I have a few questions about breeding? If you were to breed a sprinter and a distance runner is it likely that they could produce a good middle distance runner. Here is an example.
Lets pretend Kenenisa Bekele and Allyson Felix had a baby what are the likely outcomes?
Secondly is it ethical to breed athletes?
Absolutely, while we're at it, we should breed blondes too.
yes. they did this in Red China. Yao Ming's parents were 'put together' for this purpose. true story.
Yeah I think Hitler had that same idea, but then Jesse Owens kind of showed him up.
txRUNNERgirl wrote:
Yeah I think Hitler had that same idea, but then Jesse Owens kind of showed him up.
I don't think this guy's talking about killing people who aren't good runners. So, no, Hitler had a different idea completely. Nice try though.
No, but he was breeding blondes.
Harry Kooter wrote:
I don't think this guy's talking about killing people who aren't good runners. So, no, Hitler had a different idea completely. Nice try though.
thank you. Yes I am not talking about systematic genocide by any stretch of the imagination. I am not suggesting that we force anything on anybody. I am merely asking a question on genetics. What would the result be of breeding runners. Would they generationally continue to get faster and eventually separate themselves from all competition?
Marion Jones seems to think so
Who are some of the great runner couples that copulated and bred off-spring that were fat and unathletic?
Don't think anything would happen. Running is an acquired characteristic, not an inherent trait. Inherent traits are passed on through the genes, not acquired characteristics.
The Lizard King wrote:
Don't think anything would happen. Running is an acquired characteristic, not an inherent trait. Inherent traits are passed on through the genes, not acquired characteristics.
Running is aquired but talent is inherent. People are born with their ability for speed and you can only improve it so much.
You mix two good athletes together and you have a better chance of bearing a child who is also good at athletics than if two lard asses get together and copulate. I'm not saying it's a guarantee... but your chances are improved.
It seems pretty obvious to me. Your question is a rhetorical question.
my 2 cents wrote:
You mix two good athletes together and you have a better chance of bearing a child who is also good at athletics than if two lard asses get together and copulate. I\'m not saying it\'s a guarantee... but your chances are improved.
It seems pretty obvious to me. Your question is a rhetorical question.
There's nothing "rhetorical" about it. It just may have an obvious answer. But I do not think that it is so obvious. One part of his question asked whether an endurance runner + a sprinter would = a middle distance athelete. This is a tough one to answer.
So no, there is nothing "rhetorical" about it just because it is easy to answer. And it isn't even easy to answer.
my 2 cents wrote:
You mix two good athletes together and you have a better chance of bearing a child who is also good at athletics than if two lard asses get together and copulate. I'm not saying it's a guarantee... but your chances are improved.
Not if the two lard asses are exetremely talented but never discovered their talent (might this be possible in today's America?)
tissue box wrote:
There's nothing "rhetorical" about it. It just may have an obvious answer. But I do not think that it is so obvious. One part of his question asked whether an endurance runner + a sprinter would = a middle distance athelete. This is a tough one to answer.
So no, there is nothing "rhetorical" about it just because it is easy to answer. And it isn't even easy to answer.
take the following with an enormous grain of salt because i basically don't know what i'm talking about.
it seems to me that the most important physical genetic trait for a distance runner is his/her cardiovascular system. for a sprinter, it's more about musculature, specifically fast-twitch muscles in the upper legs.
so to address the OP's question, assuming for the moment that the adult possessing the relevant characteristic possesses only one of the two characteristics and assuming that it is passed on either 100% or 0%, it seems like you'd have the following possibilities for the child:
good cardiovascular, good speed
good cardiovascular, poor speed
poor cardiovascular, good speed
poor cardiovascular, poor speed.
in other words, you could have a child that is a good sprinter, a good distance runner, or both.
this is obviously very simplified. things like overall body size will be important as well and make the analysis far more complicated.
my point is that it is probably more likely that the bekele-felix love child will either be a good distance runner or a good sprinter than it is that s/he will be a good middle distance runner. assuming that anything i wrote has validity, and as stated at the beginning, i'm not going to pretend that i know what i'm talking about.
This sounds like something Dr. Tim Noakes should answer.
Actually, and I'm not being racist, I think this experiment has already been performed by the country of Morocco. The result was one Hicham El Gerrouj.
Breeding humans for their abilities/traits/skills/knowledge has a name: Euginics.
Hitler did believe he could do things like this. Euginics was his master plan. The SS soldiers were to breed with German women to create the master race. Hitler thought he could breed the master race.
BTW, Churchill believed in Euginics as well.
good cardiovascular, good speed
good cardiovascular, poor speed
poor cardiovascular, good speed
poor cardiovascular, poor speed.
Thanks Mendell, but unfortunately genetics don't really work this way. Genetics is not usually as simple as a Mendell square as presented previously. This is the process of splitting up the alleles is usually not independent. So instead of getting 100% X gene for any given allele X, you may instead get 90% X gene and 10 % Y gene.
Anyways the lack of independence of alleles seems to imply that it is possible to have a good middle distance runner. I wonder if any research has actually been recorded on this hypothetical experiment... and by the way I wouldn't say that Bekele has poor speed that may really cause an uproar on Letsrun.
uh huh wrote:
Breeding humans for their abilities/traits/skills/knowledge has a name: Euginics.
Hitler did believe he could do things like this. Euginics was his master plan. The SS soldiers were to breed with German women to create the master race. Hitler thought he could breed the master race.
BTW, Churchill believed in Euginics as well.
Once again I am not suggesting this is done systematically or any group. That seems to me to be unethical. My question was intended for individuals who purposefully make this decision for themselves.