Athletes and race...a theory

Great Debates
61

I repeat my previous challenge: Name me a white athlete from ANY country who has run the 100 meter dash in under 10 seconds.

I COULD buy the argument that white Americans have simply given up sprinting, but that begs the question, where are the white Germans and Canadians and Slavs and Frenchmen and Swedes in the finals of the Olympic 100 meter dashes? When the finals routinely consist of 2 black Americans, a black Canadian, a black Englishman, two West Africans and two black men from the Caribbean, I’d say a trend is obvious.

62

What trend? When the 100 meter dash was won repeatedly, year after year after decade by white men no one mentioned a trend. What is the ratio to white and black men in the world? Is it supposed to naturally be more white than black winners?

Why are you looking for tricks of genetics? These men were better motivated, they were highly trained, they won for the same reasons white men win.

63

Pietro Mennea has done the 200M in 19.8 secs or so ( I forget the exact number, but it’s under 20). So, in effect, he’s run two 100M races in under 10 secs, back to back.

Of course the sprints are dominated at the top level by certain specific groups, black Americans, Jamaicans and other West Indians (who represent Canada, Britain or France), Nigerians and so on. The problem is that when you identify them by their “blackness,” you overlook the fact that the majority of West African ethnic groups don’t produce world class sprinters. If you had the means to do an extensive, accurate survey, you might very well find that West Africans on average are no faster than Europeans on average. One thing we do know about Africa is that there’s greater genetic diversity there than in other parts of the world. So you might find both the slowest and the fastest people there.

So if you’re trying to use generalizations for predictive power ( one of the main reasons for generalizations), the “West African blacks are faster, on average, than Europeans” generalization can lead you astray if you don’t choose the specific ethnic groups that are much faster than average.

One critic of Entine’s book pointed out that people of African ancestry only show over-representation in %3 of the world’s major sports. For some reason, no one has much interest in the East Asian domination of ping-pong, or the Scandinavian domination of women’s team handball. :slight_smile:

64

Did anybody else see the piece NBC ran on South African marathon winner Josia Thugwane? Unfortunately I didn’t tape it, but I remember he said that when he was a child he realized all the freedoms he didn’t have, so as soon as he realized he could run, he devoted himself to it as his way of getting them. In other words, he gave exactly the explanation for his success that the OP labelled “horseshit.”

This is especially relevant because Thugwane is the smallest guy ever to win an Olympic marathon–only 5’2". It’s not all in the physique, folks.

65

When I was a kid, many years ago, in a land far away, my phys ed teacher explained that Africans had thicker Achilles tendons, and that’s why they ran so well.

No one in their right mind in the US would ever make such an un-PC statement as that nowadays, but would that answer the question?

66

Did you read single damned response on this board, indicating why this statement is an absurd and false over-generalization?

67

Coll, are you out to impress your Marxist anthro professor or something? Just to give you a little more heartburn: Big cocker spaniels give birth to little cocker spaniels. As David Steinberg would say “Bugabugabugabuga”.

68

They don’t if they breed with Labrador retrievers. That’s Collounsbury’s point: we’re all mongrels. No race is comparable to the inbred, isolated little families we call dog breeds.

69

Of note here is that a white guy from Greece, of all places, won the olympic 200m gold.

I have never bought the idea that the slave trade produced better athletes by “breeding” for two main reasons:

  1. The period of slavery (in the US) was about 200 years long (~1650 - 1865). This is much too short a time for a species that reproduces as slowly as humans to have evolved that drastically.

  2. This argument assumes that ALL modern day black athletes are direct descendants of slaves, which isn’t true.
    Having participated in my share of sports, I still believe it is a socioeconomic thing. The best way to become a good athlete is to play a lot of sports a kid, not just organized team sports, but anything that involves getting off your @ss and doing something. Far fewer black kids are sitting around playing Nintendo and having mommy drive them a block and a half to the mall to load up on Cinnabons and Marlboros. Unfortunately, African-Americans still are vastly overrepresented in poverty statistics

my 2¢

70

Domina, unwilling as I am to say what other people mean, I will hazard a guess that Coll would have to deny the existence of a definable cocker spaniel type. Coll, what do you think about Gregor Mendel? Was he deluding himself or just being plain racist when he said some peas were smooth and some plants were tall?

71

Astorian writes:

(sorry guys, I don’t remember how to do quotes)

Whether or not blacks are better overall athletes than whites is questionable. >>>
Sure, okay.

>> What is NOT questionable is that black men, specifically black men from West Africa, are a lot faster than white men, on the whole.>>

I think that’s actually pretty questionable. I do not know that any random west African man is faster than any random white man, although certainly the very fastest sprinters come from certain parts of Africa, except where they are Americans.

> And hence…

  1. Any sport in which speed is of the essence will be dominated by black men. >>

No, this is simply not true. In the current issue of “Skeptic” magazine, cyclist Michael Shermer mentions that black men do not dominate cycling. There was one dominant black cyclist in the later part of the 19th century, Marshall W. Taylor, and a silver medalist in the 1984 olympics, which were boycotted by the east Germans, who were dominating the sport in those days. Where are the Kenyan ulta-marathon cyclists?
> 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.>>

What don’t you find coincidental about this? And, do white men dominate those positions? If blacks are seen in greater numbers there than in the general population, then are they not overrepresented and hence, dominant?

> 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. >>

In “The Mismeasure of Man,” Stephen Gould points out that Africans are the most genetically diverse “race.”

“In other words, all non-african racial diversity—whites, yellows, reds, everyone from the Hopi to the Norwegians, to the Fijans, may not be much older than one hundred thousand years. By contrast, Homo Sapiens has lived in Africa for a longer time. Consequently, since genetic diversity roughly correlates with time available for evolutionary change, genetic avariety among Africans alone exceeds the sum total of genetic diversity for everyone else in the world, combined!”

Which means that blacks of some sort are going to be the “-est” at almost any given activity they persue with equal opportunity.

And, from another posting:

"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. "

The Chinese Men’s basketball team featured three players who were over seven feet tall. It is conceivable that China will defeat the USA in FIBA competition. It is probable that Lithuania or some Yugoslav confederacy will do so in the next ten, fifteen years.

I think.

_

72

So, what precisely is Marxist about genetics? Did you learn nothing from anything I posted.

I have a question, why is that those folks so attached to the myth of races always scurry behind ad hominem political labels rather than dealing with the f’ing science.

Critique the data. Read the literature and critique the data.

73

What do I think about Gregor Mendel? Got us going. Why else would I be talking genetics? and, unlike you evidently, I actually understand what’s going on in there (to a degree, but all things are relative).

See, as Domina noted, Cocker Spaniels are inbred group, definable with private alleles to my understanding. If you would actually read some of the cites which I have posted (or the quotes from the literature in case you are too lazy) you might note that our variability is not comparable to dogs, we’re less variable and that variablity is not mapping onto what popular perception percieves as races. In other words, apples and oranges. Is that SO HARD to understand?

74

Thanks for highlighting precisely the weakness of racial thinking!

75

OOOpps

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Collounsbury *
**

This should read, “Cocker Spaniels are an inbred group, and if… to my understanding they would be a sub-species.” Sloppy sloppy.

76

Uh, guys? Am I missing something?

First, I ask for ONE example of a white sprinter who’s cracked the 10 second barrier in the 100 meter dash. What happened? Peopl tried to refute me by pointing to an Italian who excelled in the 200 meter dash!

Next time, READ THE DANG QUESTION, before attempting to answer it.

Next, I stated that the average Japanese citizen is a lot shorter than the average Swede, and how do you attempt to refuteme? By pointing to 7 foot tall CHINESE guys!!!

The Japanese and the Chinese are not the same, any more than the Pygmies and the Bantu are the same.

Moreover, by questioning whether white players dominate the kicking and punting positions, you PROVE conclusively that

  1. You never watch football.
  2. You’re blind.

In all the years I’ve watched football, I have seen ONE successful black punter (Reggie Roby) and one successful black place kicker (Donald Igwebweike).

If 70% of the NFL’s players were black at EVERY position, you could argue that cultural factors are at work (i.e. black kids think sports is the only field in which they can excel). So, why aren’t 70% of the kickers and punters black?

Another thing that cracks me up is this: Without working up a sweat, I can name dozens of black 100 meter dash champions. My opponents are reduced to citing the same individual Italian again and again! The very fact that you can only come up with ONE white sprinting champion in recent memory proves how little evidence you have.

77

Yes, it seems the point of the entire rebuttal.

I will not comment on other’s answers, but I regard the question as quite irrelevant. It proves what regarding the question of “blacks”?

Well, it depends on your point: of course there are tall Japanese, and the average height is increasing as I noted, because of dietary changes. Within a generation or two we’ll see what we have. Obviously you missed or did not understand the discussion. Of course I hesitate to note that “Bantu” is a language family like “Romance” so of course pygmies and “bantu” may or may not be the same, since I am sure there are pygmies who speak Bantu languages.

The point of your statement was?

I have no idea, I am sure there are innumberable reasons. Perhaps coaches think like you and there is an element of selection bias. Perhaps many things. Since we do not have unbiased inquiries into this, its rather hard to tell – assertions not being data. But since you seem hell-bent on a biologically unsupported conclusion pray tell what are the genetic bases for the category black? What basis is there for a biologically distinguishable difference?

78

Coll, forensic pathologists can see a “biologically distinguishable difference” in the races.

79

Uh, guys? Am I missing something? >>

It’s always possible, Asty.
<< First, I ask for ONE example of a white sprinter who’s cracked the 10 second barrier in the 100 meter dash. What happened? Peopl tried to refute me by pointing to an Italian who excelled in the 200 meter dash! >>

Anyway, he’s a white guy who can run real fast, something you assured us didn’t exist.

Hey, I tell you what…let’s redefine races so as to constitute Astorian’s immediate family, and everyone else. Would anyone be surprised that sports are dominated by members of the “everyone else” race?

<< Next, I stated that the average Japanese citizen is a lot shorter than the average Swede, and how do you attempt to refuteme? By pointing to 7 foot tall CHINESE guys!!! >>

Oh, I thought you were claiming it was unlikely that olympic gold medals would ever be won by teams that weren’t made up of black men from the US.

<< The Japanese and the Chinese are not the same, any more than the Pygmies and the Bantu are the same. >>

Aren’t they part of the same “race,” though? So, if your statements about megapopulation are true, then, um…the presence of any tall Asians seems to refute it.
<< Moreover, by questioning whether white players dominate the kicking and punting positions, >>

I think you also said it wasn’t a coincidence that there were a lot of white quarterbacks, and, um…oh, offensive linemen. In fact, that white men dominate those positions.

<< you PROVE conclusively that

  1. You never watch football. >>

Kiddo, I watch football. I notice, for example there aren’t really so many white offensive linemen, despite your assertions.

>> 2) You’re blind. >>

Yes, that’s it.
<< In all the years I’ve watched football, I have seen ONE successful black punter (Reggie Roby) and one successful black place kicker (Donald Igwebweike). >>

Huh, why? I would assume kicking the ball involves the ability to move your leg fast, which is what you assert black men are better than white men at.
<< If 70% of the NFL’s players were black at EVERY position, you could argue that cultural factors are at work >>

No, I think then you’d have to argue that it’s genetic. Well, of course its genetic, except where its cultural.

> (i.e. black kids think sports is the only field in which they can excel). So, why aren’t 70% of the kickers and punters black? >>

I dunno. Selection bias seems to be one factor. Why aren’t there more black cyclists, tennis players, or golfers?
>> Another thing that cracks me up is this: Without working up a sweat, I can name dozens of black 100 meter dash champions. My opponents are reduced to citing the same individual Italian again and again! The very fact that you can only come up with ONE white sprinting champion in recent memory proves how little evidence you have. >>

How many great black tennis players have there been, or cyclists?

What about the genetic diversity argument, why don’t you address that?

80

Ah yes, that’s why remains are frequently misidentified per race. Assertions, assertions.

You can identify some folks some of the time by their core features, but the real stickler is defining the boundaries. Or to put it another way, some folks have those core skeletal features which we call black, some don’t. Many have a mix. Some have aberant morphologies. None of this tells us terribly much of their ancestry or the degree to which they may share traits with others who happen to have dark skin, and some degree of kinkiness to their hair – the major ingrediants of popular ideas of race it seems. In fact we already know from actual research that these little detials, while looming large in our eyes, means next to nothing regarding allelic distribution for more than 90% of our variation, to use one of the more popular estimates.

Please do try to reread with greater comprehension what we’ve been telling you. If you read a small selection of the many citations which I have provided you, you might, just might, assuming against all evidence that you have an open mind, find the materials which addressed your misapprehensions.

By the way, I await still, with baited breath, your explanation of how genetics is Marxist and the refutation which mentioning Mendels experiment of dominant and recessive traits brings to the argument. Or can we ascribe this to an empty political attack on science?