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People overestimate the effect of genetic advantages in sport. I have two examples. 1) The first example is identical twins Otto and Ewald, who pursued differe

People overestimate the effect of genetic advantages in sport. I have two examples. 1) The first example is identical twins Otto and Ewald, who pursued different sports and developed rather different physiques through their sports training. http://thesameffect.com/check-out-identical-twins-otto-and-ewald/ http://thesameffect.com/check-out-identical-twins-otto-and-e... (I learned about this case from a local professor who teaches courses in human behavior genetics. He uses this case as an example to correct misunderstandings about genetics.) 2) The second example is that Usain Bolt was once thought to be too tall to be a successful sprinter. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00v9bs4/profiles/usain-bolt http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00v9bs4/profiles/usain-bolt http://bleacherreport.com/articles/49040-usain-bolt-why-the-fastest-man-alive-is-in-the-wrong-business http://bleacherreport.com/articles/49040-usain-bolt-why-the-... http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/recycled/2009/08/taking_sprinting_to_new_heights.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/recycled/200... The simple fact is that athletic training reshapes bodies and makes what seems impossible possible after all.

nedR 13y ago
Yes and No depending on the sport. 1. Chess is a game traditionally considered to be strongly co-related to IQ (which is strongly heridetary), but a survey of Grandmasters find that they have generally average IQ. What they did have a lot of, was years of experience and dedication, and also probably very good memories. 2. Basketball is a game where height (which is also strongly heridetary) is very important (the average height of a NBA player is 6' 7"). What are the odds of a man who is 5' 7" becoming a great world-class player? Sure, you could name some guy who fought all odds to rise to the top. But the key word here is odds, and genetics plays a huge role in stacking up the odds.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  This line falls apart because people will rightly argue over what is a sport. If we then include chess, then why not programming? Or education in general? Education is not competitive, but we can compare and rank. In the end it all becomes a horrible mess. In then end I tend to think the genetics must have an impact all over society and culture, and, well, that's that.
alan_cx 13y ago
Perhaps you underestimate how incredibly small the margins are in sport?
newnewnew 13y ago
This Atlantic article suggests that you will never win an Olympic medal in sprinting unless you come from West Africa[1]. This same population is bad at distance running, where Kenyans dominate. There appears to be strong genetic components at work here. [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-urgency-and-the-challenge-of-connecting-sports-race-and-genetics/278345/ http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the...
- moron4hire 13y ago
  Distance running is the national sport in Kenya. They spend money on it like the US spends money on football. Of course, not to quite the same degree, but the point is still that it is their national sports focus. If Kenyan's are genetically superior at marathons, then Americans are genetically superior at football. Countries as large as the US, India, China, etc., have large enough populations that someone in them should match the "genetic ideal" to excel at a certain sport. It is economics that prevents them from doing so. Either their country or culture doesn't value the sport and thus doesn't spend money on it, or they must spend too much time earning to feed themselves that they can't train. Or that particular person has just never tried the sport. Or there are people who are actually more genetically suited to the particular sport but are discouraged from trying because they hear the current theories on what makes a genetically suitable athlete for that sport. All we know is that Kenya as a country has the ability to produce excellent marathon runners. To heap all of that on "genetics" is grossly short-sited.
  - newnewnew 13y ago
    We know that subpopulations of humans vary drastically by phenotypes relevant to athletic performance. The Dutch average adult male height is the highest on the planet at 6'1". African pygmies separated from their Bantu relatives 4,000 - 5,000 years ago, and have since evolved to have an average male height of 4'11". Others are intermediate - the Japanese have an average male height of 5'7". Within a breeding population, height tends to follow a normal distribution. Depending on the standard deviation, there will be a few Japanese taller than the average Dutch. But there will be far more Dutch than Japanese among the very tallest men. This is a simple example, but in a sport where height matters, like basketball, there will be far more Dutch who are good at it than Japanese, and far more Japanese than pygmies. Certainly culture matters, especially in sports where intelligence matters more and raw physical talents matter less. But genetics also matter.
Someone 13y ago
I don't see how either example supports your argument. If Bolt had pursued cricket, rather than athletics, he would have looked different, too, but that does not mean he isn't a genetically good fit for a sprinter. Now, if you had a pair of identical twins where both trained identically, weren't hit by different strokes of luck/misfortune, but got wildly different physique, that would have been an argument. As to your second argument, the fact that we do not know what genetic makeup makes a fast sprinter does not imply that there is no genetic makeup that makes a fast sprinter.
stiff 13y ago
This is a complicated issue, and I think you are confusing things a bit. Of course, for a gene to take an effect (produce a protein) it has to be activated via a certain chain of chemical reactions that is triggered by environmental conditions. So, sure, genes give widely different results depending on the environment of the organism. In professional competitive sports however we have a large group of people that undergo really similar stimulus. They all train the same discipline, follow similar training regimes, eat really well etc. To think that in such situation genes do not play a huge role is I think naive in the light of what we know about biology. I also don't see what your examples have to do with it, really. By the way, I find it a bit silly that those articles about genetic differences concentrate on sports so much. Somehow it is much easier for people to swallow that our bodies are shaped by our genes, that it is to accept that a large part of our mental makeup is as well, despite strong scientific evidence for it. For the same reason I think any notion of "fairness" in this context meaningless, genes make every one of us who we are and we have vastly different capabilities concerning all activities, from chess playing, through math problem solving, to sports and entrepreneurship. There is no fairness at all in any human activity.
pygy_ 13y ago
Genetics set the ceiling. Try as they might, achondroplastic dwarves will never make it to the NBA, and severe, congenitally retarded people will never have a significant, active contribution to human knowledge. These are off course extreme examples. There are several ways to be a good basketball player, or to become an intellectual (athleticism is less open to variety). But for an equal amount of work some people will end up better at some tasks than others.
dmoo 13y ago
Listen to David Epstien being interviewed about his book "The Sports Gene" here. http://snd.sc/15G4kbd http://snd.sc/15G4kbd Go to 1:00.45 unless you want to here about Gaelic Football etc.

nedR 13y ago

Yes and No depending on the sport. 1. Chess is a game traditionally considered to be strongly co-related to IQ (which is strongly heridetary), but a survey of Grandmasters find that they have generally average IQ. What they did have a lot of, was years of experience and dedication, and also probably very good memories. 2. Basketball is a game where height (which is also strongly heridetary) is very important (the average height of a NBA player is 6' 7"). What are the odds of a man who is 5' 7" becoming a great world-class player? Sure, you could name some guy who fought all odds to rise to the top. But the key word here is odds, and genetics plays a huge role in stacking up the odds.

alan_cx 13y ago
This line falls apart because people will rightly argue over what is a sport. If we then include chess, then why not programming? Or education in general? Education is not competitive, but we can compare and rank. In the end it all becomes a horrible mess. In then end I tend to think the genetics must have an impact all over society and culture, and, well, that's that.

alan_cx 13y ago

Perhaps you underestimate how incredibly small the margins are in sport?

newnewnew 13y ago

This Atlantic article suggests that you will never win an Olympic medal in sprinting unless you come from West Africa[1]. This same population is bad at distance running, where Kenyans dominate. There appears to be strong genetic components at work here. [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-urgency-and-the-challenge-of-connecting-sports-race-and-genetics/278345/ http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the...

moron4hire 13y ago
Distance running is the national sport in Kenya. They spend money on it like the US spends money on football. Of course, not to quite the same degree, but the point is still that it is their national sports focus. If Kenyan's are genetically superior at marathons, then Americans are genetically superior at football. Countries as large as the US, India, China, etc., have large enough populations that someone in them should match the "genetic ideal" to excel at a certain sport. It is economics that prevents them from doing so. Either their country or culture doesn't value the sport and thus doesn't spend money on it, or they must spend too much time earning to feed themselves that they can't train. Or that particular person has just never tried the sport. Or there are people who are actually more genetically suited to the particular sport but are discouraged from trying because they hear the current theories on what makes a genetically suitable athlete for that sport. All we know is that Kenya as a country has the ability to produce excellent marathon runners. To heap all of that on "genetics" is grossly short-sited.
- newnewnew 13y ago
  We know that subpopulations of humans vary drastically by phenotypes relevant to athletic performance. The Dutch average adult male height is the highest on the planet at 6'1". African pygmies separated from their Bantu relatives 4,000 - 5,000 years ago, and have since evolved to have an average male height of 4'11". Others are intermediate - the Japanese have an average male height of 5'7". Within a breeding population, height tends to follow a normal distribution. Depending on the standard deviation, there will be a few Japanese taller than the average Dutch. But there will be far more Dutch than Japanese among the very tallest men. This is a simple example, but in a sport where height matters, like basketball, there will be far more Dutch who are good at it than Japanese, and far more Japanese than pygmies. Certainly culture matters, especially in sports where intelligence matters more and raw physical talents matter less. But genetics also matter.

Someone 13y ago

I don't see how either example supports your argument. If Bolt had pursued cricket, rather than athletics, he would have looked different, too, but that does not mean he isn't a genetically good fit for a sprinter. Now, if you had a pair of identical twins where both trained identically, weren't hit by different strokes of luck/misfortune, but got wildly different physique, that would have been an argument. As to your second argument, the fact that we do not know what genetic makeup makes a fast sprinter does not imply that there is no genetic makeup that makes a fast sprinter.

stiff 13y ago

This is a complicated issue, and I think you are confusing things a bit. Of course, for a gene to take an effect (produce a protein) it has to be activated via a certain chain of chemical reactions that is triggered by environmental conditions. So, sure, genes give widely different results depending on the environment of the organism. In professional competitive sports however we have a large group of people that undergo really similar stimulus. They all train the same discipline, follow similar training regimes, eat really well etc. To think that in such situation genes do not play a huge role is I think naive in the light of what we know about biology. I also don't see what your examples have to do with it, really. By the way, I find it a bit silly that those articles about genetic differences concentrate on sports so much. Somehow it is much easier for people to swallow that our bodies are shaped by our genes, that it is to accept that a large part of our mental makeup is as well, despite strong scientific evidence for it. For the same reason I think any notion of "fairness" in this context meaningless, genes make every one of us who we are and we have vastly different capabilities concerning all activities, from chess playing, through math problem solving, to sports and entrepreneurship. There is no fairness at all in any human activity.

pygy_ 13y ago

Genetics set the ceiling. Try as they might, achondroplastic dwarves will never make it to the NBA, and severe, congenitally retarded people will never have a significant, active contribution to human knowledge. These are off course extreme examples. There are several ways to be a good basketball player, or to become an intellectual (athleticism is less open to variety). But for an equal amount of work some people will end up better at some tasks than others.

dmoo 13y ago

Listen to David Epstien being interviewed about his book "The Sports Gene" here. http://snd.sc/15G4kbd http://snd.sc/15G4kbd Go to 1:00.45 unless you want to here about Gaelic Football etc.