11–20 of 42 posts
why is this story listed on hacker news?
The reason for this: The best sprinters in the world come from West Africa. Say what you want, this is simply true. I'm going to go through a series of logical steps, and I would like you to see if I can get you to agree with my conclusion The biggest time survival of the fittest comes into play is during a war. When a war happens, the people unfit to fight in the war get pruned out of the gene pool. West Africa has…
Further more natural selection is rarely as neat and tidy as described. Why didn't west Africans evolve superb night vision, to see the men painted black? Why didn't they evolve supreme hearing, to hear the sneaky approach?
While it may be possible west Africans are faster due to genetics, your evidence and theories are bit too neat.
why is this story listed on hacker news?
Someone ought to write a script that scans every submission for the words "startup," "Paul Graham," and "Y Combinator" and posts some variation of "Not Hacker News!!!!!" whenever it doesn't find them. At least it would save you all some effort.
The reason for this: The best sprinters in the world come from West Africa. Say what you want, this is simply true. I'm going to go through a series of logical steps, and I would like you to see if I can get you to agree with my conclusion The biggest time survival of the fittest comes into play is during a war. When a war happens, the people unfit to fight in the war get pruned out of the gene pool. West Africa has…
Faulty reasoning and crap evidence. If what you say is true why is the tiny island of Jamaica vastly dominant instead of any of the MILLIONS more west Africans in west Africa? Further more natural selection is rarely as neat and tidy as described. Why didn't west Africans evolve superb night vision, to see the men painted black? Why didn't they evolve supreme hearing, to hear the sneaky approach? While it may be poss…
Jamaica is more dominant for cultural reasons - the people there are more likely to have the opportunity to train for the olympics than in West Africa.
How do you want to account for Natural Selection then? There are no animals left in the world which are capable of killing humans in quantities that would favour one trend over the other. There is no disease that selects for Speed. There is only one predator that can cause the natural selection for speed among humans - and that is other human beings!
West Africans are distinct from other African groups when it comes to genetic specialisation - take a look at the wikipedia page on sickle cell anemia for example. Also take a look at language families as some data to cross reference with.
My evidence is speculatory, but it's realistic, I believe. My reasoning is however logical.
Not Hacker news.
The reason for this: The best sprinters in the world come from West Africa. Say what you want, this is simply true. I'm going to go through a series of logical steps, and I would like you to see if I can get you to agree with my conclusion The biggest time survival of the fittest comes into play is during a war. When a war happens, the people unfit to fight in the war get pruned out of the gene pool. West Africa has…
Faulty reasoning and crap evidence. If what you say is true why is the tiny island of Jamaica vastly dominant instead of any of the MILLIONS more west Africans in west Africa? Further more natural selection is rarely as neat and tidy as described. Why didn't west Africans evolve superb night vision, to see the men painted black? Why didn't they evolve supreme hearing, to hear the sneaky approach? While it may be poss…
I agree in general though.
Not Hacker news.
I find the "cure" (endless threads about things not being hacker news) much worse than the disease.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=280676
mentioning it. My poor attempt at humour, heh. I forgot some exclamation marks too!
The reason for this: The best sprinters in the world come from West Africa. Say what you want, this is simply true. I'm going to go through a series of logical steps, and I would like you to see if I can get you to agree with my conclusion The biggest time survival of the fittest comes into play is during a war. When a war happens, the people unfit to fight in the war get pruned out of the gene pool. West Africa has…
"West Africa" is huge and diverse. What part of west africa are you talking about?
Most of west africa does not have the geography you describe.
Most west african warfare was not waged with machetes. Can you give ONE example or reference for this? There are plenty of african history books which talk about west african archers, spears, shields, canoes and calvary, but I've never seen one about machete raids.
The world class sprinters are all from the USA or Caribbean. I.e. descended from people brought over as slaves. The slave trade went out of the west african coast, but the people who were sold into slavery were usually from somewhere else - often in the middle.
edit: ugh, I just read the article. I don't like deleting my own posts, so I won't. But i'm a bit embarrassed I responded to this.