Agree.
08-01-2002 02:17 PM, this thread:
08-01-2002 05:58 PM, this thread:
Here:
This is not a restatement of the “no race” position. This is you spinning it to mean something we have not said. Specifically, the genetic components, when they exist, can be linked to a smaller population that cannot bear the meaning of the word race. I have seen no one claim that there cannot be a genetic component to a trait because race does not exist. That is your persistent straw man.
This quote of mine says nothing about “choice of language.” (The distinction is important because “choice of language” was an essential part of the strawman you had set up.)
Again, this quote of mine says nothing about “choice of language.”
In case you’ve forgotten, here’s what you said:
Want to take another try? Or will you finally concede that you have misrepresented my position?
**
Please see IzzyR’s posts on this issue on page 4 of this thread.
An additional example:
There was a thread a while back about whether there might be a relationship between race and genital size.
I had made the following point:
Collounsbury answered as follows:
And remember, here’s what you’ve quoted me as saying:
Now, I suppose that one could say that genital size is not an ability, in which case I would have to search for other quotes. But I’m comfortable that I haven’t misrepresented anyone’s position. Collounsbury was pretty clearly suggesting that “no race” implies that a racial difference in genital size cannot exist.
If you think that Collounsbury’s position is not representative of the “no race” position, please say so.
Col clearly set out the “no race” position, there. There is no genetically coherent race. He made no statement that you could not arbitrarily define some group and measure body parts inside that group. He kept the discussion to the aspect of biological populations. I see no place where he said “Blacks can’t have larger body parts because there is no black race.” His statement merely points out that whatever grouping you chose would be arbitrary and not supported by any underlying biology. If you want to define a race of people as everyone whose ancestors lived South of the Sahara in 1400 C.E., you can do so. However, that distinction is purely arbitrary, not biological. There is nothing to prevent someone else from changing that arbitrary boundary to everyone darker than some color bar or everyone who has a broad nose. The “race” only exists after we create it.
I would certainly agree with IzzyR’s point that once one has set up some boundaries to separate people, one will find that measurements of people within those separate groups will not be uniform. Some group is going to have the largest or the smallest “average” everything. Collounsbury’s point is that at the size that one identifies a race, that grouping is going to be wholly arbitrary and not based on any biological or genetic reality.
It is less of a straw man than your constantly changing non-definition of what “the no race people” have said.
Your statement claimed that the “supporters of the “no race” position were unwilling or unable to offer a principled basis for their position” despite multiple efforts to explain what has both been said and what has been meant. This indicated to me that you are simply refusing to acknowledge anything that does not fit the words you want to hear (the choice of language). From there, you assert that if we do not say what you want to hear, then we are driven by political considerations. Just as you twisted Col’s statement in the quoted post, you continually change the meaning of the statements and then claim that our words mean something different than what we posted. That is language.
That’s ridiculous. The question was whether blacks had different gentital sizes. He said “Insofar as any coherent (classic) race based physical differences must be genetic, we can dismiss [the question] out-of-hand.”
(emphasis supplied).
Let’s see if I have this straight:
I argued that your position was informed by political considerations. (According to you) I had misinterpreted your words. Therefore, (according to you) I was (in effect) arguing that your choice of words was informed by political considerations.
Is that your argument?
Given Col’s notorious penchant for dropped words, I think your insertion of what you think he said does not match the next sentence that you have now omitted.
I would have read his truncated clause as “we can dismiss such claims of biological differences out of hand.” Note that he immediately noted that we might find such differences in smaller, biologically coherent groups. As long as those who need race to exist out there in the Platonic Ideal world without having a basis in physical reality want to talk about race with no context, then we are going to continue to talk at cross-purposes as we do here.
Well, you said the choices were due to political considerations. Given that you continually misrepresent what has been said, that would link your language issue to your declaration that the choices are due to political considerations.
I printed out this thread, so I could try to nail down everyone’s view on the matter (it was 130 pages). I am still at work running a gel trying to clone the aforementioned gene, so I have a bit of a break now to respond. I’m still trying to work out what everyone here is trying to say (see the end of this post for my views).
To Izzy. I have to make a big distinction. It is very important when I refer to African Americans or the black race versus East African marathoners or a small population of Nigerians. When I say that genetic advantage might be present in the last two, it implies absolutely nothing about genetic advantage in the first two. The two are quite different – the first ones imply a race concept, the others imply a genetic population.
Now to explain why it is logically reasonable to state that the shared presence of set A implies nothing about the rest of the genes in the genome, we have to get into the basic laws of genetics and evolution. Genes shuffle upon reproduction, ensuring that each child has a different suite of alleles. Evolution comes along and allows the child with the more favorable alleles to pass along his alleles more frequently. Since all the alleles shuffle at reproduction, what this amounts to in the long run is that only the exact favorable alleles pass themselves along, while the rest of the genome remains unconstrained.
Take a deck of cards, divide them randomly by suit into 4 sets of Ace->King (=individuals). Now do the same to 3 other decks of cards. Take the 4 sets containing the Ace of Spades, make a new deck, reshuffle and divide into the 4 sets again. Guess what? Each of the 4 sets of Ace->King now have an Ace of Spades. But the other 12 cards in each pile remain unselected by suit. You have as much chance of have a 2 of diamonds as having a 2 of clubs. But you have selected the Ace of Spades (=survival of the fittest). The Ace of Spades represents dark skin color in sunny climates, or “set A” or “HbS.” The rest of the cards represent the rest of the genome.
Now let’s say we had an isolation event, which led to the fixation of alleles. You took one Ace->King set and photocopied it 3 times and made a new deck. You have fixed the alleles – this is kind of what happens (to a far lesser degree) in isolated populations with gene drift and founder effect. We could very easily see all types of wacky genetic phenomena in this circumstance (and we do). We could say that East Africans possibly represent a type of event. But if you take an Ace->King set and put it back into the general card population and started again, you would very quickly see that advantage evaporate. And we do. If you take a member of a population and breed him out, his offspring lose characteristics of that population by generation.
This is what we would expect to see if there were genetic advantages to athletic prowess in Africa. We would see large amounts of gifted athletes coming out of small populations in Africa. Descendants of those populations living elsewhere would have varying degrees of gifts, quickly reverting to the population average as their genetic background became more mixed. To the best of my knowledge, the best candidate of this happening with athleticism in Africa is in East African marathoners. I know of no preternaturally gifted athletes in small villages in isolated Africa. I know of no genetic phenomena that would explain athletic prowess specifically in African Americans, who are well removed in genetic background from their African ancestry. I know of no genetic phenomena that would explain this among a “black race” if we have already been through that the rest of the Ace->King sets excluding the Ace of Spades have never been selected (which we know from genetic studies).
Next to everyone’s denial of “outlier” claims: grienspace is the only one who voiced this in the exact words of “outliers.” He/she stated that because there could be a small set of outliers found exclusively in one race that had athletic prowess. But others have made statement which I think have lent credence to this. I will dig up quotes while I work through these 130 pages.
Lastly to this quote that lucwarm keeps throwing up again and again. The reason I won’t answer it is because your question is IMHO badly phrased and it doesn’t address what I am trying to say. I think the question about “two individuals sharing set A have no difference in genetic distance than two individuals not sharing set A” is difficult to answer because humanity is a spectrum. Because there are populations. Because there are families who are close genetically and share set A. Because there has been restricted breeding and therefore limited gene flow between for instance the Incas and the Basque. Specific examples – yes I think there is significantly less genetic distance between your average Ethiopian and your average Syrian than there is between your average Ethiopian and your average Khoisan. Yes I think there is probably significantly less genetic distance between your average Sri Lankan and your average Pacific Islander than there is between the Sri Lankan and an Incan. Whose to say who we are comparing? Certain individuals of set A (where set A = black race) are amongst the most diverse peoples on the planet. But individuals of set A are also the closest genetically on the planet (take Nigerian identical twins). How can you compute an average genetic distance for all people sharing set A and then compare it to all people not sharing set A? The question is ludicrous.
My core views remain unchanged through this thread. My agenda in these debates is to provide some genetic education as to why Collounsbury’s mantra of “Genetic populations do not map onto historically defined races” rings true. I try to use my knowledge of human genetics to show that what people claim to be the correlation, i.e. “set A” and other exceptional genes which have undergone evolutionary selection, state nothing at all about the rest of the genome, due to the wonders of Mendel and Darwin. I have acknowledged that in the US, skin color may be of some use as a crude marker of ancestry from a malarial zone and as a crude marker of socioeconomic status.
P.S. 7 of 10 reactions cloned one of the missing chunks of the gene. If my library walk works tomorrow, then I will have it and can go on to things that actually matter to my thesis. Not that you all care, but it is 1 AM and I have been here since 9:30 AM. So just know that I care, deeply, about the genomes of obscure Drosophilids.
I’ll repeat the whole exchange again, without insertions:
I said this:
(emphasis supplied).
His response was this:
(emphasis supplied).
It’s pretty clear what he was referring to. And even if he actually meant something else, my interpretation of his words is a totally reasonable one.
**
I said that peoples’ positions were informed by political considerations. There is a distinction between substantive positions and choice of words. You tried to capitalize on this distinction in setting up your straw man.
**
As described above, I haven’t misrepresented anything. Beyond that, I would say that your argument is so nonsensical that there’s no obvious way to respond. If anyone else sees a valid point in what tomndebb is saying, please point it out and I will try to respond.
An interesting thread I’ve been viewing over the last few days. Finally, I feel motivated to comment.
Edwino has made what would appear to be a definitive statement on the genetics of the “African-Americans are better athletes” question. Perhaps some of the other posters should read and try to understand the arguments instead of worrying about who quoted or implied or misquoted what to whom.
FWIW, I think the perceived excellence of African-American athletes (and the same applies to British Afro-Caribbean athletes) is social, not genetic. Professional sport is seen as an escape route for the poor. Middle-class sportsmen tend to be amateurs because they have full time, relatively well paying jobs, and don’t use sport as an escape route from poverty. (See below for an expansion on this.)
If you’re good enough, success brings enormous riches. The poorest social groups have a higher proportion of blacks, so you’d expect that the proportion of aspirant sportsmen who are black would reflect the proportions in the the poorest social groups, not the populaiton as a whole.
In the UK, up to about 30 years ago, most boxers came from the mining or heavy industrial communities. These happened to be white. Now most come from deprived inner city communities, these happen to be black.
IIRC in Puerto Rico, baseball is the escape route of choice for poor Hispanics.
My argument is that most professional sportsmen come from the poorest sections of society and they favour sports that require little or no financial commitment. If one particular skin colour predominates in those sections, then it will predominate among professionals in that sports. Note the corollary, professional sports that require a financial investment by the sportsman at the start of his career will be restricted to the middle classes, which has a smaller proportion of non-whites than the population as a whole - e.g. F1 motor racing, show jumping. How many black F1 drivers or black show jumpers are there?
(There are lots of exceptions, of course. E.g. Gianluca Vialli, the Italian ex-footballer, came from a very rich family background.)
Edwino, I appreciate the effort you have put into your last post. It is a clear explanation of the problems of terminology when discussing race. You have demonstrated that skin colour is a trivial differentiator of race.
Good luck with your thesis and I’m glad to know that you care for the genomes of obscure Drosophilids. It’s a tough job but somebody has to do it. 
Of course it’s a difficult question. However, it merely tests the logical consequences of your previous statements.
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The question seeks to compare the average genetic distance among pairs of whites with the average genetic distance among pairs consisting of one black and one white. Certainly there is no reason, in principle, why these measurements could not be made.
Of course, it would be hard to predict the results (for most people). But for you, it should be easy, given what you have said earlier:
(emphasis supplied)
I take it you now have some doubts about your earlier statements?
lucwarm, based on your posts, I don’t really feel any compulsion to play fair in these exchanges. You’ve wandered into these discussions, cherry-picking selected statements away from their original context and implied that any discrepancies are the result of dishonesty rather than the sort of inadvertant confusion that will reseult from any long-running discussion while, unlike IzzyR, you refuse to set down an actual position that you hold. Since your position appears to be simply to throw stones, I feel free to deflect them in any way that is handy.
To go back to the beginning:
[ul][li]From the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, scientists categorized large groups of people by some rather arbitrary collection of appearances and called those categories races.[/li][li]Throughout that time, various people, scientific and not, have imputed qualities to those groups, claiming that they were inherent in them.[/li][li]For the last twenty years, evidence has mounted that the groups in question are sufficiently dissimilar, genetically, (while humans, overall, remarkably homogeneous compared to other species), that there is no basis for claims of inherent qualities based these large groups that were defined by appearance.[/li][li]There are smaller groups for whom we can find genetic associations, but the use of the word race to describe them produces more confusion, since it will tend to convey a misunderstanding that we are actually describing a larger group than is meant.[/li][li]The continued use of the term race to describe any large (and heterogeneous) group reinforces the older concept of inherent qualities, which is misleading and leads to error.[/li][li]The continued use of phrases such as “blacks are athletically superior,” even when narrowed down to “more blacks are athletically superior” are misleading because they lump very different characteristics (purported marathon supremacy in the east, purported sprinting supremacy in the west, and no apparent supremacy in the south or far northwest) into a single category that includes widely disparate people who are only grouped arbitrarily, to begin with.[/ul][/li](IzzyR has noted that if we define a people into groups and examine those groups, we can make observations about the groups that we have defined. This is a true statement, but I maintain that making those statements is, again, misleading because it suggests to most audiences that the characteristics are inherent to the group rather than being an accident of the grouping, itself. We are probably not going to agree on that point.)
Now, in any long discussion, (and this one has gone on for two years with multiple participants and numerous branches) any given post is going to be subject to the preconceptions of the poster, not only for that poster’s understanding of the subject, but also in the context of the that poster’s perception of the overall discussion, the discussion on a particular thread, the perception of what another poster has submitted, the general understanding of the other poster’s position on that or related topics, and what the poster had for breakfast or had to drink the night before. In this way, a poster is always subject to making a statement that appears to contradict other statements s/he has made.
The exchange mentioned earlier in this thread is a clear example:
- IzzyR made a post regarding the prevalence of Sickle-Cell in the black American population.
- I posted a tangential remark noting that a reliance on that probabilities could lead to medical error.
- IzzyR posted a reply, with his full understanding that he was discussing American blacks and left out the adjective “American.”
- I misunderstood his intent, thinking he was broadening the category to all perceived blacks, and responded accordingly.
- He saw my expanded statement as a denial that American blacks had a high prevalence of Sickle-Cell (since, from what he could see, we were clearly discussing that group).
A fairly straightforward misunderstanding based on people dipping into a thread at different times and not exhaustively redefining each term on each post.
You, however, choose to ignore this aspect of this sort of discussion. You have chosen to wander through the various threads picking several of those statements, ignoring the overall context of the discussion, and characterizing the overall discussion as dishonest. Meanwhile, when asked your views on the subject, you have dodged and weaved and refused to do more than continue with you nitpicking. (When I specifically asked what your views were, you gave the vague answer that there were similar to IzzyR’s in this thread, but when I attempted to provide a summary of IzzyR’s position, you did not agree with the synopsis, you did not point out where I had misunderstood the position, you did not point out where your position differed from what I had suggested, you simply took no positition while saying you might look over the thread if you had a chance. In that same thread, you then went on with your attacks based on cross matching diffrerent statements from different discussions.) From that point, I figured you were simply here to snipe and I have responded to your sniping through the last couple of threads in kind.
lucwarm:
I repeat, the question is ludicrous. Totally ludicrous. Read the paragraph in my previous post, I feel that it explains it 100%. Do not keep throwing that same quote at me. It is from a thread a few months ago and I have fleshed it out and clarified my point several times for you.
“Set A” is shared by the most diverse peoples on the planet. Therefore, “Set A” has no correlation with genetic distance. The greatest genetic differences in humanity are all found in people who share morphologic “set A,” the set of people called “Africans.” No other data is availible for me to compute averages: I would have to know numbers of populations of Africans, quantifiable genetic differences between each, number of individuals in each population, the same for Europeans. Most of these numbers have never been looked at and would be nearly impossible to accurately estimate. The question is more ridiculous than counting angels on the head of a pin.
That’s become pretty obvious.
If I get a chance, I’ll try to respond to your various “stones” later, but the one below caught my eye:
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This is total nonsense. On page two of this very thread, Dseid offered some “statements that most of us might agree to,” and I responded to his list in good faith.
I’ll copy the entire exchange, just to show how wrong you are:
Dseid: I’m going to shoot for some statements that most of us might agree to:
There are population groups that have differing frequencies of various alleles.
lucwarm: Agree.
Dseid: There are population groups that have a wider distribution of varient alleles than others.
lucwarm: Don’t know, but I have no reason to doubt you.
Dseid: Some of these alleles might have phenotypic relevance.
lucwarm: Agree.
Dseid: Knowing a population group helps predict whether or not an allele is present, which may have clinical relevance; testing for the alllele would tell for sure.
lucwarm: Agree.
Dseid: Variation between individuals within seperate population groups typically dwarfs the variation between groups.
lucwarm: Sounds correct.
Dseid: “Race” is sociologic construct that has a poor, but non-zero correlation with these population groups. Use of that term obscures a more serious understand of the population genetics and confuses it with, well, a lotta crap. Still, even a poor correlation is better than none, so, sometimes, race has clinical utility.
lucwarm: The word “poor” is a bit loaded, but I basically agree.
Dseid: It is probable that certain population groups have a higher frequency of alleles that correlate with better than average performance in cetain tasks.
lucwarm: Agree.
Dseid: And that a wider variation about the mean may translate into sigma outliers being overrepresented from that group.
lucwarm: Statistically correct. Don’t know if it actually happens.
Dseid: But there is no evidence that such occurs.
lucwarm: That what occurs?
Dseid: There is no evidence that “Black Americans” share haplotypic diversity with those of the African population, and none that any of the African diversity correlates with phenotypic diversity involved in athletic performance.
lucwarm: Don’t know. There’s certainly a relationship between race and athletic performance. “haplotypic diversity” is certainly a possible explanation.
Dseid: Social, cultural, and training factors can readily be shown to be significantly associated with performance on a wide variety of measures, including athletic performance.
lucwarm: Possibly, depending on which sport is at issue; what the social, cultural, and training factors are; and which individuals or groups are at issue.
Dseid: There is evidence that such environmental factors are significant, and no evidence that inter-population group genetic factors are.
lucwarm: Disagree. For example, cultural/environmental explanations for black dominance in short-distance running have been advanced many times on these boards. These explanations are pretty much unconvincing. This alone suggests that inter-population group genetic factors play a role.
Dseid: Thus while it is possible that genetic factors play a role in any groups over-representation at elite levels, it is likely less a significant factor, if a factor at all, than social ones.
lucwarm: Disagree, for the same reason.
Dseid: Agreed?
lucwarm: Too bad, ya had me until the last couple steps.
Anyway, it’s nice that you’re not trying to use the “no race” argument to deny the possibility of “inter-population group genetic factors.”
Let me add that anyone is free to ask me questions about the above answers. I’m not afraid at all to have my position pinned down. And if someone catches me in a bona fide contradiction, I will happily discard, disavow, retract, or restate what I have said as necessary.
In fact, I notice now that Tars Tarkas challenged one of my responses a few posts down, and I rephrased one of them.
I read what you said. The fact remains that if your earlier quote were accurate, the question would be very simple.
**
Sorry if this sounds combative, but I’ll stop “throwing” that quote at you as soon as you retract it. (Except that I might use it in the future as evidence of “dancing.”)
**
Your clarifications did not alter the substance of the quote, IMHO. If I missed something, please feel free to bring it to my attention.
By the way, you seem to have changed your definitions a bit. Earlier, you used the phrase “Set A” to refer to defining characteristics of any race. Now you seem to be limiting that definition to blacks. I have been, and continue to use the former definition.
**
I agree that the question is very difficult, UNLESS what you said earlier were correct. If it were indeed correct that “set A becomes irrelevant to any conclusions we make to genes beyond set A,” the question would be very easy.
Why are you ignoring this obvious point?
lucwarm: No, I don’t think it is is a double-standard at all. I am comfortable applying my reasoning to other areas as I see fit ( and yes, sometimes utility enters the picture ). However sometimes you really can’t examine apples and oranges by the same standard. For example one can’t examine the concept of race in humans vs. the term race as it has been applied to all other organisms by the exact same standard, because historical baggage clouds the issue. But I really don’t want to argue about it. Either you agree of you don’t.
At any rate, when it comes right down to it, I wouldn’t mind if someone cast blacks as superior athletes because of genetics ( though I would ask for proof if they cast it as true statement ), if they then immediately qualified their statement to say that they were talking about sociological race, probably small-group genetic differences ( if any ), they weren’t talking about all or even most blacks, and that they were just using the phrase for convenience sake to describe what you saw going on in the athletic world. If you don’t make those qualifications though, I’m going to draw the wrong inference and bring up the “no race” situation as a rebuttal every time. Also if they threw it out as a question without any qualifiers, I will also bring up the “no race” position as part of explaining what could be going on. Heck, I would even bring it up just as a a clarifier before launching into a reply of even the qualified statement. It seems perfectly logical to me to bring it up and not necessarily political.
I simply can’t understand why you object to bringing it up so strongly, especially if you agree we are talking about small group differences if any at all, when all it does is clarify the picture. Makes not a bit of sense to me. If you agree that the “no race” position is valid, then it seems perfectly appropriate to invoke it, even if in passing. If you disagree with the “no race” position, then you can argue that position. What’s the problem?
By the way, I’ll note that in reply to this…
…that I disagree that the cultural explanations are unconvincing, so I also think your inference is inaccurate as well. But that is obviously just a matter of opinion.
Anyway I’m afraid I’m rapidly falling into the “I dunno, I disagree” pattern of argumentation and we aren’t going anywhere but in circles. We seem to agree on a few particulars, but you seem adamant that the “no race” argument has no or little bearing on the discussion of race and athletic performance and I just can’t agree on that. It may not ( I repeat, may not ) invalidate the connection of sociological race and athletic performance, but it certainly is relevant to it.
- Tamerlane
Well, you could make the “historical baggage” test part of your analytic criteria.
**
Ok fine. For what it’s worth, I’ve appreciated your contributions to this thread.
**
For one thing, I agree with IzzyR’s thought on this subject:
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One problem occurs when the “no race” position is inserted into a thread as if to contradict something that it doesn’t really contradict. Another related problem occurs when there are different versions of the “no race” position floating around with different implications and different degrees of defensibility. That’s the “bait and switch” I’ve been complaining about.
**
I’m not sure it’s just a matter of opinion, but I do think it’s beyond the scope of this thread (for the moment, anyway).
Well shit a brick - Racial Difference in Blood Vessels Detected
IANAGeneticist, but I am sure the scientists here can give an informed perspective on this.
As I see it, my point has absolutely no relevance on your question. Your question implies that I know something about the black race in general. Since I can’t define the black race in general, I know very little about it. I know there are different populations in Africa which are diverse; to figure out an average genetic diversity, I would have to know the number of people in each population and the average genetic “distance” from the others. My statement never claims or implies this.
Your question does not follow logically from my statement.
People who share “set A” where “set A”=“black race” are the most diverse in mankind. Please point me to where I implied anything more than this. That is what I said, that is what I meant. I can’t give average genetic distances – I don’t know population numbers, I don’t know genetic distances, yada yada yada. To figure an average, I would need these things. You ask for an average. I never implied an average. So I say, like tomndebb has, “I dunno.” I dunno because your question implies a bunch of knowledge irrelevant to the debate, irrelevant to arguing that people of the black race share little else except the traits we use to define “the black race.”
Let’s make another rough analogy. Let’s say that you make a statement: “Japanese cars are faster than other cars.” I criticize it – I say that there is a wide variety of Japanese cars, from SUVs to sports cars to sedans. I say that there is a lot of variety in Japanese cars (let’s say the Mazda 626 and the Nissan Xterra and the Acura NSX), and that prevents any meaningful conclusions about speed. I say that in fact many Japanese cars are more similar to American cars than they are to other Japanese cars (I used to drive a Ford Escort which was basically a Mazda 323 with a Ford sticker). While there may be common features to Japanese cars compared to others, there were no unifying features which united Japanese cars except for their fabrication by a company based in Japan. (at which point the analogy show its limitations because it is very easy to put a box around “Japanese cars” and impossible to put a box around “blacks.”)
Now you ask a question: “So would you say, on average, that Japanese cars are about the same difference with each other than they are with American cars?” No, this doesn’t come from my conclusions. The difference can be measured on so many levels, the question is hard to answer. The answer to the question largely depends on the different models out there, the different numbers of cars of each model, the differences shared in engineering with the American cars, etc. etc.
Your question does not follow logically from mine. I have no way of answering yours. It is not waffling, it is not “dancing.” I will not retract my statement, which I believe to be accurate. I will not answer your quesiton, because it has no relevance to my statement.
Also, I never meant to imply that my “set A” implied only black race – I thought I was clear that it was a set of features like skin color and facial structure, not a set of particular traits like dark skin and wide nose.
Also your inference that cultural and societal influences are “unconvicing” to explaining black dominance in sprinting means automatically that there is a unifying answer in genetics is somewhat akin to creationists arguing that evolution is so improbable to be unconvincing to them, the default must be literal Biblical 6 day creation 6000 years ago. There is a huge logical leap to say that because you are unconvinced that it must be something else, which happens to contradict most scientific discoveries to date.
istara:
Again, it is so vague as to be not understandable. I will try to dig up the primary research. But it is very difficult to correctly control a population of 46 individuals versus 46 individuals. They didn’t say where the population is from, if they self identified, etc. etc. I will have to look at their p-scores, I will have to look at their efforts in control. Response to NO, which they are proposing is the difference, can have both genetically and environmentally regulated, so again it is difficult to say.
I will just say that the genetic factors between diabetes risk and other atherosclerotic problems in the black versus white populations have been adequately explained IMHO as totally environmental. Again, in science, it matters very much how you ask the question. If the question is asked in a wrong fashion, the results are inadmissable. I will go back and try to find and read this study.
In this situation, it’s what you don’t know that counts. See below.
Let me extend your car analogy a bit: Let’s suppose that somebody comes up with a measure known as “automotive distance,” which measures the similarity between two cars, mainly looking at internal components, such as the size of the engine.
Let’s further suppose that somebody named oniwde makes the claim that identifying the nation of origin of a car gives you basically no information at all about the makeup of the car, and that there is no correlation between nation-of-origin and automotive distance. (whatever that means).
It logically follows from this claim that the average automotive distance between random pairs of American cars is about the same as the automotive distance between random pairs of one Japanese and one American car.
Think about it for a second. Accepting onewde’s claim, if somebody tells you that a particular car is American, does that mean it’s more likely to be more similar to other American cars? No, since our hypothesis is that knowing a car is American tells us basically nothing about the makeup of the car.
Or maybe a slightly different analogy. Let’s divide the world into two races: People who were born during odd months (Race #1), and people who were born during even months (Race #2).
Now, it’s pretty clear that under these circumstances, knowing which “race” a person is tells you very little about that person’s genetic makeup.
If someone asked whether the average genetic distance among pairs of people from Race #1 is different from the average for pairs where one person is from Race#1 and one person is from Race #2, you could confidently predict that the numbers are about the same. Correct?
And fundamentally, how is this situation different from your expressed viewpoint about traditional races?