Damn...and the "Nature vs Nurture" debate rages on....

""Slavery enhanced African Americans by "weeding out" the physically weak and thus caused them to dominate physically dominated sports....an idea Howard Cossel got canned for stating, but for which in **any other species** we would say is simple adaptation of species and "Duhh....of course..."""

Except for the actual history of slavery and actual way that natural selection works, this is spot-on.

Seems pretty much in line with my evolutionary biology classes ckroberts. Except there's not a lot of time for adaptation, only survival of the strongest.

The concept is crucially called "survival of the fittest," not strongest. The term "fittest" exclusively refers to the ability to propagate one's genes, not to being the strongest or smartest. I can win a foot race or boxing match against even the toughest cockroaches, but cockroaches are evolutionarily much better designed than are human beings.

Even if we assume all slaves did the same kinds of jobs (they didn't), or that there was only one way to be successful at the work they did (there wasn't), or that there has been absolutely no interbreeding between white and black populations (there has), it's still a silly theory. Poor whites did roughly the same kind of work that slaves and freedpeople did. The lifestyles of pre-industrial aristocrats is actually better preparation for professional athletics than was the lifestyle of a agricultural worker. And most importantly, there simply hasn't been enough time for significant evolutionary change to have any impact even on the imaginary group of slaves we're talking about.

Race is a fake idea. The color of people's skin, or the kind of hair they have, or any other apparent signifier of race, tells you very little important genetic information beyond the fact that they had recent ancestors who mostly looked like that. There are distinct genetic groups, and there are racial groups, and there is not much overlap between the two.

I'm convinced 99.9% of AA opponents don't even know what it is. If they did they'd realize that *white women* have been the primary beneficiaries of such policies. So this jumping down the rabbit hole about race is kind of beside the point.

''The concept is crucially called "survival of the fittest," not strongest. The term "fittest" exclusively refers to the ability to propagate one's genes, not to being the strongest or smartest''

Herbert Spencer was the first to use the term. He meant this: ''“This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."

Darwin was suitably flattered/impressed and adopted the term himself.

How can this thread have gone on this far with nobody bringing up Asians? By that, I mean the arguments (whether true or not) that: (1) if you base admissions on income level, the lower brackets will be dominated by Asian-Americans with low income and high scores; and (2) the Asian immigrant experience as a refutation of the "white people are successful because they have massive structural advantages" idea -- take a stereotypical immigrant Asian couple with limited or no English and no money, and within a generation or two all the kids will be doctors. I'm not actually promoting either position, just expressing surprise they haven't come up because they always seem to in this type of discussion.

When Affirmative Action was outlawed in university admissions by the voters of California, the result was that the UC system was flooded with Asian students. They now make up something like 40+% of UC admissions, even though they're a bit less than 10% of the state's population.

So much for White Privilege guaranteeing that Whitey always has the upper hand on an upper playing field.

What "Asians" are we referring to? Southeast Asians aren't getting these alleged high scores and becoming doctors. So this attempt to hold up Asians in order to absolve oneself from any problem of racial structural inequality is a bunch of horsepuckey.

"''“This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.""

And how is this quote different than what ckroberts just said?

http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/despite-diversity-efforts-uc-minority-enrollment-down-prop-209-15031

And yet enrollment of white students isn't down, whereas it is down for African Americans & Latinos.

CK nobly states that ''Race is a fake idea.'' He also refers to the Spencer/Darwin hypothesis of survival of the fittest. There is a problem here in that Darwin himself wrote this:

''At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla''

No doubt he was only ''a man of his time''

Arabs complain about "racial stereo-typing" at airports... What percentage of terrorists were Arab and how many attacks have we prevented by bring "racist"?! Lol

I wish it was noble to state mostly established scientific facts.

What's your point, here, fulhamish? If you want to be a racist on the internet come out and do it. Otherwise, I can't see where you're going with this.

Running, and exercising in general, does in fact prompt almost immediate changes in DNA. It's called epigenetics.

ck my point is that it is but a small jump from survival of the fittest to racism. Indeed the originators of the term made that very jump themselves.

Fulham turns every thread into a "Darwin is a Nazi" thread. We've been over this nonsense I don't know how many times, and every time I give him legions of anti-racist Darwin quotes he of course, runs away or changes the subject. Nevermind that when Darwin used the term 'races' he meant 'varieties'. He spoke of 'races of cabbages' for example. Origin of Species, where he uses race in the title, doesn't even get into the human question.

I like how Fulham completely took the quote about humans and their closest allies completely out of context, probably because he quote mined it from a creationist propaganda site.

The full quote from the Descent of Man is this:

"The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, convinced by general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks incessantly occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies—between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridæ—between the elephant and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or

[page] 201

Echidna, and other mammals. But all these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked,16 will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."

Fulham, I don't quite get where you're going with that. There's lots of good and correct ideas that, with a small jump, become terrible.

On reloading, even if that's the goal, Putin, I don't see the significance. Darwin was wrong about all sorts of stuff. So were Newton and Einstein and Galileo. So, doubtlessly, are we. That's how progress works.

I was merely pointing out the full quote, since Fulham hacked and slashed it to make Darwin look bad.

@Putin -- You fucking MORON --- funny how you suggest that a program that gives a grade point boost to NON-white minorities for college entrance would benefit white women. Again...you are FULL OF SHIT and a LIAR.

@ Ckroberts The concept is crucially called "survival of the fittest," not strongest.

You fucking MORON --- if the FITTEST happen to be THE STRONGEST of the slave herd, then they will pass on their predisposition for strength and athleticism. You fucking moron.

The idea is that in slavery, not only did you have the strongest and most athletic surviving and procreating....but you had Slave Masters ***ACTIVELY*** killing the weak, and ***ACTIVELY*** forcing the strong to pro-create. It is "forced evolution" for you morons that don't actually grasp the difference between Adaptation and (the lie of) evolution.

Funny....you idiots that fight AGAINST the concept are the same morons that -- in biology class -- do experiments with Fruit Flies where you breed them for certain traits....

i.e. the idea I am putting forth has been DEMONSTRATED IN BIOLOGOY CLASSES FOR DECADES!

Moron...

If you SELECTIVELY BREED for a specific trait....such as STRENGTH and ENDURANCE....then FUTURE offspring will be PREDISPOSED for STRENGTH and ENDURANCE.

It is BASIC SCIENCE.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-death-of-affirmative-action-part-i/44860

Putin has no thoughts of his own.

This is Putin at his computer:

http://i.imgur.com/cDyn0.gif

@The Hanged Man

The Asian experience doesn't include much of a recent (call it within the last half-millenium) history of people being lynched because they could read.

http://xkcd.com/386/

Whoa whoa whoa! I come back and krellin is posting imgur gifs!?!?!

Anyway, a response to the critics of my cartoon:

I am all too well acquainted with the argument you made that boils down to "but that was my ancestors not me" or even "I'm Polish my ancestors weren't even here then!"

Indeed it's an argument I held to myself for a while when I was younger. I certainly knew I harbored no racist thoughts towards others. How dare they call me an oppressor?

But it is not just about individual personal thoughts. It is about systems we participate in and perpetuate.

I'm a white guy. I've never owned slaves. I've never shouted racial epithets. None of that. But I've benefitted from a racist society. There's no arguing that.

Where a problem arises is if I begin to *deny* that I have benefitted from being white in a racist society. If I do that, I am perpetuating the system and endorsing racism.

So we cannot just say that, just because we are not involved in hate crimes or something, that we are free from any responsibility to remove the oppression in our society. Especially if we are the oppressors in the system because we benefit from the oppression.

That is in a nutshell why you don't get to opt out of this stuff and pass guilt on to others.

The sins may have been committed by others, but the injustices remain. And if we allow them to persist, we are accomplices in them.

Thucy,

First of all, forgive me for contributing to a thread that essentially revolves around an American topic. I like debating with people all over the world with people of different perspectives.

However, as a white person of non-Polish descent in a nation that grew filthy rich from slave trade. Possibly, my great-great-great grandfather was a slave trader and some of his earnings trickled down my family and translate in some of my wardrobe nicer pairs of socks.

To me it's pretty obvious that the last thing I should do is to introduce a sort of "corrective racism" which benefits black people slightly over white people. I'd be making the same mistake, but in a different direction.

In one of my posts I argued how half a century ago, inequality between people was still codified all over the western world. We abolished all of them (in Holland we have no more sexist or racist legislation that I can think of, and the first article of our constitution explicitly prohibits it).

Society apparently - here it comes - realized it was doing something wrong, and *corrected for its mistakes by removing racist laws.* And look at the results! You have a black President, a recent history of women and black people in the highest offices of state.

Why accelerate, or even *frustrate* the development by artificially tilting the playing field toward minorities when that tilting is going on as we speak by society itself ?!?!?

The example I mentioned of the European Commission demanding 40% women in company's supervisory board is a *terrible idea.* Let's say 80% of these new women were qualified by *themselves* to get into the board. How do they feel in such a board? People around her will hate *them* as well for getting a promotion *they* would have wanted. You keep addressing the 20% of women who *wouldn't* get in without special treatment. I want you to start addressing the 80% that *would* have gotten in without it.

Wow I clicked post without reviewing the grammar and spelling. Oops.

Krellin, buddy, you need to settle down, especially since you're mistaken and I know that can be hard to hear that, particularly when one is in a hostile mood.

Here's a brief list of what's wrong with your conception of American slavery and genetics:

1. Slave masters can hardly be said to have bred for any given set of abilities, much less engage in behavior that might rise to the term 'selectively breed.' Our pre-Mendelian understanding of genetics was uneven at best. If (and this is a big if) a slaveholder was trying to engage in conscious, scientific breeding of slaves, he would have as likely been looking at phrenological signs or the color of stool samples or how much bile a person produced as he would have been looking for things we today consider genetic markers.

2. Slave masters generally didn't intentionally breed slaves for characteristics like strength and endurance. I have never seen any reliable evidence that it was a widespread practice for a considerable length of time on a single plantation, much less a city or region, much less the entire South. Moreover, slaves themselves chose sexual partners (outside of white-owner-on-black-slave rape or similar circumstances) the vast majority of the time.

3. There was not enough fluidity in the slave market to make physical characteristics a defining adaptive advantage, particularly important for this discussion because physical characteristics are not themselves 100% indicators for athletic skill (Matt Stafford looks like he should be hanging drywall). Most slaveholders got slaves from their existing slave population's natural reproduction, from family or kin networks, and from the small selection of a local market. There was no slave E-Bay.

4. Psychological characteristics were far more important in slave success than physical ones. The difference between the strongest cotton picker and the weakest cotton picker is less important, from a slavery perspective, than between the most obedient slave and the least obedient.

5. Related: The kind of physical traits a life of slavery favored are not the same ones that make you a good track star or football player. Physical endurance in cotton picking season is not even in the same ball park as physical endurance in a three-hour athletic event. Plus, far more important than "athletic" physical abilities would be "lifestyle" physical ones, like being able to work without sufficient nutrition or avoid illness without good clothing.

6. This doesn't explain the recent relative success in certain athletic endeavors of Africans who never came to the Americas, nor of the successes of other racial groups in other athletic events (I don't think Michael Phelps' ancestors were selectively bred for swimming).

7. There wasn't enough time for this to have any effect even if it existed. Fruit flies are not a good comparison because they live eight days. Even if we go all the way back to the first slaves brought to the USA, that's barely a dozen generations. That's enough time for small changes if an expert breeder is raising dogs, but not nearly enough time for varied and unscientific slave masters to meaningfully change the physical features of their slaves.

8. There are better explanations for African and African-American athletic success than this silly pseudo-science.

9. Most importantly: There was a lot of intermarriage, random sexual encounters, and rape between white and black southerners, plus a constant influx of new black (before the end of the slave trade) and white people into the breeding population. There's barely a "black" gene pool to even be having a conversation about.