Fact or Fiction: The Extra Leg Muscle in African Americans

[Blake]

So lucwarm has no reason at all to beleive that the differential perfomance of Blacks is not due to lack of alternative opportunity outside sort, coupled with lack of facilities for alternative sports in black nations/communities coupled with institutionalised racism on the part of school and univeristy coaches and selectors. He said that such explanations did not stand up to scrutiny but is unable to explain why or presnet facts to support is baseless assertion.

This is GQ so we can leave it there. Lucwarm has no facts to support his assertion that such explanations don’t stand up to scrutiny. In short he was talking through his proverbial when he made that statement.

[David_Simmons]

*Originally posted by lucwarm *
**And by the way, I think you’re just looking for a straw man to attack. IMHO, most people on all sides of the debate are happy to concede that virtually all top athletes succeed as a result of superior inborn skill AND hard work. **

Are the rose colored glasses comfortable? See Blake’s cite.

[bibliophage]

Off to Great Debates.

bibliophage
moderator GQ

[Blake]

most people on all sides of the debate are happy to concede that virtually all top athletes succeed as a result of superior inborn skill AND hard work.

Inborn skill yes. Some special black genetics as you seem to believe? No. No mainstream scientists believe that and there is no evidence for it. Only fringe loonies like Entine share that belief. For actual evidence I would invite you to read, in addition to what I have already referenced:

Race and ethnicity as biological constructs, Jackson, F L ,Ethnicity & Disease
Volume 2, Issue 2

Human genome diversity, Cann, H M, Comptes Rendus de l’Academie Des Sciences. Serie III, Sciences de la Vie Volume 321, Issue 6

Genetic basis of racial differences, Bouchard, C, Canadian Journal of Sport Sciences, Volume 13, Issue 2

Why do black basketball players work more for less money? McCormick, R & Tollison, R, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Vol. 44 (2001) 201–219

The Bell Curve: implications for the performance of Black/White athletes, Hall, R.E., The Social Science Journal 39 (2002)

Racism, racism everywhere: looking inside the hobby of baseball card collecting. Regoli, R. Race & Society 3 (2000)

DNA Studies Challenge the Meaning of Race, Marshall, E. Science 1998 282

See lucwarm, those are what are known as references. As opposed to pulling stuff out of my hat I base my beliefs on reputable journals and not my own ignorance.

[lucwarm]

*Originally posted by Blake *
**

This is GQ so we can leave it there. Lucwarm has no facts to support his assertion that such explanations don’t stand up to scrutiny. In short he was talking through his proverbial when he made that statement. **

You are committing the logical fallacy known as “dodging and weaving.”

I wait for answers to my questions:

(1) What evidence would it take to cast serious doubt on your explanation?

(2) Agree or disagree - Many non-black nations and communities lack “alternative facilities” to a comparable extent as black nations and communities.

(3) Agree or disagree - Nations like the former USSR and China put incredible amounts of resources into recruiting and training people for all sports, including sprinting.

**

Only fringe loonies like Entine share that belief.**

Do you have any cites to back up your claim that Entine is a “fringe loony”?

[lucwarm]

*Originally posted by David Simmons *
**Are the rose colored glasses comfortable? See Blake’s cite. **

Ummm, see my responses where I point out that none of his quotes supports your position.

And see his further response where he switches to plan B and claims that I had invented a strawman.

And see my response where I point out that you used the word “instead.”

[lucwarm]

Oh, and one other question:

Agree or disagree:

the average Norwegian has equal or greater access to skiing facilities than the average Tongan

[Cardinal]

I’ve read more than once that what is really happening is that black people are much more likely than white people to have fast-twitch muscle fibers. These are better at power strokes: sprinting, jumping, etc. They also can be trained for endurance. Slow twitch muscles will probably never measure up to fast twitch for power movements.

So many sports emphasize quick sprints and jumping that those with these fibers will tend to dominate. Basketball is almost all sprinting and jumping, so you see the results. Football is also getting a very high percentage of black players. Baseball and soccer don’t need that so much, so the distribution is more even. Just wait until more black guys grow on ice skates!

Oh, and I should mention that I don’t mean that blacks have an unfair advantage. Every single black person in the NBA was competing with hundreds of thousands of people with fast twitch fiber too, and it comes down to genetically imparted ability (duh), and lots of hard work.

[Askia]

Aaaaaaand I’m back.

lucwarm, I will continue to believe that your logical-fallacy-list-memorized style of debating, while modestly entertaining, ultimately hinders your ability to consider your opponent’s words beyond a facile ability to twist their arguments to suit your own agenda.

Re-reading the fast muscle twitch fiber controversy, and considering the data more dispassionately, it occured to me that maybe those muscles DID exist, and that they WERE present in “blacks” more often than “whites” – but that it wasn’t due to differences in genetics, as several posters believe, but differences in training, diet, environmental conditions growing up, etc. You know… what I’ve been saying all along…? (Notwithstanding the socioeconomic thrust and societal approval that propels these athletes to take up these sports in the frst place.)

Anyhoo. Googling with that premise in mind, I came up with THIS LINK. Some highlights:

Tim Noakes and a team of researchers at the University of Cape Town have recently evaluated the fastest black and white South African runners, and their tests reveal a key training difference between the groups, along with several physiological disparities.

Physiological disparities [NOT genetic disparity] was expressed as THUS:

Why were blacks better? The difference clearly wasn’t in maximal aerobic capacity (V02max) or running economy, since both black and white runners had average V02max values of about 71-72 ml/kg/min and very similar running efficiencies at either 5:40 per mile speed or 4:36 per mile speed (about lOK pace). Muscle fibre composition wasn’t the answer, either, since blacks and whites possessed about the same percentage of Type I (slow-twitch) muscle fibres (53-63 per cent of the total). In addition, each group ran about the same total distance (50-60 miles) each week and could attain the same maximal running velocity on the treadmill (about 3:58 per mile).

Now, the ‘key training difference’ was explained as THIS:

Black runners’ quadriceps muscles were about 31 per cent weaker than those of the whites, yet the blacks’ quads fatigued much less rapidly during the test. In fact, they were able to exert at least 70 per cent of maximal force for 169 seconds during the isometric efforts compared to just 97 seconds for the whites.

‘This reinforces our belief that the key difference between black and white South African runners is in the muscle tissue, not the cardiovascular system,’ says Tim Noakes. Ordinarily, the lower strength but greater endurance of the blacks’ quads might suggest that they had higher percentages of Type I muscle fibres, which aren’t very powerful but great at resisting fatigue. However, since the blacks and whites in Noakes’ study had equal percentages of Type I and 11 fibres, the difference may again have resided in the blacks superior Type 11A cells, which may have able to thwart fatigue during the isometric test because of their enhanced aerobic characteristics.

The black runners’ superiority now seems more mundane than mysterious. Compared to the whites, they may simply have had higher concentrations of key aerobic enzymes inside their Type 11A muscle cells because of their fondness for above-80% V02max training. Yet another mystery remains. How could the black athletes run 2:08 marathons and 60 minute half-marathons on a training diet of ‘only’ 50-60 miles per week? Don’t they realise that great runners need at least 100 miles per week or more?

Actually, there’s no mystery, according to Noakes. ‘I tell my runners to try to do as much as they can on as little training as possible,’ says the South African scientist. 'Obviously this means focusing on intense training, as the black runners in our study did, rather than on grandiose mileage levels.

'The available research shows that intense training is the way to go, as many elite runners have learned. Top marathoners Steve Jones and Rob de Castella revived flagging careers by shifting from high-mileage training to an emphasis on more quality work and less volume. And when Paula Newby-Fraser first went to the United States she began a programme of high-mileage work but had lots of problems until she cut back on her volume and focussed on intensity.

Granted, this is one study. I’d be remiss if I didn’t follow my own advice about extropolating the results of small samples to much larger groups… but THIS makes more sense to me than this mysterious twitch muscle genetic inheritance I keep hearing about.

[lucwarm]

*Originally posted by Askia *
**Aaaaaaand I’m back.

lucwarm, I will continue to believe that your logical-fallacy-list-memorized style of debating, while modestly entertaining, ultimately hinders your ability to consider your opponent’s words beyond a facile ability to twist their arguments to suit your own agenda.**

Don’t be ridiculous. I certainly didn’t twist any of your arguments.
You argued that decisive is the same thing as dominant. I showed why your argument was incorrect. You sort of argued that if a factor is dominant at an individual level, it must be dominant at a group level. I showed that this argument too was incorrect.

End of story. (for now anyway).

** [an reference to a comparison between black and white distance runners] **

Look, if black dominance in sprinting were the result of some training regimen common among black athletes but rare among non-blacks, one would expect that a few white or oriental sprinters would be smart enough to copy their training techniques.

Further, it seems kinda unlikely to me that black sprinters in Europe, North America, the Carribean, and Africa all engage in some super-duper training technique which is not followed by non-blacks.

Now, I realize that the article you cited deals with distance-runners, not sprinters. I’m not sure if any group dominates distance running the way that blacks dominate sprinting. Certainly when I’ve watched the Olympics in past years, I have seen successful distance runners who were of all different races. For what it’s worth, I’m willing to concede the possibility that any disparities in distance running results are the result of social/cultural differences.

**

Granted, this is one study. I’d be remiss if I didn’t follow my own advice about extropolating the results of small samples to much larger groups… but THIS makes more sense to me than this mysterious twitch muscle genetic inheritance I keep hearing about. **

If there were a study that found a key training difference between black sprinters (from North America, Europe, the Carribean, Africa, etc.) and non-black sprinters (from all over the world), I would certainly re-think my position.

[Cardinal]

Yeah, my problem with that study is that it uses the mile as the race under examination. Do this for the 100 meter dash, and I think it comes more into line with the idea of differences.

Look, there is no way that the black players are being coached differently in high schools or colleges, yet the NBA has something like 75% of its starting lineups being black. Remember that this is from a group that’s about 12% of the overall population. That’s an incredible disparity.

Football also has a very wide disparity, because what it wants is speed, or 4-5 seconds of full strength pushing on the line. Endurance isn’t really that much of a factor. If it were, these linemen wouldn’t be 330 pounds.

I admit that I don’t really know what I’m talking about on a deep level, but I don’t really buy the interpretation of that study.

[Badtz_Maru]

My brother, who was about the most un-racist person you could imagine, noticed while in the military that, among the new recruits who claimed to have never touched a gun before in their life, the whites were much better at hitting their targets at the beginning of their training. He said after only a little training the difference went away, but I’m thinking that there may be some kind of racial advantage whites have there.

[Blake]

My brother, who was about the most un-racist person you could imagine, noticed while in the military that…

The problem is that if you read hyjyljyj’s post above you will see that he noticed that there are fewer overweight black men than white men, despite the fact that this is clearly not the case. Observatins with no methodology and without any actual testing are worthless because people notice what they expect to notice. It’s not negative racism, it’s just the same phenomenenon that allows so many people to believe that famous people die in threes.

but I’m thinking that there may be some kind of racial advantage whites have there.

If it’ true thenracial obviously. Genetic i smuch more spurious

Do you believe that percentage ownership of Playstation’s, X-boxes and PCs is jus as high amongt blacks as whites? Do oyu belive that Blacks spend as much money feeding coins into ‘House of the Dead’, ‘Silent Scope’ and ‘Time Crisis’ as whites? And you know that Blacks spend just as many hours on those machines? Because we know that playing most computer games improves hand-eye co-ordination and shooting ability.

Do you believe that whites and blacks watch the same movies/TV and have the same learned beliefs on how to shoot?

This problem is that there is no evidence of a genetic explanation, no plausible mechanism for a genetic explanation. On the other hand we have at least two plausible cultural factor that would explain the discrepancy.

[mascaroni]

*Originally posted by Blake *
**

Mascaroni that link you posted doesn’t in any way support ypour conention that ‘Hispanics dominate the lower weights, Black Americans dominate the heavier weights in boxing’. It doesn’t even mention ethnicity, only nationality. It’ impossible to tell what ethnicity Marc-Mormeck from France is for example…
There is a reason why I invoked the culture built on machismo with an acceptance of schoolyard bullying and a set solution of teaching the smaller boys to ‘stand up for themselves’ by learning martial arts, while the larger boys rarely need to do so because they never get bullied. It is actually pulled from an interview i once saw with Billy Joel, who said that this was exactly the situation in the immigrant society that he grew up in. He himself used it to explain the dominance of Italian boxers earlier this century. This isn’t just an explanation pulled out of the hat, it’s a serious explanation that would need to be controlled for.
I notice that none of the here have yet explained why cultural factors led to an overwhelming dominance of Jews and Italians prior to the acceptance of Blacks, and yet the same cultural factors can’t explain the dominance of Blacks and that a genetic component needs to be invoked.

Bizarre. **

The ethnicity of Marc-Mormeck is irrelevant… I didn’t say every boxer in the heavier weights is Black. I said they dominate them. I’m not going to trawl through the web to find individual cites for the ethnicity of each boxer on the list…

Billy Joel might be able to tell you…
(Great cite, BTW…)

Ask him about Primo Carnera , the ‘smaller boy’ being taught to stand up for himself…

What’s your (or Huey Lewis’s) take on the dominance of Black’s at the heavier weights? An acceptance of schoolyard bullying?

[Blake]

Macaroni no one ever claimed that you said “every boxer in the heavier weights is Black”. Nor does anyone expect you to trawl to anything. However this is GD and when you make a statement such as ‘Hispanics dominate the lower weights, Black Americans dominate the heavier weights in boxing’ you are expected to be able to support it wit something. You have failed in any way to verify your statement that. Not one shred of evidence has been produced to support such a statement, so by the standards of GD we can ignore it altogether. Trawl or don’t trawl as you wish, but since you can’t support it the statement is worthless.

What’s your (or Huey Lewis’s) take on the dominance of Black’s at the heavier weights? An acceptance of schoolyard bullying?

Oh yes. Shifting the burden of proof coupled with sarcasm. Always a good tactic. Totally invalid in a debate, but well worth it in schoolyard slanging matches. The problem is that I don’t need a take on those things. Your side stated that a differential ethnic dominance between weight classes would require different cultural outlooks by different sized men within the same ethnicity. I have given several examples of alternative explanation, proving that this is not a valid conclusion to draw. That falsifies the proposition of your side. That was my sole intention and I need do no more.

[Badtz_Maru]

*Originally posted by Blake *
**The problem is that if you read hyjyljyj’s post above you will see that he noticed that there are fewer overweight black men than white men, despite the fact that this is clearly not the case. Observatins with no methodology and without any actual testing are worthless because people notice what they expect to notice. It’s not negative racism, it’s just the same phenomenenon that allows so many people to believe that famous people die in threes.

If it’ true thenracial obviously. Genetic i smuch more spurious

Do you believe that percentage ownership of Playstation’s, X-boxes and PCs is jus as high amongt blacks as whites? Do oyu belive that Blacks spend as much money feeding coins into ‘House of the Dead’, ‘Silent Scope’ and ‘Time Crisis’ as whites? And you know that Blacks spend just as many hours on those machines? Because we know that playing most computer games improves hand-eye co-ordination and shooting ability.

Do you believe that whites and blacks watch the same movies/TV and have the same learned beliefs on how to shoot?

This problem is that there is no evidence of a genetic explanation, no plausible mechanism for a genetic explanation. On the other hand we have at least two plausible cultural factor that would explain the discrepancy. **

Well, I know a genetic explanation seems unlikely, maybe it’s more cultural, but I don’t think the video game explanation is good because this was in the late 70s - early 80s. The recruits didn’t grow up playing video games, or if they did they were very crude ones.

Hmm, maybe the more protuberant honky nose assists in aiming.

[lucwarm]

*Originally posted by Badtz Maru *
**Well, I know a genetic explanation seems unlikely, maybe it’s more cultural, but I don’t think the video game explanation is good because this was in the late 70s - early 80s. The recruits didn’t grow up playing video games, or if they did they were very crude ones.

Hmm, maybe the more protuberant honky nose assists in aiming. **

For what it’s worth, it seems to me that your brother’s observations may very well have a social/cultural explanation.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that for various reasons, people might lie about their experiences with firearms.

Still waiting for answers to my earlier questions to Blake.

(1) What evidence would it take to cast serious doubt on your explanation?[of racial disparities in track & field]

(2) Agree or disagree - Many non-black nations and communities lack “alternative facilities” to a comparable extent as black nations and communities.

(3) Agree or disagree - Nations like the former USSR and China put incredible amounts of resources into recruiting and training people for all sports, including sprinting.

(4) Do you have any cites to back up your claim that Entine is a “fringe loony”?

(5) Agree or disagree – the average Norwegian has equal or greater access to skiing facilities than the average Tongan.

[mascaroni]

*Originally posted by Blake *
**Macaroni no one ever claimed that you said “every boxer in the heavier weights is Black”. Nor does anyone expect you to trawl to anything. However this is GD and when you make a statement such as ‘Hispanics dominate the lower weights, Black Americans dominate the heavier weights in boxing’ you are expected to be able to support it wit something. You have failed in any way to verify your statement that. Not one shred of evidence has been produced to support such a statement, so by the standards of GD we can ignore it altogether. Trawl or don’t trawl as you wish, but since you can’t support it the statement is worthless.

Oh yes. Shifting the burden of proof coupled with sarcasm. Always a good tactic. Totally invalid in a debate, but well worth it in schoolyard slanging matches. The problem is that I don’t need a take on those things. Your side stated that a differential ethnic dominance between weight classes would require different cultural outlooks by different sized men within the same ethnicity. I have given several examples of alternative explanation, proving that this is not a valid conclusion to draw. That falsifies the proposition of your side. That was my sole intention and I need do no more. **

My cite, a list of the current World Title holders at each weight is worthless?
Your cite, something you heard Billy Joel say on the radio is valid?

As for shifting the burden of proof, my statement was “looking at the evidence it would seem that, at the very highest levels, race/ethnicity does provide an edge.”

Maybe I should have said ‘empirical evidence’.

I’m still open-minded about it.

IMHO, your mind is firmly closed on this matter, your arguments are undoubtedly clever and logical, but are based on defending a pre-formed opinion rather than seeking the truth.

[SiliconDoc]

@Askia

Aaaaaaand I’m back.

lucwarm, I will continue to believe that your logical-fallacy-list-memorized style of debating, while modestly entertaining, ultimately hinders your ability to consider your opponent’s words beyond a facile ability to twist their arguments to suit your own agenda.

Re-reading the fast muscle twitch fiber controversy, and considering the data more dispassionately, it occured to me that maybe those muscles DID exist, and that they WERE present in “blacks” more often than “whites” – but that it wasn’t due to differences in genetics, as several posters believe, but differences in training, diet, environmental conditions growing up, etc. You know… what I’ve been saying all along…? (Notwithstanding the socioeconomic thrust and societal approval that propels these athletes to take up these sports in the frst place.)

Anyhoo. Googling with that premise in mind, I came up with THIS LINK. Some highlights:
Physiological disparities [NOT genetic disparity] was expressed as THUS:

Now, the ‘key training difference’ was explained as THIS:

Granted, this is one study. I’d be remiss if I didn’t follow my own advice about extropolating the results of small samples to much larger groups… but THIS makes more sense to me than this mysterious twitch muscle genetic inheritance I keep hearing about.

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that reduced thickness of the femoral neck and shaft cortex, a wider intertrochanteric region and a longer hip axis length were predictive of hip fracture among Caucasian women. We hypothesized that racial differences in these features of hip geometry may contribute to explaining the differences in hip fracture incidence between women of African origin and Caucasian women. We measured the cortical thickness and bone widths in 132 African-American women and 43 Nigerian women who were pair-matched on height (+/- 3 cm), age (+/- 5 years) and weight (+/- 3 kg) to 175 Caucasian women. Measures of cortical thickness were greater among women of African origin than Caucasian. Women of African origin had smaller bone widths and a shorter hip axis length than Caucasians. Several of these differences were independent of bone mineral density except for the cortical thickness of the femoral shaft. We conclude that women of African origin have thicker cortical bone of the hip, a shorter hip axis length and smaller intertrochanteric widths than Caucasians. Based on a model developed from hip fractures among Caucasian women, we predict that these observed racial differences could contribute to approximately a 25% decrease risk of hip fracture among blacks.

Black-white differences in hip geometry. Study of Osteoporotic Fractures...

Oh gee… the nasty racist lady athletic director who did a study and was cautious with her conclusions… wasn’t the only one who discovered what those who cannot accept reality deny no matter what.
I find it very interesting the vast majority of the very same people demand darwinism and the big bang and evolution be religiously accepted - but then evolution rears it “ugly head” and suddenly it doesn’t exist, but just in this SINGULAR and guarded with immense fervor area – the human being.

So the sad thing is some people cannot allow the truth in their minds, even as they demand others declare that truth as their own…really really messed up.

[Gaudere]

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