Sorry, but this smacks too much of “ancient chinese secret” to me, “western science” is too “arrogant” to comprehend the secret rituals of an “ancient culture”. It would be reasonable to assume that Kalenjins are one of the most intensely studied groups in sports science because they are such an interesting case. It would stretch the imagination to imagine that scientists took no notice of the very real differences in training regimes or were too “arrogant” to take any note of it. In practise, what likely happened was that trials were conducted comparing the two different styles of training and it was found it lead to no effect or a detrimental effect. Even if they didn’t do that, surely the amateur running community must have latched onto this if it works. If you’ve ever hung around fitness nuts, you know they’re willing to try any nutty idea if it might make one iota of difference. Hell, even if it didn’t work, you could package it into some snappy movement and make a quick buck off it (and I swear I thought all this before I clicked the link). So then I click on the link to read the full article and what are the words immediately after the snip?
“In addition, our book on periodisation - how to structure training over rather prolonged periods of time in order to produce the best-possible performances…”
In sort, this sounds like a slick sales pitch rather than rigourous science.
However, while browsing their site, I did come across this which actually does look worthwhile.
Now, this is finally a viable hypothesis that does not posit a genetic basis. It seems perfectly plausible to me that sterotype threat could be the reason to explain all the known facts. However, as the article stated, more work needs to be done in this area. It’s not clear that sterotype threat works at the elite level in the same way as it does the amateur level. Furthermore, it would also have to explain how blacks rose into dominance and why they have stayed there for an unnaturally long time. Finally, it would need to explain the east/west bias for running. Especially if many African-Americans probably don’t know whether they are east or west africans yet still follow the same patterns of dominance.
In short, I’m willing to at least concede that both the evidence for a genetic basis for athletic performance and that such genetics are unevenly distributed is not as strong as I originally thought. That still doesn’t change the fact that a) A genetic basis is still a viable hypothesis and b) It was only until I found these cites that a credible case could be made for the opposing side.
The thing is, weve posted extraordinary evidence. 44 black runners can do under 10 second 100m while no white people can. 91% of steeplechase winners are from a single country. About half the world champions in marathons are from a single tribe. NFL is 77% black even though it has not been traditionally considered a sport for the disenfranchised. Theres more than enough extraordinary evidence to support the extraordinary claim. Now the onus falls on the other side to come up with an equally viable hypothesis.
You’re seriously downplaying the role of culture and the whole article. I don’t understand why you would dismiss this out of hand because they may be selling a book.
Viable…WTF? You’re telling me you would rather believe that there’s some sort of mental mojo going on, that white athletes are choking because they’re competing against black athletes and losing, 'cause they believe they will? You believe that, rather than environmental, social, and physiological and economic variables?
Please note from the bottom of your link: ** “Although this research has yet to be replicated in an athletic domain…”**
I respect your ability to modify your position, something often lacking around here…but, c’mon.
Stones work is very well known in Psychology and caused a minor furor when it came out. But it’s been replicated and found solid. It’s precisely because it’s such a counter-intuitive idea that it seems viable.
If I missed the link where’s this has been replicated in an athletic domain please re-post it. I love it that you’re rethinking your position, but it bothers me that it’s for the wrong reason; at least IMO.
Still one shoudn’t look a gift horse and all that…
If you can’t see the differences in the list you supplied, I don’t know how to make it any clearer for you. In fact well-done/steak thread supports my contention that generalizations will be called out in a debate. Didn’t it go for like four pages, with people chiming in on why you would mess up a perfectly good piece of meat vs why do you care how I eat my steak? The sweeping generalization that well-done steak orderers are unsophisticated had to be defended. I don’t recall anyone falling back on the “What? Can’t we even make generalizations?!?” schtick.
If someone were to start a thread stating they thought sunsets are pretty it would be moved to MPSIMS. If someone were to claim that sunsets are the prettiest time of the day or that they were prettier than sunrises, some people would want to know how they came to that conclusion.
I’ll group these together because it speaks to the chasm between us. I do not believe we as humans are racially different. Which is why I see us as all the same chair, but painted in different colors. I am getting the sense that you do believe there are racial differences, where one group is better at one thing than another group. A sort of different but equal philosophy. Which is why your world view is “We might all be different types of chairs, but we’re all chairs”. But the genetics is on my side. Genetics has no answer for what ‘race’ my children will be, even if they know that the father is Korean and the mother is black. Because race has always been an arbitrary categorization. Italian immigrants to the US use to be viewed as “not quite white”. The Japanese during WWII viewed themselves as completely different race from the other Asians, even the Koreans.
So why not have no race classification in sports. It’s not like a bone marrow donor list, where a black recipient will have a better chance of finding a compatible donor from a black donor. Other than very race conscious people or people trying to prove something about a race, why even compile racial sports statistics. And seeing as we’re intermarrying more and more, what point is there is doing so? If someone were to come up with a list of great left handed runners. I would ask why they even bothered researching such a list. If someone researched that all the runner who have run the 100m in under 10s had a birthmark on their left asscheek, it would mean as much to me as finding out they were all black. A conclusion that this means that left asscheek birthmarks are correllated to speed would be met with just as much skepticism as someone claiming there is a correllation between “West African Descent” and speed.
to fully appreciate it, you have to have some understanding of Stone’s findings on the field of psychology. Black people would do (relatively) better at golf if you called it an “ability test” but white people would do better if you called it a “intelligence test”. Women would do better in a “math calibration test” than a “math ability test”. Old people would do worse in a test for senility than a test for wisdom. Even though the contents of the tests are exactly the same. It’s been verified literally dozens of times in a huge number of different situations and it absolutely blew people’s minds when it came out. It’s very easy to underestimate the importance of this effect and it has been used to successfully explain a wide range of phenomena. Thats why I think it’s a viable hypothesis.
That being said, I still think the genetic argument holds merit. It simply seems too counterintuitive to me that there is no genetic basis for athleticism. Maybe both factors come into play.
I certainly wouldn’t say that genetics aren’t involved in athletic ability. Some people are born faster runners than others, just as some people are born with better eyesight. But the unanswered question is: Are there measurable differences between large population groups of people in terms of athletic ability?
Coach 1. Where are we gonna get the faster players?
Coach 3. We need more sprint drills
Coach 2. We need to enroll more blacks.
Coach 3. Hey, that is a racist comment, we can’t go there.
Coach 4. Okay, lets push for the Academy to enroll more athletes of West African
descent.
Coach 1. Why, wouldn’t that mean they have a genetic advantage?
Coach 3. There are no scientific studies that prove that.
Coach 2. Then why do my records of my athletes indicate that the best times
are held by black players.
Coach 4. Correction. West African descent
Coach 3. Its cultural.
DeBerry: Fuck this noise. Our fuckin careers are at stake here. I’m gonna tell them in no uncertain terms that we need to enrol more fuckin blacks here. Everyone else is doin it.
Coach 1: We need more fast players.
Coach 2: You know most of them are black.
Coach 3: Does it matter? Recruit the fasterst players…I fucking care if they’re green, we need speed!
DeBerry to reporters: “We got outplayed and are looking to see what we can do to improve the team.”
Well, Ericsson disagrees with both of us. I’m not in a position to judge the validity of his claims but it seemed like a reasonbly supported paper and I didn’t not any obvious logical flaws. Who knows, maybe I’m reading it wrong. If you have access to academic journals, I highly reccomend the Ericsson piece.
Damn this thread is moving fast. Over the weekend, I thought this thread died. I guess we’re all “doing work on the computer”.
So we go back to the evidence of what? Which is why it is a great example of confirmation bias. You start with a the premise of ‘blacks are better athletes’ then cherry pick stats that prove your premise. You ignore stats that show their decline in other sports, or you explain it away. We end up arguing with people who claim that all success is purely genetics and all failures are for any other reason but genetics. Straight out racism, socioeconomics, disinterest.
It’s not?
Isn’t it at all possible that the best white runners are being diverted to other more popular and lucrative sports? Maybe the worlds fastest white runners are going into their respective national past-times. Maybe white athletes are a victim of their own multitude of options. Maybe the choice is either make millions and gaining fame playing for the Premier League/NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB or make tens of thousands of dollars and some fame about every four years during the Olympics running the 100m.
If the belief is that blacks are faster, why not just go the next step.
DeBerry: Next try outs will be Blacks only.
Reporter: Why would you do such a racist thing?
DeBerry: It’s not racist, sadly everyone knows the fact that Blacks are faster than Whites. We need a faster team, and we wont discriminate against a fast white player. If we had infinite resources, I would try everyone out, but we don’t. The stats show that we need the largest pool of black athletes increases the possiblity of finding the fastest players. and I don’t want to seem harsh but allowing white players to try out will give us a smaller pool. It’s a pure numbers game people.
DeBerry:Now those white players are invited to try out for QB, because I think we all know who makes the best QBs ::wink, wink::
Your metaphor is as clumsy as it is inaccurate. If you can read you’ll be able to see that I’ve been active throughtout. But clumsiness and misrepresentation from you is not surprising.
Good. We are in agreement then. After four pages of this thread, you have finally admitted that:
a)Black people exist, and
b) Black athletes tend to be faster than white athletes.
Unlike some others in this thread, I have proposed no hypothesis as to why black athletes tend to be faster than white ones. I don’t think the cause is relevant to the OP’s question, which was, “Is it racist to state that black athletes tend to be faster than white athletes?”.
I say that it is not racist, because there is plentiful evidence that black athletes do, indeed, tend to be faster than white ones.
Why this is so is not something I’ve addressed here.
