Racism in football - The Guardian

[paul_e]

See, Im not confident about the "genetics" part.  Nature versus nuture.  I deal in genomics, the study of dna in cattle, and while there is a difference between animals of course in their genetics, their ability to demonstrate that is still being investigated.  However, if cattle are fed different ways, cared for in different ways etc, that has far far more effect in their performance.  Please dont take this that I comparing footballers with cattle, I know for a fact there are far more intelligent Holstein cows walking around than Alan Shearer

 As you are a bit of an expert in the field I will obviously bow to your greater knowledge...but...this doesn't explain why nearly all the best British sprinters are black. All kids in this country can go to a track and run, yet we haven't produced a top-class white sprinter since probably Alan Wells.
 Maybe it's just down to role-models, black kids all want to be Usain Bolt or something, but I still think there must be some genetics in play here.
 As I say, I'm no expert so shoot me down if I'm talking rubbish.

Whilst we don't know enough to be able to say specifically why genetics play a part I refuse to accept that anyone genuinely thinks that it has absolutely no part to play in someone's physical abilities.

EDIT - Case in point being Michael Phelps, clearly a great swimmer and has worked hard and had all the right opportunities, but his body shape and genetic make-up clearly have enabled him to be as good as he is.

[MoetVillan]

Wasnt it Tony McAndrew who said that when they take on youth players, they spend less time looking at ability, and more looking at attitude, he said they could train the skill into the players if the mindset was right.  Their success rate puts a good light on this theory.  I dont want to disagree about the genetic element, I do however think it is far far less important than the nuturing and development of "skills".  The genetic element though would distinguish between certain attributes, and would not take into account race or culture.  Only by testing thousands and thousands of people would you start to understand the traits, and as far as I know, there is no current "evaluation" of skill of people apart from the top 0.001% that happen to compete in sports or things like GCSE's, so that would give you horribly skewed and biased results  "Genetically testing humans".....sounds far to much like a Daily Mail headline for me to go anywhere near

[paul_e]

Wasnt it Tony McAndrew who said that when they take on youth players, they spend less time looking at ability, and more looking at attitude, he said they could train the skill into the players if the mindset was right.  Their success rate puts a good light on this theory.  I dont want to disagree about the genetic element, I do however think it is far far less important than the nuturing and development of "skills".  The genetic element though would distinguish between certain attributes, and would not take into account race or culture.  Only by testing thousands and thousands of people would you start to understand the traits, and as far as I know, there is no current "evaluation" of skill of people apart from the top 0.001% that happen to compete in sports or things like GCSE's, so that would give you horribly skewed and biased results  "Genetically testing humans".....sounds far to much like a Daily Mail headline for me to go anywhere near

The bold bit is the key for me, there's currently no evidence to suggest that producing fast twitch muscle fibre in the most efficient way is related to the level pigment in the skin, for example.

The fundamental issue is that the only way to truly resolve this would be to artifically engineer the situation, take 2 eggs from a woman and fertilise them with the same sperm, then, before anything occurs, alter the genetics of one to create a 'super' version.  Then take them both through to birth, childhood, etc with all the same experiences and influences, and measure performance at every stage.  Given this is never going to happen due to the fact that a, it's currently impossible and b it's so unethical it's scary, we'll probably never get an exact picture of the effect it has, however it's still safe to assume that it does have an effect, the discussion is always going to centre on whether the effect is large enough to matter.

[PeterWithe]

I'm sure I read an article about an NFL team, cant mind which one, who tended to focus their talent spotting on players of West African descent for certain positions as they were genetically more likely to be faster and stronger at early ages. Could have been bollocks of course.

[danlanza]

See, Im not confident about the "genetics" part.  Nature versus nuture.  I deal in genomics, the study of dna in cattle, and while there is a difference between animals of course in their genetics, their ability to demonstrate that is still being investigated.  However, if cattle are fed different ways, cared for in different ways etc, that has far far more effect in their performance.  Please dont take this that I comparing footballers with cattle, I know for a fact there are far more intelligent Holstein cows walking around than Alan Shearer

 As you are a bit of an expert in the field I will obviously bow to your greater knowledge...but...this doesn't explain why nearly all the best British sprinters are black. All kids in this country can go to a track and run, yet we haven't produced a top-class white sprinter since probably Alan Wells.
 Maybe it's just down to role-models, black kids all want to be Usain Bolt or something, but I still think there must be some genetics in play here.
 As I say, I'm no expert so shoot me down if I'm talking rubbish.

Whilst we don't know enough to be able to say specifically why genetics play a part I refuse to accept that anyone genuinely thinks that it has absolutely no part to play in someone's physical abilities.

EDIT - Case in point being Michael Phelps, clearly a great swimmer and has worked hard and had all the right opportunities, but his body shape and genetic make-up clearly have enabled him to be as good as he is.

And when he does the backstroke his nose looks like a Great White Shark fin!!

[barrysleftfoot]

 iI think you are a bit over-sensitive drisaac, lets not descend into the norm of thats racist/no i'm not kind of nonsense that these debates normally fall into, ruining a very interesting debate on genetics.

 

[drisaac]

 iI think you are a bit over-sensitive drisaac, lets not descend into the norm of thats racist/no i'm not kind of nonsense that these debates normally fall into, ruining a very interesting debate on genetics.

 

Can't help it, barry, it's me genes.  Anyway I stopped "ruining it" about this time yesterday, so please feel free to contribute.

[Percy McCarthy]

Well, I feel I've learned something on this thread, even if it is just that Villa are doing a good job and that what I posted earlier was probably a load of old bollocks.

[danlanza]

This made me giggle:

John Terry has written a letter of apology to Anton Ferdinand:

Good golly Anton,sorry about all this monkey business,it's only a little black humour really and it's all gone bananas. What do you say we call a spade a spade and forget this whole dark episode between us ?
Feel free to swing by for a drink sometime.

                                                         John T.

[barrysleftfoot]

  Touche drisaac, touche..........not French genes are they?

[Percy McCarthy]

If that made you giggle dan you should check out Jim Davidson. I'm sure his DVDs are going pretty cheap nowadays.

[paul_e]

  Touche drisaac, touche..........not French genes are they?

Not likely, he'd have given up arguing much sooner... 

Sorry on a racism thread someone mentioned the french, I couldn't stop myself...

[danlanza]

Nah he is just a racist twat. It made me giggle because of how blatantly John Terry got away with racially abusing a fellow proffesional player. He is as guilty as fuck. He knows it and so does Anton Ferdinand.

How can you call somebody a " Black ...." and get away with it ?

I think that somebody should write an Anton Ferdinand reply to the John Terry false letter.That would be really funny.

 John Terry in my view is a fucking disgrace and a racist and i was not trying to undermine the severity of racism at all. Did not mean to give that impression if that is what you thought.

[paul_e]

Nah he is just a racist twat. It made me giggle because of how blatantly John Terry got away with racially abusing a fellow proffesional player. He is as guilty as fuck. He knows it and so does Anton Ferdinand.

How can you call somebody a " Black ...." and get away with it ?

I think that somebody should write an Anton Ferdinand reply to the John Terry false letter.That would be really funny.

 John Terry in my view is a fucking disgrace and a racist and i was not trying to undermine the severity of racism at all. Did not mean to give that impression if that is what you thought.

Was never going to be punished in court, the burden of proof sits with the prosecution proving without any reasonable doubt that he intended to be racist.  That was always going to be close to impossible to do in this case.

However, from the FA the precedence is 8 matches, if he doesn't get that Liverpool and Suarez are going to jump up and down and cry shenanigans, so I'd put money on a ban, probably the same 8matches (but I'd say 4 absolute minimum) it's too high profile after all this for the FA to sweep it under the carpet.  On top of that after stripping him of the england armband they look pretty stupid if they then find him not guilty of any wrong-doing (but I think they might take that previous "punishment" into account and reduce the ban, which is still a joke).

[barrysleftfoot]

  Was'nt  Rio's a racist comment?