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Re: Black superiority in running
Ronald Kephart (rkephart@OSPREY.UNF.EDU)
Mon, 5 Aug 1996 13:01:10 -0400
In message <9608031754.AA07966@cie1.cie.fr> Timothy Mason writes:
> Why has evolution favoured Asiatics with the supple wrist that makes them so
> good at badminton and ping-pong? And why are American blacks - who are all
> *partly* white - jolly good sprinters? Oh - and why are the Brits so good at
> inventing sports, but no good at all at winning?
Exactly, and the point is (I am writing from experience as a short, pigmentally
challenged former distance runner) that success in athletics depends on (1)
intelligent training, (2) ability to maximize one's strengths and minimize one's
weaknesses in a race, (3) competitive spirit, and (4) luck. Luck would include
being born into a culture that values a particular athletic activity.
And anyway, I hope everyone watched the Olympics long enough to notice that
athletes did not automatically win because they were black, or white, or
whatever.
Oh yeah: I'm glad you metioned the "white" component in American "blacks." This
leads to our physical anthropology factoid for the day, which is that American
"whites" and "blacks" are genetically more similar to each other (the result of
massive gene flow) than either is to its original "parent" population.
Ronald Kephart
University of North Florida
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