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Location: Formerly NYC by week; ATL by weekend...now Rio bi annually and ATL bi annually
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzyTallGuy
Are you sure you’re not confusing genetics with culture?
If a kid grows up in a culture where is he encouraged to excel academically and is given the resources to excel academically then chances are that kid is going to have a much better chance academically than one that doesn't.
If a kid grows up where a particular sport is played and that sport is part of the social fabric of the youth community where he lives chances are he has a much better chances of being better at that sport. There is no small wonder that California has a disproportionate number of baseball players at the major league level. The weather and recreation dollars devoted to baseball facilities is much more conducive for a kid to be a good baseball player.
It's the same thing with long distance runners in Kenya. There are other athletes around the world with similar body types but Kenya has a legacy of long distance runners that is great source of national pride. Kids grow up in certain areas and they are introduced to running at a very early age. Those that have a particular talent are nurtured and developed.
It's really no different than hockey players from Canada, Sweden, Finland and Russia, Soccer players from England, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and parts of Africa or gymnist and weightlifters from various Eastern European nations.
The above response is a very good explanation. It isnt all reaching, as no one answer will be, but it definitely speaks to the accuracy of the demographic and socioeconomic stimulants of the subject. So JazzyTallGuy, kudos.
Also let me state that there have been other good answers as well. It all goes back to the environment (demographic & socioeconomic) that the athlete is brought up in. Though I may also state that some people are just truly blessed with athletic prowess mas some are with intelligence. Maybe some more than others. But that horse has been beaten to death too many times. Brainiacs should try their hand at sports more and not feel so inadequate if you ask me. Vice cersa for true jocks. The bigger deal is that some whom feel academia is the true key to success and are clumsy and have no athletic prowess will always start this fire(debate). Not everybody will run a sub 10 second 100 meters, not everyone will score the max on the SAT. But to have not tried your hardest to achieve the goal is truly their shortcoming and thus not ours. I hope that makes some since....
Location: Formerly NYC by week; ATL by weekend...now Rio bi annually and ATL bi annually
1,522 posts, read 2,244,620 times
Reputation: 1041
Quote:
Originally Posted by katygirl68
I'll never understand why anyone gets offended by the idea of blacks being better athletes due to genetic build. Not only do they have different muscle structure, but they also have different skeletal structure. Facts are not racist. Did anyone ever think that the culture of black people focusing on getting into professional sports comes from the fact that they actually have a better shot at it? Look at any professional basketball team where black players outnumber all other races. Are the recruiters and coaches being racists? Hell no! They pick the best players they can find.
Thats almost like stating that if Whites of European descent have larger head structure, leading to larger brain mass, that they are more intelligent than everyone else. If they do not exercise that brain mass, it too shall be weak. For the most part. The same as practicing a given sport or skill.
Well the average white man is taller than the average black man.
I guess there is no skill in football or basket ball either. After all white men don't play it as much so clearly those muscles of that "pure bred African" that you white guys seem to drool over explains it all. No hard work needed.
Oh and by the way don't think that I missed your attempt to negate Jones' skill and hard work. Those black muscles (here we go again) are so powerful that these "weak" white men cant compete! Is that the excuse that we will hear if more like Jones begin to do well? The Jamaicans better get ready to take that sport over as well.
You are like talking to a wall. I never said that Cullen Jones didn't work hard. Never even intimated that. Just said that he was a SPRINTER in swimming and was likely a fast twitch athlete. And guess what. World class white swimming sprinters would also be fast twitch athletes. However, as I said before, swimming is very technique driven, so Jones is a great swimmer because he has excellent efficiency in the water as well as being a fast twitch athlete. Oh, and by the way, they all "work hard".
Your cynicism concerning the findings of exercise scientists is actually amusing. Just like people can't "will themselves to be taller" people can't "will" themselves to have 90% fast twitch muscle
fiber.
For about the 10th time on this thread.............
Sprinting is an extreme form of running requiring a combination of physical and mental attributes that can be honed by intensive training. Yet most experts would agree that a world-class sprinter is born rather than made.
In Bolt's case, it helps that he is from Jamaica. Studies have shown that black athletes with West African ancestry have significantly more "fast-twitch" muscle fibres, which tire easily but contract more quickly than the "slow-twitch" fibres commonly found in long-distance runners.
"To be a great sprinter you need leg muscles that are dominated by fast-twitch muscle fibres because they shorten the muscle quickly and generate power," said Professor Steve Harridge of Kings College London.
"Marathon runners have more slow-twitch fibres, which is one of the reasons why you are never going to turn Paula Radcliffe into a great sprinter, or Usain Bolt into a good long-distance runner," Professor Harridge said.
Weight training can make fast-twitch fibres thicker and stronger but there is no evidence to suggest that it is possible to convert one type of muscle fibre to another by training alone.
Scientists have also found that there are certain natural variants of a gene called ACTN3 that can boost the performance of fast-twitch muscle fibres. Again, whether you have the "sprint gene" or not depends on whether you have inherited it. Some nationalities, such as Jamaicans, are known to have a higher prevalence of the sprint gene than other groups.
Genes are also involved in determining the length of a person's Achilles tendon and toes. Good sprinters have shorter tendons than expected for their height, and their toes are proportionately longer. This allows their calve muscles to do more work in the acceleration phase of the sprint.
So according to your viewpoint, scientists who make these findings are bigots and racists
That was not my intention or implication. I do not for one moment think black people who attain these high level athletics don't have to work hard for it. I also believe there are many black people who aren't very athletic at all. If that offended you, I apologize because it wasn't my intent.
But I do disagree with your last paragraph. We're not talking about average athletes here, we're talking about professional athletes. And there is usually a genetic reason for all of them to excel (white, black, or Asian), first and foremost a high degree of athletic ability, competiveness and drive. I'd say height is an advantage in just about any sport, not to mention long legs, long arms, better lung capacity.
Your argument falls flat. Usain Bolt has ancestry probably mainly from what is now Nigeria and Ghana, and shares this with 90% of the Jamaican population. So if genes were that important he wouldn't stand out among Jamaicans, as they share his genetics.
Like many Usain would have been a high school kid who showed talent, so would have been targeted by the coaches. I am not sure that he grew up with this burning notion that he would be this international super star with endorsements pouring out of his pocket.
He stands out because his UNIQUE talent, drive, discipline, and training. If he does have an advantage it will be the length of his legs, and that was quite apparent in the relay where the (black) American was running maybe more steps than Usain, but lacked his long stride, and so tired himself out.
So lets compare Cuba with Jamaica in the 2012 Olympics. Both did very well for small poor third world nations.
Cuba won 15 medals, 6 of which were in martial arts or wrestling. 4 were in boxing, with the rest split between sports like shooting, pole vaults, discus etc. With the exception of boxing NONE of these sports were stereotypically "black". The only Cubans who won medals were blacks, as I recall. And I mean people who will be considered black even in Cuba.
Jamaica won 12 medals, ALL in the sprints, with the longest race being the women's 4X400 where they won a bronze.
The differing performance for these two groups, which both share West/West Central African genes, shows you why the notion that performance is measured by genes is flawed. Jamaicans excel at sprints because that's 100% of their focus. Cubans are represented in a broader range of sports. Indeed Cubans do better in sports that one wouldn't connect to blacks. What is interesting is that the BLACK Cuban athletes out performed their WHITE counterparts in sports more associated with white Europeans.
Cuba, like the USA, is a fundamentally racist society where blacks have narrower opportunities to succeed than do whites. In Jamaica while race isn't a limiting factor social class is, in that island where there is a huge disparity between the poor and the middle class, so similar dynamics occur. Notable that the Jamaicans who succeed are almost all from poor backgrounds. And this is an island with a strong tradition in high school athletics, so the middle class kids would be very exposed to this.
The point is that racism favors white males in the USA and Cuba, and classism favors men from middle class backgrounds in Jamaica, so performance in sport is less critical than it is for the blacks in Cuba and the USA, and poor people in Jamaica.
All we know is that the best athletes in certain sports tend to come from certain groups. What we don't know, and have no proof is that the average black man or woman is faster than their white equivalents.
You are like talking to a wall. I never said that Cullen Jones didn't work hard. Never even intimated that. Just said that he was a SPRINTER in swimming and was likely a fast twitch athlete. And guess what. World class white swimming sprinters would also be fast twitch athletes. However, cles/PMC1180686/
Not that interested with what scientists say about racial anatomical differences because 100 years ago they would have told you that by definition that you are more intelligent and that I was a speaking ape, by measuring our head size and shape.
Now that blacks dominate certain sports, rather than congratulating these INDIVIDUALS, they belittle their efforts by finding some silly excuse to imply that these guys only win because of some genetic advantage.
You stay away from baseball and football because you cant claim that these are low skill sports, much as you suggest that swimming is this highly complex sport, coincidentally because it is one of the few serious sports thoroughly dominated white American men.
What I do know is that Cullen Jones excelled as a swimmer because he worked hard at it. Given that few blacks have made it into swimming I don't understand why again your focus on his genetic advantage. Were that the case white swimmers would have been beaten hands down by some swimmers from the Caribbean. Because people do swim there. They don't have the Olympic sized pools or quality coaching. Because the Caribbean does well in track those athletes get all the resources, starving others of financial help. Its also obvious that your best Jamaican athletes will focus on rack. Usain said that he was interested in soccer. He wouldn't be the reasonable wealthy guy (I assume) that he is today had he focused on that sport.
Now let us talk about black women from the USA and Jamaica in the sprints. I guess you will claim that they are more muscular than even white men now? I can well imagine that those girls can beat most of the white men who were in the Olympics in sprints.
Lets talk about the fact that black athletes from Brazil and Cuba don't do well in the sprints, even though they are genetically similar to Jamaican and American blacks. And both nations have a strong tradition in sports. They tend to do better in the martial arts, wresting and weight lifting, with Cubans also doing well in boxing.
So today I had an argument with a friend of mine regarding why black athletes dominate the major sports. He had just finished writing a research paper on the subject and was telling me about how black athletes are no more athletic than white, Hispanic, asian.....ect...athletes and that the primary reason for there success was due to social factors. he went on to tell me about a survey that was conducted on intercity black teens that showed almost a third of them felt that play inprofessionalal sports was the easiest way to achieve wealth and success. he went on to tell me that blacks dominatete in most sports simply because they want it more and
I almost started laughing in his face but I restrained mostly because I knew he was proud of the paper. without any hesitation I started going into the whole people from western Africa have more fast twitch muscle fibers blah blah blah thing and I could tell he was starting to get upset with me as he's extremely liberal and topics of that nature really bother him so I quickly changed my point to the fact that I was a collegiate athlete both on the football field and on the track and from my personal experiences black athletes are at the top of the food chain in anything requiring speed and explosiveness. I said that I felt his paper did hold some water but it still doesn't explain why no white sprinter has ever ran a sub 10 second 100 meter.
Long story short the conversation basically ended with him telling me to educate myself and not buy into the stereotypes which I'll have to admit pissed me of something fierce coming from a guy that's never played an organized sport in his life.
so what's your opinion on the subject
Your friend is right. You are wrong.
It is not black athletes in general who dominate many sports in the US, but African-American athletes in particular. Look at a sport like boxing. African-American boxers tend to dominate boxing not because they are racially superior, but because their rates of participation in boxing are much higher than that of most other groups. Not that many white guys set out to become world champion boxers anymore. However, African-Americans do not dominate MMA. Why not? Because rates of participation by other groups are much higher in MMA than in boxing, so black MMA fighters face much more competition.
The same is true of other sports. It isn't black runners in general who tend to win most major marathons, it is Kenyan runners in particular. Kenya has devoted vast resources to training champion runners, so athletes from that country tend to dominate the sport.
Really, your understanding of "race" is about 60 to 70 years out of date.
It is not black athletes in general who dominate many sports in the US, but African-American athletes in particular. Look at a sport like boxing. African-American boxers tend to dominate boxing not because they are racially superior, but because their rates of participation in boxing are much higher than that of most other groups. Not that many white guys set out to become world champion boxers anymore. However, African-Americans do not dominate MMA. Why not? Because rates of participation by other groups are much higher in MMA than in boxing, so black MMA fighters face much more competition.
The same is true of other sports. It isn't black runners in general who tend to win most major marathons, it is Kenyan runners in particular. Kenya has devoted vast resources to training champion runners, so athletes from that country tend to dominate the sport.
Really, your understanding of "race" is about 60 to 70 years out of date.
On that note, most blacks that want to enter the fight game are going to have a preference for boxing simply because that is where the money is. Regardless of race, most of the MMA field is made up of guys that could never contend for a title in boxing.
Not that interested with what scientists say about racial anatomical differences because 100 years ago they would have told you that by definition that you are more intelligent and that I was a speaking ape, by measuring our head size and shape.
Now that blacks dominate certain sports, rather than congratulating these INDIVIDUALS, they belittle their efforts by finding some silly excuse to imply that these guys only win because of some genetic advantage.
You stay away from baseball and football because you cant claim that these are low skill sports, much as you suggest that swimming is this highly complex sport, coincidentally because it is one of the few serious sports thoroughly dominated white American men.
What I do know is that Cullen Jones excelled as a swimmer because he worked hard at it. Given that few blacks have made it into swimming I don't understand why again your focus on his genetic advantage. Were that the case white swimmers would have been beaten hands down by some swimmers from the Caribbean. Because people do swim there. They don't have the Olympic sized pools or quality coaching. Because the Caribbean does well in track those athletes get all the resources, starving others of financial help. Its also obvious that your best Jamaican athletes will focus on rack. Usain said that he was interested in soccer. He wouldn't be the reasonable wealthy guy (I assume) that he is today had he focused on that sport.
Now let us talk about black women from the USA and Jamaica in the sprints. I guess you will claim that they are more muscular than even white men now? I can well imagine that those girls can beat most of the white men who were in the Olympics in sprints.
Lets talk about the fact that black athletes from Brazil and Cuba don't do well in the sprints, even though they are genetically similar to Jamaican and American blacks. And both nations have a strong tradition in sports. They tend to do better in the martial arts, wresting and weight lifting, with Cubans also doing well in boxing.
Do you have a genetic explanation for that?
This is the most pathetic defense you position that you have put out there as of yet. Science has advanced quite a bit in 100 years. The field of exercise physiology really didn't even exist as such until JS Haldane began measurements in the 1920s.
And by the way, ANY elite athlete of ANY race in ANY sport has a genetic advantage of the average person of ANY race and in ANY sport.
I stay away from football and basketball because they are complex sports with skills that are more integrated and harder to measure. However, COMPONENTS of these skills can be measured, For instance we have already discussed that basketball selects for height. It also selects for vertical jumping skills. And we find that time to peak torque during vertical jump is faster among african american basketball players than it is in white basketball players.
Again, you misunderstand my point about swimming. Swimming is more complex than sprinting on a track, because of the fluid environment however, it isn't hard to measure. The point is that efficiency in stroke technique and reducing fluid drag is the most important part of swimming. A swimmer can produce all kinds of power that is wasted in trying to pull himself down the lane thus power is less important than efficiency with that power. Because sprinting on a track isn't in a fluid environment, drag isn't as big an issue.
Now let's take on Cullen Jones AGAIN. A few posts back I said that African American blacks had denser lean tissue than did whites and this was a disadvantage in establishing buoyancy. Now you are claiming that I said that Cullen Jones has an genetic advantage? Ok, Cullen Jones is a sprinter. He likely has a high fast twitch percentage like ALL swimming sprinters do. And he works hard like ALL elite swimmers do. We could biopsy Cullen Jones to establish his fiber type. We could also do bone densiometry and get a T score on how dense his bone tissue is. We could do this on all elite 50 meter swimmers and see what differences there are between them. However, we are likely to see a lot more similarities than differences. If we took these measures amongst 1500 meter swimmers we would see a different profile.
As far as far as your comments about USA women and Jamacian women. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but among elite sprinters we will see the same genetic profiles among as we do among their male counterparts.
Finally, the issues with Brazilian and Cuban athletes. Again, among the best sprinters in these countries we would see the SAME genetic results. However, if we were to measure a random group of individuals from these countries we wouldn't see it as often as we would among a random group of Carribeans of west African descent. There is no doubt that if these countries focused on sprinting there would be more sprinters. However, it is highly unlikely that they would achieve anything close to the per capita success in elite sprinters that Jamaica does no matter what they did. Just like if every white kid in America took up sprinting, they would still be dominated by their black counterparts on a per capita basis.
I won't argue your point that sociology plays a part. If more blacks participated in "predominantly white" sports there would be more blacks excelling. However, white kids all over the world try to sprint. In the history of track and field there have been 87 individuals of west African descent break 10 seconds for 100. There has been one Australian who is part aborigine and part white, There has been 1 European white male to ever do it. ONE. I suppose according to you all the other good white sprinters are doing what? soccer? cricket? hockey? skateboarding? Rodeo cowboys?
Or are you saying that they are all lawyers? Or doctors? Or engineers, or managers at Lowe's?
Where are these guys?
Last edited by eddie gein; 01-18-2014 at 08:21 AM..
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