# If one race is faster, more athletic, stronger in sports - what's bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 22, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836 "2016-02-22T21:35:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/221 "2016-02-29T18:38:24Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I’ll raise you your own strawman + an argument made in bad faith on top of that. > I don’t limit variance in intelligence to race, I think populations in general can and do vary, that includes populations within the same race. This is not specific to race as far as I’m concerned other than the fact that it is the sort of grouping many people use in daily life. > > The argument in bad faith comes from what you mentioned above. Because we do not know all the genetic factors that lead to intelligence or have a good working definition of intelligence or a way to map genes to race or different populations regarding intelligence, we can’t make any assertions that populations clearly differ in the phenotype of aptitude and intelligence we observe in the real world. We have tests that measure something called iq, we have proxies for higher intelligence like tests in school and professional attainment, imperfect secondary metrics all, but they are not NOTHING. The idea you and others imply is that because we can’t produce the sorts of direct observational proof of the sort we have in physics calculations, all our proxy observations that suggest some differentials between populations should be rejected as meaningless noise. A standard you hold for almost nothing else. Don’t even try it. The whole argument in this thread is about how genetic factors link to American social constructs of race. When scientific discussion about that topic is posted, then posters like you come in to pretend that we were talking about genetic variations between individuals or genetic variations between some other population groups (which are never clearly defined). Nobody here claimed that genes don’t influence intelligence. Nobody claimed that genes don’t vary according to whatever population group you have in your head, because you haven’t defined that population group. You want to argue against strawmen of your own construction, then I’m going to call you out on it. > [@](#): > > Scientist: You know, we really are still learning how genes interact with all the non-genetic factors with regards to intelligence. And we don’t really have a good definition of intelligence yet. And we haven’t found any clear way to map genes to social constructs of race. So, we can’t make definitive statements about how genetic factors related to intelligence break down on socially constructed racial lines. > > Scientaster: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Why are you claiming 100% culture? > > Scientist: Um, I didn’t actually claim any of those things. > > Scientaster: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Why are you claiming 100% culture? > > Scientist: No, see, I didn’t claim any of those things. You just keep repeating that stuff as if I claimed it. > > Scientaster: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Why are you claiming 100% culture? > > Repeat ad-naseum. > > You can substitute “athletic ability” for “intelligence” in the above with the same results. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/222 "2016-02-29T18:57:51Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Again, more and more people bending over backwards to deny the obvious as I see it. Must be tough being you. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/223 "2016-02-29T19:03:58Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > Don’t even try it. The whole argument in this thread is about how genetic factors link to American social constructs of race. When scientific discussion about that topic is posted, then posters like you come in to pretend that we were talking about genetic variations between individuals or genetic variations between some other population groups (which are never clearly defined). Nobody here claimed that genes don’t influence intelligence. Nobody claimed that genes don’t vary according to whatever population group you have in your head, because you haven’t defined that population group. You want to argue against strawmen of your own construction, then I’m going to call you out on it. Nobody says genes don’t influence intelligence directly, they just shoot down every suggestion that they do when it comes to the variation in intelligence between groups. Like you are doing now. I gave a specific population example earlier. The indian population in the US has a higher average iq/aptitude level than the general indian population. Because the selection pressures that are applied to Indians that immigrate to the US tend to select for higher intelligence. Do I have proof of this? No. But if we took a 100 random Indians in the US, and a 100 random Indians from India, raised them from birth in the US while controlling the environments as perfectly as we could, I’d expect higher performance on tests and schooling from the US indian population, because it has a different average aptitude level due to being a different sample of the indian population with a higher frequency of alleles that contribute to greater intelligence. I do not know what those are or how they function, I am inferring from more distant outside observations. Or as is known to some of you, making things up out of whole cloth. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/224 "2016-02-29T19:13:33Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Nobody says genes don’t influence intelligence directly, they just shoot down every suggestion that they do when it comes to the variation in intelligence between groups. Like you are doing now. Yes! A misrepresentation of my post combined with another strawman! I never shot down a suggestion that there’s variation between groups. I pointed out that you didn’t define the grouping in question, so nobody could have disputed it. Keep riding that strawman! > [@](#): > > I gave a specific population example earlier. The indian population in the US has a higher average iq/aptitude level than the general indian population. Because the selection pressures that are applied to Indians that immigrate to the US tend to select for higher intelligence. > > Do I have proof of this? No. But if we took a 100 random Indians in the US, and a 100 random Indians from India, raised them from birth in the US while controlling the environments as perfectly as we could, I’d expect higher performance on tests and schooling from the US indian population, because it has a different average aptitude level due to being a different sample of the indian population with a higher frequency of alleles that contribute to greater intelligence. I do not know what those are or how they function, I am inferring from more distant outside observations. > > Or as is known to some of you, making things up out of whole cloth. Ha, ha, ha! This is hysterical. This is an example of one population group (US Indians) doing well compared to another population group (US non-Indians) due to governmental policy. So, we’re talking about genetic links to intelligence and your argument against us is to point to a population grouping created by government policy (or in other words, by environment/culture). Since you keep posting strawman, I’m going to post my scene again: > [@](#): > > Scientist: You know, we really are still learning how genes interact with all the non-genetic factors with regards to intelligence. And we don’t really have a good definition of intelligence yet. And we haven’t found any clear way to map genes to social constructs of race. So, we can’t make definitive statements about how genetic factors related to intelligence break down on socially constructed racial lines. > > Scientaster: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Why are you claiming 100% culture? > > Scientist: Um, I didn’t actually claim any of those things. > > Scientaster: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Why are you claiming 100% culture? > > Scientist: No, see, I didn’t claim any of those things. You just keep repeating that stuff as if I claimed it. > > Scientaster: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Why are you claiming 100% culture? > > Repeat ad-naseum. > > You can substitute “athletic ability” for “intelligence” in the above with the same results. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/225 "2016-02-29T19:19:08Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Nobody says genes don’t influence intelligence directly, they just shoot down every suggestion that they do when it comes to the variation in intelligence between groups. Like you are doing now. > I gave a specific population example earlier. The indian population in the US has a higher average iq/aptitude level than the general indian population. Because the selection pressures that are applied to Indians that immigrate to the US tend to select for higher intelligence. > > Do I have proof of this? No. But if we took a 100 random Indians in the US, and a 100 random Indians from India, raised them from birth in the US while controlling the environments as perfectly as we could, I’d expect higher performance on tests and schooling from the US indian population, because it has a different average aptitude level due to being a different sample of the indian population with a higher frequency of alleles that contribute to greater intelligence. I do not know what those are or how they function, I am inferring from more distant outside observations. > > Or as is known to some of you, making things up out of whole cloth. This all sounds like hypothesizing, and hypothesizing is very different than saying _genes are responsible for this disparity_. Hypothesize all you want, and then experiment with good scientific practices (like, for example, the Scarr study, which measured African genetic ancestry admixture among self-identified black people against intellectual ability test scores, and found no correlation at all between how much African ancestry a black person has and how well they score on intelligence tests), and see how those hypotheses are borne out. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/226 "2016-02-29T19:48:36Z")
BrightnShiny, Repeating the same argument over and over is not debating. The next instance of such I see out of you will earn you a warning. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/227 "2016-02-29T19:52:28Z")
But other posters repeatedly resorting to strawmen is the hallmark of great debating. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/228 "2016-02-29T19:58:39Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Regardless of willful ignorance. Genetics like the rest of biology, chemistry, and physics do not have a human exclusion to assure the PC. And the issue, again, is not 100% unobtainable knowledge of precise mechanisms. Actually, genetics nearly does. Not an exclusion for the full span of selective pressures, but humans are certainly a lot less affected by a very large number of pressures. Consider climate, a driving force for adaption in a large number of species. If the climate cools down, a number of species may go extinct, or have their ranges reduced as they are driven southwards. If the cooling is sufficiently gradual, mammals may see some of their more thick-pelted, or rotund offspring survive, while those of their children who happens to be leaner or less hirsute will perish. Cold-blooded animals have sharper limits and may go extinct or flee regardless. So over hundred of generations of suffering and death, some species can manage to adapt genetically. Humans put on a sweater. Done. Our ability to adapt technologically and culturally to changing conditions is so much faster than genetic adaption that genetics don’t get any opportunity to respond. There are other reasons why humans are less affected by factors that may cause genetic drift and differences in populations of other species. Humans have a very long generation time. The ticks in evolution’s clock is generations, not years. Genetic adaption takes a lot longer in humans than in most species. Humans have unusually low genetic diversity. We seem to have gone through one or more severe population bottlenecks within the last 3 - 4000 generations. Most of our near relatives, such as chimps, have far more genetic diversity. (And we don’t seem to observe any difference in ability between the far more genetically differentiated populations of chimps.) And with low genetic diversity you have to start from scratch when building functional differences between populations. And humans are much less geographically restricted than other species. Mountains, seas, and other barriers that would totally block many other species often fail to impede human fornication. There are Amerindian genes in Icelanders. Most other species would be barred by a body of water such as the Atlantic. None of these factors completely exclude humans from genetic differentiation. However, they do mean that human beings will differentiate at vastly slower speeds than other species. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/229 "2016-02-29T20:26:31Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > The strawman again! Let’s go back to the scene: If repetition was sufficient for fact the Earth would be orbited by the sun. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/230 "2016-02-29T20:31:50Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Nobody says genes don’t influence intelligence directly, they just shoot down every suggestion that they do when it comes to the variation in intelligence between groups. Like you are doing now. > I gave a specific population example earlier. The indian population in the US has a higher average iq/aptitude level than the general indian population. Because the selection pressures that are applied to Indians that immigrate to the US tend to select for higher intelligence. > > Do I have proof of this? No. But if we took a 100 random Indians in the US, and a 100 random Indians from India, raised them from birth in the US while controlling the environments as perfectly as we could, I’d expect higher performance on tests and schooling from the US indian population, because it has a different average aptitude level due to being a different sample of the indian population with a higher frequency of alleles that contribute to greater intelligence. I do not know what those are or how they function, I am inferring from more distant outside observations. > > Or as is known to some of you, making things up out of whole cloth. They ask, dishonestly, for a standard of proof they’d never give and which if even could be presented would be nit picked endlessly even though everyone knows organisms from sexual reproduction form fuzzy sets. Define precisely what a fish is. Or a goat. Couldn’t be done accurately without compiling a list of every critter that lived that was a goat and saying these and only these organisms are in the goat set. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/231 "2016-02-29T20:33:46Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I don’t consider most stereotypes people hold fixed. Perhaps there needs to be another word to describe what I am talking about if “fixed” is part of the dictionary definition, but I reject the idea that most peoples ideas about people or things are impervious to counter evidence. Then you have a [fundamental](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/) misunderstanding of both the word, and people in general. > [@](#): > > Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger. And there are tons of other studies to back that up. > [@Salvor](#): > > The existence of dumb asians or generous jews is not the metric, go to any elite college within a state with an asian population. Asians are over represented. So what? The above does little to support the belief that Asians are inherently smarter than non-Asians. > [@Salvor](#): > > That has not changed, dumb asians implies to people that dumb asians exist, everyone knows and expects that, but they ALSO expect that there might just be a higher % of smarter asians too based on what they observe. In my experience, that is not true. It’s not observation, careful or otherwise; it’s learned prejudice. How many Asian, Black, Jewish, or Hispanic people do you think the average White person interacts with? Very few, and certainly too few to get any real basis for a valid observation. > [@Salvor](#): > > Same goes for terrorism that leads to murder and death (the dodge of including non violent terrorism to deflate the stats of Islamic terror is so cosmically dishonest it needs to be rebuked). The existence of peaceful muslims is not the metric or standard. I assume they are likely the majority in practice. But until I see murderous terror occur among Islamic adherants with no more frequency than buddhists or christians or atheists, I will continue to have a higher expectations that Islam is more likely to lead to such behavior. But “Islam [being] more likely to lead to such behavior” isn’t the general stereotype. It’s that Muslims are terrorists. That’s why many consider them suspect just by virtue of their religion. So of course knowing almost all of them are not terrorists matters a lot. > [@Salvor](#): > > I consider that a stereotype based in reality, not fixed on my part, it is open to change, but that change in expectations needs to be altered by having my current expectations shown to be wrong repeatedly. Ah, so all one needs to do is to demonstrate you being wrong _repeatedly_, then you will eventually align your opinions with the facts? Sounds reasonable. > [@Salvor](#): > > Intelligence is not an acquired skill, knowledge is acquired, but intelligence and aptitude are more about what you are born with barring major environmental constraints. Once again, this is wrong. Intelligence, as the term is generally used, refers mostly to learned skills. This is why you rarely hear babies described as intelligent, and why few people have an issue saying most people in a certain profession are intelligent. Now yes, some people will never be as smart as others. Despite the strawman you keep alluding to, no one is saying everyone is equally intelligent, nor that everyone is born with the same capacities. What most are saying are that the things we see as markers of intelligence are largely learned skills. Things like the ability to perform brain surgery or speak 10 languages. Additionally, when we look at groups averages and even individual outliers, the numbers speak more to non-genetic factors than genetic ones. Again, it’s 1000 times easier to destroy potential than to foster it. > [@Salvor](#): > > but the idea the variation in raw intelligence we observe between people is mostly just something people acquire in life (once the handicaps of terrible environment is removed) is absurd. Define raw intelligence without any reference to learned skills, facts, and behaviors? Next, describe how well those things you list correlate to the things we typically use to measure intelligence later in life? > [@Salvor](#): > > Almost every person here has been in some form of school for over a decade growing up. In your classes, there were individuals that were clearly slower than other kids, while some kids were naturally sharper and smarter than others. No one denies the above. Potential is often innate generally speaking. The point is that few if any reach their full potential. Why? Because the path to doing so is full of fallible people. People who leave lead in drinking water, teachers who aren’t superlative, parents who are abusive or indifferent, and/or employers who have no vision. How many people do you know that can honestly say they are completely maximizing their potential? I know almost none. Everyone I know could read and exercise more, be more knowledgeable, or just better at life. They aren’t because it’s really hard. Just like being a pro athlete is REALLY hard. > [@Salvor](#): > > Parents are variable as is home life, but there again you can have siblings within the same family going to the same school have wildly different performance in school. And how in your mind does that speak to genes being the most important given siblings are the closest genetic matches most people have? > [@Salvor](#): > > Using sports as a counter is not sufficient, it’s true that many children of professional athletes go into the same field, but… I don’t know why I need to point out the obvious here but… they are the children of successful athletes… seems like a major source of lineage direction genetic traits being transferred vertically on TOP of added experience honed over the course of decades in sports. But even in those families, there is variation between siblings, environment is not enough. You missed the point. The issue is that subsequent generations of athletes are often more successful because of nurture. > [@Salvor](#): > > This is what athletics opens the floodgates to. But athletics are not the boogeyman, most people don’t really care if some group can run a bit faster or longer, but one group being smarter raises the specter and worry of eugenics and racists using this knowledge for ill. This is partially true, but still largely not the issue. The issue is that the basis for your opinions is really, really shaky. It just doesn’t hold up. Yes, there are little factoids like cornerbacks being all Black that lend a small bit of credence to the stereotype of Blacks being faster, but there are 100 other examples and times where the above supposition doesn’t pan out in terms of the numbers. Go back a while and the Turks, Romans, and Greeks were on top. Now their countries are basketcases. Decades ago, people thought Jews dominated basketball due to their genes. Now that idea sounds almost unbelievable. Not long ago people thought women were inherently bad at math. Now women are routinely granted doctorates Math. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/232 "2016-02-29T20:48:51Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Height is not immutable in the sense that it can’t shift by any means, but your assumption that all that is needed is proper environment and diet is wrong. It’s not an _assumption_ - it’s an interpretation of the _fact_ that the Japanese have been getting steadily taller. > [@](#): > > Now you could say that skin tone is just a function of environment and being in the sun longer gives more or less of a tan, but an irish person, barring some genetic mutations, is never going to be as tan as an Indian or Iranian person (no albinos please). Iranians run to pretty damn pale. But regardless, that’s not the issue. I haven’t said that _all_ traits are immutable - Irish aren’t going to develop epicanthic folds just by changing their environment, either. But by all means, move the goalposts away from height if you must. > [@](#): > > You want to deny the constraints nature places on people, you say you think human traits are in part determined by nature then immediately go to a world view where the sum total of variation can be collapsed to zero if we only change the environment. No. I specifically addressed only the example given. And for good reason - the genetics of height and intelligence both being complicated, multivariant things that aren’t as pat to analyse as such scientific racist favourites as eye colour and hair kink. > [@](#): > > This, is, wrong. Obviously wrong, as it is for athletic capability in different areas, as it is for intelligence, between both individuals, and populations at large. No-one’s said there’s no variation in any of those traits. What i’m denying is that group differences in same are inherent and immutable. > [@](#): > > Is his body type more common among certain populations compared to others? Probably. Prove it. > [@](#): > > Body types are not identical between individuals, if each person in the world lives in the same environment and eats the same diet and performs the same exercise with the same intensity and frequency, do you expect identical results? What causes the variance there if NOT a person individual genetic makeup? No one disputes this. Emphasis on “individual”. In-group variance vastly outweighs between-group variance. > [@](#): > > How many examples must be levied, how much common sense and analytical sense must be tossed out the window before people stop arguing against all reason? I don’t know, why _do_ you keep ignoring the change in Japanese height over time? > [@](#): > > As I stated earlier, it seems to me this resistance to the obvious is born out of a desire to hold up an egalitarian ideal that extends not only to how nature should work, but how it DOES Work. You mean like the changes in population average height we observe clearly caused by environmental factors? _That_ way nature works? ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/233 "2016-02-29T21:03:21Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > If repetition was sufficient for fact the Earth would be orbited by the sun. Yeah, right. Why did you link to a study on voting behavior in this thread? Did anybody claim that genes don’t influence voting behavior? No. Did anyone claim that genes don’t influence behavior generally? No. You linked to it so you could argue against a strawman of your own making. What you can’t seem to understand is that saying we don’t have clear way to map genes related to behavior to American social constructs of race is not the same thing as making a claim that genes don’t influence behavior. It’s not the same as claiming that behavior is 100% determined by culture. Those are strawmen that you keep bringing into the thread. And of course, the voting article you linked to clearly says that environment plays a role in determining voting behavior. So, the article you linked to actually agrees with the people doing actual science in this thread. And of course, that article says nothing about social constructs of race. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/234 "2016-02-29T22:32:40Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > They ask, dishonestly, for a standard of proof they’d never give and which if even could be presented would be nit picked endlessly even though everyone knows organisms from sexual reproduction form fuzzy sets. Define precisely what a fish is. Or a goat. Couldn’t be done accurately without compiling a list of every critter that lived that was a goat and saying these and only these organisms are in the goat set. [I asked you](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19138978&postcount=173) if you would provide a racial framework that could be scrutinized by us skeptics/anti-racialists. [You declined](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19139329&postcount=183) by claiming such a task is beyond your understanding. However this self recognition doesn’t prevent you from calling the skeptics/anti-racialists (and their views) “fallacious,” “hypocritical,” “scared (of truth),” “motivated by political considerations,” “irrational,” “willful ignorance,” “the PC.” 😕 I’m having a difficult time understanding why **your certainty isn’t informed by your knowledge of genetics**. I am openly asking for more information on your views just so I can compare them with the known facts of the current science of human genetics. I don’t see this as “dishonesty” (as you put it). All ideas must be scrutinized. Please do so to the facts [as I have presented them](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19137038&postcount=166). Scrutinize me. Please. This is not a form of “trickery” but of **disconfirmation**. It is the bedrock from which science is built. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/235 "2016-03-01T00:14:28Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > … > > So what? The above does little to support the belief that Asians are inherently smarter than non-Asians. “Inherently” is a loaded term (probably why you keep using it), there is an implication that it is a property of the entire group, something beyond a statistical average for some specific group variable like height or skin tone or intelligence. Even if you agreed that the black population in the US was less intelligent on average, that does not imply that black people are inherently less intelligent than other groups. Having a lower average in a particular area still allows there to be hyper intelligent members from the same group. The implication is not that there will not be any, it’s that there will not be as many. Which is exactly how the stats line up when it comes to sat scores, iq scores, blacks in elite institutions vs asians (incidentally, the black african population is over represented in colleges based on population, why? Not a random sample of the African population). It could be that the variation there and depressed educational attainment and professional degrees is a function of everything other than a differential average in innate ability, but I assume that’s not the case, and you assume… nothing. Every assumption under the sun is allowed EXCEPT the one that posits that part of the difference is due to different average aptitudes between populations. I think I have the more reasonable view and expectation here. > [@](#): > > In my experience, that is not true. It’s not observation, careful or otherwise; it’s learned prejudice. How many Asian, Black, Jewish, or Hispanic people do you think the average White person interacts with? Very few, and certainly too few to get any real basis for a valid observation. Learned prejudice? Ok, call it that if that makes you feel better. Most of the time when I am in my car and choose to pass someone driving in front of me going 10mph slower than the flow of traffic, it’s an older person and not a younger person, with the exception of when they are on their phones instead of driving. Repeated observations of me looking and see both the demographics and behaviors of different groups. This observation adjusts my expectations about who is likely to be a slow driver, and I’m usually right. Is that me being prejudiced? I don’t assume all older people drive ultra slow, of that all people on their phones while driving drive slow, but I do assume more drive slower than other groups based on what I observe. Is that unreasonable of me? Yes or No? Also, less interaction among members of minority groups increases the signals and perceptions of the members of the groups one does interact with, because the averages are less ironed out and more lumpy. Here it’s true that smaller sample sizes can make observations less reliable, but that’s not the case for stats like test scores and educational attainment over millions of people in the US, there are consistent differences that have persisted across decades of social interventions. It’s not crazy to assume some of the causes of that are innate in origin. > [@](#): > > But “Islam [being] more likely to lead to such behavior” isn’t the general stereotype. It’s that Muslims are terrorists. That’s why many consider them suspect just by virtue of their religion. So of course knowing almost all of them are not terrorists matters a lot. Muslims are terrorists is a gross overstatement. Muslims are more likely to be terrorists (of the sort that murder others - not talking property crimes) is not an overstatement at all, it’s absolutely true and divined by tallying up the numbers of murders and filing those differential rates of terrorist activity away. You disagree? Tell me, are muslims more likely to be terrorists? Yes or no? Knowing that most are not is less relevant than knowing most of the terrorists that kill people happen to be muslims. > [@](#): > > Ah, so all one needs to do is to demonstrate you being wrong _repeatedly_, then you will eventually align your opinions with the facts? Sounds reasonable. It is, and assuming that sarcastic sounding statement at the end was said in jest, let’s use a recent example in Israel. There was a story not too long ago of an orthodox jew being released from jail, then heading right out to a gay pride parade and stabbing people left and right. While I think most violent acts of terror are committed by muslims, that was a case where a religious jew did the same thing. That was a counter example of my assumption that mainly muslims are the ones doing the terror that leads to violence and murder. But it’s also just ONE example, if we got a similar incidence rate for jews and christians and buddhists and atheists that we were getting from muslims, then I’d alter my view that muslims are more likely to turn radical and kill people than other religious observers. That’s what I mean by having an observational view of the world. > [@](#): > > Once again, this is wrong. Intelligence, as the term is generally used, refers mostly to learned skills. This is why you rarely hear babies described as intelligent, and why few people have an issue saying most people in a certain profession are intelligent. Now yes, some people will never be as smart as others. Despite the strawman you keep alluding to, no one is saying everyone is equally intelligent, nor that everyone is born with the same capacities. What most are saying are that the things we see as markers of intelligence are largely learned skills. Things like the ability to perform brain surgery or speak 10 languages. Additionally, when we look at groups averages and even individual outliers, the numbers speak more to non-genetic factors than genetic ones. Again, it’s 1000 times easier to destroy potential than to foster it. That is a sloppy understanding of intelligence, if that is how you use the term, scrap it because it’s genuinely terrible. Intelligence is more about ones capacity to pick things up, make connections, and learn, especially as it relates to the speed at which these things occur. A Savant that learns to read and write by age 2 is what I’d consider more intelligent than a normal kid who did the same by age 5. What you are describing is knowledge, you do not have to be hyper intelligent to be extremely knowledgeable, an above average student who reads more than a smarter student who reads less might well have acquired more skills and knowledge than the smarter kid. But that is not what intelligence is, it’s the ability to learn, not what you have learned, or how much you have learned. It does affect learning, the ease of learning, the pace of learning, but those are different things and you seem confused on these points. Why am I the only one calling you out on this though? Where is everyone? I feel like I am left alone in the circus tent after the elephant has just left a nasty present where only I have the burden of cleaning up the mess. > [@](#): > > Define raw intelligence without any reference to learned skills, facts, and behaviors? Next, describe how well those things you list correlate to the things we typically use to measure intelligence later in life? You can reference learned skills and facts and behaviors, but those are not the actual things that makes one more or less intelligent. One metric I have is how many concepts you can juggle in your mind at once. Have you every thought about topics where you were right on the edge of several concepts at once where it was a bit of a strain to keep track of it all? I can easily imagine someone more intelligent than myself having less trouble keeping track of the same number of concepts and even adding several more into the mix. This is not constant between individuals. Maybe there is a way to bolster this capacity through nurture but if so we sure as hell are NEVER discussing it. > [@](#): > > No one denies the above. Potential is often innate generally speaking. The point is that few if any reach their full potential. Why? Because the path to doing so is full of fallible people. People who leave lead in drinking water, teachers who aren’t superlative, parents who are abusive or indifferent, and/or employers who have no vision. How many people do you know that can honestly say they are completely maximizing their potential? I know almost none. Everyone I know could read and exercise more, be more knowledgeable, or just better at life. They aren’t because it’s really hard. Just like being a pro athlete is REALLY hard. Good, if potential is considered mostly innate as you wrote above, and potential between people has different peaks, then even if everyone tries their best and is raised and engages in the most optimal possible environment, there will be differences in the outcomes of peoples efforts. That does not mean we are done figuring out how to optimize the environment, I don’t believe that, and if your point was that instead of focusing on an area where have so little control over it would be more prudent to focus on areas where have more capacity to change and improve, I’d agree with you, but you are pawning off a notion that the potentials of people and groups are not meaningful when it comes to outcomes against the backdrop of so many others nurture focused constraints. I think it all matters and is mixed into the final result, not primarily nurture. > [@](#): > > And how in your mind does that speak to genes being the most important given siblings are the closest genetic matches most people have? Identical twins have more similar performance outcomes than regular non twin siblings. Need I say more? It does not need to be identical, there are identical twins where one is gay and the other is not, so behavioral differences can still be there as environment and its effects does not go to zero, but of twins are closer than regular siblings, which are closer than cousins and strangers, that suggests to me that the genes are far more than some weak signal for outcomes. > [@](#): > > This is partially true, but still largely not the issue. The issue is that the basis for your opinions is really, really shaky. It just doesn’t hold up. Yes, there are little factoids like cornerbacks being all Black that lend a small bit of credence to the stereotype of Blacks being faster, but there are 100 other examples and times where the above supposition doesn’t pan out in terms of the numbers. Go back a while and the Turks, Romans, and Greeks were on top. Now their countries are basketcases. Decades ago, people thought Jews dominated basketball due to their genes. Now that idea sounds almost unbelievable. Not long ago people thought women were inherently bad at math. Now women are routinely granted doctorates Math. The basis of my opinions are not perfect, but they seem to me a lot more grounded in observational reality than yours. They could still be wrong, but I trust observation over supposition. And your biggest mistake is the supposition that once environment is equalized for different populations, so too will be the results. I think the exact opposite, I think the more equal and just and fair a society treats people, the more the innate differences in the people themselves come to the fore. And the only way to solve that last issue is to alter the people themselves. Which I am emphatically in favor of. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/236 "2016-03-01T00:20:37Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I don’t know, why _do_ you keep ignoring the change in Japanese height over time?You mean like the changes in population average height we observe clearly caused by environmental factors? _That_ way nature works? Just a word on this since you keep bringing it up as some triumphant point… I have no problem with environment/diet/etc being strong factors that influence height, or that the average height of the japanese has increased over time. So what? What does that imply to you? The the average height of the japanese population, once given an optimal diet for health and growth is IDENTICAL to the average height of the dutch given the same? Is that really what you believe? Because if so, you basically don’t believe in any variable genetic constraints or people or populations. People have different genetic potentials, those potentials can be easily stunted with a bad environment, but that does not imply that removing the roadblocks means everyone/every groups potential will have the same average. It’s a ludicrous expectation, and again, why am I the only one here calling out this obvious confusion? I feel like the janitor of bad arguments today. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/237 "2016-03-01T00:22:53Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Why is that the null hypothesis? It seems to me that that is treated as the null hypothesis because that’s what we, as liberals, want to be true. […] But I don’t see why the null hypothesis would be “every genetically similar group of homo sapiens, despite having evolved in vastly different situations leading to widely varying physical characteristics, is 100% equal in every facet of intellectual aptitude”. You’re not understanding the concept of null hypothesis. What it amounts to is [nothing more than](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis) _“a general statement or default position that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena, or no difference among groups”_. In other words, **the null hypothesis is a skeptical response to a specific statistical claim about a hypothesized link between phenomena**. It says, in effect, _“Nope, probably nothing to see here, and if you think there is, then prove it”_. It’s the so-called “race realists” who are making such specific statistical claims, along the lines of _“This or that or the other difference in racial-group outcomes counts as valid evidence for genetic differences in intelligence”_. **The null hypothesis is the test of the statistical validity of that alleged evidence for that proposed causal connection.** If you cannot show that your purported evidence is statistically significant,\* then you have failed to make your case and the null hypothesis stands. - This is another term that it may be useful to explain in more detail. “Statistically significant” doesn’t mean merely _“Wow, these statistical data sure look convincing to me, that’s gotta be significant”_. It refers to the results of a **well-designed** statistical experiment meeting certain specific **quantitative criteria**. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/238 "2016-03-01T00:48:20Z")
Wait, Neanderthals were fully exterminated or submerged into Homo Sapiens, right? And Nd was basically stronger, hardier, and more brutish than HS, right? Brains won, I suppose. Now back to black athletes. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/239 "2016-03-01T00:48:51Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > “Inherently” is a loaded term (probably why you keep using it), there is an implication that it is a property of the entire group, something beyond a statistical average for some specific group variable like height or skin tone or intelligence. Even if you agreed that the black population in the US was less intelligent on average, that does not imply that black people are inherently less intelligent than other groups. Having a lower average in a particular area still allows there to be hyper intelligent members from the same group. The implication is not that there will not be any, it’s that there will not be as many. Which is exactly how the stats line up when it comes to sat scores, iq scores, blacks in elite institutions vs asians (incidentally, the black african population is over represented in colleges based on population, why? Not a random sample of the African population). > > It could be that the variation there and depressed educational attainment and professional degrees is a function of everything other than a differential average in innate ability, but I assume that’s not the case, and you assume… nothing. Every assumption under the sun is allowed EXCEPT the one that posits that part of the difference is due to different average aptitudes between populations. > > I think I have the more reasonable view and expectation here. If one wants to make the argument that this disparity is explained by the genetics of African ancestry, as opposed to cultural and societal differences, then one could perform the following experiment – gather a group of self-identified black children, with similar socio-economic circumstances, and administer intelligence tests. At the same time, take blood, and using genetic analysis, estimate the proportion of African ancestry for each child. Then, in a group in which “nurture” factors (economics, race-identification, etc.) are about as equalized as they could possibly be, you could see if greater levels of African admixture correlates with greater or lower scores on tests. Interestingly enough, [such a study has been done](https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/absence-of-a-relationship-between-degree-of-white-ancestry-and-intellectual-skills-within-a-black-population.pdf). It found _no correlation between African admixture and test scores_. Black kids with more African ancestry scored no differently than black kids with less. It used older, but still legitimate, methodology. Such a study wouldn’t be particularly hard to repeat (with modern methodology) for folks who had legitimate curiosity about the issue, but for some reason those who advocate that black people are inherently intellectually inferior, on average, due to genetics, seem to have little interest in doing actual science, and a lot more interest in promoting the supposed inferior intellect (and usually other traits, such as supposed inherent aggression and criminality) of black people. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836/240 "2016-03-01T00:50:59Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > Wait, Neanderthals were fully exterminated or submerged into Homo Sapiens, right? And Nd was basically stronger, hardier, and more brutish than HS, right? “More brutish”? Cite? Neanderthal brains were as large or even larger than modern humans, and it’s not like we can measure “brutishness” by genetic or fossil evidence. Sounds like the discredited and archaic stooped-cave-man view of Neanderthals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-one-race-is-faster-more-athletic-stronger-in-sports-whats-bad/746836.md?page=13)