An interesting theory was proposed on BBC TV this eveningt prior to the Olympic 200 meter final, in which Jamaican athletes, Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake and Warren Weir won gold, silver and bronze respectively. Only one white athlete, the Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre, has ever run a sub-twenty second 200 meters and black athletes have dominated many Olympic events, especially those from the USA, Britain and the Caribbean nations although, curiously, they are noticeably absent from swimming events.
The theory is that this is the result of a Darwinian evolutionary process caused by the slave trade. Almost all the African slaves which were taken to the new world came from West Africa and were selected from amongst the fittest because these commanded the highest prices and were most likely to survive the appallingly inhumane conditions in the slave ships.
So, in addition to fittest being selected initially, another selection occurred on the slave ships, with only the exceptionally fit surviving the journey to the New World.
Then another selection process occurred on the plantations where the work was hard and physical and, with slaves being cheap and disposable, those who failed to work hard enough were simply killed and replaced by more bought from the next slave ship to dock. And of course, a wise slave owner encouraged his fittest (i.e. hardest working and most productive) slaves to breed, just as a herdsman breeds from his best stock. And so the slave trade produced an intense Darwinian selection for fitness from which today's population of African Americans, Caribbean Islanders and Britain's Afro-Caribbean population is descended. It's not surprising therefore that they contribute disproportionately to the sporting success of their respective nations.
It's ironic that they tend to subscribe disproportionately to a religious superstition which teach that Darwinian Evolution by Natural Selection doesn't happen. A religion moreover which slaves were originally forced to adopt because it made them easier to control by accepting a place allotted them by the slavers' deity, using scriptures in the slavers' Bible, and so less likely to use their superior fitness against the slave traders and the slave owners, who of course had all the guns, dogs and instruments of torture and execution, the better to ensure obedience and adherence to the 'faith'. A 'faith' which sold them the lie that accepting your place without complaint in this world would ensure freedom and happiness after death (when they were no longer any use and couldn't complain) and which, in some countries, is still being used to give false hope when all real hope is being denied by those who still depend for their wealth on a supply of cheap, compliant and passive labour who humbly accept their place as allotted by a 'white' god.
Most folk were in it for the money(slavery). JOHN NEWTON spent his time as a slave ship seaman as an unbeliever. He was himself enslaved in Africa and sold in a reversal of fortune. He commuted many heinous acts to slaves as an unbeliever. He made a nominal expression of commitment to Christ but continued to work in the trade. After his full conversion renounced the trade and with his friend Wilberforce saw its abolition. He wrote Amazing Grace.
ReplyDeleteMy question to you is. Did Newton's early life unbelief/atheism in the Christian God cause him to act so heinously?
As for the Bible it says that we are "one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" I.e no difference in the so called races. Jamaica wins in the sprints cause sprinting is the national sport, they practice it. Mo Farah won the 10k cause he runs 120miles per week.
I have already pointed out that the New Testament advocates the equality of men and St Paul advocated for Onesimus who was a slave that his former owner treat him as an equal and not a slave.
Morgan anonymous
Well done. You've managed to find an account of how one man involved in the slave trade may have been an unbeliever. Do you think many people will have been convinced by your hilarious attempt to insinuate that they all were, based on one man?
DeleteYou forgot to post the biblical references to support your claim and to explain why they flatly contradict other passages, including the reported words of Jesus in Luke 12:41-48, "And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few.", which was widely quoted in support of slavery and to justify the barbaric treatment handed out by slave owners - Jesus told us to do it. (See 'What Jesus Thought About Slavery')
Apart from being racist, this post does not support its claims. Do you have any evidence of the claims you make?
ReplyDeleteExplaining why black athletes are disproportionately successful at many athletic sports is not remotely racist, however lying about it and denying it in the face of the evidence most certainly is.
DeletePeople will recall your fellow religionists discomfort when Jesse Owens won the 1936 gold medal in Munich despite the then Catholic belief that white people were the master race based on perverted ideas of Darwinian Evolution which your church was then finding extremely useful.
Do you want evidence of the slave trade and how slaves were treated, or evidence that black athletes won the 200 meters Olympic final, predominate in many sports and that most of them come from countries where the black population is descended from slaves Christian Europeans captured and transported there?
Or are you just in embarrassed denial about the whole thing and hoping no one has noticed?
Any academic or biologist would know that race is a social construct and is not biologically determined. I suggest you do research before presenting your misunderstanding of evolution/genetics as accurate. May I suggest reading up on works by Biologist Dr. Alan Templeton, Ph.D and educate yourself on the matter.
DeleteThe rest of your claims are unfounded as usual. It is important to provide citations for your claims. Others who are not well educated and comment here may buy into your posts, but people such as myself who hold degrees in the sciences will call you out on your mistakes.
Sacerdotus.
DeleteSorry you have had to try to divert a conversation about genetics and evolution into one about race, so again revealing to the world your intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice. Was it your way of handling the discomfort of cognitive dissonance real-world facts so readily set up in the deluded minds of superstitious theophobes?
Do you even read what you write?? Darwin is spinning in his grave now...
DeleteSacerdotus.
DeleteYou forgot to say why again. I wonder if readers can work out why.
You really need to read the Christian Apologists Handbook. It tells you how and when to use the tricks and deceptions on which you have to rely. It's available here: So You’ve Decided To Be An Apologist For Christianity.
Be sure to download the Christian version; the Islamic version (So You’ve Decided To Be An Apologist For Islam) has a few different words and you don't want to end up promoting the almost identical superstition of your deadly enemy, do you now.
Sacerdotus.
DeleteYou also forgot to explain why you tried to divert the conversation away from genetics and evolution and into one about race. I expect readers here will have worked out why that was and why you are now trying for another diversion. I'm afraid the Christian Apologists Handbook doesn't explain how you could use truth, honesty and personal integrity to your advantage because, as you know, that would never work.
Ah, great post Rosa. Missed it last night.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping you might do a blog about it. Could you also do one about the Kenyan domination of the longer distances?
Oh dear. Sacerdotus has now completely lost his/her/its mind.
Narwhal.
Nominal Christianity and or deism or nordism / paganism Rosa? Adolf couldn't make his mind up and the church was next on his list after the other monotheists were exterminated. As with all totalitarian states religionists get the irk as it reminds them of a moral compass. All atheistic communist states develop slave labour camps and the cult of worship of the party or great leader.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in Christianity "whom the Son sets free is free indeed".
Morgan anonymous
As usual, the known facts contradict you.
DeleteDo you imagine the universe obeys the instructions you type out for it and changes reality accordingly? Or are you just hoping to fool credulous and ignorant simpletons who either can't or can't be bothered to learn real history? If so, can I politely suggest you confine this tactic to people who already subscribe to your infantile superstition and desist from insulting the intelligence of readers of this blog.
I don't think this tells the full story. It is true that selective breeding has produced 'fitter' athletes of African descent, however this only extends as far as the twitch fibers in muscles. Anybody of African descent has genetically faster twitch muscles fibers, and the slave trade selective breeding you speak of has advanced this. This is why it is only the sprint events that descendants of the slave trade dominate and not long distance.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
DeleteOf course, the West African population from which slaves were mostly obtained are not especially close to the Ethiopian and Niloto-Saharan people who tend to perform well in middle and long distance events.
Funny how Mo Farah said it was "hard work and graft" that got him his medals. The inconsistency of your argument is astounding. We are told that all humans started/evolved in Africa...."one blood". But you say its European Christians and their slavery that created this gene pool....
ReplyDeleteMorgan anonymous
There may be a predominance of black athletes, but this is nothing to do with genetics. http://furtherthoughtsfortheday.blogspot.com/2012/08/on-black-athletic-superiority.html
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. (On black athletic superiority.)
DeleteI'm not sure you have established that it has "nothing to do with genetics" and thus that the conditions produced by slavery could not have been an evolutionary driver, at least in part.
"Only one white athlete, the Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre, has ever run a sub-twenty second 200 metres."
ReplyDeleteNot true! Pietro Mennea of Italy ran the 200m in 19.78 seconds on 12th September 1979, which stood as the world record until 1996.
Greek sprinter Kostos Kenteris also broke 20 seconds when he ran 200m in 19.85 seconds.
It would be bice if you got your facts straight vefore making false claims.
You're right. Thank you for correcting the BBC report upon which my blog was based.
DeleteSo that makes just three white athletes who have run sub-20 second 200m, which of course does nothing to change the point of the blog, about which you seem not to wish to comment.
Interesting subject. My tuppence worth is as follows:
ReplyDeleteMichael Johnson, the men's 400m world record holder (and 200m WR holder until a certain Mr Bolt came along) believes genetics are not the cause for black success as much as role models.
Up until the 1960s white sprinters by and large took all the spoils in sprints. There were, of course, exceptions such as Jesse Owens, but Owens' 100m record time was a paltry 10.2 seconds, rubbish by today's standards. However, seeing role models such as Jesse, black people were inspired to take up the sport and dedicate their lives to becoming a finely tuned machine.
If we were to see 4 or 5 more white guys like Lemaitre come through, we could see a similar increase in white success too. Johnson certainly believes that to be the case.
On a scientific level, there is little or no evidence that white people can't achieve the same times that we see blacks achieve. The reason there are hardly any is because there is little incentive for whites to take up sprinting (again, with the odd exception)
Whites are taught to believe blacks are genetically superior so they see no point in trying to become Olympic sprinters. On the other hand, black participation is far higher proportionally because they have so many icons to worship and emulate. Who knows how many Lemaitres or Menneas we might have otherwise had if whites weren't so deterred from taking up sprinting.
Perversely, when we look at women's athletes, performances are far more equal. Many white Europeans STILL hold all-time top ten performances in the sprints. Aside from Flo-Jo's ridiculous steroid-induced records (which should be wiped from the record books in my opinion) and convicted cheat Marion Jones, white athletes hold half of the top-ten all time 200m times and 3 of the top 4 in the 400m, with nobody coming close to Marita Koch's 400m time.
Following on, in both men's and women's throwing events, white athletes are supremely dominant. Although a black man won the Olympic javelin competition in London 2012, his best throw of just over 84 metres is laughably poor compared to Jan Zelezny's superb 98.48m world record (which will never ever ever be beaten in my lifetime, imo).
Similarly, in discuss, hammer throw and shot putt, white athletes practically own those events in both men's and women's competitions, with only the token black competitor getting in amongst the action every so often.
Again, as Johnson does, I believe that it is not genetic advantages but preconceived notions about genetics and participation differences between different groups that give us our current situation. These can be challenged, as proven by Jonathan Edwards' triple jump world record, which nobody in history has come close to since he set it in 1995, despite him being the only white man in the top 5 all-time list.