Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid To Talk About It
A provocative article by "The Contrarian" Jon Entine, an "internationally renowned journalist, TV commentator, executive consultant and public speaker, on the DNA of human behavior."
http://www.jonentine.com/
"[Keyna's] national sport, the hero worship, the adoring fans, the social channeling -- that all speaks to Kenya's enduring love affair with, not running, but soccer. Despite the enormous success of Kenyan runners, running remains a relative afterthought in this soccer-crazed nation. Unfortunately, Kenyans are among the world's worst soccer players...
No amount of political correctness can obscure the reality that the Kenyans' mediocre success in soccer (and sprinting) comes down to genetics. They are ectomorphs, short and slender, with huge natural lung capacity and a preponderance of slow twitch muscles, the energy system for endurance sports. It's a perfect biomechanical package for distance running, but a disaster for sports that require anaerobic bursts of speed...
Of course, neither culture nor genes alone determines who will become great athletes. It's biocultural. "Taboo" [Entine's novel] documents the wholly uncontroversial fact that different body types have evolved in differing environments over thousands of years: Inuit Indians (Eskimos), biologically programmed to be short to conserve body heat, do not produce NBA centers after relocating to southern Florida. Genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics, such as skeletal structure, muscle fiber types, reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity, are not evenly distributed among populations and cannot be explained by known environmental factors...
Why do we so readily accept that evolution has turned out blacks with a genetic proclivity to contract sickle cell, Jews of European heritage who are one hundred times more likely than other groups to fall victim to the degenerative mental disease, Tay-Sachs, and whites who are most vulnerable to cystic fibrosis, yet find it racist to acknowledge that blacks of West African ancestry have evolved into the world's best sprinters and East Asians, the best divers?...
[I]f we do not welcome the impending genetic revolution with open minds, if we are scared to ask and to answer difficult questions, if we lose faith in science, then there is no winner. We all lose. The question is no longer whether genetic research will continue but to what end. 'If decent people don't discuss human biodiversity,' writes George Mason professor Walter Williams, who is black, 'we concede the turf to black and white racists.' "
http://www.jonentine.com/
"[Keyna's] national sport, the hero worship, the adoring fans, the social channeling -- that all speaks to Kenya's enduring love affair with, not running, but soccer. Despite the enormous success of Kenyan runners, running remains a relative afterthought in this soccer-crazed nation. Unfortunately, Kenyans are among the world's worst soccer players...
No amount of political correctness can obscure the reality that the Kenyans' mediocre success in soccer (and sprinting) comes down to genetics. They are ectomorphs, short and slender, with huge natural lung capacity and a preponderance of slow twitch muscles, the energy system for endurance sports. It's a perfect biomechanical package for distance running, but a disaster for sports that require anaerobic bursts of speed...
Of course, neither culture nor genes alone determines who will become great athletes. It's biocultural. "Taboo" [Entine's novel] documents the wholly uncontroversial fact that different body types have evolved in differing environments over thousands of years: Inuit Indians (Eskimos), biologically programmed to be short to conserve body heat, do not produce NBA centers after relocating to southern Florida. Genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics, such as skeletal structure, muscle fiber types, reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity, are not evenly distributed among populations and cannot be explained by known environmental factors...
Why do we so readily accept that evolution has turned out blacks with a genetic proclivity to contract sickle cell, Jews of European heritage who are one hundred times more likely than other groups to fall victim to the degenerative mental disease, Tay-Sachs, and whites who are most vulnerable to cystic fibrosis, yet find it racist to acknowledge that blacks of West African ancestry have evolved into the world's best sprinters and East Asians, the best divers?...
[I]f we do not welcome the impending genetic revolution with open minds, if we are scared to ask and to answer difficult questions, if we lose faith in science, then there is no winner. We all lose. The question is no longer whether genetic research will continue but to what end. 'If decent people don't discuss human biodiversity,' writes George Mason professor Walter Williams, who is black, 'we concede the turf to black and white racists.' "
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- added August 05, 2008
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