World XC

[ronb]

So, prior to the this year's Commonwealth Games, I think we should have a dual meet between Nigeria and Kenya.
Events to be contested will be the 50 metres, 100 metres, 150 metres, 200 metres, 300 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres, 1500 metres, 3000 metres, 5000 metres, 10000 metres,
4 x 100 metre relay, and 4 x 1500 metre relay, both Men and Women...
Does anyone think there may be a trend in who wins these events? Does anyone deny it?
On what grounds? And how much money do you have to lose? Time to cut to the chase, and get rid of all the political/racial/sociological bulls**t...

[pq]

Apr 4, 2010 15:28:16 GMT -5 oldster said:

The whiff of racism happens when we are attracted to "racialist" (i.e. "genetic") explanations for concentrations of athletic talent: 1. In the absence of any hard evidence for such a thing, ...

Sorry, is it "racist" to point out that the vast majority of the world's best long distance runners come from a very small, localized part of the globe?

I think there's plenty of hard evidence that a concentration of specific athletic talent (long distance running ability) exists in a small part of eastern Africa. I think there's also plenty of hard evidence to suggest that the Japanese have, on average, a tendency to be better suited to long distance running than middle distance or sprinting (as one other specific "racialist" example). And that most of the world's best sprinters tend to have western African roots.

These are simple facts. The specific chain of cause and effect leading to these observable outcomes (including some element of "genetics," if that's the right word) may not be entirely clear. But to deny these facts on the grounds that stating them is racist (and therefore must have some evil motivation) is simply ignorant.

There's nothing inherently wrong or immoral about observing or stating differences among people, provided these differences are not used as a basis for denigrating, marginalizing or subjugating them. We're talking about concentrations of athletic prowess here. We should be allowed to engage in this discussion without being shouted down by the PC police.

[pmac]

Apr 4, 2010 21:17:15 GMT -5 ronb said:

So, prior to the this year's Commonwealth Games, I think we should have a dual meet between Nigeria and Kenya.
Events to be contested will be the 50 metres, 100 metres, 150 metres, 200 metres, 300 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres, 1500 metres, 3000 metres, 5000 metres, 10000 metres,
4 x 100 metre relay, and 4 x 1500 metre relay, both Men and Women...
Does anyone think there may be a trend in who wins these events? Does anyone deny it?
On what grounds? And how much money do you have to lose? Time to cut to the chase, and get rid of all the political/racial/sociological bulls**t...

Just for fun, the men's national records for both countries:

100 Kenya - 10.36, Nigeria 9.85
200 Kenya - 20.43, Nigeria 19.84
400 H - Kenya 48.24, Nigeria 48.50
400 - Kenya 44.18, Nigeria 44.17,
800 Kenya - 142.01, Nigeria 145.91
High Jump - Kenya 2.24, Nigeria 2.27
Pole Vault - Kenya 4.60, Nigeria 4.45
Long Jump - Kenya 8.12, Nigeria 8.27
Triple Jump - Kenya 17.26, Nigeria 17.12
4x100 - Kenya 39.47, Nigeria 37.91
4x400 - Kenya - 2.59.63, Nigeria 2.58.68

I'm sure you can all figure out where it goes after 800. I ignored a ton of events obviously- look 'em up if you really care enough.

[arseface]

Here's the main problem as I see it....

East Africans aren't exposed to our society of ridiculous eating and lifestyle habits. We (North Americans) as a majority, are fat asses, alcoholics, narcotic users...etc. There is definitely a ton of potential out there that is being wasted because of this. Furthermore, we have all sorts of other sports, that East Africans could never afford to play, that are taking a huge portion of our talent pool away from athletics. Therefore, the best athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia are focusing on running, while the best of our athletes our focused on other sports. Genetics play a part in body make up. East Africans aren't naturally 200+lbs type of people, like our football, baseball and hockey players, who are all elite athletes.

[oldster]

Apr 4, 2010 21:00:28 GMT -5 Roy said:

Oldster, with the lifestyle/cultural factors being far less significant in sprinting, do you believe there is any genetic advantage when it comes to the 100m?

Why would "lifestyle and cultural factors" be any less important in explaining patterns of performance in this event than in any other field of human endeavour? Why are Jewish men overrepresented in the field of comedy? Is there a "gene" or set of "genes" for comedy? Latino men are overrepresented in professional boxing. Is there a "Latino gene" for boxing?

I think you're thinking about "culture" and "lifestyle" in too narrow a way. Historically, groups of people become overrepresented in certain fields as much because of forces that have conspired to keep them out of other fields of human endeavour as because of a special talent for the work in question. When it comes to sub-Saharan Africa, the list of fields of endeavour that history has closed to the people and their enslaved diaspora is very long indeed. It is no wonder that they are overrepresented in fields-- like sports-- in which the cultural and economic barriers to entry are relatively low-- low because they have been largely abandoned by more privileged groups, whose members are lucky enough to have inherited a broader range of life options.

Outside of a world of wide-open equality of opportunity (far from the world the history has bequeathed to us) it is impossible to say much that is meaningful about patterns of human "genetic" potentiality. In any case, nothing is likely to be strictly it appears in terms of which groups of people are doing what (assuming these groups even have any reality at the "genetic" level) , so complicated is the whole picture by factors of an historical nature.

[ronb]

Yes, Oldster...
But who are you betting on to win the various sprint/long sprint/mid.-distance/longer distance events in the meet between Nigeria and Kenya And why
Stop with the pontificating, and search for the reality, bud...

[davidson]

Apr 4, 2010 21:40:41 GMT -5 pq said:

There's nothing inherently wrong or immoral about observing or stating differences among people, provided these differences are not used as a basis for denigrating, marginalizing or subjugating them. We're talking about concentrations of athletic prowess here. We should be allowed to engage in this discussion without being shouted down by the PC police.

It's a finer line than you think. Most people don't really seem to understand exactly what racism is. The mere fact that we think of people in terms of their "race" is the biggest part of the problem, even if it's a positive thing. The way I look at it, it's very difficult to be anti-racist. The only real way we can deal with it is to recognize it and deal with it. It's very hard for even he best of us to not get caught up in ascribing certain characteristics to all members of a certain group. Some ideas that could be floated in this thread do border on being considered racist and potentially offensive, I think the concern that came up in this thread was that some things could potentially be misinterpreted and to backup incorrect views by those who don't have the knowledge of all these factors. I think it is important to at least question whether or not we're being fair or unfair in our generalizations. I think if I've learned anything in my life it's to always question what you read/hear. I'm glad people do it, even if it's questioning me.

As this discussion goes on, I'm actually slightly changing my mind. I still think Kenyan/Ethiopian dominance has a lot to do with genetics, but perhaps the gap would be less large were it not for lifestyle factors here creating a smaller talent pool and outliers coming along less often.

Oldster, there may actually be genes for comedy and for boxing. We just don't know. It's hard to differentiate genetics and lifestyle factors as sometimes they affect each other. Our behaviours have caused genetic changes in some people (the ability to digest milk is one example) and thus reinforce those behaviours. I will say, however, that your other points in the last post are excellent. Have you read Outliers? It mentions how Jewish lawyers got to be successful because other firms didn't hire them and then they got stuck with practising a type of law no one else wanted to but then that type became popular - ok, read the book, my explanation wasn't very good. Actually the sense I got from that book (and a lot of other experience) would suggest that to be good at something you need the talent (genes) and the opportunity (lifestyle, support, etc.) but also that you need to take advantage of those things (by training hard).

What might be interesting to see is whether or not there are certain families (cousins, parents and children) who do very well. That is our simplest genetic groups whose connections cannot really be denied.

Though I would also like to point out that most African nations and other undeveloped nations all around the world are all able to participate in (at least what I consider to be) the two most global sports: athletics and soccer.

Ron, I'm not sure what your proposal is trying to prove. All it would prove is that people from Nigeria are stronger at the sprints and the people from Kenya are better at the longer things. Though it may be because of genetics it could also be because of lifestyle factors. I don't think anyone is arguing that the lack of success is due to not trying or believing. I'm sure every athlete tries their best and most believe they can do great things. It's strange that everyone seems to think people are arguing that but I have yet to see anyone write that. Instead it's been a discussion between genetic and lifestyle factors.

[pq]

Apr 4, 2010 23:07:59 GMT -5 davidson said:

The mere fact that we think of people in terms of their "race" is the biggest part of the problem, even if it's a positive thing.

I disagree.

It's impossible to NOT think about people, to some degree, in terms of their race, sex, creed, language, or other distinguishing characteristics. We're not all nameless, faceless automatons. We all have physical and social variations from the norm, some of which are defined by the individual and their inherited or learned attributes, and some of which are defined by the groups to which they belong (whether or not there's a physical - and potentially genetic - association).

Everyone is racist, sexist, creed-ist (if that's a word). It's impossible not to be. Thinking about people in terms of their differences is hardly a problem, it's simply natural, instinctive. How people choose to deal with their intrinsic racist tendencies (which is probably, IMHO, mostly a learned behaviour, not an inherited one) is where the potential "problem" lies.

[oldster]

Thanks for this very thoughtful take, Davidson. And, from the little I've been learning about new ideas in genetics (from helping my daughter with her biology homework!) I know that the field of genetics is proceeding well beyond the old "genes as programming" metaphor. We now know, for instance, that genes can be "switched on and off" by environmental factors, and then even passed along in their active form to a subsequent generation. In this discussion, I have never ruled out that so-called "natural" factors may play some role in explaining patterns of global success in distance running. My effort was twofold: To remind people that to talk loosely about "genetics" being behind African success shades very easily into racialized, and even outright racist, thinking (how new, after all, is the idea that "Africans" are "naturally" better runners than "whites", and why is it any less racist if we refine this notion by specifying "West Africans" and "East Africans", as if there were distinct gene pools covering the two halves of the continent?); and two, to point out that there are more than enough factors of an historical, environmental, and sociological nature to explain the current dominance of runners from Ethiopia and Kenya (who have not, to my knowledge, been shown to be closer genetic cousins than either group is to other groups which are not producing top distance runners).

[G Nicol]

Here is an old post I made over a year ago that touches on dominance in both distance running and sprinting:


"Why do people that live closer to the equator have darker skin?
Why are the Inuit and other arctic people shorter with higher body fat %?
Why are people that live it hot climates generally taller and lean with larger heads?

Its all natural selection...so yes it is genetics that gives certain groups of people different physical advantages. Its a little difficult to argue with someone like Charles Darwin or Alfred Wallace as it is a scientific fact that all animals, humans included, select sexual partners based on physical relevance to their surrounding environment. Are people afraid they will be called racist if they acknowledge this theory?

And yes, North American genetics are certainly lacking in heartiness because we live a very easy lifestlye as journeyman pointed out.

This natural selection process is certainly an answer to the East African dominance in distance running but what about sprinting?

The only theory I have heard regarding this is not one I necessarily agree with because I dont know a lot about it: It is said that carrabian sprinters are some of the strongest people in the world because during the era in which slavery was prevalent in America, slaves were selected based on how muscular they were. This "artificial selection" allowed for the race to become very physically stong over time and it is still apparent today in sprinters of carribean descent.(remember I didnt say I agree with this, just saying what I'v heard).

Thats my take, however I dont beleive that these peole are unbeatable by any means. A pearon of western descent does have that ability to be the best in the world, its just not going to occur as much as with a group of people that have a genetic advantage."

[davidson]

Apr 5, 2010 8:34:44 GMT -5 pq said:

Apr 4, 2010 23:07:59 GMT -5 davidson said:

The mere fact that we think of people in terms of their "race" is the biggest part of the problem, even if it's a positive thing.

I disagree.

It's impossible to NOT think about people, to some degree, in terms of their race, sex, creed, language, or other distinguishing characteristics. We're not all nameless, faceless automatons. We all have physical and social variations from the norm, some of which are defined by the individual and their inherited or learned attributes, and some of which are defined by the groups to which they belong (whether or not there's a physical - and potentially genetic - association).

Everyone is racist, sexist, creed-ist (if that's a word). It's impossible not to be. Thinking about people in terms of their differences is hardly a problem, it's simply natural, instinctive. How people choose to deal with their intrinsic racist tendencies (which is probably, IMHO, mostly a learned behaviour, not an inherited one) is where the potential "problem" lies.

I agree with most of what you say. Most of the time, we cannot (or don't) avoid associating certain characteristics based on a person's race, creed, gender, sex, language or other characteristics. There is a distinction to recognizing which of those categories people fit into and grouping all people with the same characteristics as similar.

Though it's not exactly a scholarly film, have you ever seen A Time to Kill. Samuel L. Jackson tries to explain the whole racism thing to his lawyer. He says (and I'm paraphrasing): "when you look at me you don't see a man, you see a black man." That's what I'm getting at. It is very difficult for us to get out of that habit. It's not impossible as you suggest, but it is very difficult. Also, no one should feel guilty about thinking this way, when you don't know someone well, you're default reaction is to view them based on things you can see. I think a better strategy than to feel guilty about this is to recognize it and do our best to deal with it (which is what you mentioned).

[ronb]

As with most of our best threads, there are so many nuances and issues within this thread, it's hard to know which ones to reply to.
1) The Nigeria/Kenya point is that these are all Africans, all black in skin colour, and yet there is an absolute dichotomy between the performance specialities of these 2 Countries.
The physical characteristics of the top athletes from these Nations are distinctly different, and the combination of nature and nurture which have produced these differences seems to me to summarize the main point of this thread. Which is that athletes from some Nations, or from some parts of Nations (i.e. Rift Valley), have developed some natural advantages over most other athletes from most other Nations. I am trying to word this carefully, so no-one thinks I believe it is impossible to beat these athletes, because that is not my position.
While some may approach the topic from a scientific perspective, and search for some genetic marker, or some magic nutritional answer, I prefer to refer to results from World level distance running competitions, and draw my conclusions from those results...
2) As for the attitudinal reference, my response about "trying harder" or "believing" was directed towards those who think that admitting that the East Africans are marvellous distance runners, who will be very difficult to beat, is some sort of "cop-out".

[oldster]

Apr 5, 2010 8:53:17 GMT -5 G Nicol said:

Here is an old post I made over a year ago that touches on dominance in both distance running and sprinting:


"Why do people that live closer to the equator have darker skin?
Why are the Inuit and other arctic people shorter with higher body fat %?
Why are people that live it hot climates generally taller and lean with larger heads?

Its all natural selection...so yes it is genetics that gives certain groups of people different physical advantages. Its a little difficult to argue with someone like Charles Darwin or Alfred Wallace as it is a scientific fact that all animals, humans included, select sexual partners based on physical relevance to their surrounding environment. Are people afraid they will be called racist if they acknowledge this theory?

And yes, North American genetics are certainly lacking in heartiness because we live a very easy lifestlye as journeyman pointed out.

This natural selection process is certainly an answer to the East African dominance in distance running but what about sprinting?

The only theory I have heard regarding this is not one I necessarily agree with because I dont know a lot about it: It is said that carrabian sprinters are some of the strongest people in the world because during the era in which slavery was prevalent in America, slaves were selected based on how muscular they were. This "artificial selection" allowed for the race to become very physically stong over time and it is still apparent today in sprinters of carribean descent.(remember I didnt say I agree with this, just saying what I'v heard).

Thats my take, however I dont beleive that these peole are unbeatable by any means. A pearon of western descent does have that ability to be the best in the world, its just not going to occur as much as with a group of people that have a genetic advantage."

Thanks. This is precisely what I was talking about when I referred to loose, scientific sounding talk shading into good old fashioned 19 Century racialist thinking and, eventually, racism. There is the characteristic slippage straight from "natural selection", to physiognomic differences, to the concept (now discredited by modern genetics) of race as "science-based", and from there to conclusions about how these things might determine patterns of actual human action, all without the need for any reference to history, including the history of large scale human migration, war, conquest, colonialism and modern opportunity structures shaped by global capitalism.

Take the notion of "natural selection" as explaining East African dominance in distance running. As far as I know, "East Africa" is not an like the Galapagos, and "East Africans" are not a species or sub-species of human beings. If there is anything "genetic" going on in "East Africa" it would have to be on the specific level of certain family lineages (as Davidson suggested).

That human beings look different the world over is a very long way from anything like "scientific proof" that genetic endowments corresponding to our common systems of grouping people ("race", "tribe", nationality, region) explain patterns of achievement in essentially cultural activities (i.e. games, albeit with a physical components.) Our genes are overwhelmingly the product of our evolution as a species; to that extent, we are basically identical genetically, in spite of a few specific and fairly superficial adaptations characteristic of groups with relatively long periods of isolation (e.g. Inuits and Ashkenazi Jews). If someone wants try and scientifically prove that the groups out of which top runners from the region we call East Africa (the various "running" tribes of Kenya and the Ethiopians) constitute a genetically identifiable sub-group similar in their insularity to Inuits and Askenazi Jews, they are free to try. So far, however, their has been no such proof.

Again, what continues to interest me is the attraction for people of the "genetics" argument in attempting to explain all this, and the belief that the "proof" of the case is as simple looking at the people doing well and where they come from-- as if they self-evidently make up an identifiable "genetic" group because they look similar (to us) and because they might be doing well in a particular activity. Here, I think evidence for the a natural or "genetic" hypothesis is being confused with proof of the case. And this is precisely where I think a casual racism informs our thinking; it lies behind the notion that we can discern meaningful genetic patterns simply by looking at people and observing what they're doing and how they're doing at it.

As Davidson says, the point here is not to shame anyone. A racialized view of people different from us, and of Africans peoples in particular, is a big part of our collective cultural inheritance in places like Canada. It behooves us to understand the subtle ways in which this kind of thinking still operates even in our apparently value-neutral quest to understand human things "scientifically".

[pq]

Again, I think it's naive to suggest that there can't be more substantive differences (e.g. stronger aerobic engine) between different parts of the human population (whether these need to be defined on the basis of tribes or some other label is, I think, irrelevant) when there are so clearly numerous more superficial differences.

Does anyone on here think it's particularly likely that someone of euro-Judeochristian descent will break Bekele's 5k/10k records, or set new WRs in the shorter sprints? Is it really possible that only societal/cultural factors are at play? I think that is not particularly likely.

[oldster]

Apr 5, 2010 11:33:45 GMT -5 pq said:

Again, I think it's naive to suggest that there can't be more substantive differences (e.g. stronger aerobic engine) between different parts of the human population (whether these need to be defined on the basis of tribes or some other label is, I think, irrelevant) when there are so clearly numerous more superficial differences.

Does anyone on here think it's particularly likely that someone of euro-Judeochristian descent will break Bekele's 5k/10k records, or set new WRs in the shorter sprints? Is it really possible that only societal/cultural factors are at play? I think that is not particularly likely.

Even if a category like "euro-Judeochristian descent" had any meaning at all on the level of human genetics, the failure of anyone fitting this rough description to ever break these world records would prove nothing about the role of "large group" or "racial" genetics in explaining patterns of performance vis a vis other kinds of explanations.

The person most likely to beat Bekele's records will be a Kenyan-- and there are no grounds that I know of for suggesting that Kenyans and Ethiopians are genetically closer to one another than either is to, say, Europeans (accept for that "non-white" skin colour thing that seems to bedevil non-Africans). People who are fond of referring to "genetics" often refer to the specificity of "tribal" success as support for the case. If people from different Kenyan "tribes" are believed to have different genetics, how would Ethiopians fit into the whole picture "genetically"?

This is all part of the general problem of believing that we can "see" relevant genetic patterns. In fact, what we select out as salient when we look at people is, consciously or unconsciously, a product of culturally inherited ways of looking at and grouping people-- ways that have been shown recently to have no clear basis in actual human genetics (e.g. "race").

[pq]

Apr 5, 2010 12:53:12 GMT -5 oldster said:

This is all part of the general problem of believing that we can "see" relevant genetic patterns.

I don't think we need to be able to "see" specific differences correctly to acknowledge that specific differences can in fact exist.

[oldster]

Just for clarity, let me repeat: Genetics clearly play a role in determining who wins at sports (although, I would argue, not nearly as big a role as people like to suppose-- simple opportunity to play is arguably more important). The problem is in assuming that the genetics explaining success are discrete and clearly identifiable (and perhaps straightforwardly associated with other genetic traits, like skin colour), and, that we can assume that the pattern of success at sport by population straightforwardly reflects the distribution of these genes throughout the human population. Again, the prevalence of good distance runners from certain parts of the world offers some support for a "naturalistic/genetic" hypothesis regarding the predisposition to success in this endeavour (although quite likely a very complicated one, if it's going to fit with all the other knowledge about the genetics of the region in question); it does not, however, itself constitute anything like proof of the case. Human genetics being as mixed up as they are, it is highly unlikely that there are many exclusive concentrations of human genetic predisposition in human groups that have not been highly inbred for very long periods of time-- and the larger the group in question, the less likely such a thing becomes. It is therefore quite possible, and probably more likely, that the "genes" that predispose individual human beings to success at something like distance running, whatever these may be, are very widely spread within the human population in general, and that what we really need to understand is why this genetic potential is realized more extensively in some places than in others-- which is not anymore a question for the natural sciences.

[davidson]

www.independent.co.uk/news/science/genetic-breakthrough-that-reveals-the-differences-between-humans-425432.html

The findings mean that instead of humanity being 99.9 per cent identical, as previously believed, we are at least 10 times more different between one another than once thought

I remember reading about this somewhere. While 99 percent similar seems like a lot, the same article mentions that we are 96 percent similar to our closest relatives - chimpanzees. That allows for A LOT of variation. I just thought that might be an interesting consideration for this discussion.