enough stupidity wrote:
The Olympics was ONE race. Where does Rupp stand on the all-time lists? Is he even in the top 50? If not, how could you point to him as proof that Africans don't still dominate?
There's this thing called the Internet. It lets you find information easily.
http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_10kok.htmSpiralsun1 wrote:
LOL. People love saying that, but it cannot possibly be right -- unless you think science is bunk, and evolution wrong. Not that there are teams of publicly-funded scientists all searching for this or anything... (politics -- just ask Bruce Lahn @ University of Chicago, for example--dropped his whole research program because people started calling him "racist", and he is Chinese!) but pretty much all the evidence is on the genetics side on this one. Remember -- we are trying to explain why there is a preponderance of talent so localized -- not that people can improve or simply improve their times from training. You have to control for all that. There is a skew in the statistics to say the least. That is due to genetics. They HAVE actualy tested it -- all the best runners come from a handful of small areas, and are closely related. Also, as a general statement, they have identified genetics as the #1 factor in running ability by far in general. Same thing with IQ and any other ability -- they have been identifying genes which contribute to high IQ, and there are many of them.
It is kind of like physics and Europeans that way, if they had a theoretical physics "marathon" so to speak, the Europeans would win -- and with a much greater statistically-significant margin if history is any indication.
Don't try to pretend you know anything about science because you don't as is quite apparent from your post. (sorry to say but if you believe that scientists were isolating genes that are the number one factor in predicting abilities such as IQ - which is a too vague notion for real scientific study anyway - then it shows that you get your "scientific knowledge" probably just from something like a weekend column in your local newspapers). The scientist who studied the relation between sports performance, especially running, and genetics the most is probably Yannis Pitsiladis. He studied the Kenyans and Jamaicans and didn't find any genetic factors that would distinguish different human groups in terms of running abilities. You can go visit his homepage at the University of Glasgow -
http://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/icams/staff/yannispitsiladis/- and go through the list of his publications.
If you think that the east African dominance in running(hope you admit that Kenyans and Ethiopians are not closely genetically related; neither the Kenyans themselves are all closely related - not all of them are Kalenjins, Rudisha for example) is caused by specific genes then provide specific scientific articles (and less LOLs in your posts) or admit that it is just your personal opinion for which you don't have any scientific rationale - and shut up.
Even if you could isolate all the genes of top runners to a certain geographical region, it does not complete the hypothesis that genetics is the reason.
50% of all the professional hockey players comes from a very small population - the country of Canada. Does this assume that Canadians are genetically more genetically able to play hockey or are there perhaps other cultural or geographic reasons for this to exist?
The numbers of top athletes in the region participating in the sport geometrically increases the likelihood that the ultra talented athlete (Bekele) will be found.
By the way, to suggest that Kenya (or a certain region of Kenya) produces most of the fastest runners in history, is ridiculous when you look at the all time lists in the 10,000 and 5000m.
Bekele and Gebrehselasse are from Ethiopia. And by the way, the fastest this year are a genetic East African from Somalia (Farah) and a European (Rupp).
800m coach wrote:
And by the way, the fastest this year are a genetic East African from Somalia (Farah) and a European (Rupp).
Farah and Rupp were not the fastest this year. Not even close.
But genetics obviously DOES play a role in talent level. I don't think that genetics is responsible for the 1 second spread between 1st place and 4th in the Olympics because obviously environment and training plays a role as well, but genetics is the difference between somebody who works and works and works at running for years on end and can't break 17:30 in the 5K and somebody who has not trained a step and can break 15 in their first 5K ever.
More simply: nature is the difference between Olympians and non-elites, but nurture is the difference between medaling and not medaling.
jjjjsj wrote:
Farah and Rupp were not the fastest this year. Not even close.
Quit looking at the fastest times. 10,000m running is not a time trial. It is a race. And in the only 2 races of importance this year, Farah won both of them. Who cares about the other times. They were insignificant.
I think you are getting somewhere here... I thought the exact same thing -- smarter and with more competitive determination maybe. Did you see his face when he won the olympic trials? Compare that with the video of the Kenyans who won Berlin this year LOL!!!!!!!! Whatever works!
Maybe we have a longer-term motivational work ethic and they have the naturaly better physical ability from developing in 2 very different climates and social milieus over thousands of years. All evidence we have of diferential selection and evolution supports this too. Not to mention a myriad studies on everything from IQ to time-preference to biometrics like reaction time, bone density, testosterone levels etc. We all differ and have different strengths depending on where evolution was taking us.
another average american wrote:
But genetics obviously DOES play a role in talent level. I don't think that genetics is responsible for the 1 second spread between 1st place and 4th in the Olympics because obviously environment and training plays a role as well, but genetics is the difference between somebody who works and works and works at running for years on end and can't break 17:30 in the 5K and somebody who has not trained a step and can break 15 in their first 5K ever.
More simply: nature is the difference between Olympians and non-elites, but nurture is the difference between medaling and not medaling.
This is an opinion. Not a well-founded opinion though. There has not been a genetic limiting discovery in running performance.