Fair enough. I forthwith apologist to Mr. De Berry for any pain or loss of esteem he may have felt. I guess I did imply that De Berry used those exact words. That was never my intent.
No. But the exception proves the rule. If I say Horses can run fast, not to say that mice can’t run, but horses can run fast” I doubt if we’d have too many different interpretations of what that means. Yet when de Berry says blacks can run extremely well, not to say that whites can’t run, but blacks can run extremely well we suddenly get these different interpretations.
Seems like a lot of twisting and squirming simply because we’ve replaced the two species with two different races. If De Berry hadn’t meant that whites are slower than blacks then it hardly seems like it is worth making a statement about the running ability of blacks.
After all, nobody would say “Blacks have two arms. Not that whites don’t have two arms. But Blacks sure have two arms.” You really believe that two categories are equal and then say it at some length. Like I said, if we substituted in two animal species or two makes of car instead of two races I’d almost guarantee that nobody would interpret it other than the way I have.
But anyway, it has become purely semantic and not really open to any more discussion. You interpret it one way, I another.
Good, now can yo actually address the argument I made?
Or are you, as I strongly suspect, totally incapable of such substantive input? You were quick to latch onto the Red Herring and you have numerous calls for reference. Now how about a little substance? How about pointing out what you think are the flaws in my actual argument rather than pointless gainsaying?
As noted, I missed your statement that the supposed claims were irrelevant and that any other prejudicial belief could be substituted for them to reach the same end. Apologies again.
Having drawn my mis-reading out as far as I have, I think my best option at this point is to withdraw from the thread entirely. Carry on.
Here is another cite, in addition to the facts that have been presented thus far. To quote the article.
Or this cite, showing the fastest college football players in America. Guess how many of them are white? None. What more proof do you want that black athletes tend to be faster? That’s not to say it will be that way forever, or that there isn’t another Don Beebe out there, just that a good coach must play the odds.
It’s not that talking specifically about black athletes precludes a statement from being racist. It’s that he is talking about a specific characteristic in a subset of people that can be measured. We have no idea how fast the average none athletic black guy is because we don’t go around testing people. These football players are tested, and the results are factual, and without bias.
Perhaps that would be logical if that were the reasoning I’d employed, or if such claims could be supported by evidence. Not to mention you are speaking about character traits that cannot really be empirically measured, and that you are speaking in absolute terms.
Actually he did not say that. You can imply that that is what he meant, but he did not say that. Give me a cite saying that he said what you quoted. You made a direct quote of something that was never said. Either way, he made an true observation. Just because you don’t like the facts doesn’t mean they aren’t true.
brickbacon, first off neither of those references conclude that Blacks athletes are faster than White athletes, which is what was claimed and what I rerquested. Even if “Black” and “West African” were synonymous, which they surely are not, those references simply conclude that those groups are dominant in some sports. Not that they are faster. Whites dominate in IQ tests. That doesn’t mean I can conclude that Whites are smarter.
Well if they are factual and without bias then produce the references I asked for. Can we see this evidence that allows us to conclude that Blacks athletes are faster than White athletes? Not that they tend to be faster, not that they are faster on average. Not that they dominate in certain sports. I want evidence that Blacks athletes are faster than White athletes.
Why would that be logical? The definition of racism is quite clear. What logic allows it to be twisted to include “but not when referring to subgroups”?
Why can’t I empirically measure the number of Blacks’ and Whites arrested or jailed for selling crack can’t I? Or the number of Black students disciplined for cheating?
And De Berry was speaking in absolute terms.
I already addressed the misquotation issue above.
And simply saying that his observation is true does not make it true. You have provided no evidence at all that what he said is true. It seems to be patently untrue. Blacks are not faster than whites. Blacks can run very well and Whites can run very well. De Berry claims that Blacks can run very well and whites can run well. That is not true is it?
IQ tests don’t measure how smart someone is, they measure your IQ. If I was creating a team that competed by doing IQ tests, it would not be racist to say I needed more whites on my team because they tend to score higher on those tests. It’s applying a known fact.
He didn’t say black athletes are faster, he said they tend to be faster. If holding damn near every running record, and having the fastest college athletes is not proof that one subset tends to be faster than another, I don’t know what you want. I provided a cite stating there was biological reasons for these differences. These are not perceived differences, they are real. The numbers support the biological claims.
I did produce the cites you asked for. I linked to a cite discussing a book which outlines the biological reasons for these differences. Then I showed you how the hypothesis was bolstered by numbers. What else do you want?
You don’t read very well do you? It would have been a logical rebuttal of my initial statement had I employed the rationale you accused me of.
Being a criminal doesn’t just mean being arrested. Plenty of criminals have never been arrested or convicted. When you can provide some way to figure out how many actual criminals there are, then you would have a point.
No, he was not.
Are you that dense? He never said blacks are faster than whites. Stop saying something he did not say. We are talking about athletes, and black athletes tend to be faster than white ones. If I was a coach looking for the fastest guys, the vast majority of them would be black. Is it a coincidence that all of the 10 fastest guys in college football are black? Or that there are no white cornerbacks in the NFL?
Race is a social construction of little but not zero biologic significance.
The average Black is likely not significantly faster or slower, smarter or dumber, than the average White. But the fastest Blacks are likely faster than the fastest Whites.* Since every other population is a subgroup of sorts from the original African pool, those populations with significant portions of their genomes of more recent African origins are the most diverse genetically; the spread about the mean is therefore larger for many traits. The statistical far tail for Blacks goes farther for many traits than the far tail for Whites.
So for a coach to look at a population of athletes and observe that the fastest of the fast are more often Black is not too surprising. If he wants the fastest of the fast he is more likely to find it in a Black athlete than in a White one. But it was still stupid to say it.
*Yes, that also implies that the smartest of the smart are most likely Black too. Given a similar sized and large enough n and given being raised in the same cultural environment with the same education, values, opportunities and interests, it follows that the the outliers for math and science achievement would likely be Black also. Odds are an Einstein of color or two is waiting in the wings for the cultural environment and opportunity to bloom in.
Sorry I missed this. I thought my post acknowledged the first part of your statement. regardless, we are in agreement on that point. And my point about hockey was that one abilty—strength, speed—isn’t isolated to the degree it is in runnig or weightlifting.
Kind of a lame, smart-ass apology, don’t you think. I find it interesting that even in this so-called apology where you are admitting your dishonesty, you are dishonest once again. You say that you “I guess I did imply…”. You guess? You mean you don’t know? Well, I can believe the part about you not knowing about of what you speak. But the clearly dishonest part is “did imply”. You did not “imply”, you stated clearly, at least four times:
#1, In Post 20
#2, In Post 43
#3, In Post 43
#4, In Post 43
Do you understand what quote marks are for? Or do you think that falsely attributing words to someone is an acceptable tactic done because you perceive it (incorrectly) to be fighting racism?
You know, consider all the questions above rhetorical. I’m really not interested in reading another lame apology.
Unless the brain has evolved outside Africa since humans left Africa. There is evidence that two brain related genes have evolved mostly outside of subSahara Africa originating at times coinciding with the spread of agriculture and the beginning of civilizations. Not everyone has both the particular alleles, but they occur with much lower frequency south of the desert.
On opening day 1975, American-born black players comprised 27% of the rosters. For last year, it was about 9%, according to this AP article. And as that article mentions, the Houston Astros were the first team since the 1953 Yankees (a team that was purposely non-integrated) to not have an American black player on its World Series roster). The White Sox had only 3, compared to 8 Hispanic players. Persumably that means less stars as well as less journeymen.
So, black athletes are faster than white athletes, but white athletes hit a baseball (or pitch one) better than black athletes?
There are obviously some factors which are racially determined. Thus, to me at least, the claim that there are no racial differences in other factors is the extraordinary one. The burden of proof falls on you to prove that no racial differences exist.
So your rejecting an idea out of hand without looking at the facts because if you accepted it, you would have no way to argue against racists? That looks incredibly backwards to me.
Oh FFS, can we stop with the tedious language lawyer debating whenever we start talking about racial or sexual differences? If I were to say in a debate about American culture that 'Americans are more religious than Europeans", it would pass without comment because clearly I am not saying that every single American is more religious than the most religious European. obviously, I meant that Americans, as a group, exhibit more relgious tendancies than Europeans as a group. This does not need to be said because the meaning is obvious.
Yet in every racial difference debate, the PC group is waiting to jump on every statement that is not amply padded out with copious clarifications and circumlocutions and extract the most ridiculously extreme interpretation of it.
This is ridiculous. First of all, he didn’t even say that, it was a paraphrase of a question by a journalist. His actual quote was:
Even if he did say that, it’s obvious what his meaning is and you are twisting the meaning of his words to score points.
No, but it cannot be demonstrate by merely pointing out that they are superior in one thing either. In order for that to be the case, to be not racist would be to claim that all groups of people are exactly the same in every single aspect.
The difference here is that athlete and speed are correlated factors unlike californians. Thus, there is a real difference between talking about speed and black athletes and talking about speed in general.
Finally, some facts that we can sink our teeth into. Thank you Flying Dutchman. How is it that there are hundreds of white sprinters at the high school and college level, yet not one has managed to break the 10 second barrier? Is it that sprinting is simply unpopular with white people? Is it that it’s more popular with black people? Even if every black person in the world were to train as an olympic sprinter, such a situation could not occur unless you posit genetic difference.
Cite? I’m not disputing that there are more useful ways to categorise people based on genetic assaying. But that doesn’t mean that catagorisation based on race is completely useless. I know at least that there are certain medical conditions which used to be treated differently on the basis of race. Are you claiming that such practise was founded on junk science?
You’ve yet to prove anything as a fact. In fact, you’ve yet to produce a single cite while asking for copious amounts from others.
You’ve twisted my arguments. I never said that there is a correlation between race and such things was interesting. I said that the cross-correlation between any two of the factors was the interesting factor. Even if we strip away any pre-existing notions of race, such a cross-correlation would still exist.
I know you have some training in statistics so I don’t know why your even arguing like this. Clearly, when I say signficiant correlations, I mean correlations that occur at a greater than chance level.
No, thats exactly what people say. I wouldn’t have a problem if the claim was “race has only a mild correlation with intelligence/athletic ability/criminality”. But that’s not the assertion. The assertion has always been race has no correlation with any of those factors. Zip, zilch, nada, not even a little bit. And any evidence used to try and prove the opposite is shouted down. That is the claim which I find extraordinary.
The problem is, if race were an arbitrary grouping, you would expect to see lots of people with, say white skin and tightly curled hair. In fact, you see very few. Same with, say dark skinned people with red hair or tall asians.
Okay, Blake. Can you come up with a single, plausible reason to account for Flying Dutchman’s post without positing racial differences? I certainly cannot.
If you read through some of the many (many, many) threads we’ve had about race and athletic performance you’ll find that Entine’s research and scholarship is pretty darn shoddy and isn’t a good source to base your argument on.
Even if he was, the facts are still facts. This site claims:
Is there any way to explain this apart from racial differences? It’s not credible to claim that whites simply “aren’t trying”, once your at the olympic level, it’s pretty much given that you try as hard as you can. The popularity argument doesn’t work either, blacks aren’t running at over 100 times the rate of whites which is what would be neccesary to produce that sort of result. How else do you explain it?
And it would appear that Scientific American is reasonably impressed with Entine’s work. Sciam doesn’t give web access to paper subscribers for some reason and I can’t find my paper version of that article but I do remember the review because it was my first SciAm ever and I remember wanting to buy that book on the basis of the review.
The short blurb seems to suggest his research was credible:
So if Entine doesn’t believe in Race, what’s his theory based on?
Huh? Sickle Cell is specific to blacks? All Blacks or just “blacks” from a specific part of Africa and don’t other ‘races’ suffer from sickle cell as well? Lactose intolerance is specific to blacks?
So then it’s not Race, but body types and culture that makes the difference?I know that Basketball was once considered a “Jewish” sport, were Jews and what Race is a Jew anyway, genetically geared to play basketball?
Are you sure you want to hitch your wagon to Entine?
I don’t care if the argument comes from Nutsy McNutsbucket or the Pope. As long as the facts are correct and can be verified. Do you have any way of disputing his actual claim?
