No, I can’t. And if you think you can then you don’t know how science works. You want to claim that you can get repeatable, scientific results by taking non-scientific short cuts. You can’t. “That guy looks black” is not a scientifically rigorous methodology for determining genotype anymore than “that car is going fast” is a scientifically rigorous methodology for determining the speed of a car.
I’ll just say the same thing to you I said to Ibn Warraq
Thzt’s easily explained by astrology 
But if the cultural explanation works for the former then it also works for the latter. As Malcolm Gladwell himself stated, running has the same cultural significance to Canadians if Jamaican background that it does in Jamaica itself.
That’s real clever.
I’ll just repeat what I said earlier. 1) It’s not clear that the investigators were studying a genetic issue, a cultural issue, or some combination of both. 2) They certainly didn’t use “that guy looks black” as a way of classifying their subjects.
Your cite is not an example of what you claimed, and what I objected to. It’s not even close. You can pretend all day long that you can do science without actually doing science, and you’re going to be wrong all day long.
Now, see, if you were descended from West African slaves you could be out of here in world record time. Just saying…
Malcolm Gladwell’s hypothesis hasn’t stood up to scrutiny; his claim in this regard appears to be at least very exagerrated.
It’s not “clever”. It’s not bothering to engage with someone who isn’t interested in acknowledging facts. According to you, if I came back with a survey showing that speed positions in the NFL are almost uniformly black based on self reporting, that would be worth something. But since that survey is based on a reporters observations and investigations into ambitious cases, it’s completely and utterly worthless to you. It’s friggen ridiculous.
No. You made a claim. I called it unscientific. You came back with a cite to something that didn’t substantiate your claim. I called you on it, and you got all huffy.
If you want to discuss facts, you don’t come in here with statements like “that guy looks black” is a good proxy for doing a DNA analysis. It’s not. And since it’s trivially easy these days to do DNA analyses, there is not need to rely on such an unscientific methodology. What you imagine in your mind is not a fact.
Like I said, it’s not really worth it to me. If you don’t want to consider an NFL writer’s analysis of the racial breakdown of the NFL then fine. I don’t really care. It’s obvious what you are doing. If you tried to argue what the NFL writer found wasn’t true, anyone who watches football would know your full of shit. So you attack it where you can to support what you want to believe.
I’m at a loss as to why you are suddenly shifting the discussion from the article you cited to the NFL, but if it’s because you’re abandoning that article as a cite that backs up your claim, I guess that’s understandable. As to why you are arguing against a position that you think I will take… well I guess that’s easier than arguing against my actual position.
Let’s try a little test. Look at this guy (no, it’s not Obama) and tell me if he looks black. And then I’ll tell you what his DNA profile is.
Hey Iggy, you brought up a lot of interesting mechanisms in addition to population bottlenecks and artificial selection (mentioned indirectly in the OP) that might account for some special genetic architecture in African Americans. So help me understand something:
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How come there is no significant difference in genetic variation between African- Americans and West Africans?
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How come there is no difference in average linkage disequilibrium between African-Americans and West Africans?
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How come the only difference between African-Americans and West Africans is in % of the genome that has a European origin?
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How come African Americans and West Africans immigrants do not differ in the prevalence of hypertension-associated alleles for 3 genes but African-Americans have higher rates of hypertension? You must know what I am referring to: The great hypothesis that posits slave ship selection pressure caused the differential survival of captives who could retain salt, resulting in African American populations with higher rates of hypertension. It’s actually identical to the OP’s hypothesis. The difference being is that the hypothesis was tested and totally unsupported by the data?
So in other words, how come there can be founder effects, natural and artificial selection and population bottlenecks yet there is not a single bit of evidence that these population level mechanisms occurred in the genetics of the African Americans?
I hope Pretty Vacant and others proposing these hypotheses would just stop the armchair hypothesizing and go to google scholar to look these topics up. They’ve been proposed countless times and the evidence never supports it…yet the idea always rears its ugly head. For example, can any of you even identify a gene with variants that alter the ratio of your twitchy muscle fibers you love to talk about so much?
What in the world are you talking about? The article I cited was exclusively about the NFL. How can I shift between talking about the article and the NFL?
That article was about the NFL? Can you quote the part that is, because I’m not seeing it.
John Mace, a question regarding the report on the NFL: how accurate, or inaccurate do you think the reporter’s observations were? Do you think they might be off a a percent o0r two? Or but a substantial enough amount to call his observations into question? What percent accuracy would you expect him to have and what percent accuracy would you say would make his point credible?
Can you quote the part where he tells us how he determined the race of the players?
Also, can you tell me whether the person in my link “looks black” or not? This has to be a dialogue, not a one-way deal.
It’s not clear how the reporter determined the race of those folks. The point here, which seems to have been lost over and over again, is that “looks black” is not a good scientific substitute for actual DNA analysis. It’s that simple.
I’ve already cited his methodology. And you are indeed correct, this is not a one way deal. I’ve posted two articles with facts and an argument based on that, which remains unaddressed to this point. Unaddressed beyond silly nitpicking, of course.
I understand that. But what I’m asking you is how accurate do you think the sportswriter is likely to be? I’m sure he’s guessing on some, and has some knowledge about the history of some. We’re talking about the starters here, some of whom have fairly well-known histories. For the others, he might guess, sure. But in total, what would you expect his level of accuracy to be? What would you expect your level of accuracy to be? If I said I’d give you $1,000 for every correct assessment and take away $1,000 for every correct assessment, how close to the maximum amount of $768,000 do you think you’d get?
Secondarily, do you think the reporters assessments were wrong? How wrong?