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Re: Political Correctness - GET OVER IT !!
Absolutely.
A person from the Northland who's ancestory has adjusted to the climate will be shorter and stockier (Innuet) than I person of a temperate climate. An individual from Africa generally will be more wiry and have longer appendages than an individual from a less extreme, more mild climate. Some traits, such as height are more readily affected by genes, although some scientists will even debate that as it appears diet and other external pressures influence even these seemingly cemented attributes. However, if you were to take a young child and raise them in an environment that is different than the one that their families were raised in, despite the genetic coding you will still have a variation in the individual to acclimate to that climate (i.e. longer, thinner limbs or a shorter stockier build) which is an illustration of Allen's Rule. Also, a while back if you remember, it was postulated that the reason Kenyans and other East African's excelled at distance running was because of their evolved response to their environment, namely an increased lung capacity and recovery rate. This doesn't really hold up as it was discovered that only a handful of Ethiopian societies produced the world class runners seen in the Olympics and other marathon events. Other societies which were genetically very similar, if not more or less identical, failed to produce top runners. The differences between the two seem to be in the cultural practices and the emphasis one society stresses upon such things as distance running, as apposed to being genetically based which would mean both of the groups should have similar yields, or at least individuals of similar ability. For your Hawaii question, yes, the Pake athletes may not be as tall as their counterparts who have maxed out due to genes and environmental interaction, but high is hardly an indicator of athletic ability. This arguement was based on innate athletic abilities more regularly associated with certain races because of that race's genetic makeup. This is not the case. Athletic traits like lung capacity, recovery time, etc. are more adaptations to an environment than "preprogrammed material" (adaptations not evolved or derived characteristics). Of course you do get the occasional freak-of-nature whose genes outright put them at an advantage (such as Lance Armstrong) but these anamolies are not associated with any one specific race. It would be the same to say that one race is inherently more intelligent or genetically predisposed to crime, or even better at card games than another. With this kind of fallacious thought, eugenics is groomed to make an appearance. It was eugenicists that did all of the early testing for racial athletic ability, cognitive capacity based on craniometry and IQ tests, and other things. (Guess what? They never found any actually discrepancies, except through experimental inconsistencies and fudging data, because after all we couldn't all be more or less equal could we? I mean we look so different! ) Variation does exists amongst populations (not entire races, the subject of which could constitute its own thread), but I've said it before and I'll say it again, we really aren't that divergent from one another, otherwise we'd all be different species. Environment and acclimation are more important for athleticism than ones race. For combating different diseases and such, I agree that some population's genetics do make a difference, but that's not really the case with athleticism. (And, remember that just because a family group within a population has a gene that might significantly alter their phenotype, like Lance Armstrong, does not indicate an entire racial prevalence). 
Hope that's a little more lucid. This topic is still debated among biologists but more and more biologists are favoring the environmental influences over strictly genetic dominance because anatomical studies don't indicate much if any genetic basis for athleticism.
Edit: to address the jumping discrepancy: things such as body mass (diet) and muscle percentages come into play. And how often are these kids jumping? My friends Black, White and Asian can school me on the court and can put me to shame in a vertical leap contest despite the fact that I'm significantly taller than they are simply because I don't practice as often as they do.
I've actually been doing some more reading on this an am coming across different takes, but the scientific basis for the counter assertions is shaky at best, and the whole "just watch sports" logical fallacy doesn't qualify as evidence any more than Africans constituting the majority of felons and therefore being naturally more delinquent does. I guess you have to choose who you believe, Gould or Entine.
Absolutely.
A person from the Northland who's ancestory has adjusted to the climate will be shorter and stockier (Innuet) than I person of a temperate climate. An individual from Africa generally will be more wiry and have longer appendages than an individual from a less extreme, more mild climate. Some traits, such as height are more readily affected by genes, although some scientists will even debate that as it appears diet and other external pressures influence even these seemingly cemented attributes. However, if you were to take a young child and raise them in an environment that is different than the one that their families were raised in, despite the genetic coding you will still have a variation in the individual to acclimate to that climate (i.e. longer, thinner limbs or a shorter stockier build) which is an illustration of Allen's Rule. Also, a while back if you remember, it was postulated that the reason Kenyans and other East African's excelled at distance running was because of their evolved response to their environment, namely an increased lung capacity and recovery rate. This doesn't really hold up as it was discovered that only a handful of Ethiopian societies produced the world class runners seen in the Olympics and other marathon events. Other societies which were genetically very similar, if not more or less identical, failed to produce top runners. The differences between the two seem to be in the cultural practices and the emphasis one society stresses upon such things as distance running, as apposed to being genetically based which would mean both of the groups should have similar yields, or at least individuals of similar ability. For your Hawaii question, yes, the Pake athletes may not be as tall as their counterparts who have maxed out due to genes and environmental interaction, but high is hardly an indicator of athletic ability. This arguement was based on innate athletic abilities more regularly associated with certain races because of that race's genetic makeup. This is not the case. Athletic traits like lung capacity, recovery time, etc. are more adaptations to an environment than "preprogrammed material" (adaptations not evolved or derived characteristics). Of course you do get the occasional freak-of-nature whose genes outright put them at an advantage (such as Lance Armstrong) but these anamolies are not associated with any one specific race. It would be the same to say that one race is inherently more intelligent or genetically predisposed to crime, or even better at card games than another. With this kind of fallacious thought, eugenics is groomed to make an appearance. It was eugenicists that did all of the early testing for racial athletic ability, cognitive capacity based on craniometry and IQ tests, and other things. (Guess what? They never found any actually discrepancies, except through experimental inconsistencies and fudging data, because after all we couldn't all be more or less equal could we? I mean we look so different! ) Variation does exists amongst populations (not entire races, the subject of which could constitute its own thread), but I've said it before and I'll say it again, we really aren't that divergent from one another, otherwise we'd all be different species. Environment and acclimation are more important for athleticism than ones race. For combating different diseases and such, I agree that some population's genetics do make a difference, but that's not really the case with athleticism. (And, remember that just because a family group within a population has a gene that might significantly alter their phenotype, like Lance Armstrong, does not indicate an entire racial prevalence). Hope that's a little more lucid. This topic is still debated among biologists but more and more biologists are favoring the environmental influences over strictly genetic dominance because anatomical studies don't indicate much if any genetic basis for athleticism.Edit: to address the jumping discrepancy: things such as body mass (diet) and muscle percentages come into play. And how often are these kids jumping? My friends Black, White and Asian can school me on the court and can put me to shame in a vertical leap contest despite the fact that I'm significantly taller than they are simply because I don't practice as often as they do.
I've actually been doing some more reading on this an am coming across different takes, but the scientific basis for the counter assertions is shaky at best, and the whole "just watch sports" logical fallacy doesn't qualify as evidence any more than Africans constituting the majority of felons and therefore being naturally more delinquent does. I guess you have to choose who you believe, Gould or Entine.
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