TTBOMK a grand total of two (2) men whose ancestry is not predominantly West African have ever run 100m in less than ten seconds. If you can come up with some good reasons why selection for g wouldn’t have ancestral group differences that strong I’d be interested to hear them.
If you can come up with some good reasons why selection for g wouldn’t have ancestral group differences that strong I’d be interested to hear them.
I would think that different climates would select different physiologies more intensely than they would select for different “g”—I can think areas where running is a greater advantage, and areas where swimming is a greater advantage, and different musculatures may account for each… but in pretty much all areas generic intelligence is an advantage.
This doesn’t preclude the possibility for differences, but it’s a reason why the differences wouldn’t be as strong.
I can think areas where running is a greater advantage, and areas where swimming is a greater advantage, and different musculatures may account for each… but in pretty much all areas generic intelligence is an advantage.
This doesn’t preclude the possibility for differences, but it’s a reason why the differences wouldn’t be as strong.
No, I don’t think we can really say that unfortunately.
I. Opportunity cost.
To elaborate, even if g is perfectly equally useful in all geographic regions, if other selection criteria vary you can still get pretty strong selection pressures that effect intelligence (say something as simple as heat regulation of the brain or say a different rate of babies surviving birth in regions where fewer parasites are adapted to humans). Pleiotropy also means that these sorts of things may not always be apparent.
II. Speed of adaptation.
Also even given perfectly equal selection pressures on all dimensions, one would expect isolated populations depending on their size to adapt faster or slower to a new equilibrium (depending on which theories you espouse).
You misdescribe your link and so are off by a factor of 8. Your list is of the ~10 people, all west African, who have set records faster than 10s. Here is a list of 80 people to have run that fast. Immediately above that on the page is a list of the 2 or 3 non-Africans and the 2 south Africans to have run that fast.
TTBOMK a grand total of two (2) men whose ancestry is not predominantly West African have ever run 100m in less than ten seconds. If you can come up with some good reasons why selection for g wouldn’t have ancestral group differences that strong I’d be interested to hear them.
I would think that different climates would select different physiologies more intensely than they would select for different “g”—I can think areas where running is a greater advantage, and areas where swimming is a greater advantage, and different musculatures may account for each… but in pretty much all areas generic intelligence is an advantage.
This doesn’t preclude the possibility for differences, but it’s a reason why the differences wouldn’t be as strong.
No, I don’t think we can really say that unfortunately.
I. Opportunity cost.
To elaborate, even if g is perfectly equally useful in all geographic regions, if other selection criteria vary you can still get pretty strong selection pressures that effect intelligence (say something as simple as heat regulation of the brain or say a different rate of babies surviving birth in regions where fewer parasites are adapted to humans). Pleiotropy also means that these sorts of things may not always be apparent.
II. Speed of adaptation.
Also even given perfectly equal selection pressures on all dimensions, one would expect isolated populations depending on their size to adapt faster or slower to a new equilibrium (depending on which theories you espouse).
It’s potentially misleading to quote a statistic like that in isolation without describing the base rate. A quick scan seems to imply that nine men whose ancestry is predominantly West African have ever run 100m in less than ten seconds… which certainly seems to support your point anyway, since less than nine elevenths of the Olympic talent pool is from West Africa.
You misdescribe your link and so are off by a factor of 8. Your list is of the ~10 people, all west African, who have set records faster than 10s. Here is a list of 80 people to have run that fast. Immediately above that on the page is a list of the 2 or 3 non-Africans and the 2 south Africans to have run that fast.