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I guess malanthrop has decided to take a page from ron lambert's "you are blinded from reality!" playbook.
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quote:Ignore test scores if you want. I know many blacks who are smarter than me but it shouldn't be racist to point out on average they underperform.
It is when you blithely ignore all other conditions such as social strata, environment, economic opportunities and health and base your conclusion solely on race.
It's not fear of offense. It's a fear of how believing in such short-sighted assumptions will color how you think about other topics. If you can "prove" blacks are better at some things -- basketball, sprinting, dancing -- you can then assume that whites are better at others -- raising families, not committing crimes, etc. Neither assumption is founded.
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: I am just not politically correct. No group of people is superior, all exceptional in their own ways and full of variability that defies the norm. Pit bulls are dangerous and often violent but I owned one that slept with cats and was afraid of flying paper bags.
Oh God DAMMIT you are a douche.
quote: I bet you're afraid to state that the average black male has a higher vertical leap. You're gagged by your notions of political correctness and blinded from reality by your fear of offence. (sic)
:sigh: Dear ****ing christ how many times do you have to do this?
No. Mal, I would *not* be afraid to state such a thing had I studied it, and found it to be true.
I would be horrified, however, to be caught saying the utterly idiotic things you have said regarding race here in this thread. You now revert to a position of disinterested but liberated free thinker. You are a complete idiot, if you think there is anyone here who isn't wise to your game. In fact, I just think you're a complete idiot regardless.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Clive, modern humans emerged from Africa tens of thousands of years ago, however they continually intermarried and spread their genes back and forth during all that time. Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA show that all living humans have single common ancestors of more recent origin roughly according to what region they originate from. It is believed, for instance, that the Western and Central European common ancestor may have been as recent as 1,000 AD. That is, all people of western European decent share a common ancestor at a remove of 1,000 years. Globally, with a couple of major exceptions, the single common ancestor lived at some time between 2,000 BC and 0 AD. in order to cover all remote populations, that number would have to be scale back slightly, but the most recent common ancestor of the majority of the world's population is probably no less recent than 3,000 years. I don't want you to get confused here- there are still ancestors who are shared by some people, and not by others, however all humans today have been proven to be linked by common ancestors of both sexes, and those links are recent, meaning that intermarriage among disparate populations happened. If you push back into human history far enough, you arrive at a time in which all humans then living can be grouped as either common ancestors of all modern humans, or those have no living ancestors at all.
It sounds like you're confusing yourself, because you're saying some really obvious things (all humans share a common ancestor! Well yes, all living creatures too) and others that can possibly be subtlety misleading. It might be true that all Europeans share a common ancestor going back to whatever date your list, but that says nothing about common ancestors between the five major races (Caucasians, black africans, Asians, and Australian Aborginines.) There might be recent common ancestry within these groups -- i.e, central and northern europeans -- but that says noting about Europeans and Asians, who could separated by tens of thousands of years. The point of contention is not the differences between an Englishman and a Swede but that between the Swede and a Nigerian.
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Clive, you are the one confused. The most recent common ancestor for all people of all races is generally estimated to be three to ten thousand years ago, with more recent being considered more likely.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: No, this is not clear at all. Research into such phenomena have not shown that genetics are responsible for these traits. However, research does show that populations living in different areas rapidly adapt to their environments, much faster than evolution could possibly account for. There are some theories, including some involving epigenetics, that try to account for these changes. Some theories suggest that the expression of genes is influenced by the environment in ways that cause the organism (such as a human being) to change without their DNA changing. There is some evidence to suggest that famine, disease, and climate can cause populations to alter the expression of their genes at a cellular level, and change their physiology, ostensibly to adapt to their environment. Research has shown that populations change in outward appearance when they are relocated to a new environment, even when they do not intermarry. These changes can be multi-generational, and occur outside the process of natural selection, effecting the whole population at once.
Why are African Americans overrepresented then in sprinting events? They've been sharing the same environment as other groups for hundreds of years.
quote: And this in its entirety ignores an even better and more demonstrable explanation, that West African society happens to strongly support the development of long distance runners because for many reasons, that is a popular sport in that region. Because West Africans can gain prestige and money by becoming great runners, the whole country will naturally have a larger pool of professional running candidates, the same way that the vast majority of American football players are Americans. Americans are not genetically superior at American football, we simply have a big system in place to select people with skills suitable to playing the game. That's why the world's best hockey players are Czechs, Russians, and Canadians, and why Europeans beat America at soccer despite our population being larger than any European country. Are you going to argue that Latin people are genetically superior soccer players? Because the supposition is just as ridiculous.
I don't deny that some things can be explained by culture.
Yes, the best hockey players are Russians/Canadians. Perhaps that's because the only talent pool that's being selected are from the few regions that are interested in the sport.
On the other hand, springing is an event that's open to everyone, and which nearly every country attempts to compete in. Why would Western Africans prefer sprinting over long distance running? Why would East Africans prefer long distance running over short distance running? Indeed, you would think that all running events would be of interest to these athletes, but how odd, they end up preferring the very same running events their bodies are optimized for...
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Clive, you are the one confused. The most recent common ancestor for all people of all races is generally estimated to be three to ten thousand years ago, with more recent being considered more likely.
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That doesn't seem right, fugu. IIRC, there were humans in the Americas certainly as early as 12000 BCE, and possibly even before that, and it seems to me that they must have been reproductively isolated when the Bering Strait land bridge went under. Similarly the original migration into Australia was aided by land bridges, and that's been traced back as far as 40000 BCE, if I've got my memory straight.
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KoM: that isn't relevant; the only question is if everyone alive today shares at least one ancestor, and there's plenty of traffic with those locations at the moment.
edit: also, though not really relevant, both the Americas and Australia had regular (though infrequent, especially in the case of Australia) contact with the outside world. It isn't like people crossed over and then no people came there. The Americas had quite frequent contacts, especially from eastern Russia/northern Europe, and Australia had a number from the mainland. While it takes a lot of migration to significantly change an area's genetics, it doesn't take much at all to become part of an area's genetics. The isolation does push the time back quite a bit at which every person is a common ancestor of everyone alive today.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: KoM: that isn't relevant; the only question is if everyone alive today shares at least one ancestor, and there's plenty of traffic with those locations at the moment.
Of course, and some ad-mixture has resulted from this. Amerindians seem to be few in numbers and a lot of indigenous Australians seem to be mixed. That doesn't negate though the impact being seperated for tens of thousands of years has had on different populations.
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quote:KoM: that isn't relevant; the only question is if everyone alive today shares at least one ancestor, and there's plenty of traffic with those locations at the moment.
Ok, I see what you're saying. But it seems to me that this is not the right metric for measuring the degree to which races are genetically separated, because it depends rather strongly on low-probability events. (Not your fault, I know; Clive brought it up.) Rather one should look at something like the degree to which n-th generation ancestors overlap on average. For example, I likely share more great^10-grandparents with you than with someone picked at random in Zimbabwe.
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quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: It sounds like you're confusing yourself, because you're saying some really obvious things (all humans share a common ancestor! Well yes, all living creatures too) and others that can possibly be subtlety misleading. It might be true that all Europeans share a common ancestor going back to whatever date your list, but that says nothing about common ancestors between the five major races (Caucasians, black africans, Asians, and Australian Aborginines.) There might be recent common ancestry within these groups -- i.e, central and northern europeans -- but that says noting about Europeans and Asians, who could separated by tens of thousands of years. The point of contention is not the differences between an Englishman and a Swede but that between the Swede and a Nigerian.
No, Clive. There are no "major five races." That is the point, the idea comes from the theory of parallel development of human races, which has been shown by genetic studies to be false. All human populations exist on a spectrum, and are not divided into discrete racial paradigms. The idea that they *are* divided as such is one fostered by simple lack of familiarity with the world's actual racial diversity. Phenotype variations among human populations are also accounted for in many ways *other* than significant genetic differences, such as epigenetics, or the expression of genes caused by the environment, rather than the development of new genes in different areas. There is as much or more, I repeat myself: as much or more genetic variation between two individuals of the same race, as between two individuals of different races. That is not a theory, that is a fact. It means that the genes of two white Europeans from the same region and the genes of a white European and a South American of Mayan decent will show about the same amount of actual variation. The variation specifically connected with phenotype (appearance) is highly visible, but accounts for an extremely small amount of a person's actual genetic code. You, like all humans, are used to spotting that difference because it is a valid way of distinguishing between people according to their origins. It is, however, *not* useful in saying anything about their actual genes. That is an assumption you are making, and a wrong one, and you have persistently ignored anyone who has pointed out these facts to you. They are not alternate theories, they are facts. You are wrong, and these facts prove that you are wrong.
quote: Why are African Americans overrepresented then in sprinting events? They've been sharing the same environment as other groups for hundreds of years.
You answer this question yourself.
quote: Yes, the best hockey players are Russians/Canadians. Perhaps that's because the only talent pool that's being selected are from the few regions that are interested in the sport.
Keep in mind that African American sprinters did *not* dominate the sport 100 years ago. Whites did. Now you may point out that most current records in sprinting were set by Africans or African Americans. That's true, but current records in most sports have been set very recently. Records in swimming have been set by predominately by white Americans. Training and selection, nutrition, medical advances, and technical improvements have led to increased performance across all races in all sports. Current Black American dominance in certain sports is purely cultural, and there is no compelling evidence to suggest that performance has improved among the black community faster than any other, given similar levels of emphasis within any given culture. This is the same reason that Japanese, Korean and Chinese classical musicians are now becoming well known in the western world, where that genre of music originates- it is not because Asians are superior genetically at music, but that many Asian cultures have ideally suited their people to pursue classical music as a profession- specifically because Asian agricultural traditions and methods (and thus language and education) placed a much higher emphasis on mathematical skill than in many other cultures. Growing rice requires a different cultural attitude than growing grain. That is only one of the reasons that can be pointed out as purely cultural. And these effects, Clive, are massive. They are not negligible. Everything we find out about genetics tells us that the role of genes is insignificant, while everything we learn about cultural history tells us that culture is massively important.
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: On the other hand, springing is an event that's open to everyone, and which nearly every country attempts to compete in. Why would Western Africans prefer sprinting over long distance running? Why would East Africans prefer long distance running over short distance running? Indeed, you would think that all running events would be of interest to these athletes, but how odd, they end up preferring the very same running events their bodies are optimized for...
You are making an assumption that "their bodies are optimized for" this event because they furnish the top athletes in this event at the Olympic games. Think about it- that's a post-hoc rationalization. As you say, East African Olympians win at those events, despite everyone else also furnishing their own top athletes for the event as well.
But does East Africa have a highly commercialized professional sports industry? Do East African kids dream of being baseball players and American football players so that they can become rich and successful and renowned in their own cultures? No. And so there are many people who take up running who, in another life, might have been basketball stars, or running backs, or swimmers, or anything else. Imagine if the US had none of the commercialized pro sports that we currently do. Imagine how many of our most talented athletes might seek notice by entering into Olympic sports, rather than pro sports.
Imagine, please, on a related note, that White Americans represented the lowest income racial group in the US, rather than the highest. Imagine whites had less opportunity for education, lived in poorer neighborhoods, and had fewer prospects on the whole for making money in business, working in government, or becoming artists. How many driven and strong willed young people who turn their sites not on being musicians or artists or CEOs or engineers or scientists or doctors, but on being professional athletes? What if being a sports hero was even more highly valued in white society than being a Senator, or a businessman, or a surgeon, or a teacher? Don't you think the pool of potentially great athletes would be bigger?
Why does Cuba dominate Olympic boxing even though Cuba has no professional boxing circuit comparable to the American one? Because, duh, the best Cuban boxers participate in the Olympics, whereas the best American boxers make 20 million for a fight in Vegas, and aren't eligible to be Olympians. Cuban Olympic boxers are on average much older and more experienced than boxers from other countries, because they have no professional circuit, and so remain eligible, and place a high emphasis on the Olympic competition, while Americans don't.
So you can argue till the cows come home that Cubans are genetically superior boxers, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do so when you are taking your evidence from a sample population that is vastly different in age and experience from most other Olympian boxers.
In short, Clive, you're really just not thinking these things through very well.
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quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: It sounds like you're confusing yourself, because you're saying some really obvious things (all humans share a common ancestor! Well yes, all living creatures too) and others that can possibly be subtlety misleading. It might be true that all Europeans share a common ancestor going back to whatever date your list, but that says nothing about common ancestors between the five major races (Caucasians, black africans, Asians, and Australian Aborginines.) There might be recent common ancestry within these groups -- i.e, central and northern europeans -- but that says noting about Europeans and Asians, who could separated by tens of thousands of years. The point of contention is not the differences between an Englishman and a Swede but that between the Swede and a Nigerian.
No, Clive. There are no "major five races." That is the point, the idea comes from the theory of parallel development of human races, which has been shown by genetic studies to be false.
It might have, at one point. The multi-regional development of human races is discredited, but it doesn't discredit the idea of "race" which can be accounted by a simpler theory: namely, that homo-sapien sapien arose, went separate ways and locally adapted to different eviromental conditions. The broadest differences that resulted from these adaptations is what constitutes racial differences, the physical and, perhaps, psychological.
quote: Phenotype variations among human populations are also accounted for in many ways *other* than significant genetic differences, such as epigenetics, or the expression of genes caused by the environment, rather than the development of new genes in different areas
African Americans have been in America for hundreds of years, yet they still earn the majority of medals in sprinting events and dominate overwhelmingly in basketball. Which better accounts for this -- epigenitcs, mere genetics, or a cultural explanation? How can epigenetics explain this? The cultural argument on the other hand is hogwash -- all sorts of young men from all sorts of ethnicities go for sprinting events and basketball, yet how odd that African Americans manage to come on top overwhelmingly. Surely a genetic cause is probable?
quote:There is as much or more, I repeat myself: as much or more genetic variation between two individuals of the same race, as between two individuals of different races. That is not a theory, that is a fact
It's an irrelevant fact.
me: the average man is taller than the average woman.
you: NO. There's a greater variance of height WITHIN each gender than BETWEEN the genders!
It isn't necessary to answer the conclusions you draw from this point.
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I don't believe epigenetics explains much about sports performance. I was talking about racial features, not sports. You are conflating my two points, but they are not the same point. My points are a) phenotypes are governed by more than our genes, and b) sports performance, especially as the function of an average over a large population are not government by our genes, *at all*. Individuals *can* be genetically better suited to a certain sport, but populations are not. Populations, luckily, have lots of individuals in them, and since the variations among one racial group are a broad as between two, as I have pointed out, there's a running star in every populations, whether he trains his whole life to win in the Olympics, or not. That's a simple point Clive, and you just don't believe it. But it's not a theory of mine, or a supposition, or a rationalization. It is fact. It has been proven to be true.
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quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: On the other hand, springing is an event that's open to everyone, and which nearly every country attempts to compete in. Why would Western Africans prefer sprinting over long distance running? Why would East Africans prefer long distance running over short distance running? Indeed, you would think that all running events would be of interest to these athletes, but how odd, they end up preferring the very same running events their bodies are optimized for...
You are making an assumption that "their bodies are optimized for" this event because they furnish the top athletes in this event at the Olympic games.
I am not making any assumptions. Please see the book Taboo by Jon Entine on what these physical differences are and how they bestow certain athletic advantages and disadvantages.
quote: But does East Africa have a highly commercialized professional sports industry? Do East African kids dream of being baseball players and American football players so that they can become rich and successful and renowned in their own cultures? No. And so there are many people who take up running who, in another life, might have been basketball stars, or running backs, or swimmers, or anything else. Imagine if the US had none of the commercialized pro sports that we currently do. Imagine how many of our most talented athletes might seek notice by entering into Olympic sports, rather than pro sports.
Why are you repeating arguments I've already addressed? We can't make any assumptions about how good one race would be in a sport it isn't culturally familiar with and isn't interested in -- though perhaps we can guess which other sports they'd be good at from the sports we know they're already successful in. I can't say how good East Africans would be at Baseball. But I do see they're one of the few groups of people who are overrepresented in having gold medals in long distance events. The underlying cause of this I can theorize about. Why East Africans aren't great hockey players is really beside the point.
quote: Imagine, please, on a related note, that White Americans represented the lowest income racial group in the US, rather than the highest. Imagine whites had less opportunity for education, lived in poorer neighborhoods, and had fewer prospects on the whole for making money in business, working in government, or becoming artists. How many driven and strong willed young people who turn their sites not on being musicians or artists or CEOs or engineers or scientists or doctors, but on being professional athletes? What if being a sports hero was even more highly valued in white society than being a Senator, or a businessman, or a surgeon, or a teacher? Don't you think the pool of potentially great athletes would be bigger?
I don't think so, because people don't lie to themselves. First of all, high end athletic talent is almost always identified early on -- perhaps middle school and high school. The average professional basketball player was identified in high school. I doubt that many black kids, after seeing themselves outshined athletically by their peers, still hold on to the hope of making it, if they even entertained the notion in the first place. On the other hand, there could be a large talented pool of black athletes to select from, because blacks on average could have certain genes that make them better athletes. There need not be a greater will and drive on their part -- that is, greater than that of other ethnic groups -- for them to out compete other groups in this fashion. They're just advantaged genetically.
And you go on -- boy how you go on -- offering cultural explanations that aren't necessarily incorrect but are so beside the point.
quote: Why does Cuba dominate Olympic boxing even though Cuba has no professional boxing circuit comparable to the American one? Because, duh, the best Cuban boxers participate in the Olympics, whereas the best American boxers make 20 million for a fight in Vegas, and aren't eligible to be Olympians. Cuban Olympic boxers are on average much older and more experienced than boxers from other countries, because they have no professional circuit, and so remain eligible, and place a high emphasis on the Olympic competition, while Americans don't.
Take it easy on that strawman.
quote: So you can argue till the cows come home that Cubans are genetically superior boxers, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do so when you are taking your evidence from a sample population that is vastly different in age and experience from most other Olympian boxers.
You picked a scenario where you knew you could offer an easy cultural explanation.
Please explain why East Africans can't seem to win short distance events and West African can't seem to win long distance events. Why wouldn't East African runners be interested in short events and West Africans interested in long events? What is the cultural explanation for this remarkable phenomenon?
quote:In short, Clive, you're really just not thinking these things through very well.
Talk about delusional. Please save such jibes for when you aren't making hilariously bad arguments.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: there's a running star in every populations, whether he trains his whole life to win in the Olympics, or not. That's a simple point Clive, and you just don't believe it.
Altnough most of the top long-distance runners in the world are Kenyans, there is one white guy, his name escapes me, who is a current world-champion-level long-distance runner. He is surrounded by Kenyans when he competes, but he's right up there with them in terms of performance.
Given that, common sense would tell you that, yes, long-distance running ability is highly correlated with genetics, but those genetic tendencies don't conform perfectly to general race and sub-race classifications. I wouldn't say that Kenyans/Ethiopians are genetically better at long distance running, on average, except for the fact that they kick the crap out of everybody else on the planet at it so regularly. They really do. It's so obvious. However, there are some good long-distance runners from other racial groups too.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I don't believe epigenetics explains much about sports performance. I was talking about racial features, not sports. You are conflating my two points, but they are not the same point. My points are a) phenotypes are governed by more than our genes, and b) sports performance, especially as the function of an average over a large population are not government by our genes, *at all*.
You need to back this up with anything. Like reasoning that isn't entirely comprised of the easiest cultural explanation you can find (The best hockey players are Russian and Canadian because practically no one else cares for the sport!)
quote:Individuals *can* be genetically better suited to a certain sport, but populations are not. Populations, luckily, have lots of individuals in them, and since the variations among one racial group are a broad as between two, as I have pointed out, there's a running star in every populations, whether he trains his whole life to win in the Olympics, or not
From the gender that is known as "male," more superior runners can be selected than from the gender that is known as "female." However, it is wrong to say that men are better runners as a whole population than the female population. This obvious factoid is endorsed by Orininco.
quote: That's a simple point Clive, and you just don't believe it.
You are an obstinate person. I don't disagree with the point you're trying to make. Hell, for all we know there might be some women who are better runners than every man alive. That does not impact the statistical reality, however. DO YOU GET THIS?
quote: But it's not a theory of mine, or a supposition, or a rationalization. It is fact. It has been proven to be true.
Do go on stating obvious things no one has contested.
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quote: quote:Individuals *can* be genetically better suited to a certain sport, but populations are not. Populations, luckily, have lots of individuals in them, and since the variations among one racial group are a broad as between two, as I have pointed out, there's a running star in every populations, whether he trains his whole life to win in the Olympics, or not
From the gender that is known as "male," more superior runners can be selected than from the gender that is known as "female." However, it is wrong to say that men are better runners as a whole population than the female population. This obvious factoid is endorsed by Orininco.
I mean really, Clive, I know you're dense and have trouble with spelling and grammar, science, history, math, and probably a lot else of which you just haven't revealed your gleeful ignorance, but really? That statement follows? If there is no significant genetic differences between races, then therefore there are no physical differences between sexes? Really Clive? Really really? I don't know, I would feel insulted if you hadn't gone out of your way to make yourself look like a complete idiot. So you've proved my point unassisted. That's great, I can go home happy after this.
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Fair's fair. Clive is making reasonable arguments based in statistics, here, and you lot are giving him the abuse and ad homs. The point about gender is well taken; the spread of characteristics within a race does not invalidate that the means can be different, any more than it does for gender. No, not even if the within-race standard deviation is larger than the difference in the means.
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Clive/KoM: returning to the earlier conversation, if that was what you wanted to argue, then you shouldn't have said you were arguing against the least common ancestor being so recent. I never said anything about populations separating or not. I just wanted to correct Clive's fallacious rejection of the least common ancestor being so recent.
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quote: quote:Individuals *can* be genetically better suited to a certain sport, but populations are not. Populations, luckily, have lots of individuals in them, and since the variations among one racial group are a broad as between two, as I have pointed out, there's a running star in every populations, whether he trains his whole life to win in the Olympics, or not
From the gender that is known as "male," more superior runners can be selected than from the gender that is known as "female." However, it is wrong to say that men are better runners as a whole population than the female population. This obvious factoid is endorsed by Orininco.
I mean really, Clive, I know you're dense and have trouble with spelling and grammar, science, history, math, and probably a lot else of which you just haven't revealed your gleeful ignorance, but really?
Wow. It's an all out flame war now, is it? F*ck you too.
quote: That statement follows? If there is no significant genetic differences between races, then therefore there are no physical differences between sexes?
Nope. The statement of yours I responded to did not assert that there are no differences between the races. You were stating a truism -- there's more variation within a group than between groups:
quote: Individuals *can* be genetically better suited to a certain sport, but populations are not. Populations, luckily, have lots of individuals in them, and since the variations among one racial group are a broad as between two, as I have pointed out, there's a running star in every populations, whether he trains his whole life to win in the Olympics, or not
I mocked this with the gender example, and I guess I must've hit a nerve because you responded primarily with insults.
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I was really happy to ignore your bad arguments, Orinco, until you attacked me in the HIV thread. You made it clear that you take people ignoring your long-winded posts as evidence that they can't refute what you have to say. You're mistaken.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Clive/KoM: returning to the earlier conversation, if that was what you wanted to argue, then you shouldn't have said you were arguing against the least common ancestor being so recent. I never said anything about populations separating or not. I just wanted to correct Clive's fallacious rejection of the least common ancestor being so recent.
For the record, I wasn't arguing anything in particular in that discussion, I was just rather confused that the common ancestor should be so recent. Thanks for the new data. Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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It is a very interesting phenomenon, as is the "everyone was a common ancestor" time that greatly predates it (while still being remarkably recent). Simply put, much as we talk about people in different places being different, the variance of human phenotype & genotype among all humans is tiny, and, compared even to that small variance, the variance among all humans but those largely descended from a few tribes in Africa is almost nothing.
We're just not very diverse animals.
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fugu13, supposing that Europeans never settled the Americas and Australia, how far back do you think the common ancestor goes?
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quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: Please explain why East Africans can't seem to win short distance events and West African can't seem to win long distance events.
Even if differences in running among the tiny number of world-class runners were well-correlated with genetics, that doesn't tell you anything about whether or not genetics contributes significantly to the variation seen across the population of the whole country, or the world.
That's what you've claimed, that's what you need to show. So stop harping on the tiny number of elite atheletes, and show the evidence that genetics correlates with what you say it correlates with in the general population.
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quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: Please explain why East Africans can't seem to win short distance events and West African can't seem to win long distance events.
Even if differences in running among the tiny number of world-class runners were well-correlated with genetics, that doesn't tell you anything about whether or not genetics contributes significantly to the variation seen across the population of the whole country, or the world.
What if from a country one sub-population kept producing the world class athletes, and from the world one region kept producing the best world-class runners? In a sport in which the whole world attempts to compete in? Doesn't that tell you something about that sub-population? About that region?
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It can, but you completely miss out from that potential by angling for wholly simplistic causes that you would like to believe and refuse to drop if they are shown not to actually be proven as strongly as you WANT them to be.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: It can, but you completely miss out from that potential by angling for wholly simplistic causes that you would like to believe and refuse to drop if they are shown not to actually be proven as strongly as you WANT them to be.
Just because something is simplistic doesn't mean it isn't true. Why would I want to believe that the human races differ in important ways? It's an uncomfortable and awkward truth, especially for myself, as I am a black African. *I* don't benefit from such facts in any way, but truth is truth.
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Clive: probably not more than another thousand years or so. As I said before, it doesn't take much interaction (and there were plenty of people interacting with the Americas and with Australia) to lead to genetic mixing. Most of the time would be time for the genetic heritage to spread across the more isolated places in the Americas/Australia after being introduced, I suspect.
Of course, it would also have to be the case that Europeans studiously avoided flying anywhere near Australia/the Americas. If you're imagining a modern world where there are still nations there that interact with everyone, just they're mostly populated with descendants of native americans/aborigines, then I don't think that would push things back at all. There would still have been copious genetic exchange.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Shush you, you mentioner of "copious genetic exchange!" Don't you know that this is a family forum?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: Please explain why East Africans can't seem to win short distance events and West African can't seem to win long distance events.
Even if differences in running among the tiny number of world-class runners were well-correlated with genetics, that doesn't tell you anything about whether or not genetics contributes significantly to the variation seen across the population of the whole country, or the world.
What if from a country one sub-population kept producing the world class athletes, and from the world one region kept producing the best world-class runners? In a sport in which the whole world attempts to compete in? Doesn't that tell you something about that sub-population? About that region?
No. At most it would tell me
1) This particular allele correlates strongly with the fastest times among the most elite runners.
2) This allele happenes to be more common in a certain small population than it is in the species as a whole.
Your "selection is everything!!!!1111" thinking of evolution is decades out of date. Those alleles could be concentrated in those populations by chance alone, just due to genetic drift.
And that still says nothing about genetic contributions to anything in the general population.
I'm perfectly willing to grant that there are strong QTLs for fast running times among the msot elite runners. You show the studies where the QTLs are just as strong in the general population for running, or better yet, the psychological measures that you brought up in the first place, and then we'll have some facts.
But expecting everyone to extrapolate from a directly physical QTL among a tiny sub-population, and conclude something about a much less straightforward phenotype among a whole country full of people is ridiculous.
So let the Pubmed links roll. Heck, the more ambitious among us can follow along with you and your analysis of the studies and data with R/QTL. I've been meaning to mess around with that software some more, this would be a fine opportunity.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Feb 2007
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AS much as I love dogs, I have to say that this is your problem. People aren't dogs, and individual breeds are easily identified and categorized.
People are far more complex, as are the issues you are addressing. Simple doesn't mean correct, or even close.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I have a question for you, one that illuminates the entire problem with your approach, Mal.
What is the average vertical leap of an African American, and of an "average white guy"? Hell, what is an average white guy? What nationality? Because if your point IS correct, there should also be significant differences between nationalities of white people. The Scottish ancestors I have were minors and tenant farmers for at LEAST as many generations as we had slaves in this country.
You don't know, not without looking it up. I would bet on it, even if you don't admit it here.
Yet you have no problem stating facts you aren't sure of, based on racial stereotypes that aren't valid, with no way of measuring your results, and claiming it as fact.
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Yeah, I think he does, because he never seems to get all the way through someone's argument before he refutes it by making exactly the same suggestion the person has just gotten done saying is stupid and wrong. It would be well explained if you just assumed he never read more than half a post. ETA: well that's not very fair, maybe he just skims things. At one point he got aggity about my choosing an example that fit perfectly with my point. He said I "cherry-picked" it- as if I was supposed to a choose an example that didn't represent the phenomenon I was talking about in a clear way.
So, we have learned that A) Theories extrapolated from loosely related and generalized observations and tailored to fit preconceptions in an ad-hoc fashion are valid unless proven false (and even then, probably they're still true), and B) specific examples that add weight to any alternate theory are invalid, because they fit too well, and anyway they seem to invalidate "the logical theory," and so are obviously not meaningful.
I think were beneficial to his view of himself, Clive could accept and work up a defense of the theory that the moon is made of cheese.
"Your dismissal of the theory is shallow and leftist, you accept anything the scientific dogmatists throw at you! But the moon appears similar to cheese, and I have not myself been on it. Isn't it therefore logical to assume that perhaps there is some cheese content in the moon? If you can explain to me why the presence of cheese would cause the moon to stop orbiting the Earth, it might lend some credence to your theory, but as things are, you have given no credible reason why there CAN'T be cheese in the moon, and clearly because the moon looks cheesy, my theory that it is made of cheese and is therefore edible and an excellent natural resource is perfectly valid. Clearly Nasa cherry-picked a landing spot without as much cheese in the vicinity- but the recent rocket landings on the moon showed water, which is consistent with cheese... "
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Yeah, I think he does, because he never seems to get all the way through someone's argument before he refutes it by making exactly the same suggestion the person has just gotten done saying is stupid and wrong. It would be well explained if you just assumed he never read more than half a post. ETA: well that's not very fair, maybe he just skims things. At one point he got aggity about my choosing an example that fit perfectly with my point. He said I "cherry-picked" it- as if I was supposed to a choose an example that didn't represent the phenomenon I was talking about in a clear way.
Just because you claim assertions to be stupid and wrong doesn't make them so.
I got agitated about you choosing what is a specific sports phenomenon that has a cultural explanation and assuming somehow my assertions conflicted with it. It was glaringly poor reasoning, because I never claimed "every instance of a sport being dominated by an ethnicity, or a sport not having significant representations of ethnicity X, can be explained by genetics." Your point about Cuban boxers would have been a perfect refutation of the latter claim but you seem to have trouble distinguishing between what was and was not actually claimed.
quote: So, we have learned that A) Theories extrapolated from loosely related and generalized observations and tailored to fit preconceptions
What preconceptions?
quote: I think were beneficial to his view of himself, Clive could accept and work up a defense of the theory that the moon is made of cheese.
"I can't refute what he's saying, so I'll just make up a clearly bad argument and say his argument is just like that. Strawman? Pffft."
Posts: 532 | Registered: Feb 2009
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Clive, I just want to say that I am very aware that common sense shows that East Africans and West Africans, on average, have different levels of genetic ability for short versus long distance running. Any fool can see that.
What you're missing, or not saying, is that the IQ data doesn't support the conclusion that blacks are, on average, not as smart, as far as general intelligence.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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I actually think this is a really interesting concept. There definitely are varying physical characteristics between races, so it's not incomprehensible to think that there are varying psychological ones as well.
I guess the problem with this whole area of thought is that it always gets tied up in the IQ factor and is used to justify racism. If we can get beyond that and actually explore other psychological traits of races, beyond the "who is better" debate, I would be very interested in the results of that research. But I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon in our political climate... race is too much of a contentious issue and it will be for a long time.
Posts: 241 | Registered: Nov 2009
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