Well, why not? If Jews have higher tested IQs, and the hypothesis is that IQ is tied to race, surely that makes them a race?
I think the statistical differences in intelligence between blacks, whites, and asians are genetic. Yet people just assume that ‘genetic basis’ must be something obvious and direct like a bigger brain, but genes work in mysterious ways. Actually I think the genetic difference lies in how “nerdy” the races are. I mean that’s what you observe within a race, within a region, within a school. If you don’t have friends, you become smart. Blacks have lots of friends. You win some you lose some.
As for what ‘nerdiness’ actually is and why the difference: well that’s gonna be a big field of sociology and psychology some day. The day we start to understand a thing or two about the true dynamics of human society.
Not really in the sense that the Hmong would not considered a separate race, but would fall under Asians. But we all know that race as method biological classification is crap, I’m just trying to illustrate a point.
I think there’s some misunderstanding.
I’m not trying to argue Asians are smarter, but rather by accepting that Blacks are better athletes based on this sort of flimsy evidence, you should also believe that Asians are smarter too, based on less flimsy but still heavily flawed evidence. But clairobscur doesn’t seem to think so.
My point was you shouldn’t take ‘racial differences’ at face value and that people don’t tend to when it implies something less flattering about their own group.
So basically for some strange reason, people don’t seem to be half as enthusiastic about this side of the coin. Where’s my “seconded” and “thirded”?
Whoosh? Not sure what you mean convey even as a whoosh though.
This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong. It’s just at odds with reality.
Just relating some anecdotal experience here. I’ve done body work on athletic men, and in general the muscle shape between black men and white men tends to be different. White men are more likely to have wider stocker Gastroc’s where Black men are more likely to have longer more wirey ones. I am talking about terms of proportion. Black men also often have longer legs proportionally than white men. This may have something to do with it. The way the muscle itself is distributed.
Less flimsy? IQ, along with all other mental traits is notoriously highly dependant on upbringing, social class, and tons of others indeed cultural elements. Not even taking into account the way tests are conceived or administered, or their reliability. IQ is not determined genetically. Raise two identical twins in two different families and they won’t have the same IQ, even if there’s a correlation. Now, make the same experiment with physical traits, and find someone whose skin colour or blood group changes depending on whom raised him.
Then how should we take them? Faced with a blatantly obvious difference in the performance of different populations, that you do not deny, you’re making up a contrived explanation that involves some supposed expectations amongst the American black population that would somehow have magically spread around the world including in places where there are zero evidences that similar expectations exist.
Why do you refuse to consider that there could be an actual genetic basis for the observed different level of performance, when you know pretty well there are many such genetic variations between human populations? What exactly makes the possibility of a difference in the leg muscles unfathomable? Why should we provide a valid evolutionary explanation before envisioning this possibility? Could you tell me exactly what evolutionary pressure resulted in the pygmies being shorter? The Irish being more likely to be red haired than the Sicilians? The eyes of the Asians and Europeans being shaped differently? You even go on to mention an element that undermines your own position : the fact that African populations are more diverse than those found in any other part of the world, which precisely makes much more likely that some of these populations would present specific genetic traits not found elsewhere.
Then, if this was your point, you’re almost insulting and should probably review your perception of the state of mind of most posters on this board.
Besides, what is the “other side of the coin”? Is it somehow particularly unflattering to be able to run faster?
(Please excuse mistakes, first post*)
Tomndebb’s post on population subsets (rather than race) makes a great deal of sense when we consider the method by which the majority of the original (and thus the subsequent generations genetic heritage) black population were transported to, for example, Jamaica.
I’m assuming that the majority of slaves were removed from western Africa. Thus we may say that the population subset ‘Western African descent’ has superior genetics for sprinting. Much as the ‘Northern European’ subset has the genetic advantage for strongman-type events.
Of course, my assumption on the origin of slaves could be totally wrong. I suppose a look at the geographic distribution of sprint medallists within the African continent may provide some insight.
*Well, it’s been so long it feels like it.
Not a 100 meter dash, but what about Cliff Young of Australia? Cliff beat out people many years his junior in the Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon (544 miles), Cliff was 61 years of age at the time.
Wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)
Gotta chime in on the ethnic diversity of West Africa. Talking about a “West African” physical trait is not meaningful. I lived about an hour away from a tribe where nearly every male was over six feet tall. I lived about forty minutes from a tribe where it was rare to see someone taller 5’5. A walk down the street in my village would reveal as many body types and features as a walk down the street in New York. We are talking about the most genetically diverse place on the planet. The term “West African” gives you about as much a clue to someone’s physical make up as the term “American” does.
Furthermore, it’s a little absurd to say that ancient West Africans spent more time running from predators than other groups. Hunter and gatherer groups lived all over the world, and frankly the good hunters were the ones that successfully avoided the predators (and built good traps), not got in footraces with them. Anyway, West African people have been living in settlements with protections against wild beasts for thousands of years, and West Africa in particular has had periods of great political organization involving vast complicated empires, intercontinental trade and world-famous cities (Timbuktu, anyone?)
Anyway, every genetic group of people has it’s extremes. Someone once told me the exact number of people Yao Ming’s height in China- it’s in the thousands. You could have your own basketball league made of Chinese people of Yao Ming’s height.
What makes the key difference is out of X number of people with the body to be an Olympian, how many of those find and pursue the sport they are suited for? This is where culture comes in. A popular sport attracts a wider pool of people and gives them better training and more reasons to stick with it. So the people at the top are in general better.
As for running, it’s probably the least equipment heavy sport there is and I imagine it is a pretty good match for underdeveloped areas. A poor village kid is never going to become a world class golfer no matter what they do- the facilities they need just don’t exist. But they can become a good runner. Likewise, soccer needs only a field and something that can be used as a ball- wadded up old clothes were popular in Cameroon. And in American cities you see a lot less soccer, which needs a ton of space, and a lot more basketball, which can be played in small spaces.
They are black because the populations most likely to produce a genetic advantage in sprinting are black.
Genes alone don’t determine the final phenotypic expression for an individual but they enable a maximum potential. Upon that genetic substrate influences such as culture and training serve only to determine how far along the axis toward a maximum potential an individual will achieve.
It doesn’t matter if the phenotypic measurement is for athletic or mental ability. A genetically-related population cohort will have a distribution of individuals specific for that population. A “gifted” subset for a given population may well exceed the gifted subset of a different population (in addition to the average abilities also being different from one population to the next).
When the aliens (or anyone else unconcerned with the practical ramifications of recognizing that there are groups among the human population with varying genetically-based maximum potentials) pick their sprinter teams, someone is going to cry “foul” if one alien says “I get all the black guys.”
It’s quite true that the genetic diversity among black populations exists. But obviously subpopulations of gifted sprinters come from that super group more than non-black super groups.
Racial Modifiers. Jamaicans have +2 to sprinting.
Related Slate article
As with so many things, it is both nature and nurture. Trying to prove that it is exclusively one or the other is bound to fail.
By the way, an interesting fact the Slate article mentions is that “Runners of West African descent—which includes Jamaicans as well as most African-Americans—… held all but five of the 500 best times in the 100-meter dash”.
I don’t see color. You tell me they’re black, and I believe you, but I don’t see color.
/Colbert