Jesus. Just substitute Clydesdale for a dog breed. It’s late here.
Then I’m going to have to ask you to narrow your parameters on that example, too. Are we comparing Clydesdales to Arabian stallions, quarter horses, farm horses, or what? Then age, training, and general health (or lack of it) also come into play.
If we’re talking about dogs, what are comparing a Husky with? A Chihuahua? Your lack of parameters makes it a ridiculous question.
Simple late night error. Pick a dog breed instead of Clydesdale.
Heh. You actually think predicting a specific sport is going to be easier than general athletic ability?
You think a scientific study doesn’t control for these? Assume they’re the same.
Your results must be independent of environmental factors. You can’t know anything about training. Remember you aren’t doing this comparison once. You’re doing it enough times to constitute a significant significant sample. You will get it wrong sometimes. The question is how many sometimes with respect to the size of your sample.
No, you can’t have these. You are positing that race is predictive of natural athletic ability and general physical suitability for athletics. Can’t beg the question.
[QUOTE=al27052]
If we’re talking about dogs, what are comparing a Husky with? A Chihuahua? Your lack of parameters makes it a ridiculous question.
[/QUOTE]
Do you understand how science works? Do it with chihuahuas. Do it with Saint Bernards. Do it as many times as you like with as many breeds of dogs there are. You will always be able to make better predictions than you will with any two of a small number of sociocultural races that have been historically understood as the major races of humans.
To clarify, what you’re going to find almost impossible to control for with specific sports or specific positions in specific sports is environmental factors. Do the easy study first and then see if you can do the harder one.
Er… I’m not attacking you. I’m critiquing your posts and your arguments.
Hi I am perfectly rational. When I read your list here, my rational mind says “This guy is throwing around words and has not a single piece of data to back it up”. Is it right? Can you present a chain of research that clearly shows that isolation, genetic drift, and selection pressure shaped the athletic characteristics of various populations of African and Europeans?
Can you show evidence that any of these various populations experienced small enough numbers for genetic drift to be a factor?
Can you show evidence of selection to produce morphological characteristics that increase or decrease athletic ability?
Do you have any evidence for anything you say at all except “This group of people dominates this sport therefore it must be genetic?”. Do you have the comphrension of genetics or ability to use your knowledge of genetics to actually consume the evidence that is readily available to you and would clearly present to you there is no evidence supporting your presumptions? Since you know enough about genetics to type the words “genetic drift” are you going to now search out a little enlightening information before filling your child’s head with unresearched suppositions?
What? You think if that the reasons you don’t see Kenyans in the World’s Strongest man competitions is because of lack of interest or training. You’ve got to be kidding. You don’t see any natural differences between the average Kenyan and the average Icelander?
Sprinting has low barriers to entry and carries high status in athletics around the world. Being fastest is something school kids can relate to and you don’t need expensive equipment or complicated rules. However, pretty much all the people who have gone under 10 seconds for the 100m are of west african ancestry. That would seem to suggest it is due to some genetic advantage or ability that is prevalent in that population. Jon Entine discusses some “bio-cultural” athletic hotspots here.
Except they aren’t just superficial characteristics - unless you think bone density is superficial.
There is also this curious study:
No, you’re being rude, which destroys your crediblity.
Teachers who constantly insult their students get hated, not listened to.
Yeah, I don’t see how anyone can say that having some Neanderthal DNA, which Northern Europeans definitely do, isn’t a clear advantage in powerlifting. It’s like saying two groups of horses, one with only racehorses as ancestors, and the other with some racehorses plus some Clydesdale ancestors, would not have an average difference in brute strength and pulling power.
And you know that Neanderthals were talented powerlifters due to genetics? You know that as a scientific fact?
I posted a link that cited over 100 different studies on morphology by race.
What you’re asking for would involve an entire book, and even if I found and posted it, you and your buddies will just ask for more proof, and more proof, ad infinitum.
You have wasted enough of my time making me google for links that you won’t even read.
They were built much more strongly, their skeletons were much more robust. Is it “unscientific” to assume that a heavier, more robust, stockier build correlates with greater strength?
In addition, the muscle attachment areas on their bones were larger, which also correlates with greater strength.
Here’s a link that cites other links, and makes a pretty good start for stating the difference in strength:
And the genes affecting powerlifting in Neanderthals have been identified and found in European power lifters? “Neanderthals were strong and some Europeans have been shown to have some Neanderthal ancestry thus Europeans have a genetic advantage in power lifting because of Neanderthal genes” isn’t a scientifically valid inference.
And you have yet to genetically define European and whatever other groups you’re talking about. Not to mention, as I’ve said before, that the list of powerlifting champions isn’t proof of anything. You have to show that this advantage exists consistently when comparing the entire groups with each other, not just a tiny number of elite athletes.
There seems to be some confusion of how the term population is used for the purposes of genetics. (Go with me. John Roberts can says that the term tax has different meanings according to the context it is applied. Same idea here.)
A population can be defined simply as a group of individuals of a species which interbreed. Populations are often defined on the basis of geography, not necessarily on the basis of a shared genetic trait.
I would not argue that there is a Irish gene, a Finnish gene, or Taiwanese gene. But I could still analyze some trait that is genetically determined and note different gene frequencies amongst these populations.
Let’s go with blood type. Most people are not particularly emotionally invested in blood type differences. Different blood types are expressed at different frequencies in different populations.
Without regard to RH factor,
Now why is blood type A more prevalent in Finnish residents than Taiwanese residents? I have no freaking idea. I’m not aware of any selective advantage one way or the other but there could hypothetically be a selective advantage I am unaware of. Could be due to a founder effect, a population bottleneck, or just plain random chance.
Instead of blood types, now consider genes involved in the development and function of the muscular system. ACTN1, ACTN2, ACTN3, ATP2A1, ATP2A2, ATP2A3, SERCA1, TNNI2, and so on…
I am not aware of any worldwide studies assessing allele frequencies of these various genes. Such a study could be done, given enough motivation and funding. If SDMB wants to pony up the money then we can get started.
But there are some studies specifically related to the ACTN3 gene in various specific populations. Studies compared frequencies of this gene as well as mitochondrial DNA haplotypes.
The rs1815739 mutation allele of the ACTN3 gene has been shown to have a high prevalence in the general population with Africans having the lowest incidence and Asians having the highest. (Source: A common nonsense mutation results in alpha-actinin-3 deficiency in the general population. Journal of Nature Genetics, April 1999)
Now back to the OP. If we accept the science that there are differences in haplotype and allele frequencies which affect muscle function could those differences have had their allelic frequencies altered by something that happened: in the slave trade? during the middle passage? involving the work and/or living conditions of the enslaved persons? Could phenotype frequencies change just as a result of a founder effect and random genetic drift? Maybe to any or all of those. I wouldn’t say no way. More study is required, as is so often the case.
The effect of mtDNA haplotype differences would be well preserved in maternal descent. It would not be subject to recombination in sexual reproduction. Further, it would not be influenced one bit by interbreeding with a male of a different population. If the European ancestry of elite “black”* athletes was as a result of male(s) of European ancestry fathering a child(ren) by female(s) of African ancestry, then mtDNA is a reasonable means by which only the maternal influence would be seen in the child, and subsequent generations.
*whatever the hell black means. Just trying to use terms from the OP.
Maybe I missed it, but I’m not seeing confusion about that here.
Where the confusion lies, is jumping from a casual observation to a supposed scientific conclusion, with a lot of just-so stories thrown in as “explanations”. Getting to the bottom or genetic differences in populations the translate to physiological differences that translate into advantages/disadvantages at specific sports is difficult scientific work to do. We can’t do double blind or control studies. We can’t do multiple generational breeding experiments. We can’t do any number of things that we routinely do with animals or inanimate objects in order to understand how things work in nature.
That is not to say that there might not be such differences in human populations, and things like height are proof positive that some do exist. But that doesn’t mean every time you see a certain population excelling at some activity that there is a genetic basis for it.
The point is you do not have to genetically identify individuals to be able to assign them to a population or “group”. Not at all.
You can define the population and then proceed to analyze the genetics.
For the purposes of population genetics it does not matter that I cannot look at the genetic traits of one particular individual and thereby unambiguously assign him to a population group. It only matters that the group as a whole has a certian distribution of alleles.
For the purposes of population genetics it is sufficent to define a population as “those persons whose ancestors resided west of the Ural mountains and north of the Mediterranean sea” or “those persons with primary residences in the states comprising the European Union” or however you might want to define European. Doesn’t matter.
Certain sub-populations (those of West African, and those of Central or South American heritage) have a much higher prevalence of sickle cell trait than the larger population of all humans. It is theorized (using the term theory as in *has pretty damn good evidence based upon reliable data) that individuals heterozygous for the sickle cell trait have a selective survival advantage when infected with malaria.
You walk into a hospital ward and are told the patient in bed 3 has malaria. What does that tell you about whether he is heterozygous for the sickle cell trait? Not a damn thing.
You walk into thousands of hospitals and are told the hospitals are collectively treating 100,000 malaria patients. What does that tell you about whether those patients are heterozygous for the sickle cell trait? Quite a lot.
I cannot look at the one patient and say anything about his individual status. But I can look at the group as a whole and say with a certain level of statistical confidence that the 100,000 patients, on average, are less likely to be heterozygous for the sickle cell trait than the populations as a whole from where they come.
Your link gave me “404”. So that is zero studies as far as I am concerned. It doesn’t require an entire book, just links to articles that demonstrate the chain. It’d be convincing.
I defined my population as elite atheletes. From my google scholar search of actn3 it seems that no matter where you go, elite athletes are enriched for the fast-twitch allele. Africans, Europeans, Asians, so on and so forth…so now what?
Also, please address my earlier post asking you for a single datum of genetic evidence that African-Americans underwent a population bottleneck, natural/artificial selection, or other population level genetic changes. I ask several question regarding reasonably expected changes that do not show up in the literature.