kwaigonegin
Colonel
A 7 ft tall human with proportional leg length can theoretically run sub 9 s IF he has the training AND the muscle genetics to rotate his strides as fast as someone who is 5 ft tall.
Genome and Genetics Disccussions (Stay within SD Rules)
- Thread starter manqiangrexue
- Start date
A 7 ft tall human with proportional leg length can theoretically run sub 9 s IF he has the training AND the muscle genetics to rotate his strides as fast as someone who is 5 ft tall.
vesicles
Colonel
Awesome! A colleague!
There is a fundamental difference between disease genetics and performance genetics. You need as few as one single mutation to lead to a disease, hence the concept of driver mutation (the initial mutation(s) that starts everything). It is much easier to carry and propagate a single mutation within a population.
Sports on other hand is over-performance of normal human physiology. It needs much more than just a single change. A highly complex and highly coordinated change needs to occur to lead to the final outcome. Take running for example, you need thick muscle fibers to develop muscles. Yes. But you also need well-supplied red blood cells to carry oxygen to fuel your muscles. You also need coordinated development of upper body, hips, knees, ankles and feet, etc etc etc. Any mishap will compromise your overall performance.
A good example would be sickle-cell anaemia. It is a mutation in the hemoglobin gene, which compromises the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen, making patients unable to perform any physical activity. As much as 40% of population in Africa has sickle cell anaemia (depending on which country, can range from 10% to 40%). Yes, you read it correctly, 40%! That means as much as 40% of Africans has a hard time even walking, let alone running and competing. Yes, Africans may have thicker muscle fibers to allow them to have more well-developed muscles. However, without enough oxygen, they cannot even walk. Their thick muscle fibers mean nothing. And you have 10-40% of the whole population that has this disease. If you average their performance on the track and compare it with Asian. Yes, you may have those Africans without sickle-cell anaemia who can outrun the Asians. But with 10-40% of those with the sickle-cell disease to drag down the average, how can you expect Africans as a whole population to perform better?
Let's take a look at a car. All you need is a loosened bolt to mess up the entire engine and break down the car. This would simulate the diseased state, a much easier feat. However, to improve the performance of your car, it takes a coordinated effort. Of course, one obvious choice would be to beef up the engine. But most likely changing ONLY the engine will not give you a faster car. A beefier engine is also heavier. The increase weight of your car will certainly compromise its speed. So you need to take away something else on your car to offset the increased weight of your beefier engine. A heavier engine will also mess up the balance of your car, making it front-heavy. So you need to add weight on the back of your car to balance it again. A beefy engine also heats up fast. Your original radiator won't work anymore. So you need to change the radiator to maintain a cool engine. Then the tires need to be wider and maintain effective traction. As you can see, you need to do a much much more complex coordinated change to improve the performance.
Similarly, for a human to perform as a world-class athlete, there needs to be a highly coordinated change in his/her physiology to achieve the final outcome. And such complex change and mutations become so difficult to maintain within a large population. You need a carefully planned breeding program to maintain just a small population of such over-performers. As such, it is impossible that a whole population would carry such complex changes over such long period of time.
So how wide is the gap? Do you expect the Asians' height potential is as high as the Caucasians? If that's the case, then no difference between the Asian and Caucasians...
vesicles
Colonel
OK, let's back up a bit. You were the one who initially proposed the hypothesis that race plays a main role in sports performance. I disagreed with you. Since you proposed the hypothesis, I believe you bare the responsibility to present evidence, not me.
With that said, since you issued me a challenge, it would be rude of me if I don't respond. Since we are talking about Olympics and sports, I thought we can focus on athletes. Please see the website below for a statistics about all the athletes at the 2016 Olympics. They listed only 3 categories, age, weight and height. Some of the more-talked about apparent differences between Chinese athletes and those from Western countries are actually height and weight. So let's take a look. Let's only compare big countries who participated in more wide range of activities. Smaller nations only participate in certain programs, potentially skewing the statistics.
Average height:
China: 177cm
US: 178cm
Canada: 175cm
Russia: 178cm
Average weight:
China: 70Kg
US: 74Kg
Canada: 70Kg
Russia: 72Kg
This is the overall statistics of ALL athletes on the teams, including big and tall basketball players and small and light gymnasts. Because of the wide distribution and obviously large standard deviation, I don't think any of the differences here is statistically significant. As I said before, I focused on large countries that participated in all activities to avoid skewing the data. I chose to compare China with the US, Canada and Russia because none of these teams have any significant Asians on their teams. thus, this is a good comparison between Asians and non-Asians (typically and widely to be considered taller and heavier than Asian).
I list this data for one purpose: statistics. If you want to talk about a large population, such as a race, statistics must be included. Any race include big/tall and small/light. Each characteristics allow such individuals to perform better in some events. However, if you want to generalize it to characterize the entire population, you will have to include ALL population, big/tall and small/light. Because of the wide distribution of all kinds of genetic traits, any perceived differences become statistically insignificant. This is nicely shown above.
For instance, you mentioned the Chinese athletes cannot compete in the heavyweight weightlifting because Easter Europeans are so much bigger and dominate such field. But Eastern European women have dominated gymnastics for decades. Women's gymnastics heavily favor small, agile and light. So are Eastern Europeans typically big and heavy, or small and light? You cannot have it both ways if you want to characterize a whole race based on a single trait. The distribution is too wide to do that.
My hypothesis has always been that economics of the nation determines sports performance. To show that, I would like to point you to the medals list.
As you can see, countries ranked on the top of the list are all countries with well-developed economy. Of course, like any large data, there are outliers. But, in general, the economy determines sports performance.
I do have to admit that my hypothesis seems to be on a shaky ground when we look at track and field alone, where blacks absolutely dominate (See below a break down of medals in the track and field).
With that said, if we look at individual events, we see a distinct trend: blacks from wealthy countries dominate short distance dashes while those from poor countries dominate long distance. The mechanics of short distance dashes and long distance running are vastly different. All these athletes share the same genetics. So this difference cannot be genetics. It's more about nutrition and training technique and other environmental factors.
You as an individual can do exactly that. You have individual traits that allow you to excel at certain activities. And you absolutely want to capitalize on that.
However, it would be wrong to characterize a whole race into certain categories. Any large population has such wide distribution of traits. It becomes inappropriate to categorize them. Case in point, the "big and tall" Eastern Europeans in heavyweight weightlifting and "small and light" Eastern Europeans in women's gymnastics.
On top of that, the perceived advantaged of certain traits may or may not hold true. Let's take a look at women's gymnastics. We see 3 distinct types of body types: long and thin Eastern Europeans, short and buff Americans and short and skinny Asians (Chinese and Japanese). Each type has dominated women's gymnastics. There seems to be no apparent advantages that each body type could hold.
Again, as I said at the beginning, sports performance is about a coordinated effort among many different parts of the body. Any perceived advantaged of one part may or may not actually contribute.
I love challenges. It has been my pleasure to discuss these matters.
Don't worry about my knowledge in military matters. I have so little of it that you won't be able to find enough of it to shake anyways...
vesicles
Colonel
Please note that I am not denying the genetic differences between individuals. I am arguing that there is statistically insignificant difference between different races, which typically include a wide distribution of individuals with vastly different genetic traits. This is about a large population.
solarz
Brigadier
Let's put it another way. Right now, Black athletes from Jamaica and African countries dominate running events. Black americans excel in basketball. We can hypothesize some genetic factor that could give them an advantage, but would we ever be able to isolate that factor from their environmental upbringing? Could we take two kids from different ethnicities and raise them while controlling for all other variables, including economy, culture, and even personality?
Yes, olympians all train hard, but they do not have access to the same resources, nutrition, and free time. Economic hardship can sharpen or dull determination, depending on circumstances. Cultural factors can be a boon to certain sports and an obstacle to others. You can never take two olympians and try to control for all non-genetic variables. It is simply impossible.
So, if the question is whether certain ethnic groups have an advantage in certain sports at the moment, the answer is absolutely yes. If the question is whether genetic or environmental factors are responsible for that advantage, the answer is probably both. How much of one and the other? Impossible to say. Will they hold this advantage forever? No, most likely not.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Yes, it is easier for a single genetic trait such as a disease gene to be carried on, however, you must remember that large groups of diseases are prevalent in certain populations, not just 1. But what more easily demonstrates this fact is in the differences of appearance among the different races. Africans, Caucasians, Indians, middle-easterners, Asians, don't generally look like each other. If I find a random Caucasian, out of 100 other Caucasians, chances are, you will find someone who resembles him. But if I give you a pool of 100 Asians, you most likely cannot, not even in 1,000. Unique looks are the result of highly complex combinations of traits, just like physical ability, and these looks are prevalent in certain populations just like athletic ability is.
Your sickle-cell anemia example is an exception, where 1 mutation skews a population so that becomes bi-modal instead of resembling the normal bell curve. Statistically, it is an error to draw inferences from the mean when it is taken from a bi-model distribution.
How wide the gap for height is actually between Asians and Caucasians, I don't know. Which Caucasians? Caucasians in the Alps are far taller than Caucasians in America. This is not my point at all; I only mentioned it because you talked about Asians getting taller with better nutrition and I rebutted with this to reflect that this does not mean all heights between races are equal.
Let's look at your statistics table. First of all, the average difference of 4kg between 2 pools of about 500 athletes is definitely quite significant, since it is almost a 6% difference in 2 groups with such high n-values and then, it comes down to sports where 0.01 seconds decides the victor. Secondly, as this is the Olympics, only the best athletes out of massive pools are selected to attend; these athletes are specially selected for similar traits. For example, let's say the majority of those who succeed in sport X are from 185-190cm; any shorter and the reach is lacking; any taller and he looses nimbleness. That means every nation sends athletes who are generally in that range. China may have 100 guys to choose from and only 10 fell in that range; 85 were too short and 5 were too tall so the 5 guys on the Chinese team are all 185-190cm. Let's say the Netherlands also wants to compete, and has only about 20 guys to choose from; 10 are in that range, 5 are too tall, and 5 are too short. So the 5 they send are also 185-190cm, just like team China. So those statistics do not indicate that the average height of Chinese is equal/similar to that of the Netherlands. This is just an example I made up; do not attack the specific numbers LOL
As for your gymnastics example, very very good. You also did notice that gymnasts from Asia are generally very thin and light while those from America are stocky and strong. This is how each population uses its genetic advantage to develop divergent strategies for competing (reaching the same objective). This is commonly demonstrated in convergent evolution (different solutions to the same problem such as when a bat evolves skin flaps to fly but birds evolve feathers). Doesn't mean they are the same; it actually means that they are different. Russians are in general, larger than Asians, BUT, they still field nimble gymnasts, yes. First of all, the Russian girls are all larger than their Chinese colleagues. The Russians are incredibly skilled and have an excellent tradition in gymnastics; nurture plays a huge role as well as genetics. But body-wise, they are between Asians and Americans, less powerful and stocky than the latter and more so than the former. This is yet another strategy/combination to achieve the same results.
As you mentioned, blacks from some regions (rich) dominate the dash while blacks from others (poor) dominate the distance runs and thus, it cannot be a genetic factor. I don't agree. First of all, is Jamaica a rich country? Secondly, not all blacks have the same genetics, although there are many similarities. Genetics will reflect what you need to survive. In places like Kenya, you need to run long distances and thus, those who can do so will have an advantage and will result in superior survival and mating rights. Therefore, those who carry the myriad of genes for slow twitch fibers and equine-esque morphology of the leg will better-pass down their genes. Those who do not, will have a difficult time surviving much less mating. So over time, the population in Kenya skews towards people with the genes to run long distances. This doesn't happen in places like New York, where running long distances does not confer any significant survival advantage. This is like min-evolution; it's far from creating a new species but it does allow for physical specialization. (You may argue that if the Chinese were placed in Kenya, they could also develop this trait after centuries assuming they were not allowed to have cars, and I would agree. But currently, that is not the situation and the Kenyans have an advantage over the Chinese in selecting for athletes naturally advantaged in the marathon.) The Africans in America are actually more hybridized with Caucasian DNA and bring a different set of traits to the table.
But all and all, the main point which you have not addressed, and it's a very very important one, is why there are such large differences noted on America's national teams. I thank America for completing this experiment because I feel it is my strongest piece of evidence for genetic differences among the races. In America's national teams, for all disciplines, Asians, whites, and blacks apply, compete, and do their best. When they are on the team, they are trained in highly similar if not identical conditions. Yet, year after year, the runners who make it to the Olympics are almost all black (despite blacks being a minority in the US); the swimmers are almost all white. If the genetic differences between the races are insignificant as you say, then how do you explain this? This has already been asked and was ignored. It is my most important point; if you address nothing else, address this point, please.
solarz
Brigadier
I would say there are still a lot of environmental factors to consider here. First, what are the pool of applicants? If more black americans tend to gravitate to running sports than americans of other ethnic background, then obviously the american running team will have more black athletes. The reason more black americans gravitate toward running could very well be socio-economic. For example, running is cheap, swimming is expensive.
Second, I would say training regimes are far from identical. The US doesn't have a centralized sports program. Each gifted athlete must hire their own coach and find the means to support themselves while they train. This injects a huge amount of environmental variability into the training process.
There isn't a single physical trait that you can point to which can grant a definitive advantage a sport. Sports are complex socio-cultural activities. Just because someone is tall doesn't mean he is a good basketball player. Sure, height gives them an advantage, but can you say that advantage is greater than a shorter player who played the game from a child? (And we aren't even getting into the socio-economic factors behind height!)
If we take that as a fact (I have also read it somewhere), doesn't that mean at least 60% of Africans have a genetically based advantage over Caucasian and Asians without the sickle-cell anemia disadvantage? While what percentage of Caucasian and Asians have the equivalent thickness of muscle fibers? If that number is very small, then there is a natural born genetic advantage. It means it is much easier to find a potential African medal winner than others. That is to say genetic does play an important role, doesn't it?
On the other point of statistic of athlete height and weight, the Asian (Chinese in your figures) are averagely shorter and thinner than Caucasian and African. There is a very big variation within China itself too. Isn't it easier to pick some tall guy with good potential (coordination, reflex etc.)to play basketball among Caucasians and Africans than China? While it would be more difficult to find a guy tall enough and still have the other potential among Chinese? There again, genetics play a big role. It gives the "system" a better chance to find the potentials.
It is sensitive to involve the term "race". And the "race" sometimes stop us to accept basic facts. So let's remove it from the discussion and only talk about Chinese (supposedly one race). We all know the big variations among Chinese, from north to south, from west to east. We also know that the physical difference is big. We know the nutrition conditions are roughly the same if we only take the comparable cities. The diets can be different from place to place and may play a role. But it is clear that you can more easily find a good potential basketball player from cities with a higher average heights. Taking a look at Chinese athletes and their ancestral background would be helpful to understand genetics' importance without risking the problem of "race". I have taken a look at the old Chinese Women's valley ball team 1981, although far from conclusive I do see a pattern.
If we make height as the only factor for the sake of discussion, one can always find enough tall guys in China to compete with other people. But if the population (number of people) base is equal among all "races", then it is clear China has a disadvantage in finding enough tall guys. Luckily for China, with China's huge population, there is always enough tall guys (absolute numbers) to fill the pool. But that advantage of bigger pool does not dismiss the importance of genetics.
Yes, average of Chinese will grow closer to other people, so you may dismiss genetics as a factor, but the variations within China is not nutrition based, therefor the genetic factor still remains.
In conclusion, genetics is about distribution. So saying it is a decisive role is wrong, but saying it is not important is equally wrong.
I am open to accept the fact that I am thinner and shorter than Usain Bolt because his parents are taller than my parents (genetics) without feeling inferior of anything, neither would I take "race" into consideration, but I can't deny that he does have genes that I don't have that makes him running faster than me. But I know I am better in mathematics than him whether genetic or not.
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manqiangrexue
Brigadier
I already explained many times that there are a plethora of traits combined to make a great athlete and they can be more common and extreme in certain populations than others just like how certain populations look different than others. Physical appearance is also a combination of complex traits.
Let me give one example of an obvious difference. When Asian or Caucasian weightlifters perform the clean and jerk, typically, they throw the weight onto their shoulders and jerk it up from the same hand position. But all/nearly all Africans must first clean it onto their shoulders, then adjust their hands for wider grip while balancing it on their deltoids and clavicles before jerking it up. Because on average, Africans have longer arms and if they were to jerk from the same hand position as the clean, they must send the weight much higher. This trait alone gives Africans a disadvantage in weightlifting (extra step, extra time under the weight, strain on clavicles/delts) and the only black weightlifting champion I can think of in history is Vencelas Dabaya of France. He was champion for only 1 year, not at the Olympics. There are no others. (Of course, this trait is an advantage in other sports such as basketball.)
You are seriously suggesting that white people are not as good at running as black people are because it's too cheap and white people like to do expensive things like swimming? The black population of the US is under 15% yet every 100m runner representing the US, or any other country in the world who made it to this year's 100m finals is black, and you are trying to use this as a possible explanation? The coaches and coaching styles are all different so just by luck, all the black people happen get the best coaches every year?
Why are people deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room that different races of people have different advantages? Are you all so in love with the narrative that every race is exactly the same and you can be anything you want, limited by only your dreams?
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Another fact is that China has a practice of sending certain athletes to Yunnan about one month prior to big games because Yunnan is a plateau of 3000 meters above sea level. The reason was to enhance the blood cell's ability to carry oxygen. We also know that ethnic Tibetans are naturally adapted to high altitude over 4000 meters, therefor they are naturally advantageous in certain sports if all other factors are equal to other ethnics. The reason that Tibetans do not perform well in Chinese sport teams is the remoteness, poor fundamental facilities and maybe nutritions. But the fact that Chinese teams train at high altitude says that Tibetan gene is advantageous.
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