The DNA Olympics -- Jamaicans Win Sprinting 'Genetic Lottery' -- and Why We Should All Care

Forbes ^ | 8/12/2012

[Altura Ct.]

Jon Entine, author of Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It,” takes stock of the DNA London Olympics–where, as usual, African-descended athletes swept the running events while whites and Asians dominated in the water sports, field competition and strength events. What’s going on here?

Segregation was on display in London over the past two weeks–which, surprisingly, should spark no concerns and may even help educate us all about the wonders of human biodiversity. Let me explain.

Led by 100-meter world record holder Usain Bolt, Jamaican men swept the sprinting events at the London Olympics. It was a stunning feat for the small Caribbean nation. But as part of a broader trend, it’s hardly surprising. Runners of West African descent are the fastest humans on earth.

For decades, a bushel of developing countries—Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Kitts, Barbados, Grenada, Netherlands Antilles and the Bahamas in the Caribbean and Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Namibia in western Africa, as single countries, have each produced more elite male sprinters than all of white Europe and Asia combined. Yet West African descended runners are laggards at the longer races.

Remarkably, the story of East African runners is the mirror image of the West African success story. While terrible at the sprints, runners Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia, along with a sprinkling of North and Southern Africans, regularly dominate endurance running.

And if you are an Asian or white runner? Forgetaboutit.

Unlike the props and costumes required for, say, fencing, or the intense coaching demanded of gymnastics, running requires only that you lace ‘em up. Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila proved this quite memorably in the 1960 Rome Olympics, when—shoeless, coachless and inexperienced—he won the marathon.

[Blueflag]

Um, no.

Please google “horse”

;-p

[shove_it]

Jessie Owens set the record for the 100 meter dash at 10.2 seconds in 1936 and it stood for 20 years. I have a hunch that was during the pre-doping period. Every record since smells fishy to me. This claim that Bolt is the greatest athlete of all time is laughable.

[darth]

An interesting corollary is that it appears that many ancient civilizations bred for intelligence.

I believe that this technology, purposeful breeding, allowed some groups to rapidly raise the average IQ in a few generations. This IQ advantage allowed the birth of empires with accompanying advances in science, warfare, the arts, and organization.

Kinda the opposite of what we are currently seeing as we ignore genetics and stagger on to Idiocracy.

[smokingfrog]

You just need a two mile head start.

[wideawake]

Oh, yes. Horses are notoriously easy to kill through heat exhaustion.

[null and void]

Not if you are the one bold enough to poke at the cheetah and make it run from you.

(I'm definitely not that one!)

Anyway, the cheetah would peter out and keel over miles before a human would even be winded.

(Well, a normal human, in reasonably good shape, I'm definitely not that one either!)

[vetvetdoug]

Just Google the question and get your answer. Quakers did own slaves and up until the beginning of the 18th century but overall began to discourage the practice around the latter part of the 17th century. Pennsylvanians did sell the Native Americans into slavery. There are several references to it and one can find them easily by Google. I am not a liar and remembered reading how the Indians were treated dishonestly and had lands and their freedoms taken from them. I believe that I read the reference in a book about the origins of slavery in the US that highlighted the hypocrisy of the North when the topic of slavery was addressed.

[SeminoleCounty]

The Black and Caribbean Black dominance in track is not because of race...it is because of economics and geography

Most of these countries are not well off, and, there is not a lot to do for these people, except work. Sure, they have warm weather and beaches, but you can only do that for so long

So, many of these nation’s peoples can do one thing that costs little money...Run.

And, the weather is warm all year, so they have 365 days of outside training....no cold days with snow on the ground or blustery winds

Also, the Carribean islands are mostly mountainous and rocky...so they get to run on hills and inclines...building up strength in the legs. The soil is either rocky or sandy...and that helps with leg strength as well

With the past success of their nationals, and the money they make running in Europe...that is now being put back into facilities and equipment.

Usain Bolt is no doper or DNA freak...he is the product of economics and geography. His buddy, Yohan Blake (2d in the 100m and 200m to Bolt), is going to be the next Jamaican superstar, and he benefits from the facility that Bolt’s money has built

[muawiyah]

America itself didn't have very many Quakers until Penn made a big effort to start importing them in 1701. That resulted in a demographic and political catastrophe for the resident Scandinavian population in Eastern PA, so they relocated to York which is West of the river.

[muawiyah]

The African population in North America was, as a practical matter, miniscule as late as the invention of the cotton gin in 1794.

Then it grew ~ but by 1865 slavery was all over. You really don't have much chance in a 71 year period to 'breed' humans. Their time to maturity is simply too great to be able to select traits.

[vetvetdoug]

The origin of the slave trade in the US was in Massachusetts where it was legal to trap and enslave Native Americans. In the book, The South Was Right by the Kennedy Brothers, they document and outline the origin and expansion of the slave trade in the Americas. The sale of Native Americans to Jamaica, Barbados, and other Caribbean Islands is well documented.

[octex]

Excellent posting of yours at #28!

I have personal knowledge of your example regarding the swimmers and it does require many hours of early morning training and weekend trips to swim meets by the athletes and their parents.

[lacrew]

Well we disagree.

Heres a book on the subject:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DnvxcWO8NpgC&pg=PA340&lpg=PA340&dq=slave+breeding+jamaica&source=bl&ots=0lGBjGwUqg&sig=NITC3ZN8Nx7ZyImOQ4yxCWllzYE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_Z0rUM3ILMqOygGOhICwAQ&ved=0CEIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=slave%20breeding%20jamaica&f=false

Here’s a brief wikipedia article on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_breeding_in_the_United_States

In the 1930’s, thousands of former slaves were interviewed, and it was recorded as a book series. Book 4 of this oral history, from the mouths of ex-slaves, is called “The Breeding of Slaves”.

http://books.google.com/books/about/I_Was_a_Slave.html?id=1VE_AAAACAAJ

[muawiyah]

That's fine ~ so there's a book on it. It took the Sa'ami well over 14,000 years to become thoroughly cold adapted. They can take up to 6 hours to die in freezing cold water. Most everybody else takes 10 minutes amd sometimes as much as an hour!

71 years simply isn't a long enough time to select FOR tallness and musculature!

[kevkrom]

Welcome back to the bell curve... in general, statements like “people from this racial group/subgroup are better at sports requiring X than people from this other racial group/subgroup” is interesting scientifically, but has little practical impact at casual levels of sporting. Just being a member of a racial group or subgroup doesn’t mean you’re automatically good at something, it just means you’re more likely to be good at it.

However, at the elite level (Olympics and/or Professional, especially), these differences are extremely important. Yes, you can be a white sprinter and beat 99.99% of all other sprinters... but the very best West African descended sprinters are going to be better than you. When you are literally racing to see who the best out of billions of people are, genetic variation is going to matter, assuming any kind of equity in training and opportunity.

[muawiyah]

The origin of the slave trade in what is now the United States began, officially, in 1619 with the arrival of the first black slaves from Africa to Virginia.

Massachusetts was founded AFTER Plymouth, which itself was not founded until 1620.

So, who wrote the law that made catching Indians to send abroad as slaves?

[muawiyah]

It's very difficult to breed humans for anything at all since we have such a narrow range of genes of specific vintages.

On the other hand you can kill off the stupid ones quite easily ~ they're the ones who are not living in a stout stone fort with small widows at the top and heafty iron bars at the doors.

That may well have happened to Jews in Eastern Europe. Still, they were considered pretty bright in Medieval Spain (where they'd lived for centuries) where their only choices were industry, manufacturing, trade and money lending. They simply were not allowed to enter into agricultural pursuits.

The current IQ champions are the Finns. There Europe's worst weather keeps them indoors most of the year where they do nothing but study ~

So, pogroms, oppression and cold weather foster higher intelligence ~ more or less.

The Finns edge out the Chinese ~ and here we are speaking of only the ruling class types ~ and they edge out the Jews.

I do not see where any ancient civilization got its act together to breed smart Finns, smart Jews and smart Chinese ~ particularly with all that moving around, wars, disease, famines and the like. Amazing those people were able to reproduce successfully.

[lacrew]

Well, We’re obviously not going to change each other’s minds. Not having lived through the era, I thought a book on the subject, especially one which transcribed interviews with actual slaves, would have some merit.

I guess not.

[wardaddy]

it's obvious to anyone who has lived in black culture that tropical Africans are more athletic as a rule in many ways

running and jumping being most obvious

a young black man can get a muscle cut body simply by genetics at times and eating right and being active

I am talking ripped

the black skin gives more definition to be sure but it's more than that

my hunch is because they often have a higher mean testosterone level and close to hunter gatherer culture whereby they needed such build...and how they originated which distinguishes them from Mongoliod peoples who were hunter gathers too

[Scoutmaster]

Yup. Black athletes sure dominated swimming.

For what it's worth, the article purported to address that:

Blacks in general have heavier skeletons and less body fat—key genetic hindrances when it comes to such sports as competitive swimming.

The article also addressed why Eurasians dominate wrestling and weightlifting, the advantage of the Chinese in gymnastics, diving, and figure skating; why West African blacks are sprinters and East African blacks are long distance runners, and so on. Apparently, I'm lacking sufficient ACTN3 protein to compete in power events, such as sprinting.