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sikhstudent99

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  1. Post those videos here plz, all i see frm a search on youtube is muslim girls marrying singhs. Theres only 1 vid i can c of a apni marryin a half cut.

    You posted three videis of mona marrying ismaili gurls

    Ismailis aare hated by mainstream muslims an try to be more western then white people

    ismaili girls openly drink with there parents a ismailis are super white washed an take pride in there daughter or sons marrying white people

    Ismailis are very liberal to interfaith marriages

    But i cant find videos of singhs marrying real muslims

  2. Maybe u need to look a bit harder, theres quite a few.

    The last vid u uploaded, was a sikh boy marryin an ismaeli girl. Anyways, whether its apna boy or girl, these sham marriages in gurdwaras shud not b happnin. Ive also noticed these youtube sikh/muslim marriages seem to ALL be in n.america, not here in uk. U wud not see a sikh marryin a muslim here in uk gurdwaras, 1 of the persons will convert to either religion. Christians/atheist/hindus etc all seem to get away with marryin sikhs in gurdwaras for some reason.

    Could you post a video cause i cant find any turbon sikh men marrying muslim girls

    You claimed you only found videos of singhs marrying muslim girls could you post some videos?

  3. From ballots to bullets in the Indo-Canadian community

    Thu, July 11 2002

    So now they have buried Robbie Kandola, another statistic in the on-going cycle of violence in Vancouver's Indo-Canadian community.

    He has become another classic case of a young life stopped on the streets of Vancouver by a hail of bullets.

    The police, who appear powerless to stop this killing spree came out last month to hold a forum in a very public attempt to involve the community in their investigation. If anything has come out of Kandola's murder in June, it is that those blaming the youth for the violence don't have the complete picture.

    Police have now documented more than 50 murders involving Vancouver area's large Indo-Canadian community. These assassinations in night clubs, drive-by shootings and attacks at family gatherings has created a climate of fear, with witnesses unwilling to come forward and families forced to hire extra security guards for normally joyous events such as weddings.

    The words "gangs" and "drugs" time and again tumble out of the stories by the media and the police, both of whom are seeking to explain the motives for the killings. Neither, however, has publicly accounted for the undertow of violence and factionalism stirring deeper through the troubled heart of the Indo-Canadian community.

    It may be shocking and some may say racist, but when you dissect these murders you will eventually find many of the problems in the Lower Mainland's Sikh community are tributaries flowing out of their temples. It is here that the so-called rival 'drug' or 'gang' factions first came to life.

    Police point to the two separate 1994 killings of brothers Ron and Jimmy Dosanjh, reputed drug kingpins, as the start of the current cycle of violence. The brothers, both leading members of the International Sikh Youth Federation, made no bones about their devotion to the cause for an independent Sikh state in India, and moreover in their involvement with the Ross Street Temple and the fight for its control.

    Throughout most of the 90's, the temple, like Guru Nanak Temple on Surrey's Scott Road, was under the strain of conflict between rival community groups seeking to control its cash flow and power base. These camps mainstream media would dub 'moderates' and 'fundamentalists', according to misperceived allegiances to the struggle for an independent state, Khalistan, in India.

    Street thugs like Bindy Johal, who was eventually killed in Vancouver's Paladium night club in December 1998, were recruited by these camps to show muscle, and provide intimidation, a la third world banana republics. It wasn't uncommon for renowned toughs to receive the accolades and blessings of temple priests and senior community leaders by day and then their blind eye by night as the same young men peddled drugs as petty dealers.

    Ultimately, 'moderate' parties would take control of the Ross Street Temple, and Surrey's Guru Nanak, thanks no doubt in part to the violent fervour of their youth recruits.

    As moderate leaders have settled nicely on their thrones atop temple committees, and the conflict for control of temples has waned with rival camps setting up their own edifices, the death and destruction wrought by the next generation of Indo-Canadians has not waned, but escalated tragically. In fact, many of the men who have died or been involved in the street violence come directly from the various 'moderate' families controlling Lower Mainland's temples.

    Listless, and glutted by the endless financial support of their parents, these young men continue the gun play and violence, only now over issues as trivial as cheating girlfriends, or even caste differences.

    The fact that many of the young men who have died in the recent past are known to police as petty dealers, and felons, is often incidental to their premature deaths. Though many had risky dealings and links with disreputable people, the young men on the most part were not career criminals, or members of established gangs. Some were even professionals with university accreditation and posts as public school teachers.

    They were kids, who easily hypnotised by the glory of violence, believed in its efficacy as tacitly supported by their parents and religious leaders. Now with their parents no longer able to control them, and not knowing what or whom to believe, they have cloaked their struggle with boredom beneath vicious masks of bravado and turned on one another, and no doubt will continue to do so.

    What began as a fight between their parents and religious leaders over money has become a cancer slowly taking one young man at a time to his grave. The community leaders who show up to public forums and lament the violence are as much to blame as the boys packing their guns, and they must be held accountable.

    A share of the blame also belongs to municipal and provincial politicians who toady up to 'moderate' and 'fundamentalist' slates for votes come election time but then conveniently avoid casting blame on Indo-Canadian leaders for their own role in perpetuating the violence of their children.

    The current pack of 'so-called' religious and community leaders must admit their culpability, and correct their own divisive ways. Until they do so, a coming generation of boys will continue biting the

  4. Any good sex therapist will tell you it's not what you've got that matters. It's more important how you use what you've got.

    The same sound advice applies in an economy, too. Statisticians and politicians alike obsess over the latest ups and downs of GDP, assumed to reflect the progress of an entire economy. But in practice, a well-endowed GDP means nothing if it isn't put to good work. If extra economic production (measured by an expanding GDP) does not bring improvements in the human condition, then what's the point?

    An outstanding example of this maxim in practice is provided by the economic and social experience of Kerala, a state on the southern tip of India. Kerala has the same population as Canada, crammed into an area smaller than Nova Scotia. But apart from the crowds, Kerala's most unique feature is how it has leveraged its limited GDP to achieve remarkably strong outcomes in health, education and quality of life.

    Kerala's literacy is the highest in India, well above 90 per cent. Infant mortality is the lowest. Thanks to grassroots education programs and economic opportunity for women, its birth rate is one quarter of that in the rest of India - lower, even, than in the United States. By these social indicators, Kerala could even be considered a "developed" economy, despite its Third World levels of output. On my own recent travels through the state, I witnessed almost none of the grinding, desperate poverty commonly encountered in most of India.

    A stark statistical indicator of Kerala's social success is provided by the United Nations ranking of countries according to its Human Development Index. Taken as a whole, India performs miserably in this ranking and has been slipping (from 126th in 2006 to 134th today) despite its free-market economic boom. Shockingly, even while India's expansion has been praised by everyone from business analysts to our own dancing Prime Minister, the relative well-being of Indians has actually been declining. Steel tycoons, call-centre entrepreneurs and Bollywood producers are certainly loving it - in 2008, 53 billionaires possessed combined wealth equal to one quarter of the annual output produced by India's 1.2 billion people. But the UN statistics confirm that most Indians are not benefiting nearly enough.

    Kerala's GDP per capita is decent by Indian standards, but not spectacular. But its superior education and health outcomes push it well up the human development ranking. It boasts the highest HDI of any Indian state. If it were a country, Kerala would rank 77th in the world - ahead of countries with much higher GDP per capita, such as Turkey, South Africa and Peru.

    Kerala's unique approach reflects its fascinating political culture. For most of the last half-century, it has been governed by elected Communists (either alone or in coalition with other left parties). Economically, the government has made a priority of public services, small-scale co-ops and rural land reform instead of chasing call centres and outsourced jobs from Western offices. Productivity in some of Kerala's smaller workshops is pre-industrial, but that's still better than doing nothing, which is the fate of tens of millions of dispossessed workers elsewhere in India. Kerala's government has strongly resisted the corporatization of agriculture, and this has helped it achieve the lowest rural poverty in India. Again, the contrast with the rest of the country - 200,000 desperate farmers have committed suicide in the past decade - is jarring.

    Kerala's investments in its people have, perhaps ironically, made its people one of the state's most lucrative exports: About two million Keralans work in the Persian Gulf countries (many as doctors, nurses and engineers), sending back billions of dollars worth of remittances each year. But there is also a growing high-tech sector in Kerala itself, centred around a technology park where 25,000 people are employed in the state capital. The complex is owned by the state government but operated in partnership with global IT corporations. This funny co-existence of capitalism and socialism is called "flexible communism" by the locals.

    Business owners bemoan the hassle and lost productivity resulting from the strikes and protests that are a regular feature of daily life in highly politicized Kerala. On the other hand, it's precisely because they feel empowered to fight for their interests that Keralans have managed to win the highest standard of living in their vast, diverse country. Other parts of India lose very little work time to strikes, yet their people are demonstrably worse off.

    Perhaps that's a lesson for all of us. Higher GDP doesn't automatically translate into human prosperity. We have to stand up and make it happen.

  5. Genes: What makes great athletes and why it mattersJon Entine | May 20, 2015 | Genetic Literacy Project

    Running is the most egalitarian of sports, a natural laboratory. Unlike the props and costumes required for, say, professional football or ice hockey, or the intense coaching demanded of gymnastics an golf, one can just lace up and go for a run. Ethiopias Abebe Bikila proved this quite memorably in the 1960 Rome Olympics, whenshoeless, coachless and inexperiencedhe won the marathon. Raw talent is on display.

    Which is what makes the World Track and Field Championships being held in August in Beijing, such an anticipated spectacle. Its the major global event leading up to next years Olympic Games in Brazil.

    If there is anything we can be sure, the athletes that win wont always be the hardest working or the best coached. At the most elite level, the victory is contested by those with the best genes.

    Those who do not understand the power of genes might argue that the medal podium for runners should reflect a rainbow of diversity, as no country or region should have a lock on desire or opportunity. But just the opposite has happened in track and field: running has become almost segregated by ancestry.

    The trends are eye opening: Among men, athletes of African ancestry hold every major running record, from the 100m to the marathon. Of the past seven Olympics mens 100m races, all 56 finalists have been of West African descent. Only two non-African runners, Frances Christophe Lemaire, who is white, and Australias Irish-aboriginal Patrick Johnson, crack the top 500 100-meter times. There are no elite sprinters who are Asianor, intriguingly, East African.

    The story of distance running is equally remarkable. Runners of West African ancestry dont tend to do well at endurance races, which are dominated by North and East Africansnote the medal haul in London by Kenyans and Ethiopians. And oddly, East and North Africans are terrible at sprinting.

    Can cultural forces explain this?

    The most frequently heard reason for this pattern is that African athletes just work harder at running: Its a way out. Thats the same explanation offered for why ghetto Jewish athletes predominated in semi-pro basketball in the United States in the 1920s or why blacks have emerged to dominate so many sports in America. Its one of their few outlets, the story goes, to escape the trap of limited opportunities.

    According to this narrative, theres a tradition of running in Africa, and among blacks worldwide, that young athletes emulate; theyve been running to school since kindergarten; they train harder for a chance at the golden ring that athletic success offers; athletes from other parts of the world have developed a toxic inferiority complex to black athletes and switch to other sports; blah, blah, blah.

    No one outside of the most politically correct circles really believes those theories capture much of the real story of black domination of running. Certainly scientists do not. Bengt Saltin, who recently passed away as the director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Institute, said his research suggested that an athletes environment accounts for no more than 25 percent of athletic ability. The rest comes down to the roll of the genetic dicewith each population groupthats the technical term for the term race which carries disturbing associations having distinct advantages. In other words, running success is in the genes.

    Here are the facts. Genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics such as skeletal structure, the distribution of muscle fiber types (for example, sprinters have more natural fast-twitch fibers, while distance runners are naturally endowed with more of the slow-twitch variety), reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity are not evenly distributed among populations.

    Speed genes?

    Its controversial stuff although not to hard scientists. We know that genes matter; what we dont know, and many not know for years, is what genes or gene combinations matter most.

    Michael Johnson, the 400-meter world-record holder, has postulated that black sprinters benefit from the outsize presence of ACTN3. The speed gene as its been dubbed, makes fast-twitch muscles twitch fast. Lacking the ACTN3 protein does not seem to have any harmful health effects but does affect running ability. Scientists conclude that it is almost impossible for someone who lacks the ACTN3 protein to become an elite sprinter. The so-called sprint gene is more common in those of West African descent than in Europeans, according to a study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

    Is this runnings smoking gun gene? No. Sports ability, like IQ, is the product of many genes with environmental triggers influencing the expression of our base DNA. But its isolation does underscore that when it comes to performance, genes circumscribe possibility.

    As UCLA professor Jared Diamond has noted, Even today, few scientists dare to study racial origins, lest they be branded racists just for being interested in the subject.

    From the playing field to the doctors office

    But we have no choice but to face this third rail of genetics and sports. Over the past decade, human genome research has moved from a study of human similarities to a focus on patterned based differences. Such research offers clues to solving the mystery of diseases, the Holy Grail of genetics.

    So why do we readily accept that evolution has turned out Jews with a genetic predisposition to Tay-Sachs, Southeast Asians with a higher proclivity for beta-thalassemia, and blacks who are susceptible to colorectal cancer and sickle-cell disease, yet find it inappropriate to suggest that Usain Bolt can thank his West African ancestry for the most critical part of his success?

    Human populationscohorts of people with shared genesexist. But how important differences based on ancestral characteristics remain a controversial subject. The difficulty is sorting out how much of a trait is genetically inbred, how much may be shaped by environmental factors, and what is just plain supposition, sometimes sprinkled with biases.

    Small population based differences can define elite athletes

    Differences among athletes of elite caliber are so small, said Robert Malina, a retired Michigan State University anthropologist and former editor of theJournal of Human Genetics, that if you have a physique or the ability to fire muscle fibers more efficiently that might be genetically based it might be very, very significant. The fraction of a second is the difference between the gold medal and fourth place.

    Malina, and geneticists and sports scientists in general, note that certain characteristics do show up more in one population cohort versus another. Indeed, empirical evidence makes hash of the myth that culture makes the athlete. Look at Kenya: with but 44 million people, the country is home to athletes holding one third of top times in distance races.

    What explains this phenomenon? Its in their culture, say many social scientists. Kenyans dominate distance races because they naturally trained as childrenby running back and forth to school, for example.

    Thats just silly, Kenyan-born Wilson Kipketer told me. Kipketer the second fastest 800-meter runner of all time and holder of six of the top 20 all-time fastest 800m times. I lived right next door to school, he laughed, dismissing cookie-cutter explanations. I walked, nice and slow.

    What motivated Kipketer to pursue running? Like most young Kenyans, while growing up he hoped that he might catch the eye of a coach who combed the countryside to find the next generation of budding stars. He had dreams of being cheered as he entered the National Stadium in Nairobi. But his childhood fantasy was to be welcomed as a soccer player.

    The national sport, the hero worship, the adoring fans, the social incentives that supposedly channel a kid into sportsthat all speaks to Kenyas enduring love affair with soccer, not running. Soccer was and is the national sports obsession of Kenyans. And Kipketer, like many Kenyans, was not very good at soccer; despite their zeal for the sport, and all the social incentives to push them into playing high level soccer, Kenyans simply dont seem to have the genetic package to make them world-class quick burst runners that thrive in that sport. Social and cultural conditioning alone cannot turn athletic coal into diamonds.

    But Kenyans from the Rift Valley mountains are naturally diamonds at longer distance running. Many suggest thats due to the East Africans outsized natural lung capacity and a preponderance of slow-twitch muscles. Thats a perfect biomechanical package for long-distance running, but a disaster for sports that require anaerobic bursts, like sprinting or soccer. Indeed, Kenyas fastest 100m time, 10.26, is almost three-quarters of a second slower than Bolts world record. There are more than 5,000 times ranked higher than Kenyas best.

    Body types, ancestry and sports

    Although people in every population come in all shapes and sizes, body types and physiological characteristics follow a distribution curve as a result of evolutionary adaptations by our ancestors to extremely varied environmental challenges. Elite sports showcase these differences.

    Asians, on average, tend to be smaller with shorter extremities and long torsosevolutionary adaptations to harsh climes encountered by Homo sapiens who migrated to Northeast Asia 40,000 years ago. China, for example, excels in many Olympics sports, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons, according to geneticists, is that they are more flexible on averagea potential advantage in diving, gymnastics (hence the term Chinese splits) and figure skating.

    Whites of Eurasian ancestry are mesomorphic: larger and relatively muscular bodies with comparatively short limbs and thick torsos. No prototypical sprinter or marathoner here. These proportions are advantageous in sports in which strength rather than speed is at a premium. Predictably, Eurasians dominate weightlifting, wrestling, and most field events, such as the shot put and hammer.

    Check out the results each year at the National Football League combine in Indianapolis. The weights are dominated by white athletes.

    At the Olympics, with the exception of North Korea, the top lifters come from a band of Eurasian countries: China, Kazakhstan, Iran, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Despite the image of the sculpted African body, no African nation won an Olympic lifting medal.

    What about North American, Caribbean and European blacks who trace their ancestry to the Middle Passage? Shaped by many centuries of evolution in Africa, they generally have bigger, more developed overall musculature; narrower hips, lighter calves; higher levels of plasma testosterone; faster patellar tendon reflex in the knee; and a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscles and more anaerobic enzymes, which can translate into more explosive energy. Blacks in general have heavier skeletons and less body fatkey genetic hindrances when it comes to such sports as competitive swimming.

    Evolution has shaped body types and in part athletic possibilities, Joseph Graves, Jr. told me. Graves is the Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Biological Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Dont expect an Eskimo to show up on an NBA court or a Watusi to win the world weightlifting championship. Differences dont necessarily correlate with skin color, but rather with geography and climate. Endurance runners are more likely to come from East Africa and sprinters from West Africa. Thats a fact. Genes play a major role in this.

    Theres no need to make consideration of race in sports a taboo. In fact, sports provide the most rigid laboratory control possiblethe level playing fieldto guide us through the thicket of ideological correctness. So kick back and watch the summer track and field games and the NFL season just around the corner.

  6. Also have to look at the diet

    Indians have one of the worst diet

    We cook are vegetables killing most of the nutrients

    Butter is considered protein by many indians

    an what percentage of sikhs are into fitness an training compared to other races

    Sikhs have great genes for athletics so the nature part is taken care of what sikhs lack is nurture when it comes to motivation an training an diet

    there are many indian groups with great athletic genes an also indians with bad genes when it comes to sports

  7. Genes: What makes great athletes and why it mattersJon Entine | May 20, 2015 | Genetic Literacy Project

    Running is the most egalitarian of sports, a natural laboratory. Unlike the props and costumes required for, say, professional football or ice hockey, or the intense coaching demanded of gymnastics an golf, one can just lace up and go for a run. Ethiopias Abebe Bikila proved this quite memorably in the 1960 Rome Olympics, whenshoeless, coachless and inexperiencedhe won the marathon. Raw talent is on display.

    Which is what makes the World Track and Field Championships being held in August in Beijing, such an anticipated spectacle. Its the major global event leading up to next years Olympic Games in Brazil.

    If there is anything we can be sure, the athletes that win wont always be the hardest working or the best coached. At the most elite level, the victory is contested by those with the best genes.

    Those who do not understand the power of genes might argue that the medal podium for runners should reflect a rainbow of diversity, as no country or region should have a lock on desire or opportunity. But just the opposite has happened in track and field: running has become almost segregated by ancestry.

    The trends are eye opening: Among men, athletes of African ancestry hold every major running record, from the 100m to the marathon. Of the past seven Olympics mens 100m races, all 56 finalists have been of West African descent. Only two non-African runners, Frances Christophe Lemaire, who is white, and Australias Irish-aboriginal Patrick Johnson, crack the top 500 100-meter times. There are no elite sprinters who are Asianor, intriguingly, East African.

    The story of distance running is equally remarkable. Runners of West African ancestry dont tend to do well at endurance races, which are dominated by North and East Africansnote the medal haul in London by Kenyans and Ethiopians. And oddly, East and North Africans are terrible at sprinting.

    Can cultural forces explain this?

    The most frequently heard reason for this pattern is that African athletes just work harder at running: Its a way out. Thats the same explanation offered for why ghetto Jewish athletes predominated in semi-pro basketball in the United States in the 1920s or why blacks have emerged to dominate so many sports in America. Its one of their few outlets, the story goes, to escape the trap of limited opportunities.

    According to this narrative, theres a tradition of running in Africa, and among blacks worldwide, that young athletes emulate; theyve been running to school since kindergarten; they train harder for a chance at the golden ring that athletic success offers; athletes from other parts of the world have developed a toxic inferiority complex to black athletes and switch to other sports; blah, blah, blah.

    No one outside of the most politically correct circles really believes those theories capture much of the real story of black domination of running. Certainly scientists do not. Bengt Saltin, who recently passed away as the director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Institute, said his research suggested that an athletes environment accounts for no more than 25 percent of athletic ability. The rest comes down to the roll of the genetic dicewith each population groupthats the technical term for the term race which carries disturbing associations having distinct advantages. In other words, running success is in the genes.

    Here are the facts. Genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics such as skeletal structure, the distribution of muscle fiber types (for example, sprinters have more natural fast-twitch fibers, while distance runners are naturally endowed with more of the slow-twitch variety), reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity are not evenly distributed among populations.

    Speed genes?

    Its controversial stuff although not to hard scientists. We know that genes matter; what we dont know, and many not know for years, is what genes or gene combinations matter most.

    Michael Johnson, the 400-meter world-record holder, has postulated that black sprinters benefit from the outsize presence of ACTN3. The speed gene as its been dubbed, makes fast-twitch muscles twitch fast. Lacking the ACTN3 protein does not seem to have any harmful health effects but does affect running ability. Scientists conclude that it is almost impossible for someone who lacks the ACTN3 protein to become an elite sprinter. The so-called sprint gene is more common in those of West African descent than in Europeans, according to a study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

    Is this runnings smoking gun gene? No. Sports ability, like IQ, is the product of many genes with environmental triggers influencing the expression of our base DNA. But its isolation does underscore that when it comes to performance, genes circumscribe possibility.

    As UCLA professor Jared Diamond has noted, Even today, few scientists dare to study racial origins, lest they be branded racists just for being interested in the subject.

    From the playing field to the doctors office

    But we have no choice but to face this third rail of genetics and sports. Over the past decade, human genome research has moved from a study of human similarities to a focus on patterned based differences. Such research offers clues to solving the mystery of diseases, the Holy Grail of genetics.

    So why do we readily accept that evolution has turned out Jews with a genetic predisposition to Tay-Sachs, Southeast Asians with a higher proclivity for beta-thalassemia, and blacks who are susceptible to colorectal cancer and sickle-cell disease, yet find it inappropriate to suggest that Usain Bolt can thank his West African ancestry for the most critical part of his success?

    Human populationscohorts of people with shared genesexist. But how important differences based on ancestral characteristics remain a controversial subject. The difficulty is sorting out how much of a trait is genetically inbred, how much may be shaped by environmental factors, and what is just plain supposition, sometimes sprinkled with biases.

    Small population based differences can define elite athletes

    Differences among athletes of elite caliber are so small, said Robert Malina, a retired Michigan State University anthropologist and former editor of theJournal of Human Genetics, that if you have a physique or the ability to fire muscle fibers more efficiently that might be genetically based it might be very, very significant. The fraction of a second is the difference between the gold medal and fourth place.

    Malina, and geneticists and sports scientists in general, note that certain characteristics do show up more in one population cohort versus another. Indeed, empirical evidence makes hash of the myth that culture makes the athlete. Look at Kenya: with but 44 million people, the country is home to athletes holding one third of top times in distance races.

    What explains this phenomenon? Its in their culture, say many social scientists. Kenyans dominate distance races because they naturally trained as childrenby running back and forth to school, for example.

    Thats just silly, Kenyan-born Wilson Kipketer told me. Kipketer the second fastest 800-meter runner of all time and holder of six of the top 20 all-time fastest 800m times. I lived right next door to school, he laughed, dismissing cookie-cutter explanations. I walked, nice and slow.

    What motivated Kipketer to pursue running? Like most young Kenyans, while growing up he hoped that he might catch the eye of a coach who combed the countryside to find the next generation of budding stars. He had dreams of being cheered as he entered the National Stadium in Nairobi. But his childhood fantasy was to be welcomed as a soccer player.

    The national sport, the hero worship, the adoring fans, the social incentives that supposedly channel a kid into sportsthat all speaks to Kenyas enduring love affair with soccer, not running. Soccer was and is the national sports obsession of Kenyans. And Kipketer, like many Kenyans, was not very good at soccer; despite their zeal for the sport, and all the social incentives to push them into playing high level soccer, Kenyans simply dont seem to have the genetic package to make them world-class quick burst runners that thrive in that sport. Social and cultural conditioning alone cannot turn athletic coal into diamonds.

    But Kenyans from the Rift Valley mountains are naturally diamonds at longer distance running. Many suggest thats due to the East Africans outsized natural lung capacity and a preponderance of slow-twitch muscles. Thats a perfect biomechanical package for long-distance running, but a disaster for sports that require anaerobic bursts, like sprinting or soccer. Indeed, Kenyas fastest 100m time, 10.26, is almost three-quarters of a second slower than Bolts world record. There are more than 5,000 times ranked higher than Kenyas best.

    Body types, ancestry and sports

    Although people in every population come in all shapes and sizes, body types and physiological characteristics follow a distribution curve as a result of evolutionary adaptations by our ancestors to extremely varied environmental challenges. Elite sports showcase these differences.

    Asians, on average, tend to be smaller with shorter extremities and long torsosevolutionary adaptations to harsh climes encountered by Homo sapiens who migrated to Northeast Asia 40,000 years ago. China, for example, excels in many Olympics sports, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons, according to geneticists, is that they are more flexible on averagea potential advantage in diving, gymnastics (hence the term Chinese splits) and figure skating.

    Whites of Eurasian ancestry are mesomorphic: larger and relatively muscular bodies with comparatively short limbs and thick torsos. No prototypical sprinter or marathoner here. These proportions are advantageous in sports in which strength rather than speed is at a premium. Predictably, Eurasians dominate weightlifting, wrestling, and most field events, such as the shot put and hammer.

    Check out the results each year at the National Football League combine in Indianapolis. The weights are dominated by white athletes.

    At the Olympics, with the exception of North Korea, the top lifters come from a band of Eurasian countries: China, Kazakhstan, Iran, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Despite the image of the sculpted African body, no African nation won an Olympic lifting medal.

    What about North American, Caribbean and European blacks who trace their ancestry to the Middle Passage? Shaped by many centuries of evolution in Africa, they generally have bigger, more developed overall musculature; narrower hips, lighter calves; higher levels of plasma testosterone; faster patellar tendon reflex in the knee; and a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscles and more anaerobic enzymes, which can translate into more explosive energy. Blacks in general have heavier skeletons and less body fatkey genetic hindrances when it comes to such sports as competitive swimming.

    Evolution has shaped body types and in part athletic possibilities, Joseph Graves, Jr. told me. Graves is the Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Biological Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Dont expect an Eskimo to show up on an NBA court or a Watusi to win the world weightlifting championship. Differences dont necessarily correlate with skin color, but rather with geography and climate. Endurance runners are more likely to come from East Africa and sprinters from West Africa. Thats a fact. Genes play a major role in this.

    Theres no need to make consideration of race in sports a taboo. In fact, sports provide the most rigid laboratory control possiblethe level playing fieldto guide us through the thicket of ideological correctness. So kick back and watch the summer track and field games and the NFL season just around the corner.

  8. Genes: What makes great athletes and why it mattersJon Entine | May 20, 2015 | Genetic Literacy Project

    Running is the most egalitarian of sports, a natural laboratory. Unlike the props and costumes required for, say, professional football or ice hockey, or the intense coaching demanded of gymnastics an golf, one can just lace up and go for a run. Ethiopias Abebe Bikila proved this quite memorably in the 1960 Rome Olympics, whenshoeless, coachless and inexperiencedhe won the marathon. Raw talent is on display.

    Which is what makes the World Track and Field Championships being held in August in Beijing, such an anticipated spectacle. Its the major global event leading up to next years Olympic Games in Brazil.

    If there is anything we can be sure, the athletes that win wont always be the hardest working or the best coached. At the most elite level, the victory is contested by those with the best genes.

    Those who do not understand the power of genes might argue that the medal podium for runners should reflect a rainbow of diversity, as no country or region should have a lock on desire or opportunity. But just the opposite has happened in track and field: running has become almost segregated by ancestry.

    The trends are eye opening: Among men, athletes of African ancestry hold every major running record, from the 100m to the marathon. Of the past seven Olympics mens 100m races, all 56 finalists have been of West African descent. Only two non-African runners, Frances Christophe Lemaire, who is white, and Australias Irish-aboriginal Patrick Johnson, crack the top 500 100-meter times. There are no elite sprinters who are Asianor, intriguingly, East African.

    The story of distance running is equally remarkable. Runners of West African ancestry dont tend to do well at endurance races, which are dominated by North and East Africansnote the medal haul in London by Kenyans and Ethiopians. And oddly, East and North Africans are terrible at sprinting.

    Can cultural forces explain this?

    The most frequently heard reason for this pattern is that African athletes just work harder at running: Its a way out. Thats the same explanation offered for why ghetto Jewish athletes predominated in semi-pro basketball in the United States in the 1920s or why blacks have emerged to dominate so many sports in America. Its one of their few outlets, the story goes, to escape the trap of limited opportunities.

    According to this narrative, theres a tradition of running in Africa, and among blacks worldwide, that young athletes emulate; theyve been running to school since kindergarten; they train harder for a chance at the golden ring that athletic success offers; athletes from other parts of the world have developed a toxic inferiority complex to black athletes and switch to other sports; blah, blah, blah.

    No one outside of the most politically correct circles really believes those theories capture much of the real story of black domination of running. Certainly scientists do not. Bengt Saltin, who recently passed away as the director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Institute, said his research suggested that an athletes environment accounts for no more than 25 percent of athletic ability. The rest comes down to the roll of the genetic dicewith each population groupthats the technical term for the term race which carries disturbing associations having distinct advantages. In other words, running success is in the genes.

    Here are the facts. Genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics such as skeletal structure, the distribution of muscle fiber types (for example, sprinters have more natural fast-twitch fibers, while distance runners are naturally endowed with more of the slow-twitch variety), reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity are not evenly distributed among populations.

    Speed genes?

    Its controversial stuff although not to hard scientists. We know that genes matter; what we dont know, and many not know for years, is what genes or gene combinations matter most.

    Michael Johnson, the 400-meter world-record holder, has postulated that black sprinters benefit from the outsize presence of ACTN3. The speed gene as its been dubbed, makes fast-twitch muscles twitch fast. Lacking the ACTN3 protein does not seem to have any harmful health effects but does affect running ability. Scientists conclude that it is almost impossible for someone who lacks the ACTN3 protein to become an elite sprinter. The so-called sprint gene is more common in those of West African descent than in Europeans, according to a study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

    Is this runnings smoking gun gene? No. Sports ability, like IQ, is the product of many genes with environmental triggers influencing the expression of our base DNA. But its isolation does underscore that when it comes to performance, genes circumscribe possibility.

    As UCLA professor Jared Diamond has noted, Even today, few scientists dare to study racial origins, lest they be branded racists just for being interested in the subject.

    From the playing field to the doctors office

    But we have no choice but to face this third rail of genetics and sports. Over the past decade, human genome research has moved from a study of human similarities to a focus on patterned based differences. Such research offers clues to solving the mystery of diseases, the Holy Grail of genetics.

    So why do we readily accept that evolution has turned out Jews with a genetic predisposition to Tay-Sachs, Southeast Asians with a higher proclivity for beta-thalassemia, and blacks who are susceptible to colorectal cancer and sickle-cell disease, yet find it inappropriate to suggest that Usain Bolt can thank his West African ancestry for the most critical part of his success?

    Human populationscohorts of people with shared genesexist. But how important differences based on ancestral characteristics remain a controversial subject. The difficulty is sorting out how much of a trait is genetically inbred, how much may be shaped by environmental factors, and what is just plain supposition, sometimes sprinkled with biases.

    Small population based differences can define elite athletes

    Differences among athletes of elite caliber are so small, said Robert Malina, a retired Michigan State University anthropologist and former editor of theJournal of Human Genetics, that if you have a physique or the ability to fire muscle fibers more efficiently that might be genetically based it might be very, very significant. The fraction of a second is the difference between the gold medal and fourth place.

    Malina, and geneticists and sports scientists in general, note that certain characteristics do show up more in one population cohort versus another. Indeed, empirical evidence makes hash of the myth that culture makes the athlete. Look at Kenya: with but 44 million people, the country is home to athletes holding one third of top times in distance races.

    What explains this phenomenon? Its in their culture, say many social scientists. Kenyans dominate distance races because they naturally trained as childrenby running back and forth to school, for example.

    Thats just silly, Kenyan-born Wilson Kipketer told me. Kipketer the second fastest 800-meter runner of all time and holder of six of the top 20 all-time fastest 800m times. I lived right next door to school, he laughed, dismissing cookie-cutter explanations. I walked, nice and slow.

    What motivated Kipketer to pursue running? Like most young Kenyans, while growing up he hoped that he might catch the eye of a coach who combed the countryside to find the next generation of budding stars. He had dreams of being cheered as he entered the National Stadium in Nairobi. But his childhood fantasy was to be welcomed as a soccer player.

    The national sport, the hero worship, the adoring fans, the social incentives that supposedly channel a kid into sportsthat all speaks to Kenyas enduring love affair with soccer, not running. Soccer was and is the national sports obsession of Kenyans. And Kipketer, like many Kenyans, was not very good at soccer; despite their zeal for the sport, and all the social incentives to push them into playing high level soccer, Kenyans simply dont seem to have the genetic package to make them world-class quick burst runners that thrive in that sport. Social and cultural conditioning alone cannot turn athletic coal into diamonds.

    But Kenyans from the Rift Valley mountains are naturally diamonds at longer distance running. Many suggest thats due to the East Africans outsized natural lung capacity and a preponderance of slow-twitch muscles. Thats a perfect biomechanical package for long-distance running, but a disaster for sports that require anaerobic bursts, like sprinting or soccer. Indeed, Kenyas fastest 100m time, 10.26, is almost three-quarters of a second slower than Bolts world record. There are more than 5,000 times ranked higher than Kenyas best.

    Body types, ancestry and sports

    Although people in every population come in all shapes and sizes, body types and physiological characteristics follow a distribution curve as a result of evolutionary adaptations by our ancestors to extremely varied environmental challenges. Elite sports showcase these differences.

    Asians, on average, tend to be smaller with shorter extremities and long torsosevolutionary adaptations to harsh climes encountered by Homo sapiens who migrated to Northeast Asia 40,000 years ago. China, for example, excels in many Olympics sports, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons, according to geneticists, is that they are more flexible on averagea potential advantage in diving, gymnastics (hence the term Chinese splits) and figure skating.

    Whites of Eurasian ancestry are mesomorphic: larger and relatively muscular bodies with comparatively short limbs and thick torsos. No prototypical sprinter or marathoner here. These proportions are advantageous in sports in which strength rather than speed is at a premium. Predictably, Eurasians dominate weightlifting, wrestling, and most field events, such as the shot put and hammer.

    Check out the results each year at the National Football League combine in Indianapolis. The weights are dominated by white athletes.

    At the Olympics, with the exception of North Korea, the top lifters come from a band of Eurasian countries: China, Kazakhstan, Iran, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Despite the image of the sculpted African body, no African nation won an Olympic lifting medal.

    What about North American, Caribbean and European blacks who trace their ancestry to the Middle Passage? Shaped by many centuries of evolution in Africa, they generally have bigger, more developed overall musculature; narrower hips, lighter calves; higher levels of plasma testosterone; faster patellar tendon reflex in the knee; and a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscles and more anaerobic enzymes, which can translate into more explosive energy. Blacks in general have heavier skeletons and less body fatkey genetic hindrances when it comes to such sports as competitive swimming.

    Evolution has shaped body types and in part athletic possibilities, Joseph Graves, Jr. told me. Graves is the Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Biological Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Dont expect an Eskimo to show up on an NBA court or a Watusi to win the world weightlifting championship. Differences dont necessarily correlate with skin color, but rather with geography and climate. Endurance runners are more likely to come from East Africa and sprinters from West Africa. Thats a fact. Genes play a major role in this.

    Theres no need to make consideration of race in sports a taboo. In fact, sports provide the most rigid laboratory control possiblethe level playing fieldto guide us through the thicket of ideological correctness. So kick back and watch the summer track and field games and the NFL season just around the corner.

  9. Why does south asia struggle in athletics

    There are more pakistani an indians then blacks in uk yet how many black athletes are there in uk vs asian

    WHAT ROLE DOES GENETICS PLAY

    WHAT ROLE DOES ENVIRONMENT PLAY

    Its no secret that blacks dominate much of the world of sports. In track, the purest test of athletic ability, runners of African descent hold every single mens world record at every standard distance, from the 100 meters (where no non-black athlete has held the world record since 1960) to the marathon. In pro football, the positions that require the greatest combination of speed, power and explosiveness wide receiver, cornerback and running back are almost entirely played by blacks. In pro basketball the sport that requires the greatest combination of leaping ability, power bursts and agility almost all the starters and virtually all the superstars are black. In baseball, blacks are also disproportionately represented, although not to the same degree that they are in the more athletically demanding basketball and football.

    None of this is news to anyone who watches American sports or track and field and it hasnt been news for over 30 years. You have to go back to the early 60s, if not earlier, to find a time when blacks didnt completely dominate basketball and, to a lesser degree, football. The days when NFL teams routinely started two white wide receivers (remember Boyd Dowler and Carrol Dale?) seem as paleolithic as the jump pass and the quick kick.

    Black athletic domination is so accepted today that its easy to forget how astonishing it is. But what is even more astonishing is that everyone with the exception of the athletes themselves is afraid to talk in public about it. Even acknowledging that blacks are superior athletes veers uncomfortably close to a question still too traumatic for Americas delicate racial sensibilities: Why are they?

    The politically correct answer is that blacks dominate sports not because of a biological advantage, but because of an environmental disadvantage. Black athletic achievement is a direct result of racism: For blacks, athletics was practically the only way out of the ghetto, so they had extraordinary motivation to succeed.

    There is obviously much truth in this answer. Before scoffing at the idea that environment alone could produce so many world-class black athletes, we would do well to remember that cultural and environmental factors are notoriously easy to underestimate. No one suggests that Ashkenazi Jews or Asians are genetically selected to be superior classical musicians, yet they are disproportionately represented in that field. (For that matter, no one suggests that blacks are genetically selected to be virtuoso improvising musicians yet they dominate jazz as much as they do football or basketball.) Why not run out looking for Japanese genes that select for flower-arranging, or Southern American Scottish-Irish genes that lead to NASCAR driving?

    Moreover, there are good reasons to wantto believe that black athletic domination has no physiological basis. Science has a long and disreputable history of making false extrapolations from inconclusive hard data extrapolations that often merely parrot the prejudices of the age. In the case of blacks, whom whites have perniciously associated with brute animality ever since they first encountered them, those prejudices have gone underground, but can be easily reawakened. And certainly with a soft social phenomenon like athletic domination, as opposed to a hard one like blacks genetic susceptibility to sickle-cell anemia, hard-science explanations must be looked at with skepticism.

    But setting a world record in the 100 meters is a more quantifiable achievement than ripping through a Rachmaninoff concerto or blowing a trumpet solo on So What. And as both black athletic domination and our knowledge of genetics, physical anthropology and physiology have grown, it has become increasingly hard to assert that environmental factors alone can explain black superiority in sports. Jon Entines Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It will make it even harder.

    Entine, a journalist and TV producer, makes a compelling, if not absolutely conclusive, case that blacks are naturally better athletes. Their extraordinary athletic achievements are due in large part, he argues, to certain genetically based physiological traits that are common to two African-descended populations the first population originating in West Africa, the second in East and North Africa. The West Africans (most black Americans trace their lineage to West Africa) are exceptionally fast and can jump high. The East and North Africans excel in endurance. Its hard to say which population has dominated more: West African-descended blacks hold an astounding 95 percent of the top times in sprinting, while athletes from just one East African country, Kenya (and most of them from just one region), hold an incredible one-third of the top times in all long- and middle-distance races.

    To avoid misunderstandings, Entine makes it clear from the outset that he is talking about groups, not individuals: It is not the case that all or most blacks are better athletes than members of other racial groups, only that over the entire population, there are higher odds that some individuals will be faster or able to jump higher than individuals from other populations. The black guy playing corner in a pickup football game may or may not be a better athlete than the white wide receiver lined up opposite him, but theres no statistical reason to assume he is genetics doesnt work that way. But when you leave the sandlot and move up to the level where the worlds elite athletes compete world-class track meets, the Olympics, the NFL and the NBA genetics confers the tiny advantage that separates starters from bench-warmers, world record holders from also-rans.

    Entine also addresses an even more volatile subject: the unfair devaluation of black athletes blood, sweat and tears that can all too easily accompany encomiums to their natural abilities. He is at pains to point out that having a genetic advantage doesnt automatically confer success: Black athletes have to work as hard as athletes of other races if they want to reach the top. Their success is a result of a unique confluence of cultural and genetic forces.

    The importance of the individual remains paramount, Entine emphasizes. Winning athletic competitions does not make one superior in any moral sense. It does signify that you have hit on your lucky number playing the roulette wheel of genetics, cultural serendipity, and individual drive.

    Both great genes and great discipline are required to reach world-class athletic status. The greatest wide receiver of all time, the 49ers Jerry Rice, might have been gifted with West African genes that gave him speed and explosiveness, but those genes didnt make him design and stay with an offseason hill-sprinting exercise regimen so brutal that superbly conditioned teammates vomited and collapsed while trying to stay with him. Rice made a catch for a key first down in one of the great drives in pro football history, the legendary 92-yard, fourth-quarter, game-winning drive in Super Bowl XXIII. On 2nd and 25, facing another world-class athlete perhaps carrying similar genes, when Rices exhausted body needed to come up with one final burst, one more cut executed at full speed with no give-away body lean, with enough concentration left at the end of the pattern to reach far out and up and make the grab, it wasnt his genes that allowed him to do it it was those agonizing hours spent running up that mountain, hours of pain spent so that at the end of a game, sucking air, he would have maybe 2 percent more left in his tank than the guy covering him.

    Most important of all, Entine refutes the idea that there is any sinister corollary to black genetic superiority in athletics. This is, of course, the real reason why this subject is so loaded. The elephant in the living room is intelligence, Entine notes. In the familiar if erroneous calculus, I.Q. and athleticism are inversely proportional. Entine points out that there is no scientific support for this idea and dismisses it out of hand. Whether it will find fertile ground for a rebirth in books like Entines is another question.

    In support of his thesis, Entine relies on two different bodies of evidence: the undeniable, but scientifically soft, record of black athletic achievement, and the still contested but increasingly accepted theories of anthropologists, physiologists and geneticists. Neither alone is decisive, but taken together, they are to a layman pretty convincing.

    Entine breezes through an endless list of stellar athletic achievements by blacks. Track records are the most impressive, of course, but he also throws in some fascinating lesser-known studies, like one undertaken by the famous baseball sabermetrician, the statistics-obsessed baseball analyst Bill James. In a 1987 study, trying to figure out what factors best predicted which rookies would become baseball stars, he compared the careers of 54 white rookies against those of 54 black rookies with comparable statistics. Greatly to his surprise, he found that, on the whole, the black rookies went on to have better major league careers than the whites; the black players hit 66 percent more home runs, stole 400 percent more bases, etc. He repeated the study with 49 more pairs and got similar results. Race, it turned out, was the single best predictor of stardom and this in a sport in which blacks dominate less than in football or basketball, perhaps at least partially because West African genes confer less of an advantage in baseball. Such studies are obviously not going to end up in the New England Journal of Medicine, but they arent meaningless, either.

    Entine doesnt pursue this, but his theory could also explain why there might never be as high a percentage of black quarterbacks in the NFL as, say, black free safeties. Historically, the dearth of black quarterbacks was clearly due to the racist assumption that blacks lacked the [intellectual] necessities, in the immortal words of baseball executive Al Campanis, to play the position.

    As those idiotic assumptions fade, the percentage of black quarterbacks is certain to increase (a process that has already begun: Entine points out that the number of black QBs taken in the first round of the NFL draft this year equaled the number of black first-rounders in the drafts entire history). But the number of black quarterbacks might never reach that of halfbacks or defensive backs, simply because speed and strength, though advantageous and more sought after at the position now than before, dont confer as great an advantage as they do at other positions.

    Case in point from the upcoming Super Bowl: The Rams big, cannon-armed, slow-footed white quarterback, Kurt Warner, is a throwback to the Roman Gabriel era. He isnt half the athlete his black counterpart, the Titans Steve McNair, is. But regardless of who is the better quarterback a question that has not yet been answered the point is that there will always be room in the NFL for quarterbacks like Warner (and, of course, like McNair), whereas there will never again be room for cornerbacks like the slow, cant-jump white guys of the 50s.

    So why are blacks, as a group, better than whites or Asians at sports? The answer is simple: Its in their genes. There is extensive and persuasive evidence that elite black athletes have a phenotypic advantage a distinctive skeletal system and musculature, metabolic structures, and other characteristics forged over tens of thousands of years of evolution, Entine writes. Preliminary research suggests that different phenotypes are at least partially encoded in the genes conferringgenotypic differences, which may result in an advantage in some sports.

    So what are those phenotypic (i.e. observable) advantages?

    His findings: Blacks with a West African ancestry generally have: relatively less subcutaneous fat on arms and legs and proportionally more lean body and muscle mass, broader shoulders, larger quadriceps, and bigger, more developed musculature in general; smaller chest cavities; a higher center of gravity faster patellar tendon reflex; greater body density modest. but significantly higher, levels of plasma testosterone which is anabolic, theoretically contributing to greater muscle mass, lower fat, and the ability to perform at a higher level of intensity with quicker recovery; a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscles and more anaerobic enzymes, which can translate into more explosive energy.

    With genetic research still in its infancy, of course, no one can assert with certainty that these phenotypic advantages are in fact encoded genetically the research hasnt been done yet. But Entine argues that with dramatic advances in quantitative genetics, its only a matter of time. (Africa has greater genetic variety than any other continent, which helps to explain why people of African descent can be genetically gifted.)

    It might be objected that Entines entire argument is conceptually flawed from the outset, because race itself is a meaningless concept. In a lucid discussion, Entine demolishes the voguish assertion that theres no such thing as race, explaining that the argument over the word is little more than semantic. Limiting the rhetorical use of folk categories such as race, an admirable goal, is not going to make the patterned biological variation on which they are based disappear, he argues.

    Regardless of what we call them and he acknowledges that the concept of race is fuzzy, fraught with popular misconceptions and mythologies there are different human populations that have in fact clustered and developed, through geographical separation, natural selection and perhaps catastrophic geological events, different heritable characteristics. A Nigerian and a Swede are not the same.

    But aside from skin color, are there meaningful genetic differences between members of different racial groups? Left-wing critics like Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, opposed to race-essentialist arguments, have argued that those differences pale compared to the things members of different races have in common. Racial differences between individuals are so small as to be genetically meaningless, Lewontin argues; skin color is only one marker of race along with other markers like fingerprints and resistance to malaria and it can be misleading. (In support of Lewontins claim, Entine cites the example of the Lemba, a Bantu-speaking tribe in Africa; although their skin is black, they are genetically related to white Sephardic Jews.) In similar fashion, Gould has argued that the differences between the races are small, just tiny compared to the variation within races.

    Entine acknowledges that Lewontins finding that on average humans share 99.8 percent of genetic material and that any two individuals are apt to share considerably more than 90 percent of this shared genetic library is on target. But he argues that Lewontin, driven by an acknowledged mission to reaffirm our common humanity, interpreted these facts in a tendentious fashion. The crucial point, Entine insists, is that the percentage of differences is a far less important issue than which genes are different.

    He points out that humans share 98.4 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, and that just 50 out of 100,000 genes that humans and chimps are thought to possess may account for all the cognitive differences between man and ape. The so-called regulatory genes, which make up only 1.4 percent of the total genes, can have a huge impact on all aspects of our humanity. And those genes, he argues, are overwhelmingly likely, because of evolutionary logic, to be different in different populations.

    Its hard to regard Entine as having dubious motives for writing this book. He approaches the subject with neutral curiosity about the fascinating variety of the human race. But despite this, Taboo is certain to provoke cries of outrage in some quarters. Entine notes that he got a taste of that uproar when he worked with Tom Brokaw on an NBC documentary on this subject that aired in 1989 he quotes Brokaw as saying that a distinguished black friend quietly withdrew our friendship for about two years after the show. But he argues that open debate beats backroom scuttlebutt in combating the virulent stereotypes that continue to swirl around blacks and sports.

    For some critics, who regard white Americas interest in the subject as suspicious at best and blatantly racist at worst, such arguments may not be enough. The obsession with the natural superiority of the black male athlete is an attempt to demean all of us, Entine quotes writer Ralph Wiley as thundering. New York Times sportswriter William Rhoden called interest in black athletic superiority foolishness, an obsession and an unabashed racial feeding frenzy rhetoric exceeded by Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, who wrote that it was a genteel way to say nigger.

    For Entine, such reactions are understandable but out of date. Theres no longer any serious dispute on this subject, he believes, and people who refuse to face facts will end up as ostriches, hiding their heads not just from outcomes they dont like but from science itself. (Entine takes several gratifying swings at postmodern academic fog machines, who in their scholastic zeal to make sure everything comes out racially rosy simply throw science overboard.)

    Since at this point the science is not conclusive (although it tends to support Entines thesis), the question may in the end come down to what one wants to believe. Is being prepared to believe that blacks as a group have a genetically based athletic advantage over other races a sign of racism? Or is it a sign of scientific enlightenment, a willingness to open oneself up to the truth, wherever it leads? There is also an instrumentalist question: Will merely raising this subject set back the course of racial enlightenment? What happens to the brotherhood of man if some brothers can run faster than others?

    Old-school liberals, confronting a legacy of scientistic racism, tend to assume that those who believe that different human populations are fundamentally different in any meaningful way (aside from genetic markers like those for sickle-cell anemia and the like) are either racists or perverse positivists, wrongheadedly seeking to extend the dominion of hard science beyond its possible reach (to bolster retrograde assumptions, no doubt). This is essentially the argument Gould and his like-minded colleagues make against evolutionary psychologists and others who seek to find a Darwinian imprimatur for men behaving badly.

    This assumption was valid once and in part it still is. Racists still cloak their bigotry beneath a lab coat. But, as Entine argues again and again in Taboo, the mere fact that legitimate arguments may also have been advanced by racists, or that scientific facts may play into invidious stereotypes, is not sufficient reason to abandon those arguments or deny those facts. The mania against essentialism, taken to its logical extreme, is nothing but an assault on the spirit of scientific inquiry itself.

    Yes, some bigots will rejoice in Entines book and try to resurrect the mind thats weak, back thats strong canard. And some weak-minded resentful people will find in it confirmation of their resentment and fear. But the days when those kind of simplistic, Manichaean, zero-sum appeals could take hold in the public mind are long over.

    In fact, after an initial flurry, the notion that black athletic superiority is natural shouldnt change much of anything. When and if it is definitively established, it will simply label blacks as physically blessed, gifted by the extraordinarily rich variety of genes found in the mother continent, Africa. Itll be a fascinating but minor human reality, a lucky roll of the evolutionary dice, only slightly more significant than the genetic fact that some Asians get cherry red in the face when they drink. The spectrum of human knowledge, of humanity itself, will be expanded. And that advance will be remembered when the idea that because blacks were fast they couldnt be smart has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

  10. what are some connections with science and psychology

    when it comes to achieving different states of mind be it peace or happiness or confidence how does sikhi and psychology support each other

    many agnostics have taken to Buddhism from a scientific point of view an sikhi is very similar to Buddhism hence why the questions

    if you google

    dan harris Buddhism science

    or dan harris Buddhism neuroplasticity

    google Buddhism and mindfulness

    what are some aspects in sikhi that the scientific community can agree with and what aspects of sikhi can the scientific community learn

    from including when it comes to science medicine and psychology

    Another really awesome subject to google search is State Of Flow mihaly or youtube ted talk state of flow happiness mihaly

    how does sikhi relate to the state of flow theory

  11. looking at the Birmingham video Sikhs need to learn how to be physically fit and how to fight

    especially teaching kids these skills at a young age

    is their any way we can set up classes in gurdwaras for kids an teens and adults who can't afford to learn this stuff especially kids whose parents are to busy to take them to classes

    any way to set up crossfit classes which I think is a great program that teaches team work and fitness and people compete world wide in crossfit

    fitness competitions

    google or youtube crossfit for more info I cannot copy and paste links

    another great website is www.howtofightnow.com

    an some great youtube videos about self defence and street fighting produced by fightsmartrav a former professional mma fighter

    great video is how to win street fight with head movement which is on youtube shows how head movement you learn in boxing mma an muay thai

    is essential to a street fight

    another great video youtube fightsmartrav how to fight multiple attackers and how to throw a knockout punch

    lets face it a lot of Sikhs are out of shape either their super skinny or have big guts and are fat

    plus this is a great way to teach youth to build confidence


    their is also a gym in uk owned by a Sikh former muay thai world champion kash the flash gill if you google it you will see he has a gym in birmingham

  12. Typical cowards need 5 or 6 people behind them before they feel brave enough to take on 1 person. You never see these cowards never fight one on one. Fair play though Singh stood his ground.

    This sort of incident clearly demonstrates why everyone should train for physical fitness and learn a combat art that takes account of fighting against multiple assailants rules driven sport arts like boxing, mma etc only generally cater for one on one situations which are not a true reflection of on street situations.

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