) His work is full of what immediately struck me as dodgy statistical assertions, such as the % chance that world record holder be of West Af. heritage — well they are also of Euro and probably Amerind and Asian and even Central Af. heritage. What’s the f’ing odds of that? What are the chances that humans will evolve? Hint, this is not science, its playing with stats.
(6) Dodgy use of categories; exceptions? Move the damned goalposts. Typical racial pseudo- science. Take Italian runner Peitro Mennea (Hwr not clear here, perhaps I have mispelled his name) and S. Euros are said to have signif. % of African genes. How very convenient. What pray tell are African genes? Has he found something that population geneticists have missed? Private alleles? Does he want to say that allelic distribution begins to ressemble that of some African populations? Fine, except guess what? All extra-African distributions are sub-sets of African ones, so you’ve said nothing but WE ALL DESCEND from an African origin. A recent one. This sort of gerrymandering of categories makes me spit.
We find the typical work — assume the unit of analysis which you are trying to prove (Blacks) — then move the boundaries according to your data at different points. This is not how the game works in real science. What we have in his work is a bunch of poorly supported generalizations supported by a smokescreen of half understood science. I could rant on but I can simply conclude by saying that this sort of work is NOT the way to an understanding of human population structures. Its the same old nonesense in new clothes.
I should apologize for any inaccuracies or short cuts in advance. This was written in a hurry, but the basic thrust should be accurate.
With all due respect, you obviously know much more about genetics than most of the posters on this board. My own field is the sexual differentiation of the brain and I cannot imagine how furious I would be if people started a thread on that topic. I can see the basic thread now: “Are there differences between the male and female brain?”. Well of course there are. If not, what have I and thousands of others been working to understand for decades now. This is scientific fact but it has been embraced in common knowledge which is what you ranted against earlier.
However, I must give constructive criticism to your basic style. You have attacked other posters quite aggressively over points that are quite academic. You have basically requested that posters in this thread go get a Ph.D. in population genetics in order to enter into this debate.
By being very knowledgeable in a particular field, you may miss some of the points at hand. Let me break out some appropriate cliches here (please forgive me everyone, I can’t stop myself)
Can’t see the forest for the trees and
When the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem starts to look like a nail.
What I mean is, regardless of the explanation that “experts” in particular fields dismiss as frivolous, we are still left with a very valid unanswered question: “Why do ‘blacks’ win most of the track and field events”? The probability of this happening by chance is on the order of Collounsbury winning every lottery that he has ever entered into. This requires some type of explanation, from any field or a combination of fields.
You and others can make fun of any genetic explanation but I have not seen any other more intuitively correct explanations than some sort of genetic link.
You dismiss this out of hand. If genetics are not the answer, and you obviously believe that they are not, can you provide us with research in other fields that might explain this? Please hold the research in other fields to the same high standards as the genetic research that you have dismissed.
I am not requesting this to be sarcastic or hostile, I am truly interested in coherent alternative explanations supported by research. I am sure other Great Debaters are also.
Sure, but he question is do people reify differences between male and female brain structure into false categories based on popular mythologies? Yes they do. I’m sure you’d want to dismiss the mythologies and get people to focus on the science.
I take your point, but on the other hand I don’t think I have requested that people do much more than read some basic and not highly technical literature before making assertions about race etc. The literature cites (and in the SD thread I posted, online articles, I cited are not that rough going. I’m not very smart, so if I can follow the literature, anyone here can. It’s a question of having an open mind.
But, I certainly could be clearer. That’s true. I apologize for that, frustration and time constraints lead to bad writing.
I reject your probability calculation on its face. As to why, let’s look to examples in social history and behavioral pscyhology, especially literature dealing with out group behaviour and minority-majority group relations.
Why there is such a dismissal of this kind of examination – a priori dismissals in airy terms as “that’s just not likely” whose basis appears to be the person’s socio-political feelings, not science-- I don’t understand. I have a sense that somehow many readers feel threatened by the concepts and issues raised in terms social structure.
The writer in question, and many posters dimiss this can possibly have a large effect. Frankly, the statistics calculated are hand-waving. What’s their basis? What assumptions are used? What defense for those assumptions. When I seem these chance statistics used to dismiss challenges, I spit. Same kind of crap comes from the creationist. What’s the chance of humans evolving? Bah humbug.
I’m frankly not interested intuition. The genetic link (at the RACE level) is rejectable on the facts. Sub-populations and at an individual/family level is another story entirely. What you have misunderstood is this diferentiation. The issue is not with genetic explanation (although I do find the simplistic, mechanistic explantions touted about in the media, well, idiotic. Genetic expression is complicted.) – no its with the categories!!! Black, white, etc. make no sense. Even West Africa is not good. We need a finer level of resolution before we can make generalizations. Making generalizations which depend on homogeniety in the populations when it just doesn’t exists begs the question!
I’ll stress once more that genetics is not the issues – of course it is fundamental to achievement, but doesn’t map uonto races. Bad categorization. The category of blakc doesn’t make sense on the genetic level, no discussion here. So, what does it mean? You have to start with your categories. Well, it seems to mean someone with apparent partial recent African descent which happens to express in a way subjectively meaningful to society. Since we don’t find any good genetic defense for the category, we look to social explantions as a driving factor (with the good possibility that SPECIFIC sub-populations, even families do in fact have an advantage.)
So what would I do? Look to sociology. Do a lit search to see what folks who deal with these kind of issues are saying. There is also various more rigorous schools of anthropology which look at ethnic group structure and its influence on human social structure. We’re social animals and we know very well from animal studies that social structure, in and out group status play HUGE roles in individual animals achievements (you just don’t want to be born to a low status chimp, but it ain’t fixed either… Just like people.) Since we can see large effects in perfomance based on social status (AND changes in social status) in a near cousin of ours (chimps etc.) with a highly structured social life, I’d look to answers in this realm. But I’d also be careful not to over-generalize.
I’d look to understanding the subjective cultural interpretations of the target populations – I already noted it appears there is a widespread belief that achievement is best had through sports which certianly will have a tendency of channeling efforts.
Some folks seem to desire to reject this because they seem to think that somehow this (a) validates a viewpoint they don’t like (b) supports some political perspective they don’t like.
Humbug. Requires no such thing. You don’t even have to accept discrimination against outgroups exist, only the effective perception among the target population.
In short, genes have their place at some levels of analysis, sociological at another. In between they meet in some circumstances.
They might be meeting in the case of the Kenyan runners --who do come from a highly restricted set of folks. So, I’d be comfortable with an investigation of these guys as having a genetic advantage – why? Clearly definable, obviously have shared descent and possibly have a discrete distribution of alleles – so some subset of them have a slight edge in physical talent that when combined with the right nutrition (non-trivial), the right environment, the right training and the right social background, POW! That would be good science. You define and defend your hypotheis and category on objective basis with clear yardsticks, test.
Of course, it could be they just work like bad boys.
And note this does not allow you to generalize to “AFricans” or “blacks” or even “East AFricans” until you show good reasons to do so(and those reasons are not vague generalizations.)… That’s the issue, people have ASSUMED because there’s dark skin and what not there is homogeniety in group, until genes told them otherwise. Now its time to create defendable, testable categories in order to build a real knowledge base, not Victorian mythologies.
Well, I think they’ve already been presented. Since the category under discussion is social, I’d largely look at it from that perspective.
Or to put it anohter way, when I hear a coherent scientific definition for alternatives to social explanations, then I’ll get interested. Give me a good basis to look for genetic explanations for “Black” atheletes in general, as a group and I’ll be interested. Until then, been there, done that, no results.
It’s common for people to make overly broad generalizations when discussing race. Entine and many of the posters here have made the same mistake. It’s a historically determined cultural habit to call Americans of (partial) African descent and Africans “black,” but there are too many genetic differences to lump the two groups together. The black American gene pool came into existence as a result of selecting a wide variety of different African ethnic groups (each with a distinct genetic makeup), subjecting this mixed group to the rigours of enslavement and the Atlantic passage, and then mixing it extensively with Native American and European genes. Making meaningful genetic arguments about such a mixed group is always going to be difficult. Given the mixed nature of the black American gene pool, you could make just as good an argument for success due to hybrid vigor.
With regard to West African athletic success, it’s important to recognize that the superior performance hasn’t been spread equally among all ethnic groups. The Wolof of Senegal, for example, are certainly black, and certainly West African, but to my knowledge, they have never produced a world class sprinter (European nations like Britain, Germany, and Russia have all produced a few world class sprinters). Like most African ethnic groups, the Wolof have a distinct, identifiable appearance that is an indication of a distinct genetic makeup. * Each African ethnic group is, to a degree, genetically distinct*, so genetic inquiries must be made at the level of ethnic group in order to be useful. Race, in the way that we commonly speak of it, is almost meaningless.
Culture is also a huge factor in sports success. In the sprint events, various European nations have produced world class performers -the Italian Pietro Mennea held the 200M world record until Carl Lewis bested it; Germany, Britain and Australia have all produced world class runners in the long sprints. But during this same time period, white Americans haven’t performed anywhere near world class. (The one recent exception is Kevin Little, who has been ranked in the world’s top ten in the 200M for a couple of years.) It’s clear that white Americans just aren’t competing in the sprints. They have pretty much the same genetic makeup as the Europeans and white Australians, but they don’t perform nearly as well.
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