Since your argument is bouncing around like a leetah (chion?) on crack, maybe you can just start with whether you believe human races are separate species.
I think it’s a pointless question. Who cares? Are lions and tigers separate species? They look pretty different, one’s solitary, one’s more social, but they can interbreed.
It’s just not an interesting question. To me, the concept of species actually gets in the way of really understanding nature.
And here’s a clue–when you’re doing the great majority of the personal insulting in an argument, it’s usually time to step back and rethink.
EVERYONE settle down.
Anyone who feels the need to go on about insults, or give insults, or take insults where none was offered, take it to The BBQ Pit.
Stick to the topic and stop making comments about other posters.
[ /Moderating ]
nm
I didn’t insult you.
Are you going to drop this, or should I just issue you a Warning now?
Stick to the topic.
[ /Moderating ]
Why is it so hard for people to see their own biases in thinking? We are not setting policy here, we are supposed to be fighting ignorance.
The major lights on this board, including all the relevant moderators (apparently) support the notion that all human beings are essentially the same and any variation along any measure is purely cultural. This is absurd.
Humanity covers the globe. It didn’t achieve that spread in a single conquest. It took tens of thousands of years. Of course there are going to be variations in morphology and phenotype among geographically disparate groupings of humans who have had different selection pressures for mating. If I am reading this board right, posters who otherwise are incisively critical on neutral subjects lose their fucking minds on this issue.
You can take a wild, biting, aggressive, vicious fox and turn him into a dog-like pet within four generations through highly selective breeding. Why similar effects cannot be achieved with normal social/sexual selection over the course of 10,000 years or more is a mystery to me.
The problem with such topics is that, even if there was strong scientific evidence of correlation between racial genetics and athletic ability, there would be the fear that racist nutjobs would use that information and twist it and use it against blacks.
So, by default, most people on the SDMB won’t even entertain the possibility of this genetic link existing, which means that all such discussions go nowhere.
Not that the “proof” provided so far has been compelling, just saying…
Sorry, I was responding to a charge he made against me not trying to stir up shit and I dropped it when I said I didn’t want to interact with him.
Anyway, back to the OP.
It should be noted that during the days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Basketball team was almost 100% if not 100% Lithuanian despite the fact that ethnic Lithuanians made up only about 1% of the Soviet population, however I don’t think anyone seriously argues that Lithuanians had some genetic advantage over Russians when it came to playing basketball.
You need to provide a cite for that. I don’t think it’s remotely true.
What is absurd is suggesting that I have ever made anything that could be remotely characterized as expressing that opinion.
If you must build straw men, please leave me out of your schemes.
I relayed Michael Johnson’s presentation, aided as he was by several experts.
It’s interesting you mention black swimmers because I was pretty surprised my highly educated gym instructor also mention that when we were talking about muscle density (related to testosterone levels) - obv. now substitute ‘black’ for ‘slave descendents’.
Maybe the world is an awful lot easier to live in if you keep it simple; all men were created equal, everyone is equal. Equal, equal, equal, and the fact of all 8 Olympic finalists being slave descendents ain’t no thing.
What proof? There is no ‘proof’ and none has been suggested - Michael Johnson was interested in exploring the fact of slave descendents performing so well in some athletic disciplines. While we’re at it, there was no proof of Darwin’s theories for 120 years and many would argue there still isn’t.
I’d be a lot more interested in this post if you focused on slave descendents - as relevant to the OP.
I made the point earlier slave descendents could generally be identified by nationality, ethnicity and last name (American/Caribbean, black with Anglo-Saxon last names), but someone kept mocking that without explaining why … maybe there is a flaw in the logic …
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying. What they’re saying is that while there do exist physiological differences between groups and communities of people, the traditional notion of “race” is not useful in analyzing or understanding those differences. For example, it is misguided to lump all “blacks” together, all “whites” together, all “Asians” together, etc., because these groups are not actually identical enough amongst themselves to provide any meaningful basis for analysis. Depending on the physiological differences being discussed, it is more meaningful to identify people based on nationality or some other grouping. The tendency to lump people in to “races” should be avoided because it is inaccurate.
However, another good reason to avoid traditional notions of “race” is that it feeds back into so many ancient prejudices, which can have the effect not only of confusing the innocent, but also of providing a convenient venue for actual racists to present their prejudices as “science.”
Just a reminder, the OP isn’t interested in ‘race’. Interest is in a specific, identifiable, over-performing group. Even the fact of this group being ‘black’ is incidental, it could be any population.
So you won’t talk to me anymore, but talking about me is o.k.? At least get one thing straight: What I mocked was your claim that you could tell from this list if someone was descended from slaves merely by seeing their names and the country they ran for.
But there isn’t anything genetically unique about that population. “Jamaican” isn’t a population that is identifiably different from any number of other populations in the New World.
Agreed. In fact they’re not all that identifiably different from from populations that have produced zero world class sprinters.
Well then, work with ‘slave descendent’, as the OP invites you to do.
No one is denying culture plays a part, and Jamaica may well have the highest cultural component - those eight slave descendents who comprised the Beijing 100m final came from the USA and four Caribbean islands.
You might as well claim it is instead their mixed race heritage that has given them the edge then.