Dr Mel Siff Blog

One of the controversial theories being proferred by a few folk in the world
of sports science is that black athletes genetically are superior to white
athletes. It is interesting to examine this in terms of theories concerning
other aspects of human performance.

PRECEDENTS: RACE & INTELLIGENCE?

Not too many years ago, there was an uproar over the suggestion of genetic
differences between the intelligence of people of different hue. In this
respect it is relevant to recall the “Bell Shaped Curve” and read one of the
articles on this topic as it appeared in ‘Skeptic’ Magazine:

<http://www.skeptic.com/03.3.fm-sternberg-interview.html>

An entire issue of this journal covered IQ and Race (Vol 3. No 3, 1995):

<http://www.skeptic.com/03.3.contents.html>

MORE ON INTELLIGENCE & RACE

Although some might consider that the phenomenon of intelligence is totally
irrelevant to any discussion of Race and Sport, let it be noted that
intelligence, at least as far as science is concerned, also depends on
functioning of biological tissue, the brain. Those who theorise about
genetic superiority in sport are doing so on the basis of some other
biological tissues, so research investigating possible links between brain,
genes and performance surely must have some relevance to any discussion on
possible links between muscles (etc), genes and performance. The form of
expression of performance may be different in each case, but both sporting
and intellectual prowess are related to the functioning of biological tissue
and the specific influence of genes on that tissue.

Of course, if anyone considers that mind and intelligence lies beyond
biological matter, then we have to wander into metarealms which science can
neither verify nor falsify.

In fact, the most recent issue of ‘Skeptic’ Magazine features the topic of
Race & Sport, but we shall return to that topic later:

<http://www.skeptic.com/>

The Boston Review also featured a prominent article on Intelligence and Race:

<http://www-polisci.mit.edu/BostonReview/BR20.6/block.html>

The Skeptic’s Dictionary also contains an interesting and relevant entry on
Race, Genes and IQ at:

http://skepdic.com/iqrace.html

Here are some extracts and summaries of information from that source:

“There’s about a 15 percent genetic variation between any two individuals….
less than half of that, about 6 percent, is accounted for by known racial
groupings…. A randomly selected white person, therefore, can easily be
genetically closer to an African than another white.” ["Race: many biologists
argue for discarding the whole concept," Deborah Blum, The Sacramento Bee,
October 18, 1995, p. A12.]

“These people don’t know evolutionary genetics. They talk about interesting
issues in race and biology. And since, I think, there are no real races, I
wonder what these issues are. It makes me angry that I have to take time from
my research (on the genetics of aging) to argue about something that
shouldn’t even need to be
discussed.” – Joseph Graves, an African American evolutionary biologist at
Arizona State University-West in Tempe, notes that most people and
researchers who try to establish correlations between various natural
abilities and skin color are not geneticists (quoted by Blum).

C. Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, claims that
“race is a four-letter word with no basis in biological reality.”

Of course, physical features such as skin color, shape of eyelid, color of
eyes, texture of hair, etc., are genetically determined. It is also true,
that an individual’s capacity for any particular kind of intelligence is
largely dependent upon genetic factors The idea of “multiple intelligences”
is a ‘hot’ recent topic in psychology). . What isn’t true is the notion
that whole races of people have sets of genes which make them as a group more
intelligent than other races. The genes which affect musical talent, the
power to visualize or
to think abstractly, for example, are not established as the same ones which
affect those characteristics which are associated with being Caucasian,
Mongoloid or Negroid. If you want to find out why Asians are
over-represented in California’s universities while blacks and Hispanics are
underrepresented, you will search in vain for a genetic answer. Those who
are interested in such things would do better to look at family structure,
ethnic traditions, and social conditions.

———————————-

Flynn’s Effect Intelligence scores are rising, James R. Flynn discovered,
but he remains very sure we’re not
getting any smarter (Scientific American):

http://www.sciam.com/1999/0199issue/0199profile.html

———————————–

RECENT PUBLICATION ON GENES & FUNCTIONING

Science has shown that most variation is within racial groups, not between
racial groups. Two members of the same race are likely to differ from each
other more than the average member of their race differs from the average
member of another race.

Well, the eminent geneticist, Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, recently wrote the book,
“Genes, People and Languages”, that has taken such findings even further. In
it, he points out that the entire notion of “race” is suspect and differences
between groups of different skin colour are even more questionable. In
reaching this conclusion, he shows that the genetic similarities between
Asian, African and European populations are so close that current ideas of
race and racism are nonsensical. To reach this conclusion, he investigated
the actual relation among geographically separated groups by comparing the
prevalence of special genetic markers such as the ABO gene (which controls
blood types) and the Rh (blood factor) gene.

Some of this work showed that Europeans are about two-thirds Asian and
one-third African. Other work examined language and cultural concepts as
markers of human development. The author concludes that the human species
probably will not evolve much more because cultural development has
effectively slowed down biological evolution. The effect of environmental
and cultural factors differs with time and location in any given group, so
that it can be misleading to rely on some fixed ratio between the respective
impact of nature and nurture.

Cavalli-Sforza explains that there is no genetic basis for racial
classification and proposes that a comparison
of blood types is a far better means of determining “genetic distance” and
explaining linguistic and cultural differences.

He also questions the work of others who rely on the use of mitochondrial DNA
to infer population history because technical problems decree that it is
dangerously unreliable. He prefers to rely on information from genes in the
nucleus, which he and other geneticists have collected in great quantities
over the past four decades.

All of his views are not necessarily unanimously supported, as is evident in
this review of his book:

<http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/books/blgenespeopl
es.htm?iam=mt&terms=%2Bcavalli-sforza>

The following New Scientist article reviews not only the work of
Cavalli-Sforza, but also that of the work of several other influential
scientists in the genes and human evolution realm:

<http://www.newscientist.com/ns/970705/features.html>

——————————

Other scientists even maintain, from their genetic research that African
genes are widespread among Chinese groups, as described in this website:

http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/10_3_98/Fob1.htm

AFRICAN GENES IN CHINA?

A large genetic analysis of Chinese citizens and others indicates that modern
humans, probably originating in Africa, migrated across Asia in a
southeasterly direction before heading north into what is now China. This
challenges the long-standing view of Chinese paleontologists, based on fossil
evidence, that an East Asian branch of Homo erectus independently evolved
into H. sapiens.

“It is now probably safe to conclude that modern humans originating in Africa
constitute the majority of the current gene pool in East Asia,” holds a
research team headed by geneticist Li Jin of the University of Texas in
Houston.

————————————-

CONCLUSION

The above few sources of information have been selected to enable those
interested in examining in some more depth any currently postulated links
between race and sporting prowess, whether they appear in learned literature
or popularised books.

If anyone else has some further references in this field, it would be
interesting to receive them.

Dr Mel C Siff

For more information on Facts and Fallacies of Fitness by Dr Mel Siff please click here

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