You have a good imagination, and you need mutliple factors so that they can never be cumulatively disproved.
It’s whackamole for a hundred possible excuses for these ridiculously obvious variations in human gene pools, and all in service of promoting a creationist view: that human populations have not been around for a few hundred thousand years, and that evolution does not diverge separated populations.
Musicians and athletes and scholars and subtle signals, my ass. :rolleyes:
You are confused as to the argument. What I am pointing out is that when basketball was opened to all comers, the best prevailed. And FWIW, in this case the best prevailed despite obstacles.
“Obstacles” are only needed as an excuse for blacks not prevailing in school. 
Why, WRT basketball, we can look into the ghetto and find reasons why shitty home life, 25% incarceration rates, lousy facilities, absent mentoring and a daily struggle to survive PROMOTE success at basketball.
We just need “obstacles” to explain why wealthy and privileged blacks underperform academically. :dubious:
This is a response to a question of the genetics? It is more sad than your ebola “questions” about “competency”
Pathetic. I guess the fact that those pictures would have been entirely different 100 years ago means that genetics have changed?
Now isn’t special. Results now aren’t some magical perfect indicator of genetics in a truly equal society – society isn’t close to equal, opportunity isn’t equal, and you’ve presented no reason to believe that all the things that existed for pretty much all of human history and influenced which groups were at the top and bottom in various metrics have disappeared.
When we are talking about average differences for large cohorts, it is not the case that separation is absolute, or not, although this is a common misconception.
The ancestral source pools (european/west african) for US self-identified blacks and whites have been separated by about 65,000 years.
Self-identifed whites are 95%+ european in ancestry.
Self-identified blacks are about 80% west african in ancestry.
This creates an average difference in gene pools that is not effaced by the fact that there is 20% admixture in the black pool.
If, for example, there are gene variants driving different creatine kinase levels in those source pools, we would see a difference in average creatine kinase levels in US whites and blacks because the self-identification creates an average separation in ancestral gene pools.
It is the average separation of the two cohorts that creates that average difference. I hope this example helps you work through this concept.
Average differences in genetic separation driving average outcomes.
My explanations don’t have any actual experimental evidence that refutes them, unlike your genetic explanation.
All you can do is dismiss good science and make excuses why the “blacks are dumber” crowd refuses to do good science.
We’ve identified the source of our disagreement and the assumptions behind them – you think society and opportunity are mostly equal, and that the cream really can rise to the top – I don’t. This is a reasonable thing to believe, even if you disagree.
You think the Scarr study was bad science (for no good reason that you’ve presented), and you are not interested in actually doing good science – I don’t – the study was good, the methods were good, and it would be easy to repeat for any doubters. It would be easy to repeat if supporters of the genetic explanation were actually interested in good science, and not lazy intellectual cowards who are afraid to test their hypothesis.
My explanations at least fit the facts, unlike the genetic explanation.
OK…let’s review. Opportunity is nowhere near as equal for blacks as it is for eurasions for these power sports, and yet they are kicking ass because they at least were allowed to get to the starting line! (See pics, again)
When, in the past, do you want to posit that sprinting and basketball was open to all comers?
And what barrier has emerged which caused whites to lose their prior pre-eminence for basketball and sprinting?
Lousy coaching? Loss of interest in becoming a wealthy NBA/track star? A laziness culture? A collective decision to step aside and let blacks have a turn too? You make me laugh every time with your indignation.
No. I think that a wealthy and privileged black should, on average, be able to perform in school alongside peers.
Wealthy. Privileged. A black cohort where the cream has already risen to the top, and the cream is now the comparison group.
And I think that the average outcomes which show that a wealthy and privileged black cohort performs barely on par with a poor and underprivileged white or asian cohort is strong evidence that there is an average innate difference in ability for that skillset.
And many do perform very well. That some don’t, or that on average they might score lower, tells us nothing about genetics, and is just another sign that opportunity is not truly equal – black skin in America might be even more of a hindrance to success in some cases than being poor.
I don’t. I see it as evidence that society still has a way to go to be truly equal.
Most of the people in those pics probably have mixed ancestry. Why would a mixed population (US African Americans) be far, far more successful athletically than most countries with much less mixed black populations? Do you think society and culture might have something to do with this?
No barrier has emerged – great white players and athletes still compete. But culture and society have changed, and you’ve shown no evidence that white kids in the US play basketball as much as black kids.
Nope. Just differences in society and culture.
Jamaicans dominate sprinting because of a cultural obsession with sprinting. There are lots of (probably mixed) African Americans successful at sprinting because we have a huge country with a great athletic infrastructure. If West African genes were truly the best genes for sprinting, then I think we’d see some champion sprinters from, say, West fucking Africa. Maybe society and culture have something to do with it?
You keep trying to pull this bullshit. Stop it. No one—NO ONE—has expressed the opinion that society and culture do not play a role. NO ONE! Can you please try to let that sink in. Sheeze.
Now, let’s do this. Let’s take Jamaica out of it (even thought they help make the point). Now, what percent of the next 100 fasted humans do you think will be White, Black and Asian? Than go look it up. Running is the best place to look because it requires the least acquitted skills. Every kid runs. They all race each other. And everyone knows who is fast and who isn’t and who is really fast. and when you look at track teams, and speed positions in football, the older the kids get and the more intense the competition, the more the people who sprint and play the speed positions in football approach being 90% or so Black.
You ignore this or throw up some nonsense about culture making people faster runners. While it training, coaching and diet will make an individual fastER, it won’t make 3pretty fast runners world champions. This is way things are. Really. Go research sprinting and the speed positions in football. This isn’t controversial. It’s staring you in the face.
I’ve seen no indication that CP feels this way. In any case, if that’s so, then we just disagree on how great a role society and culture play.
Most of them are a mix, though it’s not possible to tell the ratio of the various mixtures in ancestry (since such information is not publicly available).
Most of these folks are mixed. I see no indication and no reason to believe that African Americans with more African ancestry are faster or more likely to play RB, WR, and DB in the NFL than African Americans with more European ancestry.
An experiment to test this would be pretty damn easy – take a bunch of African American High School sprinters, and test their ancestry – does African ancestry correlate to faster speeds (among African Americans only)? I look forward to seeing the results, if anyone has the intellectual curiosity to do such an experiment.
This is nonsense. If blacks and white we’re each half the population, you might expect the NBA—a highly desirable job to be sure—to be split 50-50. Add some cultural differences and things would get skewed some. But, blacks are grossly over represented. Now take into account that blacks make up just 12-16% of the population. Ye they make up, what 90% of the NBA. Now it is possible that that skewing could be due to culture (their is a skill set to be acquired, and the cultures are different)But very unlikely. If you want people to believe that is the case, it would be up to you to present a believable argument for such a surprising outcome.
Says you, in your fantasy land. You can keep repeating this wish of your but it doesn’t make it any more true. Or believable.
it is obviously the chinese contribution tot he Jamacians…
I am always amused by the americans who post pictures of their basketball and their football and yell look at all the blacks! as an obvious sign of the genetics… But I see faces that in the west africa will be labelled Toubab - white people - they have so much of the european ancenstry in them, and look completely different from the peoples of the west african countries, except maybe the sahel people who have mixed with the berbers from the north.
but american one drop rules, they see all undifferentiated black.
and this is an argument in their minds for genetics… it is a funny cultural myopia.
No, it’s not that easy. The sample size is WAY too small.
And you know, you keep bringing up things like "If anyone has the intellectual curiosity (is there another kids?) and that people should do studies! How about you. You are the one with the extraordinary position. We have MASSIVE experiments in which tens of millions of kids compete from spots on Olympic springing teams and professional sports teams. What do we see when speed is the things that is required? Black athletes. Really. Just turn on your TV or buy a sports magazine.
You’re reply that, “most of them are mixed” doesn’t really help you. Look at blacks, look at mixed individuals and look at whites. Whites are by far the larger group, yet they are grossly underrepresented. Your society and culture argument doesn’t fly here. For the record, I think it may be the explanation when looking at intelligence and testing, but speed? Nope.
I’m not making any particular assertions – I’m not sure about the explanation. But I’m not going to accept a genetic explanation (especially considering the non-distinct nature of African American genetics). Again – are African Americans with more African ancestry better basketball players, or better sprinters, than those with more European ancestry? This wouldn’t be that hard to do. Some people are fine with making a conclusion without such evidence, but not me.
I’m not saying that’s a final conclusion – it’s not. I don’t know the answer. But society and culture are a possible explanation. When Jews dominated basketball, it was society and culture, right? Why is it so impossible that a different disparity now might be similarly due to society and culture? I’m not saying it’s definitely the answer, but I’m not ready to accept genetics.
I don’t have a position. I don’t know the answer to the question. I’m not ready to accept that group genetics are involved.
“Black athletes” in the US does not mean “African ancestry”. Most have European ancestry as well, and many have native American ancestry.
So we disagree (and, of course, “black”, “mixed”, and “white” are cultural labels, not genetic ones – most black people in the US are genetically “mixed” in terms of continental ancestry). I don’t know the best explanation, but considering the incredible past disparities in athletics, with tiny groups dominating big sports due to obviously cultural reasons, I see no reason to believe that such things might still not be the case today. Not definitely, but possibly.
This should read “But I’m not going to accept a genetic explanation without further evidence”.
You need to present a reasonable explanation for the disparity. One that wold account for the incredible size of the disparity.
The same sorts of things that caused the “incredible size” of the disparity with Jews and basketball (or many other disparities) in the past.
Since those definitely existed, I think it’s possible that something similar exists now. I don’t see “now” as special and unique. The same forces that operated in the past probably operate, to varying degrees, today. I don’t know if this is the definite cause, but it might be.