Fisher DeBerry and the Elephant in the Locker Room (sports and race related)

[John_Mace]

@magellan01

I do not see that any poster has done that. Can you point to who?

Anyone who is claiming a genetic basis for the olympic records data is claiming causation. Their claiming that the cause is genetic.

But, let me make a suggestion to Shalmanese. Take your finds and publish them in peer reviewed gentics journal, get other scientists to repeat your studies, then make some predictions based on your studies, and you’ll be all set. In fact, there will likely be a Nobel Prize in Biology with your name on it.

Further to your response to my last post-- I gave examples of hard, physical data in my post #148. When scientists claim that something is “genetic” they do more than comb sports statistics. Look at that latest report that “X” has been determined to be genetic. The report will invariably include geneologica studies showing that “X” clusters in families (first) and that DNA studies of those families results in the discovery of an “X” gene (second).

Note that you claimed “culture” was not the cause of the sports statistics. Are you now saying that genetics was NOT the cause? What is your hypothesis, then?

[magellan01]

@John Mace

Anyone who is claiming a genetic basis for the olympic records data is claiming causation. Their claiming that the cause is genetic.

Well, no and yes.

I think that we’d all agree that genetics plays some role in why some people are faster than others—that is is causitive to some degree. That even if a thousand kids were taken at a very young age and were fed and trained in identical manners, that not all thos ekids would wind up with the same time in the 100m sprint. But the posters here are not attributing speed to blackness. They (I) are merely pointing out that there seems to be a very strong correlation between the two.

Do you reject that their is a very strong correlation, one that suggests that something other than culture is at play?

But, let me make a suggestion to Shalmanese. Take your finds and publish them in peer reviewed gentics journal, get other scientists to repeat your studies, then make some predictions based on your studies, and you’ll be all set. In fact, there will likely be a Nobel Prize in Biology with your name on it.

Further to your response to my last post-- I gave examples of hard, physical data in my post #148. When scientists claim that something is “genetic” they do more than comb sports statistics. Look at that latest report that “X” has been determined to be genetic. The report will invariably include geneologica studies showing that “X” clusters in families (first) and that DNA studies of those families results in the discovery of an “X” gene (second).

Note that you claimed “culture” was not the cause of the sports statistics. Are you now saying that genetics was NOT the cause? What is your hypothesis, then?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know why you are focused so on proof and causation for the purposes of this discussion. At some point, scientists may discover a “speed gene”. Or they may not. Maybe speed will be found to be a the result of a combination of two, or three, or seven genes. Obviously we won’t know that until we know it. But that does not prevent us, I think, from noticing similarities and differences among people and acknowledging those differences. Yes, this can be risky, and the smaller the sample size and the less reliable the information, the greater the risk of erroneous conclusion. But it seems that posters here have been quite careful. The position that I see posited repeatedly is merely one of correlation. That the determinant of great speed, whether it be a single gene, several genes, or a combination of genes and environment, seems to occur in people of African ancestery more often and/or to larger degree than it occurs in those who are White or Asian. What is the problem with that. Do you give any weight to the data that has been supplied?

And if two thiings show a strong correlation, isn’t reasonable to talk about them in that regard, even if there is no proof of causation?

[magellan01]

Aaarghhh…why do the “Submit Reply” and the “Preview Post” buttons have to be so close together? :smack: :mad: :smack:

Obviously, John Mace’s second quote should have started with “But, let me make a suggestion…”.

Can a Mod make that quick fix?. Thanks.

[crowmanyclouds]

@holmes

Genes

And even if you manage to somehow prove it, how does that translate to “as a group blacks are faster”, when you’re basically talking about an isolated group of people? Unless you believe that the mere “appearance” of blackness is enough to tie the groups together.

Thanks for making me read the article, I sniped my quote from another post. Now that I’ve read it,
Kenyans are faster because they train harder and better. PERIOD.
“As the great geneticist Claude Bouchard, Ph.D., says: ‘There’s currently no evidence that the Kenyans are genetically superior.’”

You want white guy’s to run 100M under 10s, send em to Kenya to train.

[astorian]

@crowmanyclouds

Thanks for making me read the article, I sniped my quote from another post. Now that I’ve read it,
Kenyans are faster because they train harder and better. PERIOD.
“As the great geneticist Claude Bouchard, Ph.D., says: ‘There’s currently no evidence that the Kenyans are genetically superior.’”

You want white guy’s to run 100M under 10s, send em to Kenya to train.

Nope. Kenyans dominate the marathon and the long distyance races. They have never done well in the sprints. West Africans and people descended from West Africans dominate the sprints.

[crowmanyclouds]

Gettin my races mixed up. :smack:

[crowmanyclouds]

@John Carter of Mars

Assuming your tribe of Germans did develop into the strongest people in the world, the following statements would then be true:

The strongest people in the world are Germans.
The strongest people in the world are Europeans.
The strongest people in the world are Caucasians.

Only if you make it clear that it’s because of that one group. If you didn’t it’s a meaningless generalization.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@crowmanyclouds

Gettin my races mixed up. :smack:

No getting your populations mixed up.

No wait, you’re right, you got you’re (foot) races mixed up.

Carry on.

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

@holmes

What might that appearance be? I’ll ask this question again, if we have a record breaker who appears to be white and we find out he’s a decendent of slaves, does he now become part of the proof that black athletes tend to be faster than white athelets or does his win go to the whites?

We have no such person, but let’s assume we do. If he’s considered white, then we’ll have 1 of the 45 fastest runners being non-black. If he’s considered black, then we’ll have all of the 45 fastest runners being black. One indeterminate individual would have no bearing on the statement “Black athletes tend to be faster than white athletes”, which evidence supports.

What should I appearance should I be looking for or is skin color enough?

Are you trying to be deliberately stubborn here? It is generally accepted that there are black people. Black people are a protected class under the various civil rights acts, and are represented as a percentage of the population in census reports.
Most black people self-identify as being black. You, yourself, can certainly determine if most people are black, white, asian, whatever by simple observation. Wouldn’t you agree that Condi Rice is black and Hillary Clinton is white? It’s not a mystery that requires genetic mapping and DNA analysis.
There may be a small percentage of people whose race is not evident by observation, but that’s got nothing to do with black athletes being faster than white ones. The preponderance of evidence supporting the claim is so great that a few individuals of any race that aren’t clearly identifiable is not significant to the discussion.

@crowmanyclouds

Only if you make it clear that it’s because of that one group. If you didn’t it’s a meaningless generalization.

No, under your scenario, the statement, “The strongest people in the world are europeans” would be accurate. Whether that statement is a meaningless generalization or not would depend entirely on the context of the discussion being held.

[Aeschines]

This may be the SDMB thread with the crappiest logic I’ve ever seen. And a lot of posters are really wailing and pounding the sand, demanding that their crap arguments be accepted.

There is a hell of a lot of argumentum ad consequentiam going on: if the consequence of this argument is good, it must be true; or, if the consequence of this argument is bad, it must be false. That’s a logical fallacy.

Saying that a particular premise or conclusion is “racist” according to one’s particular politics or even generally accepted politics doesn’t in any way fasify that premise or conclusion. We all have the right to hope that evil or undesirable things are not actual in the world, but when they are, they are.

“Race” here is also a red herring, ultimately. People are right to say that it’s a social construct: Classifying people by race involves taking very obvious group traits and drawing an artificial boundary around that group. Refering to a “black race” is pretty stupid, because as several posters have pointed out the genetic heritages of people labeled “black” or “African-American” vary widely.

But the fact that “race” is sloppy thinking doesn’t change the fact that genetic traits can vary in intensity in groups as well as individuals. So it turns out that people with a certain type of muscle fiber necessary for sprinting are from a certain part of Africa, and people with another type of muscle fiber are from another part. The fact that the two groups happen to have high melanin counts and thus are “black” really isn’t very relevent, except that, as is liable in human cognition, people end up saying, “Black people are good at running” as a kind of simplification.

“Racism” could perhaps be defined as the willingness to make negative and even false such simplifications about groups and individuals, based on obvious outward characteristics, with the ultimate conclusion that one or more “races” are morally superior to others.

Racism is indeed an ugly and unacceptable thing, as, no matter what differences we notice between one group of people and another, we cannot conclude that we are overall better than they. It does not follow, however, that we must ignore factual differences between one group and another.

Further, race is indeed a red herring here in that one can easily find differences between populations that are considered to be the same race. Southern Italians and the Irish don’t look all that much alike, but are still considered “white.” Again, “race” is sloppy thinking; we need to look at the individual populations.

The coach in question sounds like he wasn’t being very politically astute, as many others have noted. He was insensitive but not, I think, “racist.”

By the way, the fact that the best sprinters in the world are “black” does not prove that “blacks” are on average faster than “whites.” In fact, it may be that the average “white” is faster than the average “black.” Even when we drop the sloppy thinking of “race,” it may be that, say, the Irish are on average faster than the West Africans whence come the world’s best sprinters.

How can this be? If the standard deviation of “speed” among the West Africans is high enough, then they will have both more slow runners and fast runners. The reason that most geniuses in history have been men is that men have the same average intelligence as women but a higher standard deviation (Wikipedia article).

As other posters have said or implied, the big issue here is intelligence and similar abilities. If a population can be better in some trait or another, then it follows that they can be worse. And one of those traits is going to be smarts. I sincerely hope that there is no inherent difference in intelligence between populations that map onto the “races,” as intelligence is what our society rewards now in the workplace, and any disparity will result in one “race” earning more than another on average. That will lead to social conflict.

But unless I engage in argumentum ad consequentiam I cannot assume that one population might be smarter than another. And that’s the real elephant in the room.

[astorian]

I have to wonder, what if there were NO slippery slopes. What if there were no other shoes waiting to be dropped. That is, would people STILL be so hostile to the idea that West Africans are faster than most other peoples around the world?

I mean, to use a ridiculous, made-up example, if some respected scientific body demonstrated conclusively that Welshmen have some kind of built-in ability to play tiddlywinks, most Americans would read that, and chuckle, “Really? Well, how about that!” Then everybody would move on, and no one would think any more of it. Partly because nobody here cares much about tiddlywinks, and Welshmen have never been the objects of hatred or oppression in the USA.

But Americans care passionately abvout football, and black Americans HAVE been the object os hatred and oppression in the USA. So, even when a decent man like FIsher DeBerry makes what seems like a simple, harmless, statement of observable fact, he’s attacked for it, often virulently.

That’s because too many people think that even discussing the issue is bound to devolve and degenerate into something uglier.

If this were JUST about football, few people would care, just as no one would care if Welshmen had a genetic advantage at tiddlywinks. But to angry white liberals (and let’s face it, in THIS case, it’s NOT black Americans who are angrily rebutting DeBerry’s claims; most black Americans firmly believe DeBerry is right), this is just the first step on a slippery slope.

They think, “If we let people like Fisher DeBerry say that blacks are faster (even if they are… no, ESPECIALLY if they are), that’s just the first step. NEXT, the KKK will be trotting out the Bell Curve and saying blacks are genetically stupider than whites.”

I have little doubt that it’s PRECISELY this kind of (largely groundless) fear that’s leading some people to deny so vehemently a statement that

1. Wasn’t said in a derogatory manner
2. Is grounded in reality
3. Isn’t really all that important.

[John_Mace]

@astorian

I have to wonder, what if there were NO slippery slopes. What if there were no other shoes waiting to be dropped. That is, would people STILL be so hostile to the idea that West Africans are faster than most other peoples around the world?

It’s not about a slippery slope. It’s about making a statement about biology without the scietific data to back it up.

But Americans care passionately abvout football, and black Americans HAVE been the object os hatred and oppression in the USA. So, even when a decent man like FIsher DeBerry makes what seems like a simple, harmless, statement of observable fact, he’s attacked for it, often virulently.

It is an observable fact that Blacks are overrepresented in football. It is not an observable fact that this is because of some biological reason. Do you see the difference?

That’s because too many people think that even discussing the issue is bound to devolve and degenerate into something uglier.

Who?

They think, “If we let people like Fisher DeBerry say that blacks are faster (even if they are… no, ESPECIALLY if they are), that’s just the first step. NEXT, the KKK will be trotting out the Bell Curve and saying blacks are genetically stupider than whites.”

That’s called a strawman argument. Some people may think that, but no one has argued it here.

[archmichael]

@astorian

I have to wonder, what if there were NO slippery slopes. What if there were no other shoes waiting to be dropped. That is, would people STILL be so hostile to the idea that West Africans are faster than most other peoples around the world?

I mean, to use a ridiculous, made-up example, if some respected scientific body demonstrated conclusively that Welshmen have some kind of built-in ability to play tiddlywinks, most Americans would read that, and chuckle, “Really? Well, how about that!” Then everybody would move on, and no one would think any more of it. Partly because nobody here cares much about tiddlywinks, and Welshmen have never been the objects of hatred or oppression in the USA.

Three points:

First, it’s funny how you twist it around to make it seem like people are being prevented from debating this issue. I don’t recall this thread being locked to prevent a race debate. In essence this isn’t a fight against racism, but more a fight against the phenomenon of confirmation bias. In GD, you will be expected to back up outrageous claims, whether it’s “I see a lot of blacks in professional sports, hence blacks must be better athletes” or “I see a lot of black coworkers come in late for work, hence there must be such a thing as ‘colored time’” or “My Christian friend survived a plane crash, guardian angels must exist”.

Second, what is the point of a mental exercise where we pretend there are no slippery slopes, other than create an imaginary world where there are no consequences. We wouldn’t be able to debate the Patriot Act, certain policies in the War on Terror or a host of other topics.

Thirdly, even in your example it would be a debate if it was closer to the DeBerry issue. If there was no scientific evidence, only a statistic that showed that the top 10 tiddlywinks players were of “Welsh descent” Whatever the fuck that means, so it could be fully blooded Welsh or one of the guy’s great-great-grandparents was Welsh. Let say the American team in the fictional Tiddlywinks World Cup does terribly, and the coach instead of taking the blame for maybe his own shortcomings as a coach, but on the fact that the USA team didn’t have enough Welsh-descent players and too many non-Welsh. Would there be a debate? I think there would.

[magellan01]

@John Mace

It’s not about a slippery slope. It’s about making a statement about biology without the scietific data to back it up.

That’s called a strawman argument. Some people may think that, but no one has argued it here.

Just for the record, Blake touched on it in Post 20:

And that is where the rot sets in. As soon as we, on board dedicated to fighting ignorance, start endorsing statements that “Blacks are better at X positive thing” or “Whites are less prone to Y positive thing” we are endorsing ignorance. And once we endorse those statements we can’t very well backflip and refuse to endorse statements that “Blacks are better at X negative thing” or “Whites are worse at Y negative thing”.

Holmes, in Post 103:

The big deal is multi-fold. One is the Incredible Hulk syndrome in which people believe that if a person excels in physical achievement he must therefor be lacking in intellect.

The second is the notion that people who do well in sports do so, because of innate “animal” abilities, this was noted doing the time when the Jews were leading the basketball leagues. They don’t have to try like ‘normal’ people, it just comes to them.

[holmes]

@John Carter of Mars

Are you trying to be deliberately stubborn here? It is generally accepted that there are black people. Black people are a protected class under the various civil rights acts, and are represented as a percentage of the population in census reports.

And why is that? Why are black people a protected class? Because simple observation, regardless of their origins, labeled them as less than human. Your simple observation deems them more than human, regardless of whether or not they may be more genetically English than African, based solely on the color of their skin. If they perform well, it’s the blackness, whatever that is, that’s the cause. Okay, would I be out of line to propose that the blacks that aren’t faster than whites, are less ‘black’, than the blacks that do?

How does it work? If you believe there’s a genetic component that tends to make black athletes faster than whites, then there must be something lacking in the blacks that aren’t. Yes? Or do you believe that on average, blacks regardless of their training, regardless of their admixture are faster than whites on average, and this speed is based primarily on genetic differences. period? All that matters is that you have some African blood and you’re going to be faster on ‘average’ than the average white person?

Most black people self-identify as being black. You, yourself, can certainly determine if most people are black, white, asian, whatever by simple observation. Wouldn’t you agree that Condi Rice is black and Hillary Clinton is white? It’s not a mystery that requires genetic mapping and DNA analysis.

I can’t determine, I can assume and that’s okay if in everyday dealings. The problem is according to same everyday dealings we have, if it was found out that Hillary Clinton had a black ancestor she could be considered black and in certain circles would be, regardless of her color. Had it happened 50 years ago, Hillary Clinton who you swear is white, would still have to drink from the colored fountain, regardless of her outward appearance, unless she hid her heritage. Yet Condi Rice, even if her father was white, would never be considered white, her European ancestry is rendered moot…because of the color of her skin and how we treat and treated race. I don’t see how this conversation is much different. We ignore that fact and is as much a fact as your sports statistics; African-Americans are a diverse group, with a varied genetic background, yet we ignore it, we focus solely on the color of their skin, ignoring all other contributions to their success.

In Tiger Woods, the majority of genetic material is from non-African origins. We hand wave all that away, because Tiger is ‘dark’ skinned and therefor black and therefor has some special genetic advantage he wouldn’t have had, had he been Tiger Guttenberg and his father was a German.

The beef I have and still have is the insistence on taking a group of people a couple of continents away and at least 400 years away and linking their isolated success to another relatively isolated group of people based solely on the color of their skin. If this was about muscle length, or where the ligaments attached and other measurable physical structures, I would have no beef. Then we take all runners regardless of race, admixture, skin color, line em up and see. If it turned out that African-Americans, West Africans had the same I guess, ‘proportions’, you would have something. If it turns up that ALL fast people had the same body-type, but West Africans and their ‘cousins’ had more or better, then yes it’s genetic. We don’t have that.

All we have is skin color and not even that, because all black people don’t look alike. All black people aren’t built the same. All black people don’t have the same amount of genetic material, yet you have no problem painting them as a ‘group’ with the same brush, based on sport statistics and only what 3-4 events and how many years, 20-30? Barely a generation.

We ignore the history, we ignore the training, we ignore the culture, we ignore the environment, we ignore the admixture and instead focus on success of a small group of exceptional people, based solely on wins in sporting events and some similar external traits and call that proof.

I do not doubt the figures. I don’t doubt that on average African-Americans sportsmen tend to be faster than their white counterparts. I don’t doubt that West Africans and East Africans are winning. What I doubt is that reason they are is because of some genetics, that only they have. I especially doubt that in the case of African-Americans, who are as white as snow and dark as night.

YMMV…of course.

[Shalmanese]

@archmichael

I’m trying to think of any other subject that has every been debated on the Straight Dope where people were allowed to get away with sweeping generalizations. Can’t think of one. Actually in any other conversation it will get you a "Sweeping generalizations…bravo. :rolleyes: "

Because, by your standards, pretty much all statements are considered sweeping generalisations. Sunsets are pretty, roses are red, rapists are evil, Europeans are less religious than Americans, Conservatives favour less gun control, ordering well done steak is unsophisticated. (;))

I don’t think I have ever heard so many people knowingly use a bad categorization, then complain about being called on it. So you at least admit that people cant be put into neat little boxes like black and white, but you still want to use the boxes. People use categorization when there is a use for it. Like in your chair analogy, there are times when a person need to make clear that he needs an office chair not a chaise. People sometimes need to use the categorization of race, like when they need to find a bone marrow donor, or they are looking for a suspect. My question to you is, “Why is there a need for race categorization in sports?” I didn’t know or care that only blacks ran the 100m in under 10s, because to me they are all human beings. I do care when people try to tell me that because of that one factoid, blacks are different from other people.

So you would advocate replacing a mediocre classification with…? No classification? How does that help matters? No matter what a classification is, as long as it is at least marginally useful, it’s still better than no classification.

And your chair analogy is so bad. You think we are quibbling over what is a chair and what is not a chair. We see it as you trying to tell us that between two identical chairs one painted black and the other painted green, the green one is the better one. If someone were to make such a claim you better be damn sure you know your chairs and your colors, and not accuse people of muddying the waters for naturally asking.

You’ve deliberately twisted my analogy into something completely different. A more similar comparison would be if I made the claim that “chairs are more comfortable to sit on than beds” and you come in and say “But what about sofabeds? huh? huh? Is that a chair or a bed? you can’t tell! nobody can tell! your assertion is groundless! chairs are a social construct! chairs have no ergonomic basis!”

[holmes]

magellan01 I realized you took your ball and went home, in regards to me anyway, however; Airman asked what the big deal was. A little historical perspective, is not the same as proposing a slippery slope and I certainly wasn’t arguing it that it was the reason we shouldn’t explore this line of thought.

[John_Mace]

@magellan01

Just for the record, Blake touched on it in Post 20:
Holmes, in Post 103:

Neither of those is a “slippery slope” argument, IMO. But I’ll let those guys defend their own statements.

The point remains that no one has yet to back up the claim that “Blacks are faster” with actual scientific data. That’s is my one and only objection.

[Aeschines]

@John Mace

Neither of those is a “slippery slope” argument, IMO. But I’ll let those guys defend their own statements.

The point remains that no one has yet to back up the claim that “Blacks are faster” with actual scientific data. That’s is my one and only objection.

I don’t get it–what about the data on West Africans, their fast-twitch muscle fibers, and their objectively measured success in sprinting. What about the same type of data for Kenyans and marathoning.

Sure, I’d approach the data with a reasonable amount of questioning, but it doesn’t look dismissable to me.

[Shalmanese]

@crowmanyclouds

They show an apparent, significant cross-correlation.
Then WHY bring up the melanin gene? Why not bring up the “body hair” gene, or the eye color gene, or ANY other gene? I bet we’d find lots of other corollary connections, that would NOT prove causation!
If you sniped out the melanin gene, the “fast running” gene would STILL be there.

Some people ARE positing correlation = causation, that’s why “race” has been part of the debate, right?

Well, first of all, we’re not looking purely at melanin genes. Asians and Latinos would have roughly the same shade of skin but they are recongisably different races. We also look at a host of other genes related to hair curliness, eye colour, broadness of nose, height etc. that form the basis for race.

The reason why we choose to observe these genes specifically is because

a) they are recognisably distinguishable
and
b) they map reasonably well onto try genetic classifications for the most part.

@holmes

My problem with this comes down to using the term “black” as opposed to using the correct term which is West African. You’ve acknowledged the fuzziness of using race as a method to organize humans, yet you insist on doing it.

As noted repeatly, the term “black” is meaningless except in the broadest sense. Why would you insist on using it when you know what group you’re referring to? Also noted Entine states that this isn’t about “black” people. It isn’t about race, so again why do you keep referring to race?

The reason why I’ve been hammering on to have someone describe what it means to be black, is because there so much variation either within groups or created by society to render the term meaningless. My idea of black, isn’t going to be your idea of black and further even if it is, all blacks don’t hail from West Africa. It’s this generalization that I find lacking, because it doesn’t have to be.

If you believe that the records tell us something, then why not specify what group it focuses on…people who hail from West Africa. Yes they have dark skin, but as noted the gene that controls skin color, isn’t the one that controls muscle length or bone structure. The significance should be where they hail from, not the color of their skin; because due to admixture, we have lots of people who may have their bone structure but no longer have their skin color or a variation of it. Sure we can guess, we can eyeball and that’s perfectly fine in normal everyday events. However this isn’t a normal everyday event.

The basic premise of this thread is that blacks as a group are different in ways that allows them as a group to be faster than any other group of humans on the planet. I don’t think it’s much to ask for a clarification of what defines such a unique and powerful group of humans…especially since everyone feels, they know one when they see one.

Yes, it would certainly be more accurate to say “We need to recruit more West Africans”. But the problem is… it’s completely useless. Do you know what a West African looks like? Would you be able to pick a West African out from a crowd of Africans? Hell, I suspect most African-Americans don’t even know whether they are east or west african. So whats the point of specifying to such specific degree if it serves no purpose in practise?

@John Mace

But, let me make a suggestion to Shalmanese. Take your finds and publish them in peer reviewed gentics journal, get other scientists to repeat your studies, then make some predictions based on your studies, and you’ll be all set. In fact, there will likely be a Nobel Prize in Biology with your name on it.

Well… I would except it’s already been done before. I’ve been wading through the literature and it turns out to be significantly more complex that I or I imagine any of us though. Here are some cites to get you started:
East African running dominance revisited: a role for stereotype threat?
British Journal of Sports Medicine, Dec 2003 v37 i6 p553(3)
availble online here
C, Malina RM, Perusse L. Genetics of fitness and physical performance. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1997.
not much info, apparently posits a genetic basis
Ericsson KA, Krampe RT, Tesch-Romer C. The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychol Rev 1993;100:363-406.
This contains a good overview of the field. Where the rest of my cites were culled from. Ultimately concludes that there are no convincing arguments to support genetic basis for physical difference
Bouchard, C. (1986). Genetics of aerobic power and capacity. In R. M. Malina & C. Bouchard (Eds.), Sport and human genetics (pp. 59–88). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Books.
found a moderate link between genetics and "systematic differences in sizes of hearts, lungs, bones, and muscles; proportions of slowtwitch and fast-twitch muscles; amount of fat; number of capillaries supplying blood to muscles; as well as in aerobic power and ability"
Plomin, R. (1991). Behavioral genetics. In P. R. McHugh & V. A. McKusik (Eds.), Genes, brain and behavior (pp. 165–180). New York: Raven Press.
Even a hundred years later, Galton’s conceptualization of eminent performance as reflecting a higher level of ultimate performance determined primarily by innate capacities (talent) is still the modal view among people outside genetics and behavioral genetics. Genetic influences are still incorrectly viewed as deterministic factors that lead to unmodifiable consequences determining the structure of the human body and its nervous system
Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., & McClearn, G. E. (1990). Behavioral genetics: A primer (2nd ed.). New York: Freeman.
"argue that this is a very challenging task because observed behavior is the result of interactions between environmental factors and genes during the extended period of development."
Fagard, R., Bielen, E., & Amery, A. (1991). Heritability of aerobic power and anaerobic energy generation during exercise. Journal of Applied Physiology, 70, 357–362.
In a recent study Fagard, Bielen, and Amery (1991) found reasonably high genetic components for maximal aerobic and anaerobic power even when differences in the amount of exercise and other life-style factors were controlled.
Haskell, W. L. (1989). Exercise as a means of maximizing human physical performance and productivity. In R. S. Williams & A. G. Wallace (Eds.), Biological effects of physical activity (pp. 115–126). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Books. After a year of exercise, adults can increase their aerobic activity up to 35% and in some instances up to 50% (Haskell, 1989). However, to reach the aerobic ability of elite endurance athletes, average nonathletes would have to increase their aerobic ability by 75%. In Haskell’s (1989) view, this fact supports the role of genetic factors;

If I understand the cites correctly, Ericsson et al. are positing something very startling. That there is no convincing arguments whatsoever for a genetic basis for sporting performance. It largely falls down to luck, culture, enviroment and dedication. If this is indeed true, then the entire argument we’ve been having is moot since all of us have been assuming that athletic ability is genetically based. Then again, Haskell, Plomin and Bouchard certainly seem to hold a different view.