I’m also curious about this. Living in Japan, it seems pretty clear to me that Asians are on average somewhat shorter and more slightly built than Americans (I know “Americans” isn’t a race, but it’s my main comparison group). Am I imagining this?
We discussed the question (without reference to Watson) in general terms three years ago. Consensus at that time was that there was insufficient scientific evidence for a meaningful answer that might distinguish genetic from environmental influences on the psychological characteristics of persons from different gene-pools/cultural-environmental backgrounds. Have any significant studies been done since then?
What gene(s)?
- Honesty
What are the differences?
Got a “race” in there, somewhere?
You have noted two specific populations, but when people set out to identify “races,” the peoples of the North American Arctic are in the “American Indian” “race” which includes any number of Iroquois or Creek folks standing over 6’ tall. (I’m not entirely sure where the race splitters actually put pygmies.)
I’m not sure whether that claim was ever substantiated. (I know that its most prominent popular advocate was not using anything resembling science to support his claims, but there may have been science behind the non-science that did support such a claim.
However, even with that claim, it was not a “racial” claim (except by people not paying attention). The “fast twitch” muscles were supposed to be found only among one group of Africans along the West coast of that continent–not spread throughout the entire purported “race.”
Have you been to the Northern end of Hokkaido where the population often includes taller people? Have you noticed that among the generation of Asian immigrant to the U.S., especially among those who have begun eating “American” food from birth that there are an awful lot of people who are every bit as tall as the typical Yank?
The population of (most of) Japan, sticking to their traditional diet, tends to be shorter than many grain-and-beef fed Americans, but that tendency often has a lot more correlation with diet than with genetics and Japanese islanders are not the sum of the whole “Asian race.”
There are very definitely traits that have been found among certain populations of humans (and biologists tend to use the term “population” for that reason), but there is no population that is sufficuently large or well-defined as to be able to be identified with any of the three or four or five (race supporters cannot even agrere on those numberes) “races” into which they have divided humanity.
I dunno, tomndebb, I pulled an interesting paper from Science (which is about as reputable a source as there is).
For those who have access:
Science 30 July 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5684, pp. 637 - 639
"A decade later, the scientists have ruled out most of the popular explanations for Kenyans’ domination of running. Altitude is not the key to the riddle, they have found, because there’s no difference between Kenyans and Scandinavians in their capacity to consume oxygen. And the Kenyan diet is on the low side for essential amino acids and some vitamins as well as fat, says Dirk Christensen of the Copenhagen center: “In spite of the diet, they perform at high level.” The running-to-school hypothesis was demolished as well: Kenyan children aren’t any more physically active than their Danish peers. Do Kenyans try harder? The researchers found that the Danes actually pushed themselves harder on a treadmill test, reaching higher maximum heart rates.
An important clue is the ability of Kenyans to resist fatigue longer. Lactate, generated by tired, oxygen- deprived muscles, accumulates more slowly in their blood. Comparisons of lactate levels have suggested to Saltin’s group that Kenyan runners squeeze about 10% more mileage from the same oxygen intake than Europeans can."
(snip)
“Saltin’s group has quantified this observation. Compared with Danes, the thinner calves of Kenyans have, on average, 400 grams less flesh in each lower leg. The farther a weight is from the center of gravity, the more energy it takes to move it. Fifty grams added to the ankle will increase oxygen consumption by 1%, Saltin’s team calculates. For the Kenyans, that translates into an 8% energy savings to run a kilometer. “We have solved the main problem,” declares Henrik Larsen of the Copenhagen center. “Kenyans are more efficient because it takes less energy to swing their limbs.” Other scientists say the jury is still out on the Kenyan question. But “I think Saltin is probably the most correct that anyone is at the moment,” says physiologist Kathryn Myburgh of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, who is exploring the role of Kenyans’ training.”
(snip)
“Various studies have shown that West African athletes have denser bones, less body fat, narrower hips, thicker thighs, longer legs, and lighter calves than whites. But the differences between East and West Africans are even more striking. The fabled Kenyan runners are small, thin, and tend to weigh between 50 and 60 kilograms, whereas West African athletes are taller and a good 30 kilograms heavier, says Timothy Noakes, a prominent exercise physiologist and researcher at the University of Cape Town.”
(snip)
"They found that the Africans averaged significantly more fast-twitch muscle fibers–67.5%–than the French Canadians, who averaged 59%. Endurance runners have up to 90% or more slow-twitch fibers, Saltin reports.
Bouchard, now at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, says his team looked at two enzymes that are markers for oxidative metabolism and found higher activity of both in the West Africans, meaning they could generate more ATP, the energy currency of the cell, in the absence of oxygen. The study suggests that in West Africa there may be a larger pool of people “with elevated levels of what it takes to perform anaerobically at very high power output,” says Bouchard.
Although training can transform superfast-twitch type IIb fibers into the hybrid type IIa, it is unlikely to cause slow- and fast-twitch fibers to exchange identities."
There’s a lot more, but you get the idea. It does seem pretty accepted that there are population differences that would make one group stronger than another. Granted, this is a population within Africa, and not Africa as a whole, nor does looking at Danes constitute all Caucasians.
Also, this has nothing to do with intelligence, obviously.
Thank you for your lengthy support of my point.
There are, indeed, populations in the world that manifest specific traits.
None of those populations, however, qualify under any reasonable definition of “race.” (In fact, even “Kenyans” appears to be too large a group regarding the marathon runners. All the really fast long-distance runners appear to have been not merely Kenyan nationals, but members of the Kalenjin people (about 12% of the population of Kenya) and there have been claims made (that I cannot find at the moment) that the real runners are from a specific smaller subset of the Kalenjin.)
Note that the article you quoted distingusihes between the long distance runners of Kenya and the sprinters of the West. So does the “Negro” “race” make better sprinters or better marathoners–or are there separate populations in Africa that get lumped into the arbitrary category of “race”?
Anthropologists and biologists recognize populations. References to the outdated and disproved concept of biological race should be omitted from biological discussions.
Ahhh, but if someone thought that Irish people were inherently inferior to British, or Kenyans to West Africans, they wouldn’t be called a “populationist”, they’d be called a “racist”.
Superior in general? Or superior in some aspect?
For example, if Scientist X claims that blacks are superior to whites in resistance to skin cancer, is he a racist? What if he claims that blacks are superior to whites in resistance to osteoperosis?
But are any of those hereditary psychological traits?
The latter, insofar as belief in question purports to be a scientific one, as in Watson’s case. Value judgments are outside the purview of science. Science cannot say, “Humans are superior to chimpanzees.” That would fall under the heading of “not even wrong.” Science can say, “Humans are more intelligent than chimpanzees as measured by certainly widely accepted methods.” Science could, in theory, say, “Human beings of negro or subsaharan-African descent are less intelligent than other human population groups as measured by certain widely accepted methods and there is sufficient evidence to attribute the difference to heredity rather than environment.” If such evidence existed, which it doesn’t.
Ok, then by that definition, Watson is racist.
Similarly, any scientist who claims that blacks, on average, are superior to whites in resistance to sunburn, is racist by that definition.
You seem to have left out race, again. Is a black (Negro) from the tip of South Africa from among the Khoisan actually better protected from UV trauma than a white (Caucasian) from the Kerala region of India whose skin may be several shades darker?
Any scientist who made the claim you presented, as you presented it, may or may not be racist, but he is clearly pretty dumb as a scientist if he equates mere skin color with race.
Bear in mind, “superior in resistance to sunburn,” so qualified, is not a value judgment. Neither is “superior in intelligence,” for that matter. Just saying “A is superior to B” is a value judgment.
But from what I’ve read, Watson’s only said that blacks are probably genetically inferior in intelligence. So, then, it should all be hunky-dory.
The question on the table is whether or not Watson is a racist, and that is why I chose the example that I chose. Whether the statement is “clearly pretty dumb” is another issue.
Except that what is not a value judgment in scientific terms might well be a value judgment in social terms. Saying blacks have better resistance to sunburn is not a social value judgment; saying they are less intelligent is a social value judgment, one with public-policy implications, e.g., the futility of social programs aimed at helping them improve their minds.
Most dictionaries I’ve come across define racism as the belief that race confers skills, abilities, and character traits that make one more or less one superior to another, at least with respect to those traits.
Sunburn resistance isn’t a skill, ability, or character trait. It’s a property of melanin, which happens to be found in higher concentrations in black people than white. This statement can be empirically supported, and is not loaded with value.
Blacks make better athletes than do whites.
Asians are more trustworthy than whites.
Whites are lousy in bed relative to Blacks.
Blacks are dumber than Asians.
All of these statements concern skills, abilities, and character traits, and are racist.
Replace the loaded term “race” with “ethnicity” then.
For the record, it’s pretty clear that the guy is a racist if only for his schtick on what it’s like to have a black co-worker.
I’m not so sure about that. Sunburn resistance gives you a superior ability to work outdoors in sunny areas.
I don’t see what empirical support has to do with anything. If Watson claims that whites are superior to blacks in intelligence, but has emirical support for the claim, he is still racist, no?
And I don’t understand what “loaded with value” means.