Again, please quote someone saying arguing for zero genetic impact? The quoted poster says the opposite in fact.
Do you honestly think there is no one who could adapt to that lifestyle given the time?
Noone is saying it’s 100% genetics. Your group is claiming the genetics group is erecting and battling a strawman and here you are with a strawman of your own.
Football is a prime example. The fact that there is positional segregation, especially in the speed positions of wide receiver, running back, and especially cornerback is extremely strong evidence that at the top echelon of speed sports (as if the Olympics and World games don’t count) black’s prevail.
You obviously don’t understand distributions if you ask that.
Actually, no he doesn’t. Reread it.
These aren’t hard words to understand.
Deny it all you want, still sounds like politics.
What part of “on average” is complicated?
You guys seemingly choose to misinterpret simple phrases that refer to distributions. Noone is saying all blacks or all blacks from a particular tribe are faster than all whites. People are saying that the distribution, especially in the top 0.01% of certain sports are extraordinarily disproportionately represented by certain groups. This isn’t in esoteric sports or expensive sports. This is running.
Lets take every arbitrary tribe and ethnicity in the world. Don’t you think it would be more unlikely that every aspect of physique determined by genetics would have the exact same distribution? That takes a deliberate suspension of disbelief akin to thinking Ronda Rousey could beat Floyd Mayweather. People may deny it, but it’s highly likely it’s cognitive dissonance to fit observation into a political paradigm. It’s worse than the anti global warming crowd.
Pygmies, Eskimos, Sherpas, and Aboriginies are going to have the same outliers, the same means, the same distribution in performance in swimming, jumping, climbing, running? You honestly believe that?
Disparities don’t tell you why they exist. What bias is there in coaching, in terms of what positions they encourage people to play? What do the kids believe they must do to be successful? If some sports have cultural reasons for disparities, like perhaps hockey and tennis, why is it not possible that basketball and football do too?
Maybe genetics are involved, but then maybe they aren’t. Maybe cultural factors are still hugely important.
Or maybe genetics are involved, but not in the way we think… Maybe a mix of African and European genes give an advantage, but not either on their own.
octopus, running is not expensive or esoteric huh?
I wonder how expensive it is to fly all over the world, participate in all kinds of marathons, deal with the subsequent health problems that will follow this competitiveness, eat the diet needed to maintain a healthy weight and strength, plus whatever else I didn’t consider? I mean it must be like $2. It’s just running after all. It’s not like its expensive to compete effectively on the world stage. I bet every other Kenyan villager has a little spare change to compete in the commonplace and inexpensive hobby of marathon running at a little over the 2 hour mark. Or maybe it’s just easier for poor governments to finance runners when they want to make a mark on the world stage.
So it’s outliers when it suits you, it’s cheap or commonplace when it suits you, it’s on average when it suits you. I guess that means you’re just being selective and carefully analytical. Or maybe you’re just telling a story with a lot of holes. I am just saying that I haven’t seen too much in the way of convincing evidence that genetics plays any important role in the patterns we see of ethnic participation at the elite level in sports. That means I am being political.
I can be convinced that Sherpas have some relative prevalence of a gene that makes life at altitude easier. I can be convinced that Pygmy stature in the rain forests of Africa is due to the relative prevalence of some gene or genes. I can be convinced that there are genes that might make running in the highlands of Ethiopia easier and these might be more commonplace there.
What I don’t see is how this necessarily translates to dominance at the elite level of X or Y sport. Outside of these populations there are billions of people and the relative prevalence of alleles in a population is still just a relative prevalence. There are just as many rare things among millions as there are common things among thousands.
Do you have a well documented example or something? Something I can wrap politically muddled my mind around?
Watch sprinting in the summer olympics and draw your own conclusions. And how do you explain the complete domination of speed positions in the nfl?
And a quick Google search will return tons more. Funny this article mentions the fear of the PC brigade as a hindrance in research.
How long has “positional segregation” lasted, and why do you think what you see now is the way it will always be?
Dude, you are the one who is missing the point. The issue is not that small genetic subsets must all have the same attributes or potentials. The issue is you are taking a large diverse group (eg. Black people), and presuming our domination of a few positions in a few select sports at the current moment MUST be explained by genetics when there are a thousands of counter examples revolving around gender, religion, nationality, etc., that point to culture or environment being a more likely factor. That’s the issue. You see 32 starting Black cornerbacks and assume they are there in large part because of there race, yet ignore that fact that it wasn’t long ago when all the QBs were White, or the fact that every NHL goalie currently is White. Notice how you rarely see people on your side making the supposition that “White genes” are why White people dominate sports like tennis, hockey, soccer, and baseball? Notice how few people argue Japanese genes make them good at baseball, Canadian and Russian genes make them good at hockey, or that Black genes used to be good enough to be great at baseball but then they got worse all of a sudden. Suddenly your side has a bunch of mealy mouth excuses about how opportunity or money or whatever are the factors in those cases, but not the others where the demographics conform to your presupposed notion.
The question is why you see the need to explain African American dominance in a sport as superior group genes beginning to predominate, but don’t feel the need to explain Canadian dominance, or White dominance, or Asian dominance in a given sport?
This is truly disappointing. I typed in earnest on this very page of the discussion that Google scholar will net you many peer-reviewed studies on the topic of genetics and athleticism, specifically West Africans and running, to try to dissuade you from your belief that there might be some conspiracy afoot. Yet here I am typing it again. There’s no conspiracy; just no tidy story to work with.
I honestly don’t care which group or which sport demonstrates the idea that genetics plays a role in athletic outcome. I don’t care if it’s dwarves and being tossed or giants and reaching for apples. All I care about is that the idea that different groups have different distributions of physical traits stops being a taboo topic.
But why East Africans and long distance and West Africans and sprints? Because those are the simplest sports that I can think of. Anyways if you acknowledge there is a genetic component we don’t have any disagreement.
And it’s 64 starting cornerbacks. Look up the top 500 100m times. 99%+ West African. That’s not 100% culture. Unless you think that a Jamaican, a Canadian, an American, and someone from the UK all with West African ancestry have more culture in common that ancestry.
Here’s a list of links that have discussion on this very topic.
And here’s something that claims that whites have an advantage in swimming.
Anyways, the labeling of disparate groups as “black”, “white”, “Asian”, etc. seems to be problematic. But I don’t know anyone claiming that performance is mostly genetic. Nor that anyone from an arbitrary group has an advantage over everyone from a different arbitrary group. Noone is making that claim. However, 100m Mens and NFL cornerback are two examples of a relatively simple endeavor that doesn’t require ridiculous apparatus to excel in and they are dominated by one particular group. And the dominance is not even close.
And coaches and owners in the NFL have every incentive to scout and play the absolute best in each position they can find. 0 out of 64 cornerbacks is damning evidence.
Regardless of the reason for disparity in numbers, should the League take steps to alleviate the shortage of white, Hispanic, and Asians at certain positions?
Society and culture calls these guys black, but it’s very unlikely that they all have anything close to 99% West African ancestry. Most of them probably have significant portions of European ancestry, and possibly other types as well.
If we only called people with 100% African ancestry “black”, and anyone with mixed ancestry “grey”, then this thread would be about how greys dominate certain sports. Hell, if conventions about race were reversed, and anyone with just a little European ancestry was called “white”, then this thread would be about white domination of most sports.
Cultural and societal conventions have a huge impact on these kinds of issues.
Is this disparity the result of discrimination against these people based upon their membership in these groups?
Good point. But what they are called is irrelevant imo. What matters is that Group “A” has a different genetic distribution than Group “B” and that results in a difference in outcome distribution.
The labeling is not the issue. It’s the willful denial, not saying you, that humans aren’t a function of physics and biology.
What’s that matter? Shouldn’t representation be proportional? Is there no value in diversity for diversity’s sake?
It’s very possible that genetics are involved – I just don’t see why the rush to certainty. Throughout history, disparities like this were generally explained by some aspect of culture and society – and we’ll probably all agree that this is true for certain sports even now (tennis, hockey, among others). If it’s true for some sports, isn’t it possible that it’s true for others? Not certain – I’m not certain what the cause of these disparities is – but possible?
It matters because it’s the basis of affirmative action as a policy.
But as pointed out to you, they are NOT simple at an elite level.
Actually, I do think they have more relevant culture in common than you seem to acknowledge. Particularly a common belief that Blacks are innately faster than White, and a love of running. Either way, why are 64 Black starting cornerbacks more surprising and indicative of the dominance of group genes than 64 White starting kickers and punters, or 30 White NHL starting goal keepers, or 124 of the 125 highest season batting averages having been attained by White men, or a Black man not having won a tennis grand slam in about 40 years?
It’s also not as if White guys cannot play cornerback. Julian Edelman played DB when the Pats had injuries pretty recently, so it’s not as if not White men lack the skill set to play the position. Why are random factoids so illustrative of genes to you when there are many more logical explanations? More importantly, what would you have said if asked this question when Jews dominated basketball? Ironically, people at the time said things like the following:
What would you have predicted in 1981 when Black participation in MLB was 18.7% and was steadily trending upwards? Would you have assumed that number would dwindle to 7.8% by 2015? This has happened despite salaries and prestige skyrocketing during that time period. What genetic changes would have happened in such a short period of time?
If the trend had gone in the opposite direction, and the participation rate was around 30% today, people of your ilk would almost assuredly note that the trend was just Blacks fulfilling their genetic potential. Even now, you see articles questioning why there aren’t more Blacks in MLB as if it’s a given that Blacks must dominate every sport.
Now before you respond by just regurgitating the same line about cornerbacks like a Marco Rubio clone, please explain to me why White dominance of sports for decades upon decades wasn’t typically thought to be due to genetics, but recent, and sometimes fleeting, Black dominance of some sports is a clear sign that genes are of primary importance?
Cmon now! You honestly aren’t going back to segregated days to prove Jewish athletic supremacy in basketball!
There is obviously cultural aspects. I have never denied that. I just refuse to believe that every subgroup has an identical distribution of genes. And who said anything about blacks dominating every sport? I know I have never made that claim.
And with regards to swimming whites might have a genetic advantage. I would be surprised if they didn’t even though the wealth disparity which leads to swimming disparity is also a factor. But if we had water football for example and the water line was 90% white and the water dbs were 90% black I’d be curious as to why.
With regards to baseball if running speed were a huge advantage like it is for cornerback I’d expect to see the numbers reflect that in baseball. However, baseball requires many different skills and it’s harder to correlate.
I am constantly amused.
Here are the indisputable facts:
- Self-identified US blacks have a different average gene pool for power muscles, bone strength, androgen levels, muscle mass and armspan/height ratios–all in the direction of advantage for blacks.
- There are sports where those traits are highly significant for success.
- Professional roles in those sports are the pinnacle of a career success ladder, offering fame, fortune, and pretty girls.
- Whites and asians have an enormous average advantage for every single nurturing influence should they desire to chase professional success.
- Prior to the time in history when blacks were allowed to compete, white culture chased that success vigorously because it was a pinnacle career, preferred over all options.
- When the playing field was leveled for participation, black athletes replaced whites.
Conclusion:
Culture has changed. Otherwise equally talented whites decided they prefer academia as the road to success, plus blacks work harder in these sports. Perhaps genes play some kind of role, but let’s not forget about culture. Also, the Hebrew League in the '20s. Also, there’s no such thing as a pure race.
LOL
Once again, the source of the differing opinions are confirmed: I disagree that all those points are indisputably true except for maybe 2 and 3.
What do you mean? Jewish athletic supremacy in basketball was a fact at that time. My point was that that demographic over-representation obviously changed over time. Even if we were just comparing Jews to Gentiles, what may have seemed like a genetic advantage due to the numbers is a laughable idea in the current day due to the absolute dearth of Jews in the NBA. The point is that sporting dominance is nearly impossible to predict, and the basis for that dominance is hard to pinpoint when just looking at a static picture at a given time. That’s why people in that time truly thought Jews were great athletes based on some innate attributes. In short, it’s why you should be FAR less confident in your current opinion than you see to be. It’s also why you should be looking at the factors common to different dominant groups (and lagging groups) rather than what connects dominant individuals on a superficial basis.
For example, the things that tie African-Americans today, Jews in the early period of Basketball, Yugoslavian/Serbs/Croats in the late 80’s is that they are/were oppressed groups with relatively fewer opportunities living in urban environments where basketball was popular and respected. Addressing the other side, the reason why American men today suck at tennis, why African-Americans play baseball far less often, and why Jews today generally are not playing pro sports is those groups have better options. It’s not genes that made American men relatively bad at tennis, or what generally makes African-American men great at playing cornerback. It’s almost always external environmental and cultural factors.
You don’t have to believe otherwise to think sporting dominance of a self-identified group isn’t genetic. We are talking about maybe a couple thousand people across all major sports. Even if you think certain sporting genes are far more common in Blacks, the fact that they are still present in Whites, and that there are billions of White people, means finding a few hundred of them who have the potential to excel in sports is very possible. We don’t see them not because they don’t exist, but because they are doing other stuff.
What about other sports where speed matters like tennis, soccer, lacrosse, and rugby?
Running speed probably matters more in baseball than it does in basketball, yet basketball has a far higher percentage of Blacks. Why is that? Why did the percentage of Black in baseball drop so dramatically? Why do Blacks dominate US football, but not rugby, a very similar sport? Even in countries with sufficient diversity, you don’t see it (eg. S. Africa). Why not? Why do group genes only matter when you want them to?
You think it’s important in my life that group A has slightly better genes for arbitrary action B? No. It’s interesting that the topic is taboo and that people deliberately adopt a false point of view. All I advocate is that there is some genetic component. That’s all.
Now the idea of NFL players playing rugby has me intrigued.