Quote TheElectricGlidingWarrior="TheElectricGlidingWarrior"First of all just let me say that it's not conducive to a good debate--and more than a little frustrating--to have your views repeatedly attributed to fear or political correctness. Personally I've made it clear that my opinion is not informed by either. Of course discussing race isn't racist, and nobody has suggested it is, but [isome remarks[/i made by the OP and other posters in which racial stereotypes are presented (whether these be positive or negative) characterising the innate abilities of so-called races (and I do mean so-called) [iare[/i racist since they make grossly simplified generalisations about groups of people between whom there is far more variety than there is uniformity. Besides which every positive generalisation has a negative one by disassociation - blacks athletic/whites weedy, whites are the brains/blacks lack the brains.
The first article you linked to is, despite it's claims, a rather unscientific regurgitation of myths. Fast twitch muscles, for instance, have very little variation from person to person, (in fact all mammals have pretty much a 50/50 mix of fast and slow twitch,) and what variation there is owes as much to training as it does to genetics. Also, fast twitch muscles "max out" at the same rate for everybody so all other things being equal the real difference is in technique and energy consumption.
Long distance runners, on the other hand, do experience a biological effect of training at high altitudes. Far from being a permanent racial trait, however, this is a temporary effect which everybody experiences (as I mentioned previously on this thread). Take a Kenyan gold medal winner out of Kenya for long enough and the playing field will level out.
These stereotypes and myths are very prevalent though and have been around for a long time, and in that regard they have their own material effect. I remember some years ago reading a study which addressed the perception that Asians aren't interested in football. It was shown that Asian youths were neither under or over represented in [iyouth[/i football but that football scouts, when interviewed, used their preconceived ideas about the non-interest of Asians as justification for not focusing on teams and players from predominantly Asian areas. It isn't surprising then that few Asians go on beyond the amateur game if this is the prevalent practice. I imagine there are corollaries with other sports and groups of people. In the US, for example, sports scholarships are a vehicle for social mobility, whilst Blacks are massively over-represented in lower socio-economic groups. Add to that the widely held perception that Blacks are better athletes and you have the ingredients for higher participation, and therefore more success, in sports amongst Blacks.
Just to reiterate, these views aren't being expressed because I'm scared of discussing race, but because at various times I've had cause to read publications such as 'The European Journal of Applied Physiology' and 'Sports in Society' to name two which sprang immediately to mind as I read the OP.'"
That's fine, but I'm not arguing in defence of the OP, but some of Celt's statements, which some people seem to be disputing and belittling simply because the focus is race. Neither am I discussing intelligence or mental capacity.
Are you truly trying to say there are NO biological or genetic differences between races, or between some different ethnicities? None? Given the huge diversity of and ethnic variants and the range of climates and environments they have lived in for hundreds of thousands of years - we are all exactly the same? Agreed, there are environmental and cultural influences, but differences have been proven time and again.
Professor Claude Bouchard, mentioned in that article, took needle biopsies from the thigh muscle of white students and West African students. He discovered the Africans had 67.5% fast twitch muscle fibres, significantly more than their white counterparts at 59%.
The University of Glasgow and the University of the West Indies are currently researching the genetic, nutritional and sociological factors behind West Africa's sprinting success. Preliminary findings suggest that 70% of Jamaicans have the "strong" form of the ACTN3 gene, which produces a protein in their fast-twitch muscle fibers that has been linked to increased sprinting performance. The norm for whites is 60%.
Henrik Ln travelled to Kenya to study the Kalenjin tribe up on the Great Rift Valley. He conculded that the Kalenjin have a genetic advantage when competing in endurance running - in every race, from the 800 metres up to the marathon. The hypothesis is based on a long-term study carried out at the Copenhagen Institute of Sports Science in Denmark. The researchers believe that the Kalenjin runners have an ability to take on board oxygen in just the same way as fit Europeans, but their bodies are more efficient at using that on-board fuel. The Kalenjin can also run at higher speeds for longer than Europeans at the same fitness level. The theory is that the genes of the Kalenjin have mutated to adapt to living in hot, dry conditions at high altitude.
Professor Tim Noakes tested twenty elite athletes, each running a mile in less than 4 mins, 5K in faster than 14 mins, or 10k in around 29 mins at moderate altitude. He found that at a speed of 4:36 per mile the blacks runners lactate levels were a 24% lower than that of the white runners.
This subject has been researched by many people and these, and other differences have been found. They may not be huge differences but as I said, when the winning margin is 10ths of a second, those differences begin to count.
It's not racism. It's simple evolution and adaptation.
