Racist Racing Model Stumbles
African Lynne Simpson, 2001 winner of Augrabies Ultra-Marathon in South AfricaOn one hand, everyone knows that the differences between humans that are often categorized as “racial traits” are either overstated or irrelevant. All humans have essentially the same basic potentials, and the genetic differences that do exist between people are not sorted out by the usual racial categories. Not even the differences that are foundational to those racial categories sort out by racial categories particularly well. By and large, racial categories are cultural fictions vaguely supported by quirky historical circumstances. On close examination they are not real.
On the other hand, it has become fairly common to attribute a select few true racial traits to certain races. The most common is the obvious genetic superiority of Africans in areas of sports. This belief is widespread among people of all sorts of political orientations, and is often considered benign because it is a “good thing” and not a bad thing (like racial tendencies to be sub intelligent, or to exhibit criminal behavior would be).
The fact that these “benign” traits are just as fictitious as the other traits, and that they are not at all benign, has not stopped people from believing them.
A newly released study in Nature Genetics
From the abstract of this paper:
More than a billion humans worldwide are predicted to be completely deficient in the fast skeletal muscle fiber protein alpha-actinin-3 owing to homozygosity for a premature stop codon polymorphism, R577X, in the ACTN3 gene. The R577X polymorphism is associated with elite athlete status and human muscle performance, suggesting that alpha-actinin-3 deficiency influences the function of fast muscle fibers. Here we show that loss of alpha-actinin-3 expression in a knockout mouse model results in a shift in muscle metabolism toward the more efficient aerobic pathway and an increase in intrinsic endurance performance. In addition, we demonstrate that the genomic region surrounding the 577X null allele shows low levels of genetic variation and recombination in [certain groups of people], consistent with strong, recent positive selection. We propose that the 577X allele has been positively selected in some human populations owing to its effect on skeletal muscle metabolism.
So, now we have it. The gene, how it works, what it does. This must explain why all of those Africans win all those races, and why so many elite American athletes are African-American.
The social and economic explanations are no longer as needed. The fact that almost all African elite long distance runners were born and raised one or more miles above sea level and thus developed tremendous lung capacity is no longer as important. Finally, we have a benign race gene for … well, racing.
BBBZZZZZZEERRRRKKKKKK
Huh? What? Oh, that was the “no, that’s wrong” buzzer going off….
The frequency of this gene is nowhere high enough in any population to be a “racial” trait, even if such traits actually existed. And it is prevalent mainly among Europeans and Asians. The slow ones have the fast genes.
Back to the paper:
The frequency of the 577X null allele differs between human groups: it is approx 10% in Africans but approaches 50% in Eurasian populations. Two independent studies have reported associations between R577X and elite athlete status; the frequency of the 577XX null genotype is lower in sprinting and power athletes and higher in endurance athletes.
Eat your heart out, Philip Rushton.
You can read more about it on ScienceNOW (may need a subscription). The original paper is cited below, and I’m sure you need to be special to get a copy of that.
All humans have essentially the same basic potentials, and the genetic differences that do exist between people are not sorted out by the usual racial categories.
Yes they are.
RPM:
From the study you cite:
The vast majority of genetic variation does not sort out by the usual racial categories.
The abstract goes on to say:
The method they used, K-cluster, tends to be very forgiving and allows grouping that should never be relied on. The purpose of this paper was to examine the possibility that asking someone about their heritage (in designing a screen for possible genetic diseases, for example) could be replaced by a genetic test. It turns out that
Finally, the vast majority of the variation that they did manage to correlate to vague groupings (like “Asia” … which includes, say, Japan and Iran) is exactly what is expected when genes vary over time as individuals spread across space. Indeed, this kind of genetic variation in humans is notoriously low and hard to use analytically.
The only way that one can say that the genetic differences that people are sorted out by follow the usual racial categories is if one believes this in advance and insists on it being true despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.
Hi Greg,
I hope I’ve interpreted the data correctly.
This may be further confirmation that human ancestors relatively “recently” changed from an oxygen conservation habit (breath hold diving for shellfish?) habit to a more aerobic habit (net wading, walking, push-poling watercraft, jogging, paddling).
However, it might be said that the change was due to weapons development, where sprinting for cover from predators became obsolete with advanced weaponry, and the mutation simply wasn’t selected against as it might have been earlier. Or it may be something different entirely?
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.o.....2007/910/3
[DD: Recently] Born to Run Long Distance
10 September 2007
Marathon running might be in some people’s genes, according to a new study, which shows that a genetic mutation that boosts muscle endurance has spread widely in some human populations.
There are two types of skeletal muscle fibers. Fast fibers, which use sugars for fuel and do not require oxygen, kick in for tasks that require maximum force and quick action, such as sprinting [DD: Diving]. Slow fibers, which employ oxygen-using (or aerobic) pathways, power activities that require endurance, such as long-distance running. A protein called alpha-actinin-3 is made mostly by fast fibers and is implicated in their capacity for rapid force generation. About 18% of people of European descent do not produce the protein at all due to mutations in both their copies of the gene ACTN3, which codes for alpha-actinin-3. Previous studies have shown that endurance athletes such as long-distance runners have higher frequencies of this mutation, whereas sprinters and athletes in other sports that require quick muscle strength have lower frequencies…
But, if the Creationists tells us that there are NO beneficial mutation, ever, does that mean that R577X has always been present since Noah and his merry crew ?
I suppose they are very partly right, R577X is more than 4000 years old.
[…] Racist Racing Model Stumbles On one hand, everyone knows that the differences between humans that are often categorized as “racial traits” are either overstated or irrelevant. All humans have essentially the same basic potentials, and the genetic differences that do exist between people are not sorted out by the usual racial categories. Not even the differences that are foundational to those racial categories sort out by racial categories particularly well. By and large, racial categories are cultural fictions vaguely supported by quirky historical circumstances. On close examination they are not real. […]
[…] Laden has an excellent article on the genetics and evolution of race — basically, it’s an irrelevant pairing of […]
DDeden, your “oxygen-conserving mode” consists of the efficient use of oxygen, that is, aerobic metabolism. If you build up lactic acid instead, I’m sure you run into real trouble, at least as long as you can’t come back to the surface to exhale carbon dioxide…
David: Hasn’t the lactic acid theory been overthrown? It does not cause the muscle pain and fatigue. It actually rushes to the cells or is formed there or whatever as a source of energy in a cell that requires extra energy. The muscle pain is not explained by lactic acid. Or so I hear (but I cannot at the moment verify this or produce evidence or a citation… partly because my main computer is currently non-functional and that’s probably where the relevant PDF is stached…)
It’s not the lactate, it’s the hydrogen ion that causes some of the pain. Chemoreceptors detect lowering pH and a pain signal is sent to the brain. The fact that lactate does not cause the pain was shown long ago in experiments that used infused sodium lactate. Incidentally, lactate from anaerobic glycolysis is produced in the fast twitch fibers, diffuses to the slow-twitch fibers where it is used as an energy source for aerobic metabolism. Much of the remaining lactate is used as an aerobic energy sourceby the heart.
Natural: Thanks for the info. I believe what came to light recently was that the lactate explanation was still generally in use in certain areas, like sports medicine or training.
A quick check of the internet shows this is still part of our belief system.
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/.....sensus.php
On the other hand, it has become fairly common to attribute a select few true racial traits to certain races. The most common is the obvious genetic superiority of Africans in areas of sports. This belief is widespread among people of all sorts of political orientations, and is often considered benign because it is a “good thing” and not a bad thing (like racial tendencies to be sub intelligent, or to exhibit criminal behavior would be).
No, I don’t think it’s the fact that it’s considered benign because it’s a “good thing”. It’s considered benign because it confers a genetic superiority on a group who have generally been discriminated against. We can show this through some thought experiments - claim: “Whites are smart”. This is not considered a benign statement because “smart” is relative, and essentially means “smarter than other races”, and Whites are high up the socioeconomic scale and have lots of power. Claim: “Jews are smart”. This is considered more benign because of the discrimination problems Jews have had. I’ve seen articles talking about all the accomplishments of Jews (including the number of Nobel Prizes they have won, etc). This is considered benign because they are a small group with a history of being discriminated against. The same sort of balance exists with attributing genetic superiority to men and women. You can say a lot of good things about women without any resistance, but saying good things about men will meet more resistance because men have the upper hand in power and income.
The method they used, K-cluster, tends to be very forgiving and allows grouping that should never be relied on.
I believe you are confusing STRUCTURE with an implementation of a k-means clustering algorithm. the two are very different.
in the new york times, one of the authors of the paper RPM brought up is quoted as follows:
this is, of course, a truism. people are “classified” visually as being in one race or another based on a composite of phenotypes, there is genetic variation underlying these phenotypes, so it’s obvious that genetic differences underlie “race” to a certain extent.
FRC freediving includes exhaling, sinking, then ascending using limb “power stroke” anaerobically. The limbs “burn sugar”, but the brain and heart are still relatively oxygen rich because they are in MDR mode where O2 is conserved in the torso. Because the active limbs aren’t using O2, CO2 production is low, pH acidosis is moderate. This diving style was likely used by ancient seashore divers, so…”Fast fibers, which use sugars for fuel and do not require oxygen, kick in for tasks that require maximum force and quick action” would have been beneficial for dives deeper than 5m/15′ I guess. IIRC Seb Murat dove to 70m/210′ using that method without mask or fins.
[MDR: Mammalian Divers Reflex, FRC: Functional Residual Capacity]
“By and large, racial categories are cultural fictions vaguely supported by quirky historical circumstances. On close examination they are not real.”
That about sums it up, and you could add ethnic categories. For instance, the tragedy in Rwanda was created by quirky historical circumstances.
“According to some historians, like Congolese Professor George Izangola, the only difference between the two groups were economic, rather than ethnic. In a 1996 interview with Charlayne Hunter Gault, Professor Izangola explained:
“In Rwanda, the Tutsi and the Hutu are the same people. They are all people–large grouping or communities which go from seven regions of Cameroon to Uganda–all the way to South Africa, in the same culture,” Izangola said. “People used to be Tutsi or Hutu, depending on the proximity to the king. If you were close to the king, you owned wealth, you owned a lot of cattle, you are a Tutsi. If you are far away from the king, you are a cultivator, you don’t own much cattle, you are a Hutu.”
Colonial rule, which began in the late 19th Century, did little to bring the groups together. The Belgians, who ruled what would later become Rwanda and Burundi, forced Hutus and Tutsis to carry ethnic identity cards. The colonial administrators further exacerbated divisions by only allowed Tutsis to attain higher education and hold positions of power.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb.....utsis.html
P-ter: I’ve used these statistics quite a bit, and I’m telling you, they are designed for when most of your groups (which the analyst presumes even if the method dies not … K-means derives the groups) are indistinguishable on most of the variables because they are either the same or they are random.
Take a large integer, and type it into the middle of a large spreadsheet. Now write formulas to have a small probability of small change in that number in adjoining cells, and then again in the next ajoining cells, a d so on, until the edges of your large spreadsheet represent numbers that have been randomly altered through a series of step.
Now, delete a third of a row here, a third of a column here, a block of 20 by 20 over there, to represent biogeography.
Run your K-means and you’ve got races.
[…] Laden has an excellent article on the genetics and evolution of race — basically, it’s an irrelevant pairing of […]
[…] Laden presents Evolution » Racist Racing Model Stumbles posted at Evolution … not just a theory […]
I’d also like to point out, re: “positive” stereotypes, that they inevitably have a negative flipside. “Asians are good at math” is the flipside of “Asians are bad at sports.” “Jews are smart” is often just a re-parsing of “Jews are clever and greedy.”
“Positive” stereotypes fuel the fires of racism and bigotry in their own ways - please don’t forget it.
Katie: Exactly. Plus, one positive stereotype is another’s negative. If Jews are smart and Asians are good at math, what does that make SerboCroatians?
But beyond that there is another down sides that ultimately is possibly worse: If you can say that Class X has trait Y for any circumstances, fine. But if you can’t .. if the race model is invalid, than ANY use of it is an attempt to revalidate it.
Serbo-Croats? I think they would be stuck in the middle, right?
Just like last time, with Madeline Albright running damage control on her dearest daddies steel factories in Yugoslavia, and the Asian dollar beginning its steep ascent, and buying up scrap metal like nobodies bidness?