Chen019, you are a liar.

[mister_nyx]

@magellan01

And if European ancestry gave one an edge in sprinting, wouldn’t you expect to find a Caucasian among the top 14 fastest people in the world?

What is your evidence that none of these people are Caucasion – i.e. that none of them have recent European ancestry? Most Jamaicans do.

What you’re doing, rather than making an argument based on genetic heritage, is explicitly embracing the sociocultural definition of “black” that holds that anyone with discernible Subsaharan Ancestry is “black” and not “white” – to the point where you haven’t even bothered to find out if any of them have European ancestry. As you’ve made clear, all this stuff about genetics and ancestry is a rationalization – you obviously aren’t interested in the fact that many or all of them likely have European ancestry.

This is just another sign that facts are irrelevant to the “race realist” crowd.

While I share your appreciation that’s it’s pretty startling that Jamaicans do so well, it seems to boil down to one of two things: one the WA ancestry “mingles” with some other part of the Jamaican make-up which results in a sprinting edge.

You’re just making up facts again.

I don’t know why thou think that people aren’t interested in the understanding the reason(s) Jamaicans do so well in sprinting.

As we’ve seen, you’re clearly not.

It seems like you are the one starting with some preconceived notion and MUST take the more racial component off the table. Again, I just don’t get that.

Clearly she’s driven by a sinister ideological agenda of getting basic facts right rather than ignoring them.

[magellan01]

@iiandyiiii

So they’re “West African”, because they (presumably) have West African ancestry? So that means that if they have Caucasian/European ancestry, then the sprinters themselves are “Caucasian/European”? Great! So not only did we find 1 “Caucasian among the top 14 fastest people in the world”, it’s very likely that there are close to 14 Caucasians among the 14 fastest people in the world.

Allow me to clarify:

And if European ancestry gave one an edge in sprinting, wouldn’t you expect to find a Caucasian without West African ancestry among the top 14 fastest people in the world? So, right now, if you had to place a million dollar bet on which ancestry is the one that apparently gives someone an edge in sprint speed, would you choose European or West African?

Possibly even a person with European/Asian ancestry. Does it not strike you as odd that none of the elite sprinters have an ancestry that does not include West Africa?

[iiandyiiii]

@magellan01

Does it not strike you as odd that none of the elite sprinters have an ancestry that does not include West Africa?

First, it’s very likely that they all, or most of them, have Caucasian/European ancestry as well. Would it then strike you as odd that none (or one or two) of them has ancestry that does not include Caucasian/European?

Second, we can only guess at their ancestry, unless we had access to their genetics (and even then, we would have an incomplete picture).

[Ibn_Warraq]

@magellan01

Does it not strike you as odd that none of the elite sprinters have an ancestry that does not include West Africa?

And how many of the top sprinters have an ancestry that does not include Europe?

Beyond that, since you’ve been using the term “Caucasian” and “Black”, why don’t you explain what you mean by “Caucasian” and who is and isn’t one.

To make it easier I’ll list a few people and you tell me if they’re Caucasian or not.

Salma Hayek- Caucasian or no?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad- Caucasian or no?

Antonio Banderas- Caucasian or no?

Will Smith- Caucasian or no?

Al Pacino- Caucasian or no?

William Hurt- Caucasian or no?

[magellan01]

@Kimstu

Neither, because all the 14 top sprinters in the list you linked to have BOTH European and West African genetic ancestry (as far as we can tell from what we know about their personal backgrounds and genetic mixing in black populations in the Western Hemisphere).

You’re evading the question. It’s perfectly answerable. But let’s try this: We know that top 14 sprinters have both West African and European ancestry. Let’s look at the next 14. For every runner that has European ancestry but not West African ancestry I’ll give you $1,000,000. For every runner that has West African ancestry but not European ancestry, you give me $1,000,000. Good? If not, how about we switch the sides?

@Kimstu

As a matter of fact, as far as we can tell, there isn’t a “pure” West African anywhere on that list of top sprinters. If it was really a gene in some particular strain of West African ancestry that provided the sprint speed edge, wouldn’t you expect to see actual West Africans dominating the sprint speed records, rather than people with mixed West African and European ancestry?

You’re kidding, right? I’d find it odd in the extreme that a gene that gives someone a predisposition to excel at something wouldn’t be either helped or hindered by diet and cultural factors.

@Kimstu

Consequently, if I were being unscientific enough to speculatively infer a genetic basis for top sprinting speed without doing any actual genetic testing, I would speculate instead that the “sprinting gene” was the result of mixing West African and European ancestry.

That is, indeed, a possibility. I thought I included it at some point in the discussion as such. For the record, I do view it as a possibility.

@Kimstu

Because the people with only W. African ancestry don’t produce world-class sprinters, and neither do the people with only European ancestry. Clearly it’s something about the mixing of those populations that has resulted in the genetic advantage for sprinting. [/unscientific “race realist” thinking]

Either that, or the gene is West African and western cultures allow it to flourish through diet, culture, or some combination of the two. Right?

@Kimstu

Why wouldn’t it just be a Jamaican super-sprinting gene that produced the “edge”? In other words, a genetic trait peculiar to Jamaicans that improves sprinting ability and leads to their disproportionate dominance in sprinting events? If you’re willing to hypothesize such a gene for West Africans in general, why not one for Jamaicans in particular?

It is a possibility. See above. But it seems more likely that the gene is West African and western diet and culture allows it to flourish. It does seem that there is something special about Jamaica that gives sprinters there an extra edge. Then again, if the countries of Hispaniola weren’t so third world, we might see the Jamaican “specialness” disappear. True, it might pint to a Caribbean specialness. But we do have examples of super elite athletes not coming from that area. But none of them do not have West African ancestry.

@Kimstu

Five of the six are Jamaican nationals and as far as I know have lived in Jamaica for their entire upbringing. The sixth, Donovan Bailey, lived in Jamaica till he was 13 before moving with his family to Canada. (The other “Canadian” on the list, Bruny Surin, lived in his native Haiti till he was 8, if we want to extend our speculation about the Jamaican sprinting gene to a possible Caribbean sprinting gene.)

I agree that this is a piece of evidence that supports the notion that there is something about Jamaica.

@Kimstu

Because the “more racial component” provided by simplistic phenotypic racial classification is a trivial and frequently misleading distraction from the reliable scientific information provided by actual genetic analysis. It doesn’t belong “on the table” with the real issues of genetic heritage because it’s so informationally inferior to them.

No. I’m just arguing in support of the notion that performance may, in fact, correlate with race. Just as physical characteristics can, and do. The evidence seems convincing. “Race”? Hugabooga!!! Yet, it has been shown in this thread and/or the one in GD that scientists DO recognize the concept of race.

[magellan01]

Back later. Gotta run.

[mister_nyx]

@magellan01

You’re evading the question. It’s perfectly answerable. But let’s try this: We know that top 14 sprinters have both West African and European ancestry. Let’s look at the next 14. For every runner that has European ancestry but not West African ancestry I’ll give you $1,000,000. For every runner that has West African ancestry but not European ancestry, you give me $1,000,000. Good? If not, how about we switch the sides?

No matter how consistently you ignore the fact that they have European ancestry, it doesn’t change anything. Your points would be more convincing if they didn’t require you to consistently ignore facts.

[mister_nyx]

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Yet, it has been shown in this thread and/or the one in GD that scientists DO recognize the concept of race.
[/QUOTE]

This is another one of those pesky “fact” problems – the person who’s been posting citations claiming that they back this simplistic notion of “human races” hasn’t managed to find citations that actually agree with him. (In fact, some of them explicitly contradict him.)

[Kimstu]

@magellan01

But let’s try this: We know that top 14 sprinters have both West African and European ancestry. Let’s look at the next 14. For every runner that has European ancestry but not West African ancestry I’ll give you $1,000,000. For every runner that has West African ancestry but not European ancestry, you give me $1,000,000.

Actually, you might not come out ahead on that deal. Looking at the list of 80 sprinters who have broken the 10-second barrier in the 100m, the vast majority of them are Western Hemisphere blacks from societies with mixed West African/European populations. (Most of the other major Caribbean islands besides Jamaica are also heavily over-represented in this list, so that “Caribbean sprinting gene” looks to be gaining momentum!)

The people on that list who are actually West African are mostly Nigerians; I don’t know their individual backgrounds, but on average Nigerians tend to have several percent European genetic admixture due to the impact of colonialism, so we can’t assume that any of them is definitely lacking all European ancestry. Same for the couple guys on the list from Ghana.

Surprisingly, there seem to be more people among those elite athletes who are described as being definitely lacking West African ancestry: namely, Frankie Fredericks of Namibia, Ngonidzashe Makusha of Zimbabwe, Patrick Johnson of Australia (of mixed Irish/Aboriginal heritage), and Christophe Lemaitre, a white Frenchman.

So if we were just going to do naive “race realist”-type speculation about what’s causing these high-quality sprinters, the evidence would suggest that it’s the combination of West African and European ancestry that does it, with an additional “super-gene” among Caribbean populations.

(Man, I can kind of see why the “race realists” are so fond of this kind of speculation: you can come up with so many significant-sounding results without doing any real work or having any real knowledge!)

@magellan01

I’d find it odd in the extreme that a gene that gives someone a predisposition to excel at something wouldn’t be either helped or hindered by diet and cultural factors. […] it seems more likely that the gene is West African and western diet and culture allows it to flourish.

Hmmmmm. So, according to “race realists”, it’s “unrealistic” to suggest that cultural factors may be the root reason that people of mixed West African/European heritage are overwhelmingly the best sprinters. They insist that the evidence requires postulating a “West African sprinting gene” instead.

But when we find that people of pure West African heritage—who should by all accounts be the people who benefit most from this “West African sprinting gene”, right?—do not seem to be among the best sprinters, then suddenly it’s okay to invoke cultural factors to explain that away.

@magellan01

we do have examples of super elite athletes not coming from that area [i.e., the Caribbean]. But none of them do not have West African ancestry.

Well, you now know that you’re wrong about that, based on the evidence of the four elite athletes that I named above.

[Miller]

@Ibn_Warraq

Fixed.

[Moderating]
Ibn Warraq, altering the text of another poster in side the quote boxes is against the rules. Do not do this again.

No warning issued.
[/Moderating]

[Chen019]

@mister_nyx

This is another one of those pesky “fact” problems – the person who’s been posting citations claiming that they back this simplistic notion of “human races” hasn’t managed to find citations that actually agree with him. (In fact, some of them explicitly contradict him.)

I mentioned earlier Risch et al 2002, Sesardic 2010.

I’ve also provided definitions of race and subspecies that are commonly used in biology (O’Brien & Mayr 1991, Turtle Taxonomy 2007, Coyne etc). Using these, it seems that there are races within the species homo sapiens (humans aren’t special). Jerry Coyne writes:

What are races?

In my own field of evolutionary biology, races of animals (also called “subspecies” or “ecotypes”) are morphologically distinguishable populations that live in allopatry (i.e. are geographically separated). There is no firm criterion on how much morphological difference it takes to delimit a race. Races of mice, for example, are described solely on the basis of difference in coat color, which could involve only one or two genes.

Under that criterion, are there human races?

Yes. As we all know, there are morphologically different groups of people who live in different areas, though those differences are blurring due to recent innovations in transportation that have led to more admixture between human groups.

Going back to the Turtle Taxonomy:

“We propose that subspecies classification, if used, should describe the major patterns of variation found within a species. A precise definition of “major” is elusive, but the formal subspecific description of small, isolated populations, particularly in low vagility species, should be avoided unless there is strong reason to do otherwise. This could avoid the proliferation of named forms of small, isolated populations such as occurred with pocket gophers in western North America (Smith and Patton (1988). (Bickham (2007). Turtle Taxonomy: Methodology, Recommendations, and Guideline).”

Coyne refers to morphologically distinguishable populations. As Sesardic notes above, forensic anthropologists can distinguish major groups (for example WW. Howell’s 6 geographic regions) on the basis of morphological features. For example, cranio-facial features.

Perhaps to bring this down to earth a little lets look at some sports teams. Some in terms of the major populations identified by McEvoy et al 2010 (also see groups on this graphic Steve Hsu mentions):

The matrix of pairwise interpopulation genetic distances (FST values) was used to construct a neighbor-joining (NJ) phylogenetic tree that summarizes the relationship of the 52 populations to each other (Figure 1A). The tree divides the populations into five broad groups: African, East Asian, West Eurasian (European, Middle Eastern, and Central and South Asian populations), American, and Oceanic.

From the African group the Nigerian soccer team. The Bantu Rovers.

Within the West Eurasian group, let’s look at European teams. Russia soccer team. (for fun the victorious 1966 England team).

Representing South & Central Asia (I note the Hap Map populations put these two groups together. If someone wants to separate out teams for Central feel free) here is the Afghanistan cricket team, Pakistani cricket team, Indian cricket team.

Representing East Asia, the Chinese men’s soccer team for the Beijing Olympics. The Japanese men’s soccer team, and North Koreansoccer team.

Representing the American group, here is the Columbian soccer team, Guatemala and Mexico.

Representing Oceania, we have Papua New Guinea, Fijian sevens team and Samoan rugby team.

Are there any patterns? Any morphological differences? I think I can see what Coyne is getting at.

[mister_nyx]

@Chen019

I’ve also provided definitions of race and subspecies that are commonly used in biology (O’Brien & Mayr 1991, Turtle Taxonomy 2007, Coyne etc). Using these, it seems that there are races within the species homo sapiens (humans aren’t special). Jerry Coyne writes:

You’re doing it again. I already pointed out that Coyne’s piece clearly indicated that any simple division into some 3 to 6 groups (in fact, he even said any “finite number” of groups) – i.e. the ‘race realist’ ‘theory’ that there are races like “Caucasoid” and “Mongoloid” and “Negroid” – is not supported by the evidence.

You’re obviously arguing on the basis of trying to prove what you want to be true. Otherwise you wouldn’t have to misrepresent the sources you’re citing.

[GIGObuster]

As I found before mister nyx is correct on Chen019 misrepresenting sources, and then even the ones that are offering some support are not what they seem or they do not have the support among their peers that he assumes they have.

@Chen019

I mentioned earlier Risch et al 2002, Sesardic 2010.

And most geneticists have criticisms of researchers like Risch, and as pointed before in another discussion Sesardic did not publish that on a genetics journal as he is a philosopher.

http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/GeneWatch/GeneWatchPage.aspx?pageId=384

Science writer John Horgan published a critical appraisal of behavioral genetics in a 1993 edition of Scientific American.37 Horgan noted that although there were many gene finding claims for traits such as crime, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, intelligence, and homosexuality, none of these claims had been replicated. He presented the results under the heading, “Behavioral Genetics: A Lack-of Progress Report.” We can now update Horgan’s “progress report” and issue the field of behavioral genetics its apparent final report card: The evidence suggests that genes for the major psychiatric disorders, as well as for IQ and personality, do not exist. As Turkheimer concluded in 2011, in light of the failures of molecular genetic research, it is time to develop a "new paradigm."38

Simply put, the gene finding claims and predictions by Plomin and other leading behavioral geneticists turned out to be wrong. The best explanation for why this occurred is not that “heritability is missing,” but that previous and current claims that psychiatric and psychological twin studies prove something about genetics are also wrong.

We cannot expect the proponents of behavioral genetics to recognize that the historical positions of their field are mistaken, that their prized research methods and “landmark” studies are massively flawed and environmentally confounded, and that family, social, cultural, economic, and political environments-and not genetics-are the main causes of psychiatric disorders and variation in human psychological traits. Because most leaders of the field will not allow themselves to see this, it is left to others to show that the pillars of behavioral genetics are crumbling before our very eyes.

We are indeed at the “dawn of a new era,” but it will be an era very different than the one that Plomin and his colleagues envisioned.

@Chen019

I’ve also provided definitions of race and subspecies that are commonly used in biology (O’Brien & Mayr 1991, Turtle Taxonomy 2007, Coyne etc). Using these,

Full stop here.

There is no citation from researchers or scientific groups all agreeing to use these with humans. I do think you will be able to find some odd scientists that would want to, but they do remain odd and when pressed, like Risch, they would tell you that his research in his paper “was not to prove the biological reality of race”, basically he is whining that he is not getting much traction where it counts.

[mister_nyx]

@GIGObuster

And most geneticists have criticisms of researchers like Risch, and as pointed before in another discussion Sesardic did not publish that on a genetics journal as he is a philosopher.

Thanks for this. So the ‘realists’ are quoting non-experts to support their claims about the science. I wouldn’t have actually known that; I’ve read some literature about population genetics in the past – mostly Cavalli-Sforza and similar – but I have nowhere near enough acquaintance with the field to know which names are actually reputable and which are not even geneticists.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@Miller

[Moderating]
Ibn Warraq, altering the text of another poster in side the quote boxes is against the rules. Do not do this again.

No warning issued.
[/Moderating]

Oh, I didn’t realize that it was against the rules to do so even when it’s clear that I altered them rather than making it seem he’d said something he hadn’t said.

Apologies.

Won’t happen again.

[mister_nyx]

@Ibn_Warraq

Oh, I didn’t realize that it was against the rules to do so even when it’s clear that I altered them rather than making it seem he’d said something he hadn’t said.

Apologies.

Won’t happen again.

Yes, from experience with Miller, he applies the rule even if one uses square brackets to note changes. I can’t quite figure out what the purpose of the rule is, but its idiosyncratic application allows for many amusingly inexplicable situations like this one.

[tomndebb]

@mister_nyx

I can’t quite figure out what the purpose of the rule is, but its idiosyncratic application allows for many amusingly inexplicable situations like this one.

Posters quickly reading through a thread are liable to be misled regarding what was said by whom if the text inside quote boxes, (the stuff that appears to be direct quoting using the software, alone), is manipulated. Such misdirection, of course, would then be followed by many pages of accusations, counter-accusations, threats, moans, howls, and caterwauling that are just easier to avoid by enforcing an absolute prohibition.

As to rigid enforcement, it is one of those areas in which we know, (from long experience), that posters will try to game the system if any tampering were allowed, with much whining and gnashing of teeth by later posters who attempted to game the system that some other poster had gotten away with it.

We put no such absolute rule around text in which simple quotation marks are used, (although a flagrant abuse will probably get negative attention from a Mod).

[Chen019]

@GIGObuster

As I found before mister nyx is correct on Chen019 misrepresenting sources, and then even the ones that are offering some support are not what they seem or they do not have the support among their peers that he assumes they have.

And most geneticists have criticisms of researchers like Risch, and as pointed before in another discussion Sesardic did not publish that on a genetics journal as he is a philosopher…

There is no citation from researchers or scientific groups all agreeing to use these with humans. I

You could say the same about various species, let alone races.

Sesardic is a philosopher, but read the paper. Let me know what you particularly disagree with. The issue of “where to draw the line”, continuum fallacy and the sorites paradox are all issues within the realm of philosophy.

[Chen019]

@mister_nyx

You’re doing it again. I already pointed out that Coyne’s piece clearly indicated that any simple division into some 3 to 6 groups (in fact, he even said any “finite number” of groups) – i.e. the ‘race realist’ ‘theory’ that there are races like “Caucasoid” and “Mongoloid” and “Negroid” – is not supported by the evidence.

As I’ve said, and something that Cavalli-Sforza & Walter Bodmer have discussed, it depends whether you’re a lumper or a splitter. Note Coyne’s wording: *So, for example, one could delimit “Caucasians” as a race, but within that group there are genetically different and morphologically different subgroups, including Finns, southern Europeans, Bedouins, and the like. * (Note the distinction of group and sub-group is also used by Risch et al below).

On this basis you could use the major branches identified by McEvoy et al and also of course Risch et al above. The Turtle Taxonomy approach notes you’re looking at the “major patterns of variation.”

"We propose that subspecies classification, if used, should describe the major patterns of variation found within a species. A precise definition of “major” is elusive, but the formal subspecific description of small, isolated populations, particularly in low vagility species, should be avoided unless there is strong reason to do otherwise. This could avoid the proliferation of named forms of small, isolated populations such as occurred with pocket gophers in western North America (Smith and Patton (1988). (Bickham (2007). Turtle Taxonomy: Methodology, Recommendations, and Guideline)."

And as Risch et al observe, those major patterns can be seen in terms of the commonly known racial groups:

A previous cluster analysis based on a much smaller number of SNPs led to a similar conclusion: “A tree relating 144 individuals from 12 human groups of Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania, inferred from an average of 75 DNA polymorphisms/individual, is remarkable in that most individuals cluster with other members of their regional group” [13]. Effectively, these population genetic studies have recapitulated the classical definition of races based on continental ancestry - namely African, Caucasian (Europe and Middle East), Asian, Pacific Islander (for example, Australian, New Guinean and Melanesian), and Native American.
…

The existence of such intermediate groups should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level…

But it is known that African populations with close contact with Middle East populations, including Ethiopians and North Africans, have had significant admixture from Middle Eastern (Caucasian) groups, and are thus more closely related to Caucasians [14]. Furthermore, the analysis by Wilson et al. [2] did not detect subgroups within the four major racial clusters (for example, it did not separate the Norwegians, Ashkenazi Jews and Armenians among the Caucasian cluster), despite known genetic differences among them. The reason is clearly that these differences are not as great as those between races and are insufficient, with the amount of data provided, to distinguish these subgroups.

http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007

[BigT]

The assertion is not that people call you racist. You asserted you knew the reason why they were calling you racist, despite the fact that no one has ever actually told you such a reason. You were very clearly engaging in ad hominem attacks, trying to disparage their arguments not on their merit, but because the people had ulterior motives. You created a strawman that their position was that you were racist for reason X when they’ve clearly stated it was reason Y.

Like I said, you conveniently overlook when you personally break your own rules. Heck, you clearly don’t follow your rules since I’ve been intentionally breaking them for quite a while now, as a protest to how stupid they are. Yet you somehow still don’t have me on ignore.

It’s honestly kinda funny how easily you fall into very obvious traps. Since you thought you could argue against me, you forgot to ignore me. Like I’ve said before, you only ignore people when you can’t argue against them, and your rules are just an excuse.

As for an example of someone who agrees with you: magellan has repeatedly used ad hominem attacks and strawmen. But, since he’s on your side, you don’t have him on ignore. Heck, I believe you’ve said before that you only hold to your rules against people who argue against you personally, making it inherent.

You are one of the most dangerous types of arguers on the planet: the one who puts up all the dressings of being logical and rational, but, if you actually look a little deeper, is just more skilled at hiding your biases. I only put people on ignore when the frustration becomes too much to handle. You were there before, but then I went through and unadded everyone just to see what would happen, and, so far, it’s been so easy to argue against you that I haven’t really found it as frustrating as before.

Oh, and I know people won’t take me up on my offer to attack you so you can’t talk to them. We can’t even get people to not feed trolls. I’m just still trying to make the point of how ridiculous your rule system is–it gives so much power to your opponents. Or, at least, it would if you actually followed them.

It’s funny how you’re screwed either way: either you follow your rules and run into negative consequences, or you don’t follow them and prove yourself a liar.