@ Belowjob2.0,
I’ve posted this up thread, but you presumably did not read it.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7265/box/461726a_BX1.html
Statistically, blacks score poorly on IQ and IQ-proxy exams than whites, is black genetics to blame?
Not bothering to read your own cites?
He does that a lot.
I don’t know about the others you mention, but for its size (pop. ~10mil) Cuba has been
vastly overrepresented in the speed events, with Enrique Figuerola winning the 100 meter
Olympic Silver Medal in 1964, Alberto Juantorena winning Gold in the 400m (and 800m) in
(I think) 1972, and with the current 110m hurdle World Record holder all being Cuban.
I believe the current high jump WR is still held by a retired Cuban athlete.
That’s a handful of medals over the course of several decades.
Nevertheless, Cuba is a country where most of the population(by the definitions of this board and American standards) are black and where people are pushed into athletics by a government that spends an inordinant amount of time and money pushing it.
Still despite the fact that it’s population who can trace their ancestry back to Africa isn’t dramatically smaller than America’s African-American population its people haven’t done remotely as well.
Success in athletics has far, far more to do with culture than genetics.
If dopers who buy all the bullshit theories about blacks’ “genetic superiority” were right then African-Americans wouldn’t have done so dramatically better than other African populations in the Caribean, Latin America, and West Africa.
For that matter, people might wonder why Brazil which has IIRC, far and away the world’s largest black population seems to constantly lose out in soccer and basketball to Argentina which is the Whitest country outside of Europe IIRC.
At least you’re now reading other peoples posts 
Let me explain the point using an example of height (another heritable, quantitative trait). There is significant overlap between different population distributions. That is, Swedes might be taller than Vietnamese on average, but the range of heights within each group is larger than the difference in the averages. Similarly, there is significant overlap between male and female heights. Much greater than the average difference.
Nevertheless, at the tails of the distribution one would find very large discrepancies, even with a small average difference. For instance, if you were looking at people above 6 ft tall a far greater proportion would be men than women. Similarly a far greater proportion would be Swedes than Vietnamese.
Take that in terms of intelligence, which has similar heritability to height. There is considerable overlap between the black and european populations. But there is a consistent average difference of about 1 standard deviation. Accordingly, above certain levels the proportion you’ll find from each population is significantly different.
This point, and the social implications, is explained in greater detail by Linda Gottfredson here.
It is more than a handful considering the numbers of people.
This I am not sure about one way or the other.
Quite so. But how about Jamaica (Usain Bolt)? Trinidad (Haisley Crawford)?
The Bahamas (Pauilne Davis-Thompson), and, on the other side of the world,
Australia (Patrick Johnson)?
The US has over 30 million people with African ancestry, and they have won
a hell of a lot of world championships. Make that s f*ck of a lot. But now that
you mention it the only non African-American to win a national sprint title
(100-200-400m) in the last 50 years has I think been Jeremy Wariner.
Sticking with the sprints the 500-plus fastest times for the 100 meter dash are held
by men of African ancestry. No others have run 100m faster than 10.00
As I have pointed out, the Caribbeans of African descent are the class of the field,
in proportion to their numbers. Why Africa itself is unrepresented in the sprints
(although not in the distance events) is curious.
I would like to limit my participation here to sprinting ability, and will await
someone else’s comments regarding Brazilian soccer.
People who say culture is important don’t seem to realise that no one denies that. However, to be a top sprinter you also need a certain level of natural ability. And the reality is that overwhelmingly in the top level this is concentrated amongst people of west african ancestry. Just look at the stats on people who have run the 100 metres in under 10 seconds. How many are not of West African ancestry?
In ‘Taboo’ Jon Entine calculated the probability of all 40 finalists in the 100 metres in the 5 previous Olympics (at the time of the book) being of West African ancestry, given they are only 8% of the world population. For the answer see page 34 here.
Your comment was in direct response to another poster. Your claim (in another venue) that you were going to be “playing that game” is duly noted and you are duly informed that you will be Warned if you continue this attempt to violate the rules.
[ /Moderating ]
Actually, your claim is too broad. The records are held by men of ancestry from a specific region in Western Africa, North of Angola, West of Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania, and South of Morocco, (and possibly South of Mauretania). By attempting to broaden the category to “men of Africa,” you appear to be making a claim about some alleged “race,” when we are really looking at a limited population within Africa.
The speed may well be genetic, but it is not “racial.”
Why is it that in discussions like this, Jews (even the European Ashkenazim) are labeled as ‘not white’ (which I can understand if you link minorities and non whites) or ‘non-European’ (which makes no sense at all if most tests are done on European Jews)? Is this another way of saying, “Jews are kind of like white people, but they’re really not…”? Haven’t we kind of decided that in most science circles, ‘white’ is a social construct? So if Jews are no longer “Hebrews” as they were a few generations ago, why then distinguish them in IQ studies?
Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of X compared to their European counterparts…
Dude, you mentioned three people over a time span of sixty years, twelve Olympics and dozens is not hundreds of Track and Field events.
If we use American standards regarding who is and isn’t black then about two thirds of all Cubans are black, though this is obviously not true of Cuban-Americans.
Obviously, most people in Cuba don’t feel this way since they only consider people to be black if they are of 100% African ancestry were we to use the Cuban understanding of who is and isn’t black then this whole thread is even more moronic then now since only a small number of African-Americans would be considered black in Cuba, or for that matter, Brazil, South Africa, Jamaica or just about any country where most people are of African descent.
To put it another way, using American standards there are about 30 million blacks in America and about 7 million blacks in Cuba yet Cubans have produce far, far fewer high quality sprinters than have been produced in America.
Until rather recently, Jamaica wasn’t producing that many high class sprinters and despite the fact that more people of 100% or close to 100% African ancestry live in the Caribbean countries, they haven’t produced remotely as many high quality sprinters as have been produced by the African-American community.
Yes, and they’ve managed to win vastly more medals and produce vastly more high quality sprinters than West African and Caribbean countries have.
Moreover, if African genetics were so key in producing great sprinters, the African-American community would be a distinct disadvantage compared to other countries since their “genetic purity” has been diluted by so many racially inferior whites raping black women and ensuring that only a tiny minority of African-American are “true tribesmen”.
It’s pretty obvious that the African-American community produces so many elite athletes due to cultural reasons not genetic factors.
Compared to the African-American community, which, as mentioned has vastly fewer “true tribesmen” and most of who’s members have been polluted by racially inferior whites, they’ve done little being far more racially pure.
What curious about that is that most people when noticing that Africans who vastly, vastly outnumber African-Americans(even if one counts all of the racially impure African-Americans) haven’t produced remotely as many high-quality sprinters, would think this is strong evidence that “blacks” don’t have “genes” that make them superior sprinters.
And yet virtually every one of the 500-plus fastest times is held by a man of European descent.
“Western Africa” is fine with me.
As for the nuances of what is and/or is not a “race” and whether the term
is scientifically significant I will for the time being remain a spectator to the debate.
Ashkenazi jews are an interesting example of a population where cultural factors favoured selection for certain cognitive traits. I’d recommend taking the time to read this paper.
What kind of facilities do west african countries have? You seem to think that if genes play a role, then training, nutrition and culture play no role. You need to realise it isn’t an either/or scenario! Both are important.
Again, take a note of the ancestry of the top 100 metre sprinters. In ‘Taboo’ Jon Entine calculated the probability of all 40 finalists in the 100 metres in the 5 previous Olympics (at the time of the book) being of West African ancestry, given they are only 8% of the world population. For the answer see page 34 here.
Note the lack of europeans or asians who have run the 100 metres under 10 seconds? Even when Eastern Europeans were blatantly doping they couldn’t get anyone to run that fast!
Moreover, the overwhelming majority of people of West African descent are not African-Americans yet African-Americans make up the majority of people on that list.
Moreover since most African-Americans are of European descent, the vast majority of people on that list are people of European descent.
One of the problems with discussions like this is that most people have swallowed without a second thought the idea that anyone who has African ancestry is “black”.
We regularly make references to “light-skinned blacks” but we never refer to “dark-skinned whites”.
Maybe if we started thinking about how many “dark-skinned whites” were sprinters, wide receivers, running backs, and point guards we’d recognize just how moronic this whole argument is.
Unfortunately scientific racists have never been concerned with actual science as opposed to pseudo-science.
Er… and most of those people were probably of European descent as well.
Carl Lewis never ran the 100 metres in under 10 seconds?
Heh, yeah a tiny percentage of their ancestry relative to the West African portion. Again, if genes were evenly distributed it would be reasonable to anticipate more of the 92% of the population who aren’t of west african descent to have cracked the 100 metres in under 10 seconds. It’s a glamour event, there are huge incentives to do well in it.
Carl Lewis did run the 100 metres under 10 seconds on several occasions. The 1988 Olympics for instance.
Another example is East African running success:
Do you actually have any idea what percent of Carl Lewis’s ancestry is African, European, or North American?
I have never seen his family tree and I doubt that you have, either. Given that there is a very large admixture of European and North American blood/DNA in the group (self-)identified as black or African American, unless you have an actual family tree, I see no reason to accept your unsupported assertion that non-West African ancestry is a “tiny percentage” of the ancestry of any given sprinter who was born in the U.S.