Why are there no black Pro cyclists?
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Of course it isn't quite true to say that there are no black pro cyclists, people have already pointed out several and there's Dave Clarke in the British pro peloton. There's also an Eritrean in the pro tour I believe. I used to think there may be a physiological link but then I would have thought endurance runners need the same basics. It's easy to say that the people in Africa don't have easy access to bikes but that doesn't account for countries like France, Netherlands or Britain where there is a reasonably high proportion of black people that isn't reflected in cycling. My conclusion is it must be a cultural / society issue but I do think it is changing and I have seen more black cyclists in amateur races recently.0
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samb01 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:No tA Doctor wrote:I've heard it claimed, eminently plausibly given that Africa is the birthplace of humanity and that other "races" are fairly recently migrated (evolution not stopping in Africa meanwhile), that there is more genetic diversity within the indigenous African population than in the rest of the world put together.
Massive bullsh1t.
Wrong: http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2009/04/massive_study_of_african_genet.php
Where are the east african sprinters, or, even more revealingly, international-level football players (yes, they do play football in east africa)? No such thing.
Where are the decent west african long- or middle-distance runners? Bump the distance to 800 m and they pretty much disappear.
When people talk about 'black athletes', they are, with the exception of long-distance running, almost always referring to people of west african descent, though they might not realize it.
What the likes of Rick Chasey fear of course is that once we recognize differences in atheletic ability between different groups, what's next? IQ?
Let me put it this way - I specialised in racial, specfically African, discourse. I take issue with the fundamental premise and discourse, i.e. system of knowledge in which the science can operate, of the research.
I don't doubt that within the realms of said discourse it all is logicl and makes sense, of coursei t would, (indeed, that's the point), but I question the innate reason for such study in he first place - nor do i think that such 'evidence' is of much relevance or use to this particular discussion.
I can discuss this with you elsewhere if you have a genuine interest in this (me thinks not), but this isn't the correct place to do so, and only the conculsion of the discussion would be remotely relevant to this particular discussion.0 -
I don't know Rick I think it's an appropriate place to discuss it.
I have no particular knowledge of this so I'm open to persuasion either way. Given that there are generalisable differences in physical appearance of different ethnicities on the face of it I can't see why there shouldn't similarly be generalisable differences in physical talents - things like mix of muscle fibres, length and angles of various muscles etc. In fact I seem to remember from studying anatomy (if I'm wrong apologies) that the average angle of the pelvis is different in the white UK population to that in the UK population of afro-caribbean background. Something like that could impact on athletic ability.
When you say you specialised in something then you should be able to provide us with a convincing argument - otherwise it's all a bit trust me I'm a doctor - what or who you are is irrelevant it's your argument that counts.
it's a hard life if you don't weaken.0 -
This thread reminded me of an interview I read earlier this week with Lizzie Armistead. For those who didn't already know, she only started cycling properly at 16. The only reason she got into cycling was because of the British Cycling programme where they visit schools and test kids, then give them free bikes.
I'd be surprised if they didn't discover quite a few talented young black kids, just as they discovered Lizzie. Having said that, I can't remember seeing any young black cyclists coming through in the British Cycling programme. Why that would be, I really don't know.
At the same time I can't help thinking about English cricket. You can practically count the number of black professional cricketers on one hand at the moment. No one will argue that there is anything physiological preventing black people doing well at cricket. Clearly cricket just isn't a sport that interests young black kids at the moment. Presumably that is problem with cycling too, not just in England.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:Let me put it this way - I specialised in racial, specfically African, discourse. I take issue with the fundamental premise and discourse, i.e. system of knowledge in which the science can operate, of the research.
You mean "the universe"? Seriously, what exactly does that mean?Le Blaireau (1)0 -
Tom Butcher wrote:I don't know Rick I think it's an appropriate place to discuss it.
I have no particular knowledge of this so I'm open to persuasion either way. Given that there are generalisable differences in physical appearance of different ethnicities on the face of it I can't see why there shouldn't similarly be generalisable differences in physical talents - things like mix of muscle fibres, length and angles of various muscles etc. In fact I seem to remember from studying anatomy (if I'm wrong apologies) that the average angle of the pelvis is different in the white UK population to that in the UK population of afro-caribbean background. Something like that could impact on athletic ability.
When you say you specialised in something then you should be able to provide us with a convincing argument - otherwise it's all a bit trust me I'm a doctor - what or who you are is irrelevant it's your argument that counts.
To the first part - since athletes are by their very nature physical freaks, I don't think 'averages' play a role.
To the 2nd. In short, it took me about a year solid in the library just to get to grips with the theory needed to deal the kind of epistemological issues that should be considered for this.
If you can make sense of this entire entry (it's not bad for a wiki entry, it skims a few interesting issues):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcolonialism
it should make some sense. I know it wouldn't have made sense to me untill 3 or 4 months into my full time study.
I'm not trying to sound aloof, but it's a bit like some physicist saying "the big bang is bollocks, but the maths that says it is, and the theories you need to know beforehand are waaay to compliacted to explain here" < which is largley what my mate who's doing his PhD in physics regularly tells me.
Anyway, enough self-felation.
It's, in short, massively cultural, and anyone that says it's to do with race is wrong.0 -
DaveyL wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:Let me put it this way - I specialised in racial, specfically African, discourse. I take issue with the fundamental premise and discourse, i.e. system of knowledge in which the science can operate, of the research.
You mean "the universe"? Seriously, what exactly does that mean?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse
specifically #3.
Systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak. Says Iara Lessa.0 -
I switched off at "social theorists". That's enough for me.Le Blaireau (1)0
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Rick Chasey wrote:DaveyL wrote:I switched off at "social theorists". That's enough for me.
Good to see scientists keep an open mind eh?
Surely as a scientist you should have an interest in epistemology?
I know. My mind is closed as far as homeopathy goes too.
Try again.Le Blaireau (1)0 -
DaveyL wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:DaveyL wrote:I switched off at "social theorists". That's enough for me.
Good to see scientists keep an open mind eh?
Surely as a scientist you should have an interest in epistemology?
I know. My mind is closed as far as homeopathy goes too.
Try again.
If you're considering epistemological study on the same ground as homeopathy then you're being particuarly obtuse.0 -
No, it was a humourous response to the social "scientist" knee jerk "open mind" defence.
Seriously, if anyone dismisses anything, it's because they don't have an "open mind"?Le Blaireau (1)0 -
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Well, someone has to tell them it's bollocks. Otherwise it'll just grow until it's so big that people think it's acceptable. Oh.Le Blaireau (1)0
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+1 To Rick Chasey. Humans all over the world, despite appearing superficially different based on cosmetic differences, are astoundingly similar.
If you were to arbitrarily divide us up by the way we look (which is what people mean by 'race'), you would find every single grouping contains a statistically identical mix of couch potatoes and athletes of world class potential. The reason we don't see every potential athlete competing is purely social.0 -
Fair enough.
Either way, on a more reasonable level - since the pro-cyclists are exceptions to the rule anyway, which makes them unusually fast on a bike, then surely it's got to be cultural?0 -
It is 99% cultural.
Belgians from a tiny corner of Flanders dominate northern classics but they are genetically no different to a German or French man 30k over the border.0 -
Sorry Rick but I think you are the one that needs to present an argument rather than coming out with this it's too complicated nobody but me would understand bullshit.
I've worked in academia - teaching social science at higher ed level - if any academic no matter how well known had turned up to a departmental seminar and told us all he was just too damn clever for any of us to understand his arguments we'd have assumed his arguments were crap and he couldn't explain them. Make an argument - people may try and engage with it - some may not grasp it, you may be wrong, they may be wrong - but if you can't even make an attempt to back up what you say then it looks pretty poor. Nobody expects a fully referenced peer reviewed article - just an argument.
it's a hard life if you don't weaken.0 -
bordercollie1 wrote:It is 99% cultural.
Belgians from a tiny corner of Flanders dominate northern classics but they are genetically no different to a German or French man 30k over the border.
OK 99% of border collies don't herd sheep - but they are genetically identical to the 1% that do. Yet the ability of a collie to herd sheep is not cultural - you wont get a labrador to do it.
edit : as I'm logging off now - my point is that of course there is a cultural/economic factor - that doesn't mean that there can't also be a genetic factor. To stay with the analogy - because there is a population of collies that don't get the chance to herd sheep that are no different to the collies that do - it does not follow that the only reason any dog can't be a sheep herder is because they don't get the opportunity.
it's a hard life if you don't weaken.0 -
Tom Butcher wrote:Sorry Rick but I think you are the one that needs to present an argument rather than coming out with this it's too complicated nobody but me would understand bullshit.
I've worked in academia - teaching social science at higher ed level - if any academic no matter how well known had turned up to a departmental seminar and told us all he was just too damn clever for any of us to understand his arguments we'd have assumed his arguments were crap and he couldn't explain them. Make an argument - people may try and engage with it - some may not grasp it, you may be wrong, they may be wrong - but if you can't even make an attempt to back up what you say then it looks pretty poor. Nobody expects a fully referenced peer reviewed article - just an argument.
You want an argument?
It goes like this. As simply as possible.
Knowledge is inherently subjective and political. (You'll have to take that as read, because that's a whole massive other discussion)
Specifically, the ways in which the knowledge of the colonized (subordinated) people (read Africans) has been generated and used to serve the colonizer's interests. Societies know things in a certain way for their own needs.
These discourses are created by the process of self indentification. When Europeans came across Africans, they identified themselves by 'othering' or finding binary differences. These differences are arbitrary. (examples, black & white, even though they're more like a browny colour and a pinkey colour, civilised, uncivilised, savage, etc) First it was that Europeans had 2 eyes, people in South America had 3 eyes. Eventually, they settled on an easily, visble, unchangable way to define - skin colour and even race (defined in such a way to keep the Europeans at the top of the tree). Either way, EUrope begins to 'know' the Africans in a way that suits them - with the Africans as 'uncivilised', (so by defintion, the EUropeans as 'civilised') which justified European colonialism and exploitation of Africa by Europe (under the guise of a 'civlising ' mission).
Now, this misses out a vast a mount of theory, and, at this basic level, it's massivel yinnaccurate, but we'll let that skide for now.
Science was by no means excluded from this, with experiemnts by livingstone, documents which I have written on (and you can find in Sheffield University) which 'scientifically' document all the races - they even created a new discipline ' anthropology'. There are thousands of skulls still in the science museums in across Europe, taken from Africa under this auspice. We can now see they wer all talking bollocks, and were motivated, not out of callousness but just because that's how things were thought, by racism, since the way in which things could be known was racist.
That sytem of knoweldge, or discourse, continues today, in an altered form.
Africa is still known as some primitive place where the 'birth' of humans can be found > where 'uncivilised tribes' still are studied to eaxmine 'pre-civlisation' society'. You still get European scientists travelling to Africa to consider the racial makeup of Africa, with stories of that it's so not touched by 'civilisation' that a basic sample gathering is 'daunting' and 'full of social challenges', even though we know that the racial definition by its very origin, is arbitrary.
I do not, for example, see many threads or scientists considering whether people with blue eyes have less twitch-muscles than those with brown eyes.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:Africa is still known as some primitive place where the 'birth' of humans can be found > where 'uncivilised tribes' still are studied to eaxmine 'pre-civlisation' society'.
A bit like Newport, then.Twitter: @RichN950 -
Rick Chasey wrote:Tom Butcher wrote:Sorry Rick but I think you are the one that needs to present an argument rather than coming out with this it's too complicated nobody but me would understand bullshit.
I've worked in academia - teaching social science at higher ed level - if any academic no matter how well known had turned up to a departmental seminar and told us all he was just too damn clever for any of us to understand his arguments we'd have assumed his arguments were crap and he couldn't explain them. Make an argument - people may try and engage with it - some may not grasp it, you may be wrong, they may be wrong - but if you can't even make an attempt to back up what you say then it looks pretty poor. Nobody expects a fully referenced peer reviewed article - just an argument.
You want an argument?
It goes like this. As simply as possible.
Knowledge is inherently subjective and political. (You'll have to take that as read, because that's a whole massive other discussion)
Specifically, the ways in which the knowledge of the colonized (subordinated) people (read Africans) has been generated and used to serve the colonizer's interests. Societies know things in a certain way for their own needs.
These discourses are created by the process of self indentification. When Europeans came across Africans, they identified themselves by 'othering' or finding binary differences. These differences are arbitrary. (examples, black & white, even though they're more like a browny colour and a pinkey colour, civilised, uncivilised, savage, etc) First it was that Europeans had 2 eyes, people in South America had 3 eyes. Eventually, they settled on an easily, visble, unchangable way to define - skin colour and even race (defined in such a way to keep the Europeans at the top of the tree). Either way, EUrope begins to 'know' the Africans in a way that suits them - with the Africans as 'uncivilised', (so by defintion, the EUropeans as 'civilised') which justified European colonialism and exploitation of Africa by Europe (under the guise of a 'civlising ' mission).
Now, this misses out a vast a mount of theory, and, at this basic level, it's massivel yinnaccurate, but we'll let that skide for now.
Science was by no means excluded from this, with experiemnts by livingstone, documents which I have written on (and you can find in Sheffield University) which 'scientifically' document all the races - they even created a new discipline ' anthropology'. There are thousands of skulls still in the science museums in across Europe, taken from Africa under this auspice. We can now see they wer all talking bollocks, and were motivated, not out of callousness but just because that's how things were thought, by racism, since the way in which things could be known was racist.
That sytem of knoweldge, or discourse, continues today, in an altered form.
Africa is still known as some primitive place where the 'birth' of humans can be found > where 'uncivilised tribes' still are studied to eaxmine 'pre-civlisation' society'. You still get European scientists travelling to Africa to consider the racial makeup of Africa, with stories of that it's so not touched by 'civilisation' that a basic sample gathering is 'daunting' and 'full of social challenges', even though we know that the racial definition by its very origin, is arbitrary.
I do not, for example, see many threads or scientists considering whether people with blue eyes have less twitch-muscles than those with brown eyes.
Do you have any specific objections to the study that was carried out, or to the conclusions drawn from the data they gathered?Le Blaireau (1)0 -
And check out the names of all the whitey Europeans on the publication
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5 ... 5.abstract
Er.Le Blaireau (1)0 -
I don't think what you say really addresses the issue Rick. I'm not disagreeing with it - I think what you say may flag up some issues about the way we classify people as belonging to different groups which merit discussion - but ultimately how does what you say back up your assertion that "it's all cultural".
You are quite happy to say that the reason there are few black pro cyclists is cultural - so if you are happy that the terms of the question are valid I can't see why you reject the possibility that there may be (I'm not saying there is) a genetic component. I mean we know there are gentic differences in populations with different ethnic backgrounds - I'm thinking of things like susceptibility to certain diseases. Is this also purely cultural ? Unless you are adopting a position that science is just one paradigm and no more valid than any other explanatory paradigm I still don't think you have an argument.
As it happens I do seem to remember a study which suggested brown eyes were linked to fast twitch muscle fibres !
it's a hard life if you don't weaken.0 -
DaveyL wrote:Do you have any specific objections to the study that was carried out, or to the conclusions drawn from the data they gathered?
Not especially. A discourse is inescapable, so that's how we all, like it or not, think.
I'm just saying in the context of a discussion, it's position and genuiely 'objective' as opposed to objective within the defined discourse should be made explicit.
As for the names - you don't have to be 'white' to be part of the discourse. Discourses are appropriated.
As for Tom. I'm saying the genetic thing is a read herring that comes with the territory of Africa and 'black' people, since, athletes, by their nature, are physically abnormal anyway.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:DaveyL wrote:Do you have any specific objections to the study that was carried out, or to the conclusions drawn from the data they gathered?
Not especially. A discourse is inescapable, so that's how we all, like it or not, think.
I'm just saying in the context of a discussion, it's position and genuiely 'objective' as opposed to objective within the defined discourse should be made explicit.
Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense at all, to me at least.Le Blaireau (1)0 -
Can one of you boffins please explain why the majority of North American professional sports is dominated by black athletes?
NBA (Basketball)
NFL (Football)
MLB (Baseball)
We're talking about sports where the majority of athletes come from the USA - one of the richest countries in the world. There are just as many white athletes trying to break into the 'big leagues', yet these sports are dominated by black athletes. And it's clear to see their physical make up is quite different.0 -
RichN95 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:Africa is still known as some primitive place where the 'birth' of humans can be found > where 'uncivilised tribes' still are studied to eaxmine 'pre-civlisation' society'.
A bit like Newport, then.
Not really, there's no society in Newport not even of the pre-civilisation type
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Pokerface wrote:Can one of you boffins please explain why the majority of North American professional sports is dominated by black athletes?
NBA (Basketball)
NFL (Football)
MLB (Baseball)
We're talking about sports where the majority of athletes come from the USA - one of the richest countries in the world. There are just as many white athletes trying to break into the 'big leagues', yet these sports are dominated by black athletes. And it's clear to see their physical make up is quite different.
Probably the same reason footballers in the UK are, by and large, chavvy...? If we assume that most people of African decent in the US are poorer, then it make sense.
Again it's cultural - you don't see many non-white rowers, because rowing tends to be full of turbo middle class people - where non-whites are under-represented.
A look at the olympics for basketball, (soviet unino doing well, spain, etc) shows that it's not particularly defined on 'racial' lines.0
