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Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

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Re: Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

#31

Post by occam »

Tichy wrote: post #24

What about doping? Another throwaway idea: racism still exists, so the blacker somebody looks, the more likely they'll have to resort to desperate means like allowing dangerous medical experiments on their bodies (doping) to still have some success in society. (I am not claiming this is the explanation, just want to point out another possible explanation).

That doesn't explain why west Africans are so strong at sprinting but very weak at distance running, while east Africans are the opposite (dominant in distance running, very weak sprinters), nor why whites are somewhat competitive in the middle distances but not sprints and long distances.

Re: Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

#33

Post by Tichy »

occam wrote: post #31
Tichy wrote: post #24

What about doping? Another throwaway idea: racism still exists, so the blacker somebody looks, the more likely they'll have to resort to desperate means like allowing dangerous medical experiments on their bodies (doping) to still have some success in society. (I am not claiming this is the explanation, just want to point out another possible explanation).

That doesn't explain why west Africans are so strong at sprinting but very weak at distance running, while east Africans are the opposite (dominant in distance running, very weak sprinters), nor why whites are somewhat competitive in the middle distances but not sprints and long distances.

You have to be careful with "explain" - sure you can "explain" anything with a presumed genetic disposition. That is in general not really a proof, only yet another theory. I just wanted to point out that there are alternative explanations.

For example, Europeans tend to be really good at soccer, whereas Americans suck at it. Is it genetic? I highly doubt it, since the European genes are readily available in the US. It has a cultural reason (simple statistics - popular sports - higher percentage of kids trying it - higher percentage of talents being discovered).

Re: Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

#34

Post by Tichy »

Tichy wrote: post #33
occam wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't explain why west Africans are so strong at sprinting but very weak at distance running, while east Africans are the opposite (dominant in distance running, very weak sprinters), nor why whites are somewhat competitive in the middle distances but not sprints and long distances.

You have to be careful with "explain" - sure you can "explain" anything with a presumed genetic disposition. That is in general not really a proof, only yet another theory. I just wanted to point out that there are alternative explanations. For example, Europeans tend to be really good at soccer, whereas Americans suck at it. Is it genetic? I highly doubt it, since the European genes are readily available in the US.…

I want to add to this a question, because I truly don't know: who are the kids picking up running 100m distances as their main sport? What is their motivation? I can imagine why people get into team sports, for example, but I can't imagine a huge number of people go into 100m running out of intrinsic self motivation, simply because it is so much fun to run 100m?

So maybe the "system" matters much more for 100m running than for most other sports. The system being things like "scholarships in exchange for sports", the way talent gets identified and promoted, and so on. Just saying that this would be another aspect that might distort the statistics.

I recently heard the quote "Jamaica is too small to have their own drug testing agency"...

Re: Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

#35

Post by mechanical_fish »

rkts wrote: post #11
akuafo wrote: post #7

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.

I think that's a great idea.

...

Okay, I'm joking. A bot which votes automatically is a bad idea. But, in all seriousness: Perhaps every single article should come with a tiny button to press, with a label: "I believe this article is offtopic for HN".

This suggestion has been made thousands of times by now. The counter-argument -- a good one -- is that enabling the downvoting of articles empowers gangs of organized downvoters to kill content from the site for arbitrary reasons. Everyone knows the kind of trouble that causes.

But that presumes that the downvote button is hooked up to something in the site's software. It doesn't need to be. Just display a tiny number that is the number of accumulated downvotes. Let the people who read each article, and decide whether to upvote it or not, choose whether or not to ignore that number.

In the absence of this feature, the users reinvent it for themselves, as we have seen again and again.

You may ask why the people who wish to express disapproval of an article can't just write a thoughtful post that explains why, instead of clicking a little DOWNVOTE button. The short answer is that to acknowledge a troll is to feed the troll. The longer answer is that some trolls are much more subtle than others: The ones who use rude one-liners are easy to spot, but there are others who will suck you into endlessly circling, long-winded, bad-faith arguments filled with chaff. You'll refute something, and they'll respond with a mixture of inaccurate and irrelevant bullet points; and you'll introduce good points of your own, and they'll be ignored in future posts; and if by some miracle you create a really compelling counter-argument, the troll will go away for two days and then come back, advancing the same argument that he did two days ago, as if the counter-argument had never existed. You can't avoid such people by engaging them -- engagement is what they want. You have to learn their reputations and politely but firmly avoid them.

Which I do. But that doesn't mean I want to sit idly by while effluvia overflows the front page of HN. The site could really use a "cold shoulder" button.

[EDIT: Okay, I promoted this crazy idea to its own submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=281431 ]

Re: Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

#37

Post by akuafo »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #35
rkts wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that's a great idea. ... Okay, I'm joking. A bot which votes automatically is a bad idea. But, in all seriousness: Perhaps every single article should come with a tiny button to press, with a label: "I believe this article is offtopic for HN". This suggestion has been made thousands of times by now. The counter-argument -- a good one -- is that enabling the downvoting of articles empowers gangs of organized d…

Something like that sounds like a good idea, and sorry for my overly brief dismissal of the post that started this discussion.

I actually didn't mean to say the story shouldn't be listed at all. It just seemed unscientific (and borderline inappropriate) and below the usual standards for the site.

Re: Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

#38

Post by cap4life »

maxklein wrote: post #27
cap4life wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related thought: Why are there no black Olympic swimmers?

That's not related. Why are there no World Class Kungfu Masters from Zimbabwe?

It most certainly is related. If the author of the article is questioning why one race dominates in a certain sport, then asking the follow up question of why that same race is noticeably absent from a different sport is related. We're talking about black people and why they do well at some sports; you could also talk about black people and why they seem not to do as well in others.

And a world class zimbabwean kung fu master could exist.

Re: Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

#39

Post by maxklein »

cap4life wrote: post #38
maxklein wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not related. Why are there no World Class Kungfu Masters from Zimbabwe?

It most certainly is related. If the author of the article is questioning why one race dominates in a certain sport, then asking the follow up question of why that same race is noticeably absent from a different sport is related. We're talking about black people and why they do well at some sports; you could also talk about black people and why they seem not to do as well in others. And a world class zimbabwean kung…

It has nothing to do with race. East Africans are of the same 'race' as West Africans. Your concept of 'race' has nothing to do with reality - you can't just take the color of peoples skin and group them all together. It's very superficial, and is totally unrelated to any biological reality.

Re: Why English speakers dominate sprinting events

#40

Post by biohacker42 »

maxklein wrote: post #14
biohacker42 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a weak counter argument. Natural selection happens only when things happen on a grand scale. Like during wars. Africans generally have better vision than many other ethnic groups, but there are no vision olympics. 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 Selectio…

I am not so sure it is logical. Obviously groups of people have genetic differences. Sickle cell anemia is a great example, here we have exactly one gene which gives malaria resistance with one copy and immunity and anemia with two. And endemic malaria is one hell of a natural selector.

But suppose I claimed that the long standing domination of Romanian gymnasts was genetic. And then I came up an elaborate explanation involving contests of balance and bouncing set to music that decide which maiden gets to marry. Strictly speaking a logical theory but not very smart.

Cultural reasons are a huge contributor, just look at the Russian relay team and their baton passing skills.

Then there's simple genetic drift and founders effect. Those are most often responsible for genetic differences. The Ashkenazi are descendant from a VERY small group of founders. What is a very rare genetic mutation, by accident became common in the Ashkenazi population.

That's simple genetics, but natural selection is much more complicated. The Jamaicans might have more fast twitch muscle fiber due to natural selection, or they might have it because of a genetic bottle neck in the slave trade.

The few Africans who got to Jamaica first happened to have rare genes and there you go founders effect. Or it just might be all cultural with no genetics.

The elaborate scenario with villages and night time warfare and running (but no moats?) is only slightly more serious then any scenario involving music coordinated gymnastics based natural selection in Romania.

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