There could be a genetic factor involved in Kenya's success in producing long distance runners, however I'd be inclined to consider the high protien diet eaten by certain groups of Kenyans, the high altitude at which many Kenyans live, and which sports don't require a large capital investment in training equipment and technical expertise to excell in. There could be some alleles found in higher frequency that give them some advantage, but I wouldn't be surprised if no genetic advantage is ever found compared to say the Dutch (another bunch of high protien diet tall people, but from a much lower alttitude.)

bingo

Wouldn't also hurt that Kenya's culture is such that running is one of the more common means of getting from one place to another. When you grow up with your own two feet being 90% or more of your transportation in life, the ability to run efficiently becomes very second nature.

I don't know that it would be genetic, except as an example of how amazingly flexible the human body can be when trained to the nth degree in a particular matter.

Just to play devils advocate. Given our political environment today - even if they had - would they admit it? Professing such would spell certain disaster for them both personally and for their business. Likely being fired if they are an emlployee of a larger company or facing a boycott of their business if they are they owner.

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

Lets spin that a bit, Publius. Is it inherent black athleticism, or a serious lack of it among caucasians?

Since when did we (speaking as a caucasian, myself) get nominated at the gold standard against which all others are compared? Who's to say caucasian ethnic culture doesn't have a very critical flaw inherent to it because we do fall WAY short in physical development?

I look at pro sports and I see NFL football being fairly balanced overall in terms of ethnic distribution, but if you go by positional assignments, a few things start showing through. I see a LOT of white linemen on both sides of the neutral zone, I see an ongoing predominance of white quarterbacks and kickers. Blacks are dominant runners and receivers along with their defensive counterparts in the linebackers and safeties. The appearance of black dominance comes to play because the positions they tend to occupy are the "marquee" positions that end up with lots of name recognition.

Speaking to the NBA, don't go crazy assuming that's a place whites don't do well, either. There was an impressive stretch in the 1990s where players came over from the European leagues into the NBA and hung in the game with the best players black America ever produced. Even now, there are some European teams that will put an American "dream team" in its place. The NBA is predominantly black, because the best native players are black due to a cultural predalection

There are some professional sports in the US that are not dominated by blacks, to the point of having almost no black representation. In terms of minimal to no black dominance, there's golf* and hockey. (actually, I can't think of the name of a black hockey player off the top of my head...)

Baseball is the great equalizer, its ethnic identity is very nicely balanced among blacks, whites, hispanics, and a very healthy asian contingent.




*Ok, lets clarify. Tiger Woods is a living god on the fairways. When he decides to play, the only competition the man has are fast greens. But aside from Indian and Hispanic players, the field here is freakin' anemically pale. So, I would say "A black man is dominating the living crap out of pro golf, but blacks as a whole, do not dominate pro golf".

Looking at international events like the Olympics, there are plenty of sports where blacks are rarely prominent. Gymnastics is but one example.

Of course, one might still say "Maybe each race is especially skilled for some sports, but different races are skilled for different sports". However, I think that historical trends show that there is a lot of fluidity in these things. What I think really happens is that some countries, or some ethnicities within a country, invest a lot in one sport, achieve a couple of visible successes (e.g. Jesse Owens in the track), and then it kind of snowballs. Other people of the same ethnicity will be drawn to that sport because their childhood heroes played it, and suddenly an impression that the sport is for that ethnicity develops in the whole of society, and other ethnicities simply start to feel that the sport "isn't meant" for them, and dedicate themselves to something else. It's a matter of dedication and perseverance over several generations, not genetic predisposition.

Usually, this is what I'd say happens. In the specific case of golf, I think we can all agree that it's very much a game of the wealthy.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Not at all, I'm dead broke and I can hit the little windmill every time.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

There's no money in gymnastics. You just have to love the sport.

Golf is played by everyone, from poor to rich.

That's a very recent development, though.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Even it there was some difference in intellect between the races (which I don't believe) that is a very slippery slope to take a step onto.

I was reading a story the other day about Basketball, and how the inner city youths can play the game with little expense. It takes a lot of friends, a lot of expensive equipment, and a large open area to play either baseball or football, but you can shoot hoops almost anywhere, and practice makes perfect.

Some of these elite baseball and football camps require quite a large fee for participation, ruling out many youngsters. In many cases, public schools is their first taste of organized sports.

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Scienara: A rejection of reason and evidence.

OT: This is one of the reasons that soccer is a World Sport - it can be played with less equipment than basketball (don't need the hoop) and just as few players as basketball. One-on-one play is quite common. On TV I've seen poor kids in underdeveloped countries playing with a tin can.

Like hell it is. I know guys who golfed every weekend who were just barely getting by as waiters. Byron Nelson wasn't wealthy. He played just enough to put a roof over his family's head when he started out.

Now, these guys end up making sickening amounts of money through endorsements, but if you look at the money boards just from the sport itself, golf's about as blue collar as it gets.

That's true - but it has been that way for at least 30 years.

O.K., so I'm a golf ignoramus. Never cared much about the thing. Sue me.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Hey, I don't care about it either - especially the way the courses waste water here in the Sonoran Desert.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

The good thing about BAUT is the commitment to evidence. This topic tests that commitment by flagging possible facts which can be manipulated. However, despite that risk, my conviction is that a rigorous evidentiary approach will prove more productive in the long run. I work for the Australian government on its overseas aid program, and observe that evidence-based approaches are just one part of the policy process, which takes into account a range of political factors. But the evidence-based approaches tend to be the most effective in the long run, whereas denial of facts produces a range of perverse consequences.

I wrote a paper on Papua New Guinea (http://peb.anu.edu.au/pdf/Tulip-Hist...id_program.pdf) in which I observed that "Before 1935, the million people living in the fertile valleys of the PNG Highlands had no knowledge of the outside world, including of things we take for granted such as metal, paper and the sea. The wrenching change of modernization has been immense for them and for all of PNG. One way I like to think about this change is by looking at the shift from the village to the office. The traditional values of village culture are a major influence in PNG, where 85% of people live in small rural communities. It is an important question how the assumptions that govern village life translate into the modern office environment. In PNG’s culture of subsistence affluence, where there is basically always enough food and land, the need to plan for the future is less than in countries with colder climates where harvests must be stored over winter, so long term planning gets less emphasis in PNG. The need to maintain equipment is less where wood and stone tools and grass huts are replaced when they wear out, rather than repaired. The wantok (tribal) system does not value cooperating with strangers, but emphasises strong cooperation within the clan. These patterns regarding planning, maintenance and social relations served well in traditional village life but are problematic for modern bureaucratic systems, with their impersonal management needs, and especially now with rapidly growing population."

These comments are offered in the spirit of a focus on how PNG (or comparable African countries) can escape their economic stagnation of recent years and improve the lives of their people. I believe it requires a resolute focus on evidence to define the best available policies. For example a recognition that Sweden's environment produced a culture with greater focus on planning than did PNG's can be a helpful way to begin a realistic appraisal of what needs to improve in PNG. As in Africa, the worst example of a denialist approach is the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

A traditionalist culture works, until the conditions that led to those traditions changes. Then everybody's all at sea.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort