British / HG players

[Farkmaster]

I'm starting to get the impression that this news hasn't reached as many people as I would have thought.

I'm getting the impression it has reached some of them but they deliberately ignored it.

 

[Frogfish]

It doesn't follow though. Sherpas are a race. Black people are not a race in the same sense. The mechanism you are giving an example of is exactly why it's stupid to talk about black people as a race. Or genetics using terms like Asian, black or white, that have no genetic meaning.

People keep bringing up these fascinating specific cases as though they are the same as saying black people are more athletic, and I'm honestly agog at it. If I looked at that piece of genetic adaptation and said "Asians are the best climbers" as though if I picked some random Japanese person to develop into a climber, I'd have a great advantage, you would think I was fucking stupid. They aren't even the same people you'd say, if even remotely aware.

You've got Sherpas in Nepal inheriting a gene that had Darwinian selection over many generations from Tibetan ancestors. In that scenario you have a studied population with shared characteristics, a specific, relatively homogenous population, in a specific place. And then, you have evidence! There's a sensible causal connection there. Science!

Interestingly it does seem some people in the Andes do have genetic adaptions to high altitudes, from what I've just read, just not the same ones. Again, if you were to use lazy categories of race most people in the West don't even disambiguate the indigenous populations in these areas from the populations post colonization. Similarly, the question of who is black, and even more so, who is white, has had many shifting answers depending on time and place.

There are all sorts of advantages specific populations can have at doing very specific things that are studied. None of those populations are defined by cultural descriptors of race that have never had any scientific basis, or even any consistency of application.

It isn't lazy categorisation and nowhere did I say 'all black people' or 'all Asian people' etc. Although we know for a fact black people are more susceptible to certain diseases, ditto Asian people and white people the same so it's impossible to just disregard these genetic adaptations likewise we can't simply categorise all people simply by skin colour.

In fact if you read my post again I didn't say anything of the sort and I specifically stated regional adaptations.

 

[Farkmaster]

It isn't lazy categorisation and nowhere did I say 'all black people' or 'all Asian people' etc. Although we know for a fact black people are more susceptible to certain diseases, ditto Asian people and white people the same so it's impossible to just disregard these genetic adaptations likewise we can't simply categorise all people simply by skin colour.

In fact if you read my post again I didn't say anything of the sort and I specifically stated regional adaptations.

Read the whole thread, so you know what the context of the posts are, or do yourself a favour and don't actually. It's been a colossal fucking waste of time.

 

[Mamma Mia]

It isn't lazy categorisation and nowhere did I say 'all black people' or 'all Asian people' etc. Although we know for a fact black people are more susceptible to certain diseases, ditto Asian people and white people the same so it's impossible to just disregard these genetic adaptations likewise we can't simply categorise all people simply by skin colour.

In fact if you read my post again I didn't say anything of the sort and I specifically stated regional adaptations.

But “Black,” “Asian,” “White” aren’t genetic categories. They’re social shorthand that lump together massively diverse populations. Africa has the highest genetic diversity on earth; two “Black” people from Nigeria and Ethiopia can be more genetically different from each other than either is from a European. Saying “Black people have X adaptation” is like saying “Asians are good climbers”. It collapses hundreds of distinct populations into a lazy label.

So sure, regional adaptations are real. But that doesn’t validate talking about race as if it’s a meaningful genetic unit. It’s precisely the opposite.

 

[Squiggles]

Don't know if the same now but I went to a grammar school on the Wirral - do they even exist any more?

All the grammar school children played a mixture of rugby, cricket and hockey. All the secondary schools played football.

Not sure what the mix is like in London but I got the feeling that rugby was really popular in the North West (both codes).

I play union on the Wirral. There's still a healthy amateur rugby scene, with plenty of clubs putting out two or three sides most weeks. As you say that interest must come from schools, combined with people moving in from elsewhere. Sadly the nearest pro rugby club is Sale Sharks and that's a bit too Manc and a bit too far for anyone to identify with.

Whilst we here, all pray for rain. The ground is like concrete and my knees are in pieces as a result!

 

[Frogfish]

But “Black,” “Asian,” “White” aren’t genetic categories. They’re social shorthand that lump together massively diverse populations. Africa has the highest genetic diversity on earth; two “Black” people from Nigeria and Ethiopia can be more genetically different from each other than either is from a European. Saying “Black people have X adaptation” is like saying “Asians are good climbers”. It collapses hundreds of distinct populations into a lazy label.

So sure, regional adaptations are real. But that doesn’t validate talking about race as if it’s a meaningful genetic unit. It’s precisely the opposite.

I lived in Africa for 5 years and have been in Asia for 30 years, so I'm well aware.

And nowhere did I state anything of the sort. My point was that regional adaptations could indeed favour certain people (who are almost always of the same colour / race in that region) with genetic 'enhancements' and since these take many generations to develop they could indeed be transported to other regions.
I find it strange and naive to ignore this possibility.

 

[Mamma Mia]

I lived in Africa for 5 years and have been in Asia for 30 years, so I'm well aware.

And nowhere did I state anything of the sort. My point was that regional adaptations could indeed favour certain people (who are almost always of the same colour / race in that region) with genetic 'enhancements' and since these take many generations to develop they could indeed be transported to other regions.
I find it strange and naive to ignore this possibility.

Did you perhaps misread the first part of farky's post that you disagreed with?

 

[Farkmaster]

I never disputed that peoples that are genetically distinct can have genetic advantages. This was my point about Africa including wholly disparate adaptations for speed and endurance. Black people generally have higher incidence of sickle cell not because they are genetically similar as a group, but because a diverse amount of people had the same exact pressure of malaria. It's why people in Saudi Arabia can also have the same high incidence of sickle cell, or India. It isn't because they are part of a shared genetic group. Its the fucking mosquitoes.

When you say race / color, that hyphen implies that the two are interchangable when discussing something that's genetic. They aren't.

Its impossible not to recognize race in a traditional sense as real because it exists in our history and discourse and identity and on and on. It's wrong to write it into science in the modern day. We spent time trying that in the past and it all turned out to be horseshit and racism.

 

[Mamma Mia]

 

[Modo]

Want more scousers in the team?
Look no further:

Thelo Aasgaard - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org