I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot but do our genetics and ethnicity determine our physically limits? Like how Africans are really good runners, and are naturally athletic. Eastern Europeans are good in combat sports like boxing (there’s always a super Russian guy in those movies) South Americans are good in soccer. Is this just me being influenced by the media or is there truth to this?
Well I believe Africans are on average taller than Europeans. This is because a tall slender body radiates heat better and in Africa thats what you need. I don’t think Africans “run faster” than other ethnicities I just think that more Africans with the “runner” body type then other races. This frame makes for a more efficient runner. I think the Olympics also play on this stereotype. We always see people with African decent dominate the track and field categories, a big factor of this is their home countries…Africa doesn’t get much snow…that makes winter sports harder if not impossible to train for.
Not true - Africans *average *about the same height as Europeans, but they are more variable in height. Remember, the “pygmies” and Khoi-San are typically shorter than the average European, whereas the Masai tend to be taller.
The world-class African runners are not drawn at random across the continent - they tend to be from East African highlands. Partly it’s body type, partly it’s a culture that encourages running, and partly it’s living at a higher altitude than average that makes them more likely to excel in those sports
I think the predominance of certain ethnicities in certain sports is a combination of genetics, culture, and environment. Having a certain body type may help, but it’s only part of being an elite athlete.
There is truth to the notion that entire populations vary against a different population for the average of a given parameter for that population, whether it’s height, intelligence or a given “athletic ability.”
See Cecil’s currently displayed column on Eskimos for a discussion of that population’s physical differences, for example.
In general an individual’s genetic makeup determines their maximum potential, and their nuture determines how fully that potential is expressed. So my genes mean I’d never make the NBA, but if I were nurtured properly I’d be a better basketball player than I am now.
It has been argued that some groupings–population cohorts–are inappropriate for comparison because the genetic variation within that population is too broad–broader even than a second comparison population. However this criticism misses the point: the question is not whether or not two populations being compared are genetically diverse, but whether or not they vary according to the genes responsible for what is being compared.
If for instance, I had a cohort of tall people and was comparing it to the population of short people, the short people group might have a great deal of genetic variation, but they would be deficient in the prevalence of the gene(s) for height. Similarly, if we take two populations and find one is more intelligent, or runs faster, or outperforms another musically, we can infer that the underlying genes governing those traits are distributed differently in the two populations, regardless of how much other genetic diversity is present or whether the short people are otherwise related to one another.
I always wondered about Lithuanians and basketball. The way I heard it, the Soviet Olympic bigwigs looked over the average heights of young people in the Republics and the Litvaks came out the tallest, so they got cultivated to play hoops.
Africans have more genetic variations among them because the human species originated in Africa. It then spread out from there, meaning that the groups wandering away from Africa would contain less genetic variation.
That is why you see more African athletes, because their wild genetics produce a few super athletes. They have a lot less average athletes too, but you won’t see that when you are looking at who shows up for the Olympics.
The Dutch are, on average, the tallest people on Earth, which accounts for their overwhelming dominance of the NBA and Olympic basketball. 