Critique this: Why blacks run faster

Great Debates
581

I see your point about unfairly ascribing motives to opponents, but again you say the evidence isn’t convincing after people evaluate it, but where is a case of that? I’ve cited a bunch of evidence, and while I’ve acknowledged it’s not definitive, it’s certainly evidence of a strong genetic component. In terms of criticisms, I’ve just seen nitpicks on the level of “none of those researchers were biologists” [Well, they were exercise physiologists, so perhaps more pertinent.]

I go back to my example of anyone being able to find plenty of holes in gravity if they wanted to. “Sure it makes accurate predictions, but who’s to say gravity’s not a social construct? After all these year’s of looking, where’s the graviton? If it’s so obvious, why does it conflict with Quantum Mechanics? Aren’t all the gravity researchers funded by similar pro-gravity groups?” etc.
P.s., you say “I think it might be more accurate to say that you need the right genes to be an elite athlete, but once you get to the elite level, the training and resources drowns out the differences between the athletes.”

That’s a reasonable hypothesis, but I’m not sure anyone is going to be able to prove it one way or the other.

Finally, I get the sense the more you look, the more data you find. Here’s list of runner’s who’ve broken 10 second barrier in 100 meter sprint. While not definitive proof of anything, the fact that there’s 83 guys, all but 3 or 4 are of West-African ancestry, yet living in widely different countries (including Cuba–where did idea of no Cuban sprinters come from?), argues against cultural factors being determinate in my mind. And..“No sprinter of predominantly Asian or East African descent has officially achieved this feat.”

582

Disagree on doping–it’s meant to give you the edge in areas that genetics might give other people an edge (e.g., VO2 Max, which has been shown to be strongly genetically determined).

(I disavow my comment that “genetics means everything”–I got overexcited.) I still am of the opinion genetics is mostly what’s behind the common genetic heritage of 94% (which, come on, that’s striking!) of the guys who’ve broken the 10 second barrier for 100 meters (and…to hammer the point home, while living in completely different cultures).

Is there really any other explanation for that amazing statistic?

583

(bolded mine)

The idea of there being “no Cuban sprinters” came after the OP originally posted a link to the fastest times in the 100 meters here. http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_100ok.htm which contains not a single Cuban in the top 100 and I’m not even sure in the next 100.

As for the list you provided, with all due respect, it really doesn’t show us anything new.

It is confirmation of what several have said, that the 100 Meter sprint has been dominated by a very small group of populations(Jamaicans, African-Americans, Jamaican-Canadians and not many others).

Were the West African sprinting gene more than a hypothesis and pseudo science, one would think that the list would be far, far more diverse and include large numbers of Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and other groups, most especially Brazilians.

Obviously, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but we’d certainly need more evidence to support it and certainly people who insist on the existence of this gene should pause when looking at the paucity of Cuban and Brazilian sprinters.

I’d also note that there are many states with huge Puerto Ricans without producing any top sprinters. Similarly, here in RI there is a sizable Cape Verdean community yet the school track teams aren’t dominated by Cape Verdean sprinters.

584

Yes, and it’s been provided repeatedly throughout this thread.

Most of the race realists would concede that culture is why Jamaicans and African-Americans produce vastly more high-quality sprinters than either Brazilians, Dominicans or Cubans, so what’s so odd about thinking that culture is why Jamaicans and African-Americans produce more sprinters than other communities?

585

Culture only goes so far. It puts the sport on the table, so to speak. There could be Country X that has zero elite sprinters (like Jamaica not long ago). And after it’s introduced and becomes somewhat popular, presto—an Olympic medalist. After a sport like sprinting becomes part of the culture, those with the genetic advantage will become the elite. You have to look at a country after sprinting has become something that virtually everyone can and does compete in. No one would argue that since all U.S. skiing champions have been white that, “well, that must be genetic”. Why not? Because (in addition to it being a greatly acquired skill) the sport does not permeate throughout society. For all we know, if everyone skied an equal amount those with West African, or East African, or Northern European heritage might dominate. Sprintingt is on the opposite end of the spectrum. It requires no training (except to compete at the elite level), everyone participates in it. Every kid with two legs has ran around and raced his friends. Kids know who the fastest in their groups are. And other than possibility of some very minor jockeying, it doesn’t change.

586

Assumes facts not in evidence.

587

Assumes things that aren’t facts, actually. Everybody who has healthy legs can run, but not everybody is interested in competitive running. I played tennis in school and played in baseball and basketball leagues, but you couldn’t have paid me enough money to go out for a track team. It seemed like the most boring, un-fun thing imaginable.

588

True and I think both Usain Bolt and Carl Lewis would certainly challenge the idea that sprinting requires little to no training.

Granted Magellan also insists that a really good athlete could pick up lacrosse “very quickly” which I think people who’ve played lacrosse would certainly find quite dubious.

589

Sigh.

Sheezus. Would you please read the fucking thread. Sprinting requires great commitment and training AT THE ELITE LEVEL. No one has said or intimated otherwise. Kids gravitate to where they’re going to have success. If you’re really fast, that means the speed positions in sprinting, wide receivers, etc. If you’re only of average—or even just above average—speed, you’re not going to go the coach of the track team and say, “hey, I run the 100 in 12.5 but I really, really want to be a sprinting star”. Every kid knows their stance among their peers. And only the really fast will entertain being sprinters or kick returners or tailbacks or cornerbacks. And coaches are going to invest their time on those same kids.

590

How about the football team? Wide receiver? Tailback? Cornerback? For less contact. safety?

591

That’s not at all an accurate characterization. Look again. Nigeria is the the third most frequent country of origin. Silvio Leonard was Cuban.

After sleeping on it, I became convinced the 10-second barrier is really proof positive. Not sure how productive it is to continue, because things are going around in circles and there’s been all sorts of different arguments that are getting muddled together (e.g., while others may have argued it, I don’t think there’s one single sprinting gene.) I was going to suggest a separate discussion just on the 10-second barrier issue (?)

I really think the burden of proof has switched to those arguing culture as determining factor in 10-second barrier issue. Imagine any other epidemiological study showing that only 83 people in the world have experienced something that’s been shown to have a high genetic component. (Over half the people come from Jamaica, U.S., and Nigeria, which at the least have different cultures.) 95% of the people have at least some significant part of their heritage coming from one region of Africa.

What unbiased person wouldn’t conclude the fact they have common ancestry has something to do with the amazing event that only 83 people in the history of the world has experienced?

And, given that recent research has shown that positive adaptations spread broadly through a geographic region, in spite of other differences developing in the genotype (NYT article I linked to a while back), how can the most obvious explanation not be genetic?
P.s., In the thought experiment, imagine the amazing event didn’t involve “race” or skin color. And as an example of the extreme lengths people will go to deny the most obvious explanation, see the Wikipedia article where they note that perhaps successful black role models contributed to racial disparity. This is very very specious since why did the role models only inspire people from that one region in Africa and why only in that one event? (And why wouldn’t it inspire white racists to show up the blacks.)

592

P.p.s. Sorry, need to add last more pointed argument for 10-second barrier argument:

For anyone to argue “cultural bias toward sprinting” as explanation for striking data on who’s broken the 10-second barrier, you’d have to be saying that someone who grew up in inner-city Atlanta and someone who grew up in the hills of Nigeria, despite having different languages, religion, and despite their everyday lives being completely different in every way–the one common thing they’ve both held onto, is some theoretically ancient cultural veneration of sprinting races?

That would be quite an amazingly unique case of cultural transmission that you’d think every ethnographer in the world would want to be studying. Where is there any evidence for that assertion?

593

A unique case of cultural transmission that is:

  1. Rare as a unicorn or …
  2. Duplicated at of every single semi-annual international athletic event ever held throughout history since time immortal…

Ah…the beauty of sports.

594

Ok, in the interest of establishing what I would consider more reliable (but not absolute) proof of a genetic link, here’s what I would consider more of an actually predictive test.

Note that this is mainly an outline and that any actual scientific test would need several details figured out, not to mention nailing down statistical methods, eliminating biases, establishing actual methodologies, etc.

[ol]
[li]Establish what is meant by black. Since the current discussion seems largely US-centric, the US based rule is ok for now, i.e. skin/hair color darker than some level combined with some evidence of African ancestry. Yes, there are problems with this rule, so if you have a better idea, use it instead. [/li]
[li]For a large number of countries, collect the 100m, 200m, 400m times of the top 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 top white sprinters and the top 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 black sprinters for 2012, 2011, 2010, and farther back if possible.[/li]
It may be possible there aren’t sufficient samples for some countries, but that’s ok for a starting point. If necessary, go beyond professionals to amateurs, universities, or even high schools BUT make sure to keep non-professionals in mind when doing comparisons or statistical analyses. It’s important to get a large sampling of countries, especially former slave colonies/nations.

[li]For as many athletes as possible, collect as much individual data as possible. In particular, the socioeconomic class of the athlete and of their parents and grandparents, if possible. Were the parents also athletes at any level? Collect as much information about training and coaching as possible. When did the athlete begin competing in sprinting? When did the athlete first get reasonable coaching? Was the athlete’s high school, university, or coaching well known for training sprinters? Etc.[/li]
[li]Run the comparisons.[/li][LIST=2]
[li]Within individual countries: is the performance of black sprinters superior/inferior/equal to the performance of white sprinters?[/li][li] Across different countries: is the performance of white sprinters from some countries superior/inferior/equal to the performance of black sprinters of other countries? Which countries? [/li][li]Is the performance of black sprinters from former slave colonies superior to the performance of black sprinters of the countries slaves were originally taken from?[/li][li]Is there any correlation to coaching earlier in life (even pre-high school) and improved performance?[/li][/ol]
[/LIST]

Questions to ask in particular:
[ol]
[li]Are white sprinters from countries like the US or Canada better/worse/equal than black non-Jamaican sprinters from former slave colonies like Haiti, Cuba, Trinidad, Virgin Islands (UK or US), Brazil, etc? [/li]
[li]Is there any correlation between distance from Africa and the former slave colonies and sprinting ability (which is related to the actual original post)? [/li]
[li]How much variability is there in sprint times among blacks (or among whites) from different countries? Is there a wide range? Is there any correlation of times between former slave colonies and African nations? Is there any correlation of times even within Africa?[/li]
[li]Is there any correlation between top sprinters and their socioeconomic class? Is there a correlation between faster times (for either whites or blacks) and wealthier countries? Is there a statistically significant advantage to coaching earlier in life?[/li][/ol]
I understand that not all these numbers are universally available. But collecting as much of it as possible and doing what analyses and comparisons are available across countries is a much more reliable test than using the absolute top times (top world sprint times) or data from a single nation (top NFL runners).
Why is this a better test?

[ul]
[li]Unlike just looking at the top 3 times, it won’t be dominated by Jamaicans or Americans, i.e. it reduces both confirmation and selection bias. The larger sample means a more fair comparison of population statistics, rather than the unique combination of freak athletes and top level training.[/li]
[li]It helps (though does not determine) how much cultural factors matter .[/li]
[li]It firms up (though does not determine) how much the slave trade served as a selection process and/or de facto eugenics program.[/li][/ul]

It’s important to note that if white US sprinters outperform black sprinters from not-Jamaica, the argument against genetics is still not completely settled. Genetics may still play a part but a smaller part than culture (is it 0%, 5%, 10%, etc?). The extent to which both play a role would then have to be determined.

Likewise, if black sprinters perform universally better across the board, a genetic explanation seems much more likely now, though again not completely settled (is it 100%, 90%, 95%, etc?).

595

Actually, the OP and the article are talking about ALL of the finalists at the Beijing Olympics. So, yes, that’s only 8, but the top 8 taken from basically all of the track athletes throughout the world. So, they are part of a HUGE sample that’s been rigorously tried and tested.

So, I think it means something. But, I’m not sure what.

Like, why are most pole-vaulters white? Is is because white Europeans in feudal times used pole vaults to clear castle walls during feudal skirmishes? Unlikely.

596

People keep wanting to add increasingly implausible dimensions. Why not just go straight to rowing, or yachting?

But yeah, of course a pole vault is just a long pole right, and like you just land in some sand pit. And basically all you have to do is run up and kind of stick your feet out. Forwards maybe. Or something.

imo, the Olympics literally has to have ‘technical’ events now - the events where there is an economic barrier to entry.

597

Are you asking if I played organized football? No, never even thought about it (small, not fast, didn’t want to get the crap knocked out of me). I understand why sprinting and running are being treated as the most basic measurement of athleticism in this thread, and it does make some sense if speed is the topic we’re most interested in. But you’re completely wrong to say “everyone competes in it.” There’s a big difference between having short races at recess or mandatory fitness tests during gym class and being interested enough in running to go out for the track team and committing very large amounts of time to training and practice. Even if you’re fast and could become a good sprinter, you might be more interested in applying that speed to other sports. The talent pool is not universal.

598

That’s a fair description of what it would take for someone to break the 10-second barrier. I’d argue that it does effectively use a very large sample and logically reflects genetics.

I get the sense of lot of people here have never competed in athletics. Yes, cultural factors might drive you to play one sport or the other, but every high-level athlete I’ve known is very driven to succeed for individual reasons. It’s not like a Nigerian is going to get that extra push to break the 10-second barrier because it means more to his home village than it would be mean to some German in the same race. (And, just to reiterate the other cultural point, it’s not like the German national Track & Field team is somehow short-changing its sprinters. It just doesn’t take that many resources to train a runner (and at this point, there’s no specialized training knowledge.)

So, every sprinter in the world (which is a lot–look at any international Track & Field event) is going to be equally motivated to run as fast as they can.

So, I’d argue, the more base genetic “talent” you have in a population, the more likely you’re going to get the unique combination you describe.

599

Just because a scenario is plausible isn’t much evidence.

And even if it’s “more likely”, it doesn’t eliminate a selection bias effect. Who’d figure on one of the tallest NBA players of the last decade coming out of China?

That’s why I proposed a more or less scientific test. We can play “what-if” scenarios and arguments all day, but ultimately, it’s going to be the sheer weight of numbers, with a host of statistical techniques applied, that carry the day.

Actually, this isn’t right. There’s a fair amount of specialized knowledge about how to come off the blocks and get to full sprinting speed in the most efficient way.

600

Yes, but it’s so much easier to prove our pet theories with pseudo-science than with actual science.