It's Kenya's national sport, a kind of national obsession. From a tiny age, young Kenyans dream of the roar of the crowd, the fame and success that comes from demonstrated excellence on the field.
Conventional thinking--and quite a few liberal academics--hold that this cultural obsession is the best explanation for the incredible Olympic success of Kenya's distance runners. Kenya in particular, and East Africa in general, enjoys a near-monopoly in medals in the long distance races.
The only problem--pointed out by John Entine in his fascinating book Taboo--is that the national obsession in Kenya is not running but soccer. Kenyans are crazy about soccer! "Unfortunately," Entine observes, "Kenyans are among the world's worst soccer players." Even in Africa, Kenya is routinely routed by West African countries like Cameroon and Nigeria.
Running is not such a big deal in Kenya. And when it comes to short-distance sprints, Kenyans and other East Africans aren't particularly good. Virtually every running record from the 100 to the 400 meters, male and female, is held by athletes of West African ancestry. It's only in the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and in the marathon that the special abilities of East African runners manifest themselves.
Entine, an Emmy winning journalist formerly with NBC News, has done his homework. He does not completely reject economic and cultural explanations of athletic prowess. He just shows their inadequacy. For instance, examing the notion that poverty is responsible for success in sport, Entine notes that most poor countries do terribly in sports. How many runners from poverty-stricken Bangla Desh, for instance, have won Olympic medals in Beijing? The "spur" of poverty is more than trounced by the benefits of superior nutrition, superior facilities and superior coaching in affluent countries.
So what about culture? Yes, culture can help to account for why Americans do well at baseball and why the Chinese usually triumph in ping pong. Americans play baseball more than most others, and no one takes ping pong more seriously than the Chinese. But Entine notes that running is universal. In every country, young people run races. "Given the universality of running," Amby Burfoot writes in Runner's World, "it is reasonable to expect that the best runners should come from a wide range of countries and racial groups." So why are there such enduring and overwhelming racial differences in the outcome?
Entine is not afraid to say that "genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics, such as skeletal structure, muscle fiber types, reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity are not evenly distributed among populations." These traits help to explain why groups succeed--and sometimes fail--in certain sports. For instance, the same body type that works so well in the boxing ring and on the track doesn't do so well in the water. How many black swimmers have there been on the U.S. Olympic team? Even countries on the African coast have a terrible record when it comes to swimming medals.
Entine's book is titled "Taboo" because he knows how controversial his thesis is, how fiercely it is hated and resisted. I suspect this is not because of powerful academic evidence that Entine is wrong. If there is such evidence, I would like to see it, but so far I've had a hard time finding it. Rather, the resistance is due to the liberal fear that if we praise black athletic superiority and attribute it to genes, this opens the door for racists to speculate about black intellectual inferiority and to attribute it too to genes.
Yet this is a non-sequitur. Groups can be unequal physically and still be equal intellectually. Men and women are clearly unequal in upper-body strength, for instance, and yet the average IQ for males and females is the same, although the bell curve distribution of that IQ is not. But I'll leave that subject for a later blog.
My general point is that many liberals are looking in the wrong place to find a justification for their support for political equality. As Jefferson noted a long time ago, inequality of endowment, whether it exists or not, is no warrant for inequality of rights. Equality is not a factual proposition, derived from biology. It is a moral proposition, derived from Christianity.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 8)
1. this is a brilliant article. Dinesh, your not always right but your writing style is refreshing and eloquent. thankyou
luke at 2:19AM on Aug 22nd 2008
2.
DoubleD I was pleasantly surprised that you didn't do a racist rant for your page. But your last paragraph use was not surprising, it is a shame to see you selectively sort of quote Jefferson for your political agenda. There was no need for your last paragraph which detracts from the rest of the page.
You may be an intellectual, but you are not a scholar.
JefFlyingV at 2:31AM on Aug 22nd 2008
3. My general point is that many liberals are looking in the wrong place to find a justification for their support for political equality.
Why do liberals or anybody else need a justification to support political equality?
tmo at 3:43AM on Aug 22nd 2008
4. Rather, the resistance is due to the liberal fear that if we praise black athletic superiority and attribute it to genes, this opens the door for racists to speculate about black intellectual inferiority and to attribute it too to genes.
If liberals fear this, (I suppose I'm a liberal but it certainly doesn't fill me with dread) It's only because conservatives are likely to do it.
Personally I don't think a racist need any 'doors to open' to validate their views, to them the inferiority of another race was never in question.
If you happen to be one of these people(which would include all of us at one time or another to a certain degree) try this:
Think of a negative trait attributed to a particualr race and then see how long it takes you to think Of someone you know of in your race that exibits that very same trait.
I'm guessing you'll find that when it comes to acting like assholes we are all pretty equal.
tmo at 4:12AM on Aug 22nd 2008
5. Are you kidding me? The last paragraph was more delusion. I don't know a single liberal, myself included, who has EVER sought to justify for any reason, let alone physical prowess, my support for political equality. Political equality does not need justification. You should have read your own last blog comments. Many, maybe even most of the liberal leaning responders mentioned genetics and evolution. This is not a fear for liberals. The fear is that racists DO try to use differences to infer inferiority in other areas......that should be the point of your blog. Chastize those who really do use it to justify immoral inequality. And liberals have never stated that equality is based on physical biology. That whole charge is just ridiculous. When have you ever heard anyone ever say all bodies are physically the same? Preposterous. Equality derived my Christianity? You mean like the Christian slave owners of the 1700's or 1800's? The Christians who wiped out the savage American Indians? The Crusaders who slashed and burned their way across Europe? DD, you should actually study the history of Christianity's "equality" in action.
Jude at 5:39AM on Aug 22nd 2008
6. Equality is not derived from Christianity. The Christian Bible treats women as inferior. They have to obey their husbands and cannot speak in church. In the law of Moses, which is part of the Christian Bible, they have inferior inheritance rights, and only men can initiate divorce. Paul wrote to Titus that Cretans are morally inferior. He did believe that they should be told the gospel, but never wrote they should be treated equally. The law of Moses required extermination of 7 nations, like Canaanites and Amorites. That is not equal treatment. And what about slavery in the Bible? Paul wrote slaves to obey their owners, and did not tell the owners to free their slaves. And Hebrew slaves had more rights than foreign slaves in the Law of Moses.
And we can see the influence of Christianity in America. The women did not have the right to vote. Blacks did not have the right to vote in the South until the Civil Rights era. So equality came to America in spite of Christianity, not because of Christianity.
Tom Martin at 5:58AM on Aug 22nd 2008
7. Equality is not a factual proposition, derived from biology. It is a moral proposition, derived from Christianity.
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Equality is a factual proposition, derived from a single species. We are all human beings, and as such, all deserve the same chances. It's not a moral proposition, it's an acknowledgement that under the surface, we are all the same.
White, black, christian, atheist, gay, straight, conservative, liberal. All human, all the same.
When you put any above the others, you're a bigot. That's why we need laws to protect equality from people who can't see that what they see as equal, isn't.
ex-christian at 6:43AM on Aug 22nd 2008
8.
Equality in Little Rock Arkansas, from a christian point of view, is well documented. By all means, please revisit it.
Look at the images. You will see open, virulent hatred. Not from the terrified, yet incredibly strong children, but the crowds demanding their "rights."
Yet that moment in time is a snapshot. Those openly hateful faces belong to people who took their grandkids out for ice cream. Helped out in neighborhood drives. Cut grass for an elderly neighbor.
A person can be perfectly normal, rational, and intelligent, and still fall for untruths. You state that equality is a christian moral. All those Little Rock christians, and a state governor, also a professed christian, had to have equality shown to them at the point of a gun. Not your bible.
ex-christian at 7:03AM on Aug 22nd 2008
9. Indians make stupid movies.
America's Most Gangsta at 7:16AM on Aug 22nd 2008
10. I suspect it's their lung capacity, them Indian types.
America's Most Gangsta at 7:17AM on Aug 22nd 2008
11. DD
You have a good opening, well-written. Then you end it by trying to somehow make a link to liberals being stupid. This is a very thin arguement you are making. Mainly because liberals arent exclusive to the genetic makeup of different races controversy. All people do it.
Cackodemon at 7:17AM on Aug 22nd 2008
12. 5. Are you kidding me? The last paragraph was more delusion. I don't know a single liberal, myself included, who has EVER sought to justify for any reason, let alone physical prowess, my support for political equality. Political equality does not need justification.
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You make his point perfectly! He is saying that it is fine to admit that we are not all biologically equal as long as we admit that those inequalities do not in any way change the fact that we are all equal in our rights! Too many liberals are not able to even address the fact that some of us may be inferior or superior to our neighbor because of the simple fact of our genetics. A college president was forced to resign in Richmond, VA for simply suggesting that research should be done to determine if genetics might play a part in the reason females were less interested in the Science and Math fields!!!!!! He said nothing about males being superior, he just wanted to find ways to get more women interested in science and math...but first he thought it would be beneficial to determine if the differences were genetic or social...but the liberals ran him out of office for even suggesting that females might be "inferior" in any way to males...I guess liberals cannot understand that different does not necessarily mean inferior! So now I guess we will continue to hide our heads in the sand and women will continue to be a minority in those very financially lucrative male dominated fields!
falling at 1:46PM on Aug 22nd 2008
13. Equality is not a factual proposition, derived from biology. It is a moral proposition, derived from Christianity.
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I guess all of them there slave owners in the south were hindus then? Go figure. I'm just gonna hafta bone up on my learnin' and such.
America's Most Gangsta at 8:57AM on Aug 22nd 2008
14. "Conventional thinking--and quite a few liberal academics--hold that this cultural obsession is the best explanation for the incredible Olympic success of Kenya's distance runners."
So, now "liberal academics" can be accused of "conventional thinking"? But I thought they were out-of-touch elitists, DD; what gives? Can't make up your mind?
I'm aware it's off topic, but while I'm writing: we're still waiting for your evidence that Dawkins lied about your so-called debate on Al-Jazeera. He has presented CLEAR evidence that YOU lied; where's yours? Or is it just easier to besmirch and insinuate?
Typical Conservative.
Ian X. Christian at 9:25AM on Aug 22nd 2008
15. "this is a brilliant article. Dinesh, your not always right but your writing style is refreshing and eloquent. thankyou"
luke, if this is your idea of brilliance, you might want to expand your reading horizons.
Ian X. Christian at 9:28AM on Aug 22nd 2008