Race and intelligence

No confusion Craven, and as of yet, no argument proving either case has been presented, so I think I am once again out of this thread. Thanks, though, for clarifying. The point you were making was the point I noticed, but clumsy early morning wordsmithing probably shrouded that. Feel free to mull over your breasts, and no offence whatsoever was taken. I haven't taken this thread seriously since day one.

Here's an interesting article on the subject: http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/index_20000811.asp

Personally, I think the argument for genetic differences leading to differentiated athletic abilities is way overblown in relation to socialogical and statistical factors. Big people, strong people and athletic people are going to pop out of every population (probably at the same rate), but then they are going to be exposed to different athletic options due to their environment. In order to determine the genetic component of all this, you would first have to isolate out the social and statistical components (and other possibly unidentified components), then you could start to talk about genetics.

The article above covers a range of arguments and counter arguments, but it doesn't really offer a generally accepted conclusion. Perhaps that's why this is such a good topic for debate; not only is the premise emotionally charged with the race issue, but the science of the assumption is still in question as well.

Best Regards,

Great article, rosborne979, it needs to be read by anyone wanting to continue this discussion. Suffice it to say I agree with Harry Edwards.

Joe Nation
A certified genetically superior dissembler of Mystic Frisco Burritos. urp.

That is, indeed, an interesting article.

A couple of comments and questions:

" Throughout American slavery and the Jim Crow era, the idea of black physical superiority has been tethered to a belief in black intellectual inferiority -- a stereotype that still exists in American racial folklore."

and:

"Entine blasts the "stereotype of the genetic see-saw with the physical ability on one end and smarts on the other" as an unfounded and quintessentially American cliché."

As a foreigner, I must ask, is that true, that those two ideas have been paired frequently in American ideas? It is obviously a nonsense - there is no obvious relationship - indeed, one could more easily make an equally unfounded assumption that the opposite would be true - based on the thinking that the brain is a physical organ, like any other! I can see why the subject is so sensitive, if this has been the case. I am unsure, as I said above, that such nonsense ought to preclude us from considering the issue of the superiority of some physiques for some tasks, though.

"Entine also calls "Africa is the mother-lode of the running world," and writes that "athletes from each region tend to excel in specific athletic events as a result of both cultural and genetic factors: West Africa is the ancestral home of the world's top sprinters and jumpers; North Africa turns out top middle distance runners; and East Africa is the world distance running capital?Whereas only one in every eight of the people in the world are black, more than 70 percent of the top times are held by runners of African origin."

This was more the type of thing I was thinking of - I was unaware of the argument about the horrors of slavery as having selected for the survival of physically, in some ways, superior people. If such an effect were true, though, I am unsure how long it would last!

"But see how it backfires: because to assume that black athletes, without work or discipline, are superior -- so that Michael Jordan didn't have to go to the gym earlier, Magic Johnson has to have natural skill, whereas Larry Bird is working hard -- that's ridiculous.""

That is, indeed, ridiculous. Is anybody actually saying it? Ie is anyone saying that black athletes do not have to work as hard and be as mentally fit? I would have thought that their superiority in some areas would have been seen to be a superiority GIVEN equal training and such?

" "I don't recall anybody trying to figure out why Albert Einstein was brilliant..."

Yes, they have tried to figure out just exactly that - poor Einstein's brain was cut into slivers and chunks for just that purpose - scientific study - to try and see whether there was anything about his brain that was different, that accounted for his genius.

Brains are being studied as we speak - partly for this purpose - as well as many others...

""The idea fostered by Taboo denies that blacks used discipline and hard work even to achieve in the sports arena," he wrote in response to written questions. "Entine cites studies as supporting a racial basis for sports ability when in fact those studies show that fast twitch muscle fibers he associates with people of African descent increase through training and that early motor skills associated with blacks are the result of the necessary independence of young children in low income households, not racial biology.""

That is very interesting. DOES Taboo argue this? What about the non-black children in poverty stricken homes? Does the poverty have the same effect? Here, many aboriginals, and other folk, live in poverty. What I observe is mor eoften physical DEFICITS associated with this, than physical superiority. Is there thought to be something about black culture in America that innoculates its children from the well known tendency towards poor health and development in very poverty-stricken homes?

All good questions, Deb. Personally, I find the whole discussion absurd and bizarre. Positive stereotyping is every bit as irrational as negative sterotyping. To assert that black persons, as a group, have greater athletic ability than others is in the same category as saying that blacks, as a group, are lazy or have a natural sense of rhythm lacking in whites or really have an affinity for watermelon. No rational person can take this sort of tripe seriously. I hope.

Hmmmmm - well I guess I stepped in when I saw the accusations of racism flying - because I thought they were unfair and unwarranted - also the whole thing - if it were not corrupted by the politics and history of race relations would, I think, be just another branch of the nature/nurture debate - which is one I am interested in in a lot of fields - though principally in personality. I guess that is how I am seeing it. But - I do recall the breathtakingness of the moment when the Kenyan - Kip Keno (????sure that is wrong!) blitzed the olympic marathon in his bare tootsies, all those years ago, and I felt, as a wee kiddy, that there was something pretty magic about that - just as I still do when I see today's Kenyans still blitzing the field - often - with little of the super hype and money and special regimes and training of athletes from wealthier countries.

But you are no doubt right.

rosborne, I read the article, and still conclude that genetics and environment has everything to do with athletic or academic prowess, and it doesn't matter whether they are white, black, or asian. Opportunity is key to maximizing whatever inborn desire of any individual.

Yup, Deb. That's American racial thinking in a nutshell - a see saw- a ying and a yang. You get to have a either/or or an if/then mindset. IF blacks are superior at sports, they must be intellectually inferior. Duh. I think it is a defensive reaction by certain people to the entrance of blacks into the society at large.

But here's how they work it out: If they (blacks) succeed at (sports), it can't be that they worked hard to achieve a result, it must be a NATURAL ability that we-whites- can't compete against fairly but we are still okay because we are NATURALLY smarter then they are.)

To which the rest of the world says: Wha?

Here's the quote from Harry Edwards (article) that I thought made a few points:


We, IMO, Americans do not think outside of the box because the box we do most of our thinking in is the television. We think blacks dominate sports because the dominate sports on American TV are highly populated by blacks. The sports calendar in the US is such now that there is no month of the year that there isn't one of the following playing on a TV :baseball- April-October, football September - January, and basketball seems to be continuous but it's really September -July.

Americans seem to think in either/or terms. One is liberal or conservative, pro-life or pro-choice, pro-Iraqi invasion or anti-war, Bush hater or Clinton hater, 'you're with us or agin us'. I think psychologists call it black and white thinking but that may be a poor choice of words for this discussion. How long we have been thinking this way is anybody's guess, but I'd say it was a topic of conversation at the dinner tables of many a revolutionary hero. "Give me liberty or give me death" comes to mind immediately.

The dangerous, or stupid, take your pick, part of thinking this way comes when you add what might be termed 'inverse implication'. By tying lack of intellect to the athlete, then tying athlete to blacks, we then get to tie lack of intellect , the inverse, to them too. Pretty good con, if you buy it.
Some do.

The rest of the world says "Wha?"

Wha?

Deb,

I'd love to discuss it with you but it'll have to be on another day and possibly another venue.

All I know is that within my lifetime, "everybody knew", as a general assertion, blacks are dumb. They were considered too inferior to handle such complex jobs as driving buses even. Overtly, much of this foolishness has vanished. If only we could dislodge the root causes of the foolish thoughts we would then be putting covert racism behind us.

The Jamaican girl I'm chasing is very dark skinned, and is studying for a phd in environmental modelling.

Joe Nation has said it best. Racism in America is alive and well. It has just morphed and evolved from the overt racism of the white supremacists to the far more dangerous and subtle racism of pseudo-science, hiding under a guise of benovelence. How can you accuse me of racism if I keep saying how good blacks are in sports.

And, Deb, I would suggest that the Kenyans are such great runners (they've been winning the Boston Marathon for years now) because in their society swiftness of foot is a valued trait, not because they are dark-skinned.

Doh!!!!!


Nobody ever suggested that, MA!!!

Makes quite a bit of sense to me. Every group of people on earth has had its challenges in its unique environment. The ones who survived, and reproduced, were the ones who were able to master the environment. It is not a great conceptual leap to realize that different groups, living in diverse areas, over the millenia, developed the particular adaptations needed to survive.

Sorry, Deb, I honestly didn't mean to be condescending. The comment was meant only to emphasize my position that race has nothing whatever to do with anything.

No worries, MA - that someone like you would say such a thing, though, tells me that this is a discussion that history and political realities render impossible at present. I hope some day that this will no longer be true, and such matters will be able to be discussed with the same ease as my opthalmologist has in telling me that my blue eyes render me more vulnerable to certain eye problems than I would be if they were brown.

Me's a bit confused. You seem to be arguing for and against what MA said at the same time.

Monger- Maybe it seems that way, because unlike many people I do not think either/or when it comes to the issue of nature and nurture. I believe that a person is a complex organism that is molded by both his genetic inheritance and his environment.

In the case of the Kenyan runners, the obvious question to ask is why being fleet of foot is such a positive value in that society? I don't know much about Kenyan society, but what I know about peoples in general, is that traits that people value in any society, if you go back far enough, are traits that have had positive survival value for them!

Wish I knew what smegging survival value my goddamn celtic snub nose had for the celts!!!