Except that it wasn’t “closed to west African genes” – it was closed to black people. There were probably lots of players with West African genes who played back then.
You’ve shown that black people greatly over-represent in the NBA. This says nothing about West African genes.
Do black players with more West African ancestry play better basketball than black players with more European ancestry? Do black sprinters with more West African ancestry run faster than black sprinters with more European ancestry? Do white players and sprinters with more West African ancestry play better or run faster than white players with more European ancestry?
These shouldn’t be particularly difficult questions to answer.
They’re certainly not easy ones. Especially when EVERYONE agrees that culture and society play a role. Trying to completely account for those things is, to your point about intelligence and opportunity, difficult to do.
Here’s what we do know. We know that for some reasons, the fasters runners in the world will have West African genes. I don’t know if it’s “more” of it, or a specific gene, or a few of them, or one of them that must interact with a certain European gene. No one does. But we do know that there is something going on genetically that is tied to great speed. Sprinting is a great place to look because it has a very low acquired skill component, and when one is young the pool of competition is “everyone”.
It seems clear that for sprinting and the speed positions ion football that (and a lesser extent basketball, due to a higher level of acquired skill that come into play) that society/culture do play a role. Again, no one disputes that. But when you look at the best of the best (Olympics, NFL, NBA), that the winning combination is training PLUS more of something from West Africa. If you remove the latter component, you get a completely different set of stars than you do when they are included.
You keep saying you want experimentation. Damn, we have that in the areas I mentioned. Take the speed positions in football or sprinting: we start out with, say, a pool of ALL 10-year-old males. They all run around the playground. They all idolize rich super-star athletes, and they all dream of being on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And as they play, they all know who is fast and who isn’t. When they begin to compete against kids from other neighborhoods, then goo to college, the best of the best from each old neighbor compete against each other. And when you keep taking the best of the best and having them compete with each other for the very view slots available, you find that blacks are wildly overrepresented. Especially when you take into account that they are a small part of the population.
Why do you think that is? It seems absurd to not grant that there is something about West African genes that correlates with great speed. We have an experiment called the NFL. Another called the NBA. And another called the Olympics. Now that these areas are open to all comers, we see what the elite group looks like. And it does not look like the population generally.
Again why do you think this is?
Now, this has nothing to do with the discussion about intelligence. We’re talking speed. What explanation seems reasonable to you?
A genetic explanation (as a hypothesis) is perfectly reasonable. But that doesn’t mean “West African genes” – it means something to do with the genes of black and white sprinters. Most of those black sprinters probably have West African and European (and possibly other) genetic ancestry. Do the black sprinters with more West African ancestry run faster than the black sprinters with less? Is it just West African ancestry, or does Central or Southern African ancestry contribute? How about the mix/interaction of West African and European ancestry, or the mix of Native American ancestry? Why are Jamaica (and some other Caribbean countries) so massively over-represented?
It might be something to do with West African genes, or the interaction of various genes in ancestry, or it could even be fully explained by culture and society. It could even have nothing to do with “West African genes” as a broad group, considering that we’re just talking about a few dozen of the best sprinters ever, as opposed to differences in big populations – maybe some tiny group in Africa (or even perhaps the native and extinct Caribs of the Caribbean islands) that has some mutation that helps one run just a tenth of a second faster in a sprint spread its genetic legacy among a very small portion of modern people who happen to be considered “black”.
“West African genes” is such a broad category, and includes such a wide variety of people (including groups of people who probably run pretty slow on average), that it’s almost useless in such a discussion. I’m not ready at all to conclude that some difference in this massive category explains disparities at the tip-top of the fastest runners in the world.
The questions I ask are reasonable – within black sprinters, who runs faster? Within black basketball players, who plays better? Do the best American black sprinters and American black basketball players have higher proportions of African (or West African) ancestry than the average African American? If they don’t (and I don’t know the answer), then that suggests that it’s something about being “black”, as opposed to having West African ancestry, that is responsible for the disparity in athletic outcomes at the very top.
These existing “experiments” in the NFL and NBA that you describe, magellan01, aren’t about genetics – they’re about social categorization. In the NFL do black DBs, WRs, and RBs have more West African genetic ancestry than black LBs, OL, and DL? Do black point guards have more West African ancestry than black power forwards and centers?
We don’t know the answer to these questions, but they would actually tell us something about genetics – any current stats about disparities in sports only tell us about social categorization… something about being “black” makes one more likely, statistically, to play in the NBA, and to play RB, WR, or DB in the NFL. But whatever it is, it may or may not be genetics, and even if it is genetics, it may or may not be something special about West African genetics.
No, or at least not until you answer my question, which I’ve asked you many times before: What do you believe is the best explanation for the test-score gap? Do you believe that black people are inherently inferior in intelligence, on average, due to genetics?
What is the supposed difference between the american sports and the international football? What is the special physical skills? It seems very strange that certain kinds of americans draw such big conclusions about genetics from their small set of sports.
of course it is possible there are some advantages, the example of the great dominance in the marathoning of the Kenyan Kalenjin and the east african peoples who seem very close to them physically (but not of all the east africans, a certain very small set of them…).
but it is very strange how this “one drop” idea is so fixed in some minds.
Nitpicking opinions marked explicitly with “probably” that have very little to do with the main point of the argument don’t achieve much in GD, even if you try and continuously dodge questions about the thread topic.
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Nitpicking opinions marked explicitly with “probably” that have very little to do with the main point of the argument don’t achieve much in GD, even if you try and continuously dodge questions about the thread topic.
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On what evidence do you believe it is probable? If you have no evidence, then it is not probable.
If it has “very little to do with the main point of the argument”, why did you post it?
So the one drop and black and white analysis of these concepts becomes much more silly, even if we forget about the very strange idea that saying ‘west africa’ says one thing about a genetic heritage in pretending that an akan is just like a oulouf or a peul. (or why in some fashion somehow specific american sports say very much about the genetics of the west africans and people descended from them but global sports like the football do not so much).
yes actually you are. But it seems either you lack the knowledge to understand that you are or some other thing intervenes. you aare making an assertion that is embedded about the coherence of the idea of the genetics and the black role, it is fundamental to the preusmptions you make, but it is not coherent to any of the science. It is the naive … ah what did they say above, the x-man understanding.
What do you believe is the best explanation for the test-score gap? Do you believe that black people are inherently inferior in intelligence, on average, due to genetics?
There is another problem with the attempts to use sprinters and the NBA as an argument in the discussion of intelligence.
We are not looking at populations either in aggregate or average. It is hypothetically possible that there is some strand of genetic material running through West African populations that manifests in outliers who achieve the very best performances. This says nothing about West Africans, in general. On the other side of that continent we have an example in distant running: the Kalenjin of Ethiopia are one limited group that has provided amazing marathon runners, but they are outliers even among Ethiopians and, certainly, among East Africans. They have a culture in which distance running is widely promoted, but there may well be a genetic component.
However, they remain outliers for East Africans.
Taking the prevalence of outliers among one group to make claims about the entire group is baseless without actual evidence. Using that flawed analogy to compare the average qualities of differing groups is nonsense. Until someone presents evidence for the relative average differences in speeds between peoples of West African and other ethnic backgrounds, the whole discussion is too flawed to use in a serious discussion. It is meaningless.
Not all genes are different. The vast majority of genes do not vary over populations, or related species even. The genes that do vary, do not all change at the same rate.
Changes in any genes that may affect athletic performance, indicate nothing about changes to genes that may affect intellect.
There are two massive gaps in your reasoning: Lets try baby steps again.
Gap one: Black and white Americans average gene pools differ —> Every genetically influenced trait varies.
No. That chain is wrong. Bad reasoning. Skin color is influenced by genes. The difference in skin color between blacks and whites are large. Height is influenced by genetics. The difference in average height between blacks and whites are minute. Tay–Sachs Disease is a genetic disorder. It can strike in any population, but there is no difference in incidence between American Whites and Blacks. Some other populations do have have higher incidences.
The fact that a gene can vary between populations does not mean that it does.
Gap two: Some genes having changed means other genes influencing very different things have changed too.
No. That is bad reasoning too. This is where I detect the influence of X-men style evolution. Consider: The X-men could have a member called Very-Tall Man. Who has a genetic mutation causing him to be much taller than his relatives. This is consistent with how real-world genetics work. Very-Tall Man could in fact be produced in a single generation by real-world genetics.
Now let us look at Nightcrawler. Most of his physiological traits are biologically possible. Prehensile tail, oversized canines, slick black fur, physiologically different but functional hands and feet. Nightcrawler, however, could in no way be realistically produced in a single generation. These traits will be influenced by many genes, some of which influence other traits as well, and require many, many separate functional modifications.
It would take a vastly longer time for evolution, even in an environment where Nightcrawlers traits were strictly advantageous, to produce such changes.
So: The fact that there is time for**one monogenetic **trait to change does not in any way relate to how long it would take a different, polygenetic trait to change.