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Korean people are genetically shorter than other races. Do you dispute that this would give them a profound disadvantage in basketball, all else equal? The narr

Korean people are genetically shorter than other races. Do you dispute that this would give them a profound disadvantage in basketball, all else equal? The narrative of all races being functionally the same phenotypically is prima facie absurd as even the most simplistic armchair observation reveals. Anyone who denies that Korean people have a genetic distadvantage in basketball must be acting in bad faith, and if they agree that they are disadvantaged in basketball then they agree with the premise that genetics of racial groups do play an important role in determining over- or under-performance in particular domains. I never ascribed African dominance to sports in general, only running. Presumably the genetics required for elite swimming performance differ to those required for elite running performance, since they are completely different sports. > This is a lie, and you know it Absolutely not. It is an exaggeration, but very much is broadly true. All 100m men's champions at the Olympics going back to 1984 have been of African descent. If my hypothesis is correct, we would expect their dominance to only continue and increase especially as they are given more economic opportunity, but time will tell. Notably, there are 0 Asian champions going back to the 1800s. Is this just a total coincidence in your worldview? Or is it purely a cultural phenomenon, and if so, do you have any evidence whatsoever for this, or merely a bare assertion? > However, that does not necessarily translates to any culturally meaningful broads characterizations. The extent to which this is true is an open question, the only thing I'm sure of is that it's not going to be addressed honestly because of how politically charged it is.

krapp 6y ago
Why did you change your example of Asian shortness from Chinese to Korean when rewriting this comment? Did you look up statistics for Chinese basketball players and decide there were too many of them playing at an elite level to support your narrative? If so... you do realize that Koreans and Chinese are different ethnicities but the same race, right? And that all of them play basketball?
- hnracer 6y ago
  > Did you look up statistics for Chinese basketball players and realize there were too many of them to support your narrative? No. I realize that there are many tall Asians, as well as that there are many tall Asians who play basketball. These two facts are not relevant to my argument. I changed the example from Chinese to Korean (not that it matters because the argument works the same with either), because China is larger and more heterogeneous, Beijing's average height is quite a bit taller than Korea's average height for example. It's easier and safer (less prone to nitpicking) to make the point by using Korea as the example.
  - krapp 6y ago
    But if there are more Asians in China than Korea, which obviously there are, they should be the more accurate representation of Asian genetics. And this is not even taking into account Asians in the US and elsewhere outside of Asia. You say it shouldn't matter yet you also admit your argument is weakened by using the bigger data set. Claims about inherent racial strengths and weaknesses always break down once the actual genetic diversity within the population of a "race" is taken into account, because what we consider to be "race" is broad and mostly defined by cultural and political factors, rather than genetics. By definition, professional athletes are genetic exceptions. So it would make no sense to compare the average member of any population to the elites in the NBA and make claims about race in general. Particularly with something as trivial and variant as height.
    - hnracer 6y ago
      > But if there are more Asians in China than Korea, which obviously there are, they should be the more accurate representation of Asian genetics. The tallest province in China is still shorter than the average European height. And Asians aren't a monolith, there can be genetic variation between Han Chinese, Koreans and Japanese in a phenotype such as height. The average height in Japan for men is 161cm despite being a rich country (so it is likely driven by genetics, not nutrition). > You say it shouldn't matter yet you also admit your argument is weakened by using the bigger data set. I say no such thing. I say it is less prone to nit picking. The argument is unchanged. > By definition, professional athletes are genetic exceptions. So it would make no sense to compare the average member of any population to the elites in the NBA and make claims about race in general. This is statistically illiterate. If you have two distributions with the same kurtosis, and one distribution has a mean, say, 0.4 standard deviations lower than the other, then the frequency of extreme right-tail performance is going to be much less common in one population than the other. This is just elementary statistics. Yes, you can have an Asian who is extremely tall and therefore not disadvantaged in the game of basketball, but that is simply not relevant to the statistical claim I'm making. If you have two equally sized racial groups, one has 2% of the population that are extremely tall, and the other has 0.3% of the population that are extremely tall, then the former racial group has an advantage due to this genetic difference in this specific domain, and any elite performers in this specific domain are likely to come from the former racial group than the latter (all else equal).
spicymaki 6y ago
Why is it so hard to believe that Black people dominate certain sports due to interest, opportunity, and hard work? Not some unsubstantiated group genetic advantage.
- hnracer 6y ago
  I think interest and hard work is definitely a factor, but I also think that genetics is playing a role. The top 30 record holders in the 100m sprint are all of African descent: https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/100-metres/outdoor/men/senior https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/spr... It's possible that White and Asian people just less interested, but it's not the sensible null hypothesis, given that we can observe with our own two eyes phenotypical differences in physique between the racial groups (e.g. Asians being shorter)
nobodyandproud 6y ago
The height difference owes a lot to nutrition and the long-term living standards of the different countries. I bet the height difference in Koreans between the different generations alive today is quite different from one another. As for Olympics 100 years ago. Are you for real? Most of Asia was under the thumb of Imperialism. They weren’t exactly positioned to “send their best”. How many African nations participated in 1920? Another continent dealing with Imperialism.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  > I bet the height difference in Koreans between the different generations alive today is quite different from one another. Also quite different between the Koreas. While the average height in both has increased significantly since the Japanese occupation, it has done so significantly faster in South Korea (as you'd expect, given the economic difference).
  - nobodyandproud 6y ago
    Exactly. Look at the average height by age group. https://www.statista.com/statistics/935212/south-korea-average-height-men-by-age-group/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/935212/south-korea-avera... A 12 cm (or 4/5 inch) difference. Amazingly enough, not too far different from the NK to SK average height difference.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hnracer 6y ago
  The height difference between racial groups has a significant genetic component. Asian Americans are 8cm shorter than White Americans, despite being about equally wealthy. This means that Asians are, on average, genetically disadvantaged when it comes to performance in, for example, basketball - meaning they are less likely to produce a star basketball player, all else equal, because there are less extremely tall Asians as a percentage of the population. If we can't agree on this central claim then our differences are irreconcilable. I understand that culture, nutrition, etc, makes a difference, and I don't dispute that, my only claim is that the genetics of race is playing a causal role here.

krapp 6y ago

Why did you change your example of Asian shortness from Chinese to Korean when rewriting this comment? Did you look up statistics for Chinese basketball players and decide there were too many of them playing at an elite level to support your narrative? If so... you do realize that Koreans and Chinese are different ethnicities but the same race, right? And that all of them play basketball?

hnracer 6y ago
> Did you look up statistics for Chinese basketball players and realize there were too many of them to support your narrative? No. I realize that there are many tall Asians, as well as that there are many tall Asians who play basketball. These two facts are not relevant to my argument. I changed the example from Chinese to Korean (not that it matters because the argument works the same with either), because China is larger and more heterogeneous, Beijing's average height is quite a bit taller than Korea's average height for example. It's easier and safer (less prone to nitpicking) to make the point by using Korea as the example.
- krapp 6y ago
  But if there are more Asians in China than Korea, which obviously there are, they should be the more accurate representation of Asian genetics. And this is not even taking into account Asians in the US and elsewhere outside of Asia. You say it shouldn't matter yet you also admit your argument is weakened by using the bigger data set. Claims about inherent racial strengths and weaknesses always break down once the actual genetic diversity within the population of a "race" is taken into account, because what we consider to be "race" is broad and mostly defined by cultural and political factors, rather than genetics. By definition, professional athletes are genetic exceptions. So it would make no sense to compare the average member of any population to the elites in the NBA and make claims about race in general. Particularly with something as trivial and variant as height.
  - hnracer 6y ago
    > But if there are more Asians in China than Korea, which obviously there are, they should be the more accurate representation of Asian genetics. The tallest province in China is still shorter than the average European height. And Asians aren't a monolith, there can be genetic variation between Han Chinese, Koreans and Japanese in a phenotype such as height. The average height in Japan for men is 161cm despite being a rich country (so it is likely driven by genetics, not nutrition). > You say it shouldn't matter yet you also admit your argument is weakened by using the bigger data set. I say no such thing. I say it is less prone to nit picking. The argument is unchanged. > By definition, professional athletes are genetic exceptions. So it would make no sense to compare the average member of any population to the elites in the NBA and make claims about race in general. This is statistically illiterate. If you have two distributions with the same kurtosis, and one distribution has a mean, say, 0.4 standard deviations lower than the other, then the frequency of extreme right-tail performance is going to be much less common in one population than the other. This is just elementary statistics. Yes, you can have an Asian who is extremely tall and therefore not disadvantaged in the game of basketball, but that is simply not relevant to the statistical claim I'm making. If you have two equally sized racial groups, one has 2% of the population that are extremely tall, and the other has 0.3% of the population that are extremely tall, then the former racial group has an advantage due to this genetic difference in this specific domain, and any elite performers in this specific domain are likely to come from the former racial group than the latter (all else equal).

spicymaki 6y ago

Why is it so hard to believe that Black people dominate certain sports due to interest, opportunity, and hard work? Not some unsubstantiated group genetic advantage.

hnracer 6y ago
I think interest and hard work is definitely a factor, but I also think that genetics is playing a role. The top 30 record holders in the 100m sprint are all of African descent: https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/100-metres/outdoor/men/senior https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/spr... It's possible that White and Asian people just less interested, but it's not the sensible null hypothesis, given that we can observe with our own two eyes phenotypical differences in physique between the racial groups (e.g. Asians being shorter)

nobodyandproud 6y ago

The height difference owes a lot to nutrition and the long-term living standards of the different countries. I bet the height difference in Koreans between the different generations alive today is quite different from one another. As for Olympics 100 years ago. Are you for real? Most of Asia was under the thumb of Imperialism. They weren’t exactly positioned to “send their best”. How many African nations participated in 1920? Another continent dealing with Imperialism.

rsynnott 6y ago
> I bet the height difference in Koreans between the different generations alive today is quite different from one another. Also quite different between the Koreas. While the average height in both has increased significantly since the Japanese occupation, it has done so significantly faster in South Korea (as you'd expect, given the economic difference).
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  Exactly. Look at the average height by age group. https://www.statista.com/statistics/935212/south-korea-average-height-men-by-age-group/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/935212/south-korea-avera... A 12 cm (or 4/5 inch) difference. Amazingly enough, not too far different from the NK to SK average height difference.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hnracer 6y ago
The height difference between racial groups has a significant genetic component. Asian Americans are 8cm shorter than White Americans, despite being about equally wealthy. This means that Asians are, on average, genetically disadvantaged when it comes to performance in, for example, basketball - meaning they are less likely to produce a star basketball player, all else equal, because there are less extremely tall Asians as a percentage of the population. If we can't agree on this central claim then our differences are irreconcilable. I understand that culture, nutrition, etc, makes a difference, and I don't dispute that, my only claim is that the genetics of race is playing a causal role here.