The "Born at Altitude" Argument and East African Dominance

I believe the altitude may be a factor, but only a minor factor.

The major factor is that they have a culture of running, running idols and it is a major path to success for them.

Whereas for most other areas of the world, there is not as a high of a population percentage that participates in competitive running.

Apologies for the double post, but it should be stated that if there are two populations interbreeding, that makes the hypothetical altitude gene even harder to acquire, if it is indeed unique to only one population out of the two, then any sort of advantage in genetics for running and altitude endurance has such a slight chance of happening it goes to many decimal places.

Remember, modern humans have only been around theoretically since 100,000 years ago. The earliest human remains have been found 2 million years ago. Look how long it took to develop the traits and adaptations we see today in the human race. 1.9 million years. No breeding of any type nor any type of altitude genetic adaptation in AD times can be possible, unless it is a mutation held by a select few, making it ridiculously easy for it to be bred out of the population.

Out of the hundreds of manipulated and mutated DNA and RNA strands since 2 million years ago, and how many times they have been edited unsuccessfully since the conception of the Homo genus, it is foolish to believe this "advantage" is in any way genetic. Someone also sounds a bit foolish saying that East Africans, particularly a specific population group of East Africans, who have begun interbreeding with other low-altitude populations and only have been at altitude for a split second in evolutionary time, have developed some kind of endurance and efficiency mutation that actually affects as many people as others have claimed in this thread. Maybe, MAYBE one person out of a 100,000 people, with that 100,000 people being refreshed generation after generation (let's round to 15 years for a generation there, as they do not live as long as westerners on average), for 1000 years, may have some sort of genetic altitude advantage. And even this chance, given what we know about evolutionary sciences, is still well below 1%. There's no chance of this hypothetical mutation to be passed on either, as the chance of having two people with this mutation is half the chance of what I stated above.

Star wrote:

I believe the altitude may be a factor, but only a minor factor.

The major factor is that they have a culture of running, running idols and it is a major path to success for them.

Whereas for most other areas of the world, there is not as a high of a population percentage that participates in competitive running.

This. Running is a career option in Kenya and Ethiopia even though the chances of making it are very slim. And they don't spend hours discussing genetics or drugs either. They just get on with it. And only one in 1000 of them does actually make a decent living out of it.

Clearly genetic traits do become widespread through a population in a very short period of time.

Explain that before you say the altitude gene cannot be.

Jiminy kricket people, it's being born at altitude that makes a difference, not evolving to live at altitude. The important changes are in GENE EXPRESSION, not in the genetic code. You guys can raise your children at altitude and get the exact same benefit that the Kalenjin get from being raised at altitude.

I bet if we had lots of people living in the rocky mountains and running a lot, there would be some awesome runners from the USA. However, the thin limbs and long legs are still rarer here than in east africa.

yeah really bro wrote:

Clearly genetic traits do become widespread through a population in a very short period of time.

Explain that before you say the altitude gene cannot be.

Example?

Thin limbs and longs legs? You mean like Bekele?

Thin limbs and long legs? You mean like Bekele?

asdfasd wrote:

Jiminy kricket people, it's being born at altitude that makes a difference, not evolving to live at altitude. The important changes are in GENE EXPRESSION, not in the genetic code. You guys can raise your children at altitude and get the exact same benefit that the Kalenjin get from being raised at altitude.

I bet if we had lots of people living in the rocky mountains and running a lot, there would be some awesome runners from the USA. However, the thin limbs and long legs are still rarer here than in east africa.

Tell that to Lopez Lomong. He might take offense to being called thin limbed.

bro really bro wrote:

yeah really bro wrote:

Clearly genetic traits do become widespread through a population in a very short period of time.

Explain that before you say the altitude gene cannot be.

Example?

Lacrtase persistence among various populations and the altitude adaptations of Tibetans. Both less than 3000 years.

If all high latitude populations show genetic adaptations throughout their populations it must be getting there in a hurry.

Geneticists agree that hypoxic conditions are a VERY strong selective force.

Keep in mind that founding populations are much lower in number which surely speeds things up.

stayed forever wrote:

Africans are evolved at altitude. South Americans just got there in evolutionary terms.

The African altitude adaptation is deeply entrenched in their genome, particularly that of the Ethiopians.

People who have read Sports Gene know this is incorrect. The key appears to be living at altitude but only having recently migrated there. The people like in Nepal are too used to living at altitude that they don't really respond to it.

Sports Gene review here:

Star wrote:

I believe the altitude may be a factor, but only a minor factor.

The major factor is that they have a culture of running, running idols and it is a major path to success for them.

Whereas for most other areas of the world, there is not as a high of a population percentage that participates in competitive running.

As a trained economist, I suggest you learn the word "comparative advantage." Don't you think the poor in India, China, etc with much more massive populations would also "a major path to success" if they were pro runners.

They would love to be pro runners - they just don't have the genetics for it.

People in this world focus on what they are best at.

The same is true in Kenya. Tons of Kenyans would love to be good but for the most part - only the Kalenjin are great at it. Why? GEnetics.

"There are 17 American men in history who have run under 2:10 in the marathon," Epstein says. "There were 32 Kalenjin who did it in October of 2011."

And please remember, the total number of Kalenjin in the world is roughly 5 million.

Don't tell me the US doesn't have the numbers. In the US, more than 1 million HSer each year participate in track and field. There aren't even one million Kalenjin high schoolers alive.

Hell there are close to 500,000 US HSers running cross countyr in the US each year. There is zero chance it's anywhere close to that high in Kenya.

The Epstein quote came from this article:

No, because the altitude adaptions are not one gene... Likely 50+ genes.

Having recently migrated there does not mean that they do not have an advantageous genetic adaptation regardless of where and when it evolved.

Those who have done studies identify a much smaller number of genes. Each population of high altitude dwellers shows a different solution to the same problem but the solution is a simpler one than getting 50 genes " right"

East Africans and the 1968 Mexico City Olympics were the perfect storm for altitude acceptance. East African runners would have emerged, but without the 1968 Mexico City Olympics we wouldn't have used altitude as the main contributing factor.

Altitude is only beneficial for racing AT ALTITUDE.

Name one American runner (who moved there) who has benefited just from the altitude, and not other factors like natural maturing process (Wejo), etc.

Meb was raised in San Diego; Mo Farah in the region formerly known as Great Britain.

Holy god. The lack understanding of how genetics and evolution works is astounding even for this message board.

messi wrote:

Mo Farah in the region formerly known as Great Britain.

Mo was raised in Sierra Leone

English Whiting wrote:

messi wrote:

Mo Farah in the region formerly known as Great Britain.

Mo was raised in Sierra Leone

Djibouti actually.