Michael Johnson says Slave Breeding led to Slavery Descendants being better athletes

A very good point. Repped.

 

North Africans already had the gene that produce fast twiching muscles, slavery only enhenced that quality by bring the more fit to America, maybe some slective breeding contributed some as well. Add to the culture where Afrian Americans like sports (basketball, football, track, etc) You have the 100 m final with all west african descent at the olympics.

 

It certainly played some role

 

This - To totally 100% dismiss or advocate it is ridiculous.

 

Yup, how much of a factor is up to debate.

 

Slavery is a socio-cultural institution and since slavery in the US officially ended 150 years ago black US culture has to be considered. You cannot separate the social cultural factors from a scientific discussion of why blacks seem to dominate certain sports.

 

31.23%

 

Except that pattern goes beyond the U.S. or even the western hemisphere.

Doesn't seem that slavery nor culture is the issue here. It's something more fundamental to West Africa.

 

How is it inflammatory?

How can you make general statements like that? Massive problems have already been stated with it. A cow can live 20 years but already produced an offspring at the age of 2. That makes line breeding extremely effective.

doubt it

 

It is the issue here because Michael Johnson specifically said that that slave breeding led to the descendents of slaves being better athletes.

I tend to agree with you that there probably is something about West Africans and those genetics may play a large role in the success of people like Michael Johnson. The question though is if slavery had anything to do with it.

Also lets not forget that Michael Johnson's West African ancestry has likely been watered down from Europeans sexually exploiting his slave ancestors.

 

The usage of the word 'breeding' in every day language is usually in regards to horses, dogs, and flowers. The word has strong negative connotations with regards to human beings.

I'll try to not get too heavy into population genetics:
My point was that you'd likely not select just one gene in isolation. That's all but impossible without modern gene therapy techniques. What happens is that you select for a stretch of DNA that includes your gene of choice and other genes that are close location wise on the DNA strand. Quite often you'll see one gene "linked" to other genes, meaning they're transmitted as a group because of proximity. These are groups of genes are responsible for particular traits; it's far less common for a single gene to be responsible for something vague like "athleticism".

I'm not denying significant genetic selection can take place in a short number amount of time. In fact I'm arguing the opposite.

If you select for one gene in particular you'll get a whole host of other changes. Check out the link that Nook posted. That scientist selected out aggression in foxes over 10 generations but new attributes started showing up because of what other genes came and went (spotted coats, floppy ears, and curled tails)

 

They just need a white Olympics and a black Olympics. Sort of like they do for men and women just to make it fair...

...Nevermind, they just call it the Winter Olympics.

 

At the risk of getting the "whoa guys, we got an internet badass here" meme reply, I've taken high-level courses in genetics, population biology, and evolution and have a graduate degree in biology. The science end holds up. I'm not even say the scientific perspective is true; rather than it's possible. As others stated, the contribution of the science part in relation to the sociological considerations is real the question.

 

No no, you had it right. Call it the bro-lympics and have Dave Chappelle AND Bill Burr commentate. It'd be an extension of the racial draft.

 

Nothing you said addresses the problem associated specifically with humans regarding generations mandatory for trait isolation which is specifically what I asked you about. Anything related to dogs cats horses or cows are irrelevant as the line breeding used for them is impossible.

 

I must have missed your point. Can you please clarify it?

I don't understand how inbreeding/linebreeding (if that's what you're asking about) would specifically isolate 1 gene in a human. You're essentially selecting for every single gene in the body.

 

Line breeding is the technique for all selective breeding in trait isolation in livestock etc. Also in the fox example above. Without these techniques, which is impossible with humans, how specifically would trait isolation happen. I assume you knew the exact techniques when you quoted specific number of generations needed.

 

Oh. I guess you gave me more credit than I actually deserved. I just picked a number out of the air.

I actually said you wouldn't get trait isolation in 10 generations. Not perfect isolation any way. I did say you can select for a group of attributes.

Artificially select the 10 strongest men and women out of a group of 100 for 10 generations and that 10th generation is certainly going to be stronger than the non-selected 1st generation. (the definition of eugenics). This assumes strength is a multi-genetic trait, not a single gene.

 

This technique will not get you anywhere near the trait isolation people are assuming from looking at what has been done with animals having more favorable life cycles. You would be starting from square one each generation.

Also your growth of this isolated population would be incredibly slow.

I really don't see how it would do much more than decrease the gene pool. Any outcrossing would be two steps back.

 

I think the lack of scientific or statistical evidence on the notion of slave breeding creating better athletes pretty much ends the argument. It's a hypothesis at best.

But the West African one is more stark. And I think that's essentially where the pattern actually lies. I don't buy that Europeans watered down any trait any more than slave breeding concentrated it. Seems a bit strange to argue for one and against the other, no?