Does race matter

aanallein said:
slavery in the USA lasted 249 years. I very much doubt that was enough time to cause significant genetic drift.

Any other arguments are pretty much irrelevant.
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Wow, you seem pretty confident, not to mention a bit pretentious.

How are you so sure two and a half centuries isn't enough? That's about 5+ generations worth.

If I get lung cancer, the chances of my offspring getting it go up dramatically. And that's just ONE generation! 8o
 
negrogesic said:
Save tookie
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You mean RIP tookie...

Truth is genetics. Period.

Basketball had Muggsy Bogues and bodybuilding had Flavio Baccianini. Extreme examples I know but the first two that came to mind immediately.
 
If I get lung cancer, the chances of my offspring getting it go up dramatically. And that's just ONE generation!
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Do you even understand how genetics works? This statement makes me question that.

250 years in that time period was about 9 generations actually and I still very much doubt it caused substantial genetic drift.
 
Obviously, it was a bit of a hyberbole.

I'm still waiting for your basis as to why it's impossible that two and a half centuries of breeding won't produce any noticeable effects upon present day generations.
 
Because there wasn't significant pressure to produce a specific trait. As much as some historians might like you to believe that there was widespread breeding efforts for those 9 generations to produce specific traits in black offspring this simply wasn't the case.

There was some pressure I'll grant you that. The slaves that survived the journey over to America were probably stronger than most - they would have had to have been. However, I'd say that's the one MAIN factor here in the entire situation looking at the situation genetically.

The slaves chosen from Africa weren't specifically bigger or stronger - they were generally captured and enslaved through inter-tribal warfare in Africa and then sold to whites and transported to America. They didn't simply go out and pick the "best" physical specimens it just worked out the way it worked out.

Furthermore, once in America they didn't selective breed for certain features and even if that was practiced, it wasn't done in any kind of universal or scientific fashion. It was all completely random for the most part. When they did breed selectively, as far as I've read, it was for quantity not for specific traits. There was also a LOT of interbreeding going on between whites/blacks.. so how that plays into the picture who knows.

Overall if you put serious and very specific genetic pressure on a population over 9 generations you could probably produce noticeable results. The problem is that the pressure in this case wasn't specific it was a chaos of human populations moving around and mingling and experiencing a variety of cultural, environmental, and disease specific pressures. To expect those kind of random pressures to somehow produce a population of athletically superior humans over 9 generations is a little over the top.
 
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Aanallein is entirely correct.

As i mentioned before, the slave breeding hypothesis is nonsensical, whatever cases of that were highly isolated (as mentioned, slaves were more valued through numbers than individual strength, also in order for a slave to get huge they would have had to feed them alot), and more importantly, african-americans account for only a very small percentage of all people of african descent. While human beings can force genetic changes through breeding over relatively short time periods (example, dog breeding), we simple have not seen humans do this to other humans. It just has not happened...
 
The slave argument is bullshit, and a bit dehumanizing.
So called "african americans" are so mixed its obvious when comparing to a native African population, to suggest any colonial eugenics program to be discernible in the here and now is laughable.
 
blacks typically have higher amounts of fast twitch muscle fibers. also something about the difference in shin length makes them optimal sprint runners.
 
think about it. if u had to chase your food down with a wooden spear in some western africa jungle your genetics would have to be pretty good, because only the strong survive. and that is especially important for hunter/gatherer societies.
 
in order for a slave to get huge they would have had to feed them alot
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That's a good point. Food is plentiful now, but the increased metabolic cost of being big was once a serious matter. If anything, smaller humans give you more bang for the buck under a lot of conditions in terms of general performance.

Personally, I'm a bit closer to the 'hopeful monster' side of the genetic scale. At 200 cm (6'7") and around 300 lbs (136 kilos) (I'd probably be 'ripped' at about 275 or so, carrying some extra weight) I'm not cheap to maintain as far as food costs. I probably have a base metabolic requirement of around 4,000 calories a day, ie. that's what I need to avoid wasting away even if I'm just sitting around most of the time. You could feed two or three humans of more historically traditional sizes off that, and in many labor jobs I wouldn't actually be much more productive (if at all) than a small human. My size doesn't exactly gain me anything in ability to pick cotton or such.

Even if some slave holders did engage in selective breeding of slaves for strength (which frankly, I greatly doubt; they didn't have even the basic concepts of genetics down back then) you can be quite sure that they wouldn't have been selecting for peek athletic performance. Endurance, maybe, but not things like maximum cardiovascular capacity or reaction time or coordination.

I hate to feed the trolls, but there is rather extensive and conclusive evidence that the 'black' population is on average somewhat less intelligent than the other major ethnic groups (although this may be largely due to generally poorer education, nutrition, etc. rather than genetics.) Whites are about average, while east Asians have the highest overall IQs (mostly due to significantly higher visual IQ, which doesn't actually help with most reasoning tasks but may have some correlation to mathematical ability and such.) Saying such things can just about get you lynched by the political correctness squad, but the researchers are very confident of their results.

So, if you're looking to declare some group the Superior Race, it's most likely the Chinese, Japanese, etc. rather than blue-eyed blond Europeans. :) (The differences are really only significant on the large population level; you can't make any assumptions about individuals based on these modest differences in averages.)

Populations do vary. We shouldn't be afraid of admitting that as long as we stay honest about what such differences do (and don't) mean. If you think you're better or worse than somebody else just because there's some statistical population difference between your respective demographic groups, you're full of shit. :)
 
DACOIT said:
think about it. if u had to chase your food down with a wooden spear in some western africa jungle your genetics would have to be pretty good, because only the strong survive. and that is especially important for hunter/gatherer societies.
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bump the hell out of this post!!!!!!!!!!11111

I'm telling you people who don't believe, or better yet, ASKING you:

WHY DO I SEE SO MANY BLACK CHILDREN WITH SIX PACKS AND KILLER BICEPS?!?!?
 
MaxPowers said:
bump the hell out of this post!!!!!!!!!!11111

I'm telling you people who don't believe, or better yet, ASKING you:

WHY DO I SEE SO MANY BLACK CHILDREN WITH SIX PACKS AND KILLER BICEPS?!?!?
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I can't find my favourite socks. They were in the top drawer last I checked. SOMEONE MUST HAVE BROKEN INTO MY HOUSE STOLEN THEM.
 
Why does my tv float 3-4feet off the floor at night?
WHY DO I SEE SO MANY BLACK CHILDREN WITH SIX PACKS AND KILLER BICEPS?!?!?
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these two attributes usually are a result of low body fat.. the 6-8 pak at least. Biceps varry on description. If your talkin like totally cut up its probably body fat, if mass i cant say off the top of my head.
 
^^^ LOL at whys my tv floating..

"Good point with the cultural influence but i cant help but wondering, African american's were forced to act as slaved for a few hundred years when North American civilization was supposedly an adolescent. And they mainly only reproduced with their own kin due to inter racial breeding laws etc.

say james worked the field for 50years and got mad strong bc of it, then he breeded with marry who did the same for 50years & this repeated itself many hundreds of times through out different generations, would it be easier for their off spring to build muscle & speed then it would be for some one who was created by weaker families of people who were forcing the slaves to work for them? Maybe this explains the NBA"

Naa I think DACOIT was right when he said that africans evolved to be bigger and stronger while they were still in africa, all that hunting and gathering. The africans still in africa are slightly bigger than black americans and they are both on average bigger than whites/asians/mexicans etc.
 
say james worked the field for 50years and got mad strong bc of it
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Assuming you aren't just trolling, evolution/genetics doesn't work that way. Becoming very strong or athletic because of how you live won't make your children any stronger; they only inherit your genetic POTENTIAL, not the results that you achieved through hard work.

You're also assuming that the lower economic status whites weren't working just as hard as the slaves. Who really works harder: The free guy who's fighting to survive and improve his lot in life, or the slave who only works grudgingly because somebody ordered him to?
 
lol exactly the only way the slavery argument could work would be to say the weaker ones died and didnt reproduce, stronger ones survived and had more kids. That is theoretically plausable but still a long shot

Saying think 'about it they used to hunt with spears' is rubbish to explain for example why modern african americans may be more cut or muscular on average imo. Think more about the native american indians or the australian aboriginals they arent massively muscular or top 100m sprinters. It is something that is unique to the particular african races that were brought over to the americas.

Anyway the biggest and most muscular man mountains are the pacific Islanders like Maoris and Fijians etc, they ate loads of fish proteins and didnt run long distances on land because they were on smallish islands imo :P
 
Anyway the biggest and most muscular man mountains are the pacific Islanders like Maoris and Fijians etc, they ate loads of fish proteins and didnt run long distances on land because they were on smallish islands imo :P
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Maybe they ran laps around the islands? ;)

Lot of big guys in the Scandinavian countries too. It's hard to say what forces produced a lot of genetic variation in indigenous populations. For instance, why did the mutant genetics for blue and green eyes spread so readily in northern Europe? Was it just a fashion thing, mate selection pressures? Or is there really a functional advantage under some environmental circumstances?
 
I think the eyes is due to being in colder waether with less penetrating sunlight, kinda same way they became white when perhaps originally we were all black. Maybe it didnt spread as such but the mutation was't a negative mutation in those regions I dunno. Its also a recessive gene which if my distant biology memory serves me correctly one must have 2 blue eyed parents to be blue eyed, as brown eye gene is dominant.

But yeh I see your point the for there to be entire races of blue eyed people it must have been an advantage at some stage particularly in light of its recessive nature
 
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