The looming crisis in human genetics

Great Debates
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CP brought up the NBA example. I pointed out how it falls short.

As for sprinters, Entine’s claim about the ancestry of world class performers is only partially true. Only certain specific subgroups of West Africans have produced superior sprint performers.

There’s never been a Senegalese sprinter who went under 10 seconds, for example. It’s not for lack of opportunities in track and field, it’s just that the Senegalese have been better soccer players and middle distance runners than they have been short sprinters. Senegalese are just as “black” as Nigerians. They just don’t run as fast. No brilliant sprinters have come out of Mali or Chad, either. Those populations are certainly “black”, and West African. Their best sprinters are probably slower than Europe’s best sprinters.

If you take Jamaica by itself, a population with a substantial West African component, it outperforms all of West Africa and the US on a per capita basis in the sprint events. We could then talk usefully about a “Jamaican race” as being having superior sprint ability.

Describing the cohort as West African, or “black” doesn’t necessarily tell us that much. It’s quite possible that if we were to survey all of the “black” peoples of West Africa, they would turn out to be slower sprinters, on average, than Europeans.

Here again, we also have the white American versus European performance disparity. Europe and Australia regularly produce world class sprinters who are competitive with all but the fastest people of African ancestry. In the US by contrast, there are almost no white world class sprinters, and there haven’t been for years. (The guy from Drake, Darren Little?, is the one exception I can think of.) It can’t be genetics.

Using West Africans as a cohort is misleading for these reasons. What’s needed to make accurate predictions about performance is specificity.

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CP is still working for a living, so I’m off to bed, but just a quick comment around this. It’s absolutely fair to complain about lumping all blacks into some sort of genetically pure "race. " However, it does not follow that it’s incorrect to point out that within that lump exists all of the sub-10 sprinters.

The most fundamental issue is not whether or not races exist. That argument will go on ad nauseum and is in many ways definitional. The argument centers around whether or not how we perform at something is from nurture or is mostly genetic–or at least, whether or not our maximum potential is mostly genetic.

Arguing that it’s only the West African subset who are the good sprinters bolsters the key point: we are our genes.

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Like who?

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http://www.european-athletics.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7761&Itemid=2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Clark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Shirvington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Johnson_%28sprinter%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Unger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeri_Borzov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Wells

And so on.

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Thanks, I think this is consistent with what Entine writes. For instance, he mentions Borzof & the possibility that Eastern European countries may have used performance enhancing drugs but still couldn’t get someone to go under 10 seconds.

Interestingly the one on that list to have gone under 10 seconds has an indigenous Australian mother.

Well, it isn’t all genetics. If you’re a top spinter in Australia or Europe you are likely to keep training into adulthood if you’re winning your races & the top in your country. In the US it seems unlikely that a white or Hispanic guy is going to be the top at age group level, so there would be little point in continuing to train to be a sprinter into adulthood.

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In other words, you not remotely interested in science and prefer to use extreme examples (having an extra chromosome!) to support ideas that legitimate scientists find ludicrous. If you do change you mind and really do acquire an interest in real science, take a look at the NOVA special I linked.

Here’s another NOVA special called “Ghost in Your Genes”. Within is a story of one twin that is perfectly normal but the other one did reach her “maximum potential”. Why is that, if they have the same genome?

Here’s a snippet - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVwhJXqIG9c
Here’s the whole program - NOVA | Ghost in Your Genes | PBS

The DNA sequence in your genes is obviously important and I’m not interested in egalitarianism in appreciating talent. Some people are ‘naturally’ smarter, stronger, etc than others. However, how those genes are expressed is what makes you, you as much as the DNA sequence of the genes themselves. Gene expression is so strongly influenced by environment throughout all stages of life that phrases like “maximum potential” have little meaning. Scientists already knew this even before epigenetics became a hot topic.

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Folks who have an interest in promoting nurture over nature are the ones most inclined to cite outlier examples. I’m unconcerned with charges that those who hold nature to be paramount are dismissing “real science.” One need only look at the field of plant genetics and animal husbandry, for example, where there are no social overtones, to see what “real science” thinks about the relative role of genes in laying the maximum potential for every possible trait, from size to strength to intelligence to behaviour…it is only in human beings where the role of genes in determining outcomes suddenly becomes “illegitimate” or “controversial.”

Of course environment makes a difference in outcomes. But when we peel away the social sensitivity around the notion that we are all basically (genetically) equal but have simply gotten different environmental stimuli, we don’t find much support for that notion. We see in everyday life that it’s not “some people” who are “naturally” smarter or faster or stronger–it’s everyone we encounter. All of us. Within a group as small as a family or as large as a whole cohort–a relatively homogeneous community, for instance–we see ordinary everyday proof that exposure to approximately similar nurturing produces a vast range of human beings. We may not be able to prove that the nurturing for a given individual was exactly the same as the nurturing for a second individual, but we can reasonably measure that over the whole cohort, the average nurturing was about the same and yet we did not end up with equal results.

It’s not some miniscule percent of West Africans lucky enough to be exposed to sprinting or basketball nurturing who won some sort of nurturing lotto to excel, for example, with the rest of the cohort averaging the same skillset as any other cohort. We see that relative superior performance at every level of post-adolescent development. In a high school with a majority white student body, it would not raise a single concern of selection unfairness to see an over-representation of black students on the basketball team, even if the relatively segregated feeder middle schools had basketball programs which had superior facilities and coaching for the white middle school students. We’d notice the same trend even more pronounced at colleges.

I agree that a scientist who promoted a notion of genetic inequality at a population level might be branded as “illegitimate” by any number of fellow scientists or other individuals. In current society such expressions are anathema to many. And even here on the Dope there are posters who consider a label of “racist” to be a priori sufficient to dismiss any further debate, as if a label conferred weight to an argument.

This is not about some sort of contest for superior races, however my opponents wish to push it there. It’s about how we go about creating a just society with equal opportunity to participate for all. If we simply accept that mother nature does not create any two individuals genetically identical, and that gene distribution for various traits can vary among different populations, we can build sound policies that stand the test of time and achieve our goals–diversity, for instance. If we refuse to accept that and simply announce that all groups are equal, we are going to get bad legislation and divisive, contentious results. The next New Haven will be a white guy accusing the NBA of racially-biased selection because some law defines racially unbalanced results as prima facie evidence of selection bias. We’ll get a backlash against efforts at ethnic diversity by requiring that race, by itself, not be allowed as an admission selection criterion (as with, e.g. California’s Prop 209).

We do better to give up the battle to prove everyone’s equal and work instead to create an equal opportunity for everyone to succeed, even if it means some need more nurturing than others.

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The thing is, when we reach Chief Pedant’s promised land, when/if we can identify genes for IQ, faster running, and so on, nobody that cares about genetics will care about the racial background of anyone. They’ll only care about the presence or absence of the alleles they are interested in.

So if we determine that genes A, B, C, and D control IQ, and alleles a, b, c, and d mean you have higher IQ and a’, b’, c’ or d’ mean lower IQs, it would be odd indeed to determine which populations have which frequencies of a vs a’, b vs b’, c vs c’ and d vs d’, and then, depending on the ethnicity of the person you’re dealing with, guess what alleles they are likely to have.

Even if we determine that Basques have 50% incidence of allele a, Bretons have 45%, Navajo have 25%, Malays have 52%, Japanese have 60%, Yoruba have 5%, and White Anglo Saxon Protestant Americans have 70%, who cares? Why not test the individual directly for the presence of allele a? Even if we determine that Kenyans have a lower than average incidence of allele a, it seems pretty silly to set up special schools for Kenyans, or half Kenyans. Instead wouldn’t it make more sense to set up special schools for people who lack allele a, regardless of their ethnicity?

And this is why the racialists are foolish to believe that we’ll finally prove that certain types of people are naturally inferior, because with exact genetic markers we won’t care about populations, we’ll care about individuals. We already know that some people are naturally smart, and some people are naturally dumb. Genetic studies may (or may not) provide some explanations for why a particular person is naturally smart, while another person is naturally dumb. But finding out that 55% of White Americans have the “good” allele, while only 45% of Black Americans have the good allele, isn’t going to have any public policy implications. And neither will finding out that Timmy who has always excelled in school has allele a, while Billy over in remedial english has allele a’. We already know that Timmy is naturally smart and Billy is naturally dumb, we just don’t know why. We don’t treat all blacks for sickle cell anemia just because blacks are more likely to express the trait than whites, instead we find out who has sickle cell anemia, and who is a carrier for sickle cell anemia, and treat or counsel them accordingly.

Finding out the cause of Billy’s dumbness doesn’t mean we give up and tell Billy not bother with school, since because we’ve proven he’s naturally numb school won’t do him any good. Rather it suggests ways to improve Billy’s schooling so that we can mitigate the problem. Since alleles code for proteins, if we find that Billy produces a damaged copy of a critical enzyme, the potential for medical intervention is obvious–give Billy the correct enzyme in pill form.

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Likewise, if an allele associated with strong athletic performance is found to cluster in some black groups moreso than others, it’s not as if we’re going to start telling white and Asian kids not to bother with sports anymore, or lower the bar for non-blacks in tryouts and competitions, or put astericks by the names of black record-setters, etc.

If the looming genetic crisis is supposed to result in major paradigm shifts, I’m really curious about what, in practical, realistic terms, these shifts will likely produce.

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Would it have some implications for disparate impact or equal opportunity laws? Once you take away the starting assumption that equal outcomes are expected it makes it harder to enforce positive discrimination policies?

For instance, you often hear comments that group Y is underrepresented in a certain field. If you accept that genes occur in in different frequencies across populations then there is no reason to expect equal representation? In fact, under a meritocratic system you would expect unequal representation.

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Ditto for incarceration rates?

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I completely agree with the bulk of this post. It is spot on. The elaboration of the human genome has the potential to help us move away from racialism. If you read my earlier post I think you may notice this is exactly what I am trying to say.

(by CP: ) “We do better to give up the battle to prove everyone’s equal and work instead to create an equal opportunity for everyone to succeed, even if it means some need more nurturing than others.” and “This is not about some sort of contest for superior races, however my opponents wish to push it there. It’s about how we go about creating a just society with equal opportunity to participate for all.”

I have said repeatedly that a main cause for the persistence of race categories is promulgated by those who wish to level a charge that unfair outcomes at a cohort average using race as the cohort must be due to societal inequity and not disproportionate gene set distribution. In fact, current AA law (if I understand it correctly) defines a selection test a priori as being illegal if the result of that test is too heavily skewed toward a given racial cohort. Such reasoning is based on the premise that all cohorts must have equal potential for a given skillset, and such reasoning is wrong.

When we see unequal outcomes for anything, our task should be to aggressively identify any and all inequities in opportunity. If we want to elevate ourselves to a truly just society, we should extend nurturing opportunity particularly to those who may not otherwise be able to effectively compete, in an effort to balance out in practice what mother nature did not balance out at birth. We already do this–for example, by creating special opportunities for those with learning disabilities. Where entire cohorts are short changed in outcome, there is an interim value (in my opinion) of basing outcome on, for example, race-based cohorts (race-based AA targets, for instance).

What we should NOT do is pretend that all individuals or all cohorts are necessarily genetically equal, and that all inequity is due to unequal opportunity promoted by the haves over the have nots. Such a pretense is divisive. The haves need to examine themselves and examine society for unfair advantages but there is no requirement to ignore that we are born with different gifts in potential distributed differently among different cohorts.

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Presumably, although it would be in terms of risk in combination with other environmental influences obviously. For instance, certain MAO-A variants tend to be associated with later involvement in crime in combination with early maltreatment.

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ignore this post

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Ah, yet another attempt to pretend that black people are genetically evil. Ignore their poverty, ignore their history; ignore the fact that after centuries of interbreeding they are hardly all that distinct as a gene pool. It has to be genetic.

And that’s assuming that the claim that “The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community.” is true, which I rather doubt. And then there’s the convenient focus on poor people crime - rich white people don’t mug you; they don’t need to. That doesnt make them not criminals.

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It does not have to be genetic. The question on the table (I think) is whether or not the possibility it is genetic is allowed to be on the table…

What is the reason you doubt the crime comment made? We’ve had other threads here on the SDMB outlining the relative disproportionate number of violent crimes committed by blacks in the US, for instance. That’s not an argument for whether or not there is justification for it; it’s just a presentation of the statistics.

To Chen019: What is being debated here?

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Yes, of course all new ideas should be carefully considered.

But just because an idea was rejected doesn’t mean it wasn’t considered.

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Nevermind…

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That’s a mighty big, huge, gargantuan colossal “IF” that this whole crappy thesis hangs on.