# Critique this: Why blacks run faster **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 6, 2012, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414 "2012-07-06T13:42:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/261 "2012-07-08T04:14:19Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > Selectively-bred? > > Not intentionally, no. But there’s a clear difference between the terrain of East and West Africa, and the plains of East Africa reward distance running ability much more than more varied environments. When you’re hunting in a group on a plain, or running from predators on a plain, you are able to see long distances, and use that fact to run more slowly and evenly, instead of getting caught off-guard and having to sprint like mad to the nearest safe spot. > > Northern Europe is a whole other situation. I’m not sure humans have been in that area long enough for selective pressures to create much divergence, but the fact that Europeans are now shown to have some Neanderthal DNA shows how they might have gotten the brute strength ability by interbreeding with the tremendously powerful Neanderthals. > > It really is factual that Africans have more muscle in their limbs, and less in their torsos, whereas Europeans are the opposite. Would you like a cite? > > Wouldn’t you agree that the relative skeletal muscle distribution difference might contribute to variations in athletic ability between these two roughly-defined groups? > > Why are you drawing a false distinction between intentional selection versus natural selection? They both create pressures on specific genetic traits. Ugh. If all you’re going to do is offer a bunch of just-so stories, then I’m really not interested. Take you folk-science and peddle it somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/262 "2012-07-08T04:14:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Ugh. If all you’re going to do is offer a bunch of just-so stories, then I’m really not interested. Take you folk-science and peddle it somewhere else. I can provide cites. Physical anthropologists don’t care about political correctness. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/263 "2012-07-08T04:20:06Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > All you’ve shown is that certain phenotypes can appear in short times. There’s no showing that such superficial characteristics indicate any kind of significant biological divergence. As I said, even dog breeds, which are much more physically divergent than any human groupings, are largely superficial groupings that disappear almost immediately upon uncontrolled breeding. So which dog do you want pulling your sled, a Husky or a Whippet? Which dog do you want to chase rabbits for you, a St Bernard or a Greyhound? etc., etc. Morphology and specific athletic abilities do, in fact, often correlate. No shock there. Just like there are obvious, visible differences between the average builds of different dog breeds, there are also obvious, visible differences between the average builds of different human populations. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/264 "2012-07-08T04:22:00Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You’re right, there is a difference. Because they were selectively bred to be different. Can you point to the human population that was selectively bred in a similar manner? > > If you’re going to use an analogy, it has to be a good one. Otherwise, it’s a fallacious bad analogy. Which is what we have here. At least he’s working within a single species now. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/265 "2012-07-08T04:27:21Z")
So anyway, I have a cite for the different muscle/fat distributions on blacks vs. whites. “Using a principal-components technique, Malina et al (51) analyzed the %BF and fat patterning of athletes at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. They concluded that %BF is influenced primarily by sport and training, whereas fat patterning is more dependent on biological factors. As found in the other studies, whites had a higher ratio of extremity to trunk skinfold thickness than blacks. Similarly, Watson and Dako (43) found the triceps skinfold thickness of African athletes who participated in the first African University Games to be only 60% of that of white athletes with comparable %BF values.” If anyone needs me to explain how skinfold measurements relate to muscle/fat distribution, I’d be happy to. [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/6/1392.full](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/6/1392.full) It’s peer-reviewed, cited by many others, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/266 "2012-07-08T04:44:18Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > [The strongest men in the world certainly is a diverse field!](http://www.theworldsstrongestman.com/athletes/2011/) Yes, and this perhaps reflects the fact that this is a sport which has a rather narrow group of people who participate in it. When he was referring to powerlifters, I thought he was referring to the Olympic weightlifting competitions which have certainly not been dominated by “Europeans.” I believe that Russia has produced more champion weightlifters than just about any other country and Bulgaria has also produced quite a few. For that matter, one of the most famous power lifters was Naim Süleymanoğlu, who is Turkish. In short, the idea that “Northern Europeans” dominate power-lifting is utterly moronic. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/267 "2012-07-08T04:44:22Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > So which dog do you want pulling your sled, a Husky or a Whippet? > > Which dog do you want to chase rabbits for you, a St Bernard or a Greyhound? > > etc., etc. > > Morphology and specific athletic abilities do, in fact, often correlate. > > No shock there. > > Just like there are obvious, visible differences between the average builds of different dog breeds, there are also obvious, visible differences between the average builds of different human populations. Are you going to choose a human being to chase rabbits or pulls sleds based merely on knowing that someone has applied a label like “Kenyan” or “black” or “Northern European” or “white”? Or hell, even choose a wide receiver or sprinter? Are you seriously telling me that you think that there is any parallel at all between dog breeds and human races? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/268 "2012-07-08T04:44:32Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > So anyway, I have a cite for the different muscle/fat distributions on blacks vs. whites. > > “Using a principal-components technique, Malina et al (51) analyzed the %BF and fat patterning of athletes at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. They concluded that %BF is influenced primarily by sport and training, whereas fat patterning is more dependent on biological factors. As found in the other studies, whites had a higher ratio of extremity to trunk skinfold thickness than blacks. Similarly, Watson and Dako (43) found the triceps skinfold thickness of African athletes who participated in the first African University Games to be only 60% of that of white athletes with comparable %BF values.” > > If anyone needs me to explain how skinfold measurements relate to muscle/fat distribution, I’d be happy to. > > [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/6/1392.full](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/6/1392.full) > > It’s peer-reviewed, cited by many others, etc.. Look. No one is going to claim that different populations don’t have difference physical characteristics. That is not what is being debated in this thread. The thesis presented here is that Jamaicans have some unique genetic make-up due to the slave experience. That has not been demonstrated, and it doesn’t even make sense since “Jamaicans” aren’t a unique genetic population. Do you want to argue that Chinese people have straighter and blacker hair then Britons? Well, knock yourself out. Do you want to argue that Norther Europeans are taller than Filipinos? Again, knock yourself out. But what we’re seeing in this thread is lots of lots of conjecture about things that might be true, even if there is no scientific evidence that it is true. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/269 "2012-07-08T04:48:07Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Are you seriously telling me that you think that there is any parallel at all between dog breeds and human races? Apparently he does. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/270 "2012-07-08T04:53:24Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Look. No one is going to claim that different populations don’t have difference physical characteristics. That is not what is being debated in this thread. The thesis presented here is that Jamaicans have some unique genetic make-up due to the slave experience. That has not been demonstrated, and it doesn’t even make sense since “Jamaicans” aren’t a unique genetic population. > > Do you want to argue that Chinese people have straighter and blacker hair then Britons? Well, knock yourself out. Do you want to argue that Norther Europeans are taller than Filipinos? Again, knock yourself out. > > But what we’re seeing in this thread is lots of lots of conjecture about things that might be true, even if there is no scientific evidence that it is true. I certainly don’t think the “slave experience” had any real effect on athletic ability. It was too short a period of time, and most slave-owners simply didn’t have large enough numbers of slaves to enact breeding programs. And I wouldn’t argue that Filipinos are shorter than other groups. ANY group raised on mostly rice is going to be pretty short. 2nd-generation Chinese are like a foot taller than their parents, the difference is just hilarious. And there’s an assload of scientific evidence. Feel free to dig through the cites on the following link: > **[Studies on racial differences](https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/studies-on-racial-differences.38685/)** > > Hello, > > I was reading a thread that was locked, so I wasn't able to respond, but I wanted to present some information on racial differences. I do not wish to debate the issue since I do not have the time, but I wanted to put this information out... And my arguments have nothing to do with proving anything about Jamaicans or slaves. My whole point has been that geography, morphology, and specific athletic abilities are _highly_ correlated, and that geographically-correlated genetic differences are at least as important as environment/training, on average, when it comes to sports. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/271 "2012-07-08T04:57:23Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Yes, and this perhaps reflects the fact that this is a sport which has a rather narrow group of people who participate in it. > > When he was referring to powerlifters, I thought he was referring to the Olympic weightlifting competitions which have certainly not been dominated by “Europeans.” > > I believe that Russia has produced more champion weightlifters than just about any other country and Bulgaria has also produced quite a few. > > For that matter, one of the most famous power lifters was Naim Süleymanoğlu, who is Turkish. > > In short, the idea that “Northern Europeans” dominate power-lifting is utterly moronic. I was including Russians and Eastern Europeans in the general group “Northern Europeans”. They certainly all look about the same to me. And that’s not a racist thing to say, it’s factual. Maybe somebody can tell those populations apart by simply looking, but I sure can’t. Maybe some people from far Eastern Russia have more of an East Asian look to them, due to intermarriage, but most Russians I’ve seen just look like other Europeans. The Turk is an outlier, and, for that matter, you still haven’t shown me a Kenyan powerlifter. And you can’t. Because there aren’t any good ones. There never will be. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/272 "2012-07-08T04:59:24Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Are you going to choose a human being to chase rabbits or pulls sleds based merely on knowing that someone has applied a label like “Kenyan” or “black” or “Northern European” or “white”? Or hell, even choose a wide receiver or sprinter? Are you seriously telling me that you think that there is any parallel at all between dog breeds and human races? Of course the morphological differences between human geographically-defined groups are smaller than between dog breeds. So what? They’re still there. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/273 "2012-07-08T05:06:16Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > I was including Russians and Eastern Europeans in the general group “Northern Europeans”. Uh-huh. Eastern Europeans are Northern Europeans. Well, that is certainly quite rational and scientific. No one would suggest that your beliefs are based on pseudo-scientific bullshit and prejudices rather than facts and logic. > [@](#): > > Maybe somebody can tell those populations apart by simply looking, but I sure can’t People in most of Central and Southern Europe can certainly tell the difference. You and I can’t because our eyes haven’t been trained to tell the difference, but my Bulgarian room mate had no such issues. Similarly many people in Japan can, at a glance say if a person is of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean extraction, but again, you and I can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/274 "2012-07-08T05:09:14Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > you still haven’t shown me a Kenyan powerlifter. And you can’t. Because there aren’t any good ones. There never will be. You never asked and the fact that there aren’t any is probably far more due to the fact that powerlifting isn’t popular in Kenya than any genetic differences between the Kenyans and Norther Europeans from Russia and Bulgaria.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/275 "2012-07-08T05:14:48Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > Of course the morphological differences between human geographically-defined groups are smaller than between dog breeds. So what? They’re still there. Wow, that’s all it takes? Any phenotypical difference at all? In that case, every single individual human being constitutes a race by himself or herself. If you’re going to posit any useful _genetic_ basis for grouping human beings, then you have to: (1) _Genetically_ define the groups (2) Show that on the basis of such groups, you can reliably make non-trivial predictions If all you really can show are things like “two black-looking people are likely to have black-looking offspring” or “two athletic white people are likely to have athletic white offspring” then you have succeeded in accomplishing a rousingly trivial feat. And here we go with the OP. If all you’re looking at are the world’s elite athletes, you have no scientific sample at all. (1) define your groups genetically (2) show that on the basis of genetics, the group _as a whole_ has a particular characteristic in contrast to another group _as a whole_. And when you are showing that “on the basis of genetics” you have to make sure you are controlling for society, culture, and other environmental factors. Indeed, for your study to have any serious basis at all, you are going to have to pretty much ignore the existence of Olympic champions, NFL players and similar outliers. You can’t draw any significant conclusions when your sample is composed of a tin group of individuals whose physical accomplishments and genes are almost impossible to divorce from environmental factors like individual history, culture, society, etc. If all you are looking at are the world’s elite athletes then all you’re doing is assembling a series of biographies. You’re not studying biology or anthropology or genetics. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/276 "2012-07-08T05:28:17Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > If all you are looking at are the world’s elite athletes then all you’re doing is assembling a series of biographies. You’re not studying biology or anthropology or genetics. Every measurable human characteristic tends to exist on a bell curve. Are you aware of that? IOW, you don’t need to study every single member of every single population to draw basic conclusions. And, since you seem to think I can’t provide links to studies, let me disabuse of that notion by posting this: [http://www.physicsforums.com/archive...p/t-38685.html](http://www.physicsforums.com/archive...p/t-38685.html) That’s, what, 50 or 100 studies or more? I’d be happy to make proving you wrong about this a hobby for a few days. There’s lots more studies out there besides those. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/277 "2012-07-08T05:29:07Z")
Here’s the the type of non-trivial predictability I’m talking about. Case A Individual A has two genetic parents, both of which are huskies Individual B has two genetic parents, both of which are clydesdales Having no other information, with what degree of accuracy can you predict whether A or B is more suitable to pull a sled? Case B Individual A has two genetic parents, both of which are white Americans Individual B has two genetic parents, both of are black Americans Having no other information, with what degree of accuracy can you predict which one will be the better athlete? ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/278 "2012-07-08T05:34:32Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Uh-huh. > > Eastern Europeans are Northern Europeans. > > Well, that is certainly quite rational and scientific. > > No one would suggest that your beliefs are based on pseudo-scientific bullshit and prejudices rather than facts and logic. > > People in most of Central and Southern Europe can certainly tell the difference. > > You and I can’t because our eyes haven’t been trained to tell the difference, but my Bulgarian room mate had no such issues. > > Similarly many people in Japan can, at a glance say if a person is of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean extraction, but again, you and I can’t. OK, let me be clear. For the purposes of this discussion, I don’t necessarily consider Romanians, for instance, to be Northern Europeans. They do share a lot more characteristics with Northern Europeans than they do with East or West Africans, but whatever. My larger point has three parts, though: –That morphology varies with geography, due to isolation, genetic drift, and selection pressures –that morphology correlates very, very highly with specific athletic abilities, –That our traditional concepts of race _sort of_, but not _perfectly_, correlate with differences in specific athletic abilities, due to the first two points. I can’t imagine a rational person disagreeing. In addition, I have little trouble telling Japanese apart from Chinese and Korean, usually, so please don’t make assumptions. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/279 "2012-07-08T05:39:18Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Here’s the the type of non-trivial predictability I’m talking about. > > Case A > > Individual A has two genetic parents, both of which are huskies > Individual B has two genetic parents, both of which are clydesdales > > Having no other information, with what degree of accuracy can you predict whether A or B is more suitable to pull a sled? > > Case B > > Individual A has two genetic parents, both of which are white Americans > Individual B has two genetic parents, both of are black Americans > > Having no other information, with what degree of accuracy can you predict which one will be the better athlete? Did you just compare horses to dogs? What was the point of that? As far as case B goes, your parameters are ridiculously broad, too, even putting aside the question of _ **which** _ sport. What are the ages and genders of the individuals? Are they both physically healthy? What about height/weight? How much training do they have at the sport in question? What degree of natural athletic ability does each have? ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414/280 "2012-07-08T05:44:16Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Uh-huh. > > No one would suggest that your beliefs are based on pseudo-scientific bullshit and prejudices rather than facts and logic. > > . Weren’t you already warned in this very thread for this sort of attack? Are you able to control yourself? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critique-this-why-blacks-run-faster/627414.md?page=15)