http://73666673.blogspot.com/
Edited by: Csonka72
Edited by: Csonka72
Interesting blog post
- Thread starter Csonka72
- Start date
i'll post it here for the lazy ones:
Musings from Numbers: Race and Sports
It's a common conception in American sports today: blacks are better athletes than whites. It's also one that tends to lend itself it to grave exaggerations, excessive stereotyping and even racism. Whether it's NFL linebacker Ernie Sims saying that "Where I'm from in Florida, you don't see white guys like that -- 6-5, 260 pounds, smart and he can run. He's special." in reference to teammate Stewart Bradley, or MMA fighter Brock Lesnar, who is white, saying "I got the genetics of â€" not to get into racism or anything â€" but I'm built like a black man...It's all genetics." in reference to his impressive physique, the examples are endless.
But how much truth is there to this perception? At first glance, this would seem to be an easy answer, regardless of whose side of the debate you are on. People who believe that blacks are better athletes will point to their dominance in the popular sports of football and basketball, as well as their dominance in sprinting at the Olympic and World Championship level. This is an easy argument to make, but it is also flawed and it is a slippery slope. Athletic participation is not merely a matter of ability, but also complex socioeconomic factors. Just because we haven't discovered the white Usain Bolt (or black Michael Phelps) doesn't mean he doesn't exist. The slippery slope here is the idea that something's absence proves its inferiority. Someone just as recently as 2006 using this logic to try to determine why there have been no black presidents would conclude that blacks simply don't have the ability to be a president, or they simply don't possess the charisma to get elected. Obviously this hypothetical person would be wrong, as evidenced by Obama's election in 2008.
So while anecdotal evidence abounds, very little in the way of hard statistics exist. With this mind, I came up with an idea to try to quantify any possible athletic differences between whites and blacks. To do this, I tried to pick a sample both large enough in size as well as suitably random enough. The NFL combine, where the top college football athletes get invited each year to showcase their physical skills, seemed like a good candidate. There participants engage in drills like the 40 yard dash and the 225 lbs bench press in order to try to quantify their speed and strength.
With an event and sport picked, I needed to decide on a position. I'm not a professional researcher and I don't have time to do every football position, so I settled on linebacker. I had originally decided to do running backs, but there weren't enough white running backs in recent NFL combines to make a meaningful comparison. Linebackers seemed like a fair compromise, given that linebackers are the defensive counterparts to running backs in size and athleticism. Both speed and strength are valued, and there were enough white linebackers in previous combines to make a comparison.
I ended up recording the 40 yard dash times, bench press reps and race for 110 linebackers in the '07 to '10 combines. 83 of the players were black, 27 were white. I wanted 30 white players to coincide with what is usually considered a sufficient sample size in statistics, but data from the 2006 combine was hard to come by and my patience was running thin so I settled on 27.
Now for the fun part. I took the average and median for the all the players, only the white players, and only the black players. Here are the results:
ALL PLAYERS
Average 40 yard dash: 4.72
Median 40 yard dash: 4.72
Average BP reps: 23.01
Median BP reps: 23
WHITE PLAYERS
Average 40 yard dash: 4.75
Median 40 yard dash: 4.72
Average BP reps: 23.52
Median BP reps: 24
BLACK PLAYERS
Average 40 yard dash: 4.71
Median 40 yard dash: 4.73
Average BP reps: 22.84
Median BP reps: 23
As you can see, there is no statistically relevant difference between white or black players. Their numbers are incredibly similar. If there was indeed a noticeable advantage for blacks athletically it should show in the numbers, either with a 40 yard time of about 0.10 faster (a noticeable difference) or in 1-3 more bench press reps. Neither is the case.
To round things out, here are the numbers for the best and worst 40 yard dash times and bench press reps:
NOTE: I only included players who did both the bench press and 40 yard dash at the combine. I didn't look at the players I excluded and this might produce different results for what overall is best and worst.
WHITE BESTS
40 yard dash: 4.51 (Tim Shaw)
BP reps: 30 (Brian Cushing)
WHITE WORSTS
40 yard dash: 5.00 (Jon Abbate)
BP reps: 16 (two players)
BLACK BESTS
40 yard dash: 4.42 (Quincy Black)
BP reps: 34 (Sean Witherspoon)
BLACK WORSTS
40 yard ash: 5.10 (Angelo Craig)
BP reps: 12 (Moise Fokou)
Here there is more variation, but I think this can be attributed to the larger number of black players rated (83 versus 27 white). The black bests are better than the white bests, but the worst black scores are also noticeably worse than the worst white scores.
This short and certainly not exhaustive study seems to lend credence to the "we are all the same" argument. Very little to no variation exists between white and black linebackers measured in the previous four NFL combines.
Musings from Numbers: Race and Sports
It's a common conception in American sports today: blacks are better athletes than whites. It's also one that tends to lend itself it to grave exaggerations, excessive stereotyping and even racism. Whether it's NFL linebacker Ernie Sims saying that "Where I'm from in Florida, you don't see white guys like that -- 6-5, 260 pounds, smart and he can run. He's special." in reference to teammate Stewart Bradley, or MMA fighter Brock Lesnar, who is white, saying "I got the genetics of â€" not to get into racism or anything â€" but I'm built like a black man...It's all genetics." in reference to his impressive physique, the examples are endless.
But how much truth is there to this perception? At first glance, this would seem to be an easy answer, regardless of whose side of the debate you are on. People who believe that blacks are better athletes will point to their dominance in the popular sports of football and basketball, as well as their dominance in sprinting at the Olympic and World Championship level. This is an easy argument to make, but it is also flawed and it is a slippery slope. Athletic participation is not merely a matter of ability, but also complex socioeconomic factors. Just because we haven't discovered the white Usain Bolt (or black Michael Phelps) doesn't mean he doesn't exist. The slippery slope here is the idea that something's absence proves its inferiority. Someone just as recently as 2006 using this logic to try to determine why there have been no black presidents would conclude that blacks simply don't have the ability to be a president, or they simply don't possess the charisma to get elected. Obviously this hypothetical person would be wrong, as evidenced by Obama's election in 2008.
So while anecdotal evidence abounds, very little in the way of hard statistics exist. With this mind, I came up with an idea to try to quantify any possible athletic differences between whites and blacks. To do this, I tried to pick a sample both large enough in size as well as suitably random enough. The NFL combine, where the top college football athletes get invited each year to showcase their physical skills, seemed like a good candidate. There participants engage in drills like the 40 yard dash and the 225 lbs bench press in order to try to quantify their speed and strength.
With an event and sport picked, I needed to decide on a position. I'm not a professional researcher and I don't have time to do every football position, so I settled on linebacker. I had originally decided to do running backs, but there weren't enough white running backs in recent NFL combines to make a meaningful comparison. Linebackers seemed like a fair compromise, given that linebackers are the defensive counterparts to running backs in size and athleticism. Both speed and strength are valued, and there were enough white linebackers in previous combines to make a comparison.
I ended up recording the 40 yard dash times, bench press reps and race for 110 linebackers in the '07 to '10 combines. 83 of the players were black, 27 were white. I wanted 30 white players to coincide with what is usually considered a sufficient sample size in statistics, but data from the 2006 combine was hard to come by and my patience was running thin so I settled on 27.
Now for the fun part. I took the average and median for the all the players, only the white players, and only the black players. Here are the results:
ALL PLAYERS
Average 40 yard dash: 4.72
Median 40 yard dash: 4.72
Average BP reps: 23.01
Median BP reps: 23
WHITE PLAYERS
Average 40 yard dash: 4.75
Median 40 yard dash: 4.72
Average BP reps: 23.52
Median BP reps: 24
BLACK PLAYERS
Average 40 yard dash: 4.71
Median 40 yard dash: 4.73
Average BP reps: 22.84
Median BP reps: 23
As you can see, there is no statistically relevant difference between white or black players. Their numbers are incredibly similar. If there was indeed a noticeable advantage for blacks athletically it should show in the numbers, either with a 40 yard time of about 0.10 faster (a noticeable difference) or in 1-3 more bench press reps. Neither is the case.
To round things out, here are the numbers for the best and worst 40 yard dash times and bench press reps:
NOTE: I only included players who did both the bench press and 40 yard dash at the combine. I didn't look at the players I excluded and this might produce different results for what overall is best and worst.
WHITE BESTS
40 yard dash: 4.51 (Tim Shaw)
BP reps: 30 (Brian Cushing)
WHITE WORSTS
40 yard dash: 5.00 (Jon Abbate)
BP reps: 16 (two players)
BLACK BESTS
40 yard dash: 4.42 (Quincy Black)
BP reps: 34 (Sean Witherspoon)
BLACK WORSTS
40 yard ash: 5.10 (Angelo Craig)
BP reps: 12 (Moise Fokou)
Here there is more variation, but I think this can be attributed to the larger number of black players rated (83 versus 27 white). The black bests are better than the white bests, but the worst black scores are also noticeably worse than the worst white scores.
This short and certainly not exhaustive study seems to lend credence to the "we are all the same" argument. Very little to no variation exists between white and black linebackers measured in the previous four NFL combines.
Freethinker
Hall of Famer
So this guy is astute enough to do some basic research and come to the conclusion that "we are all the same" instead of the blacks are superior myth. Why does this guy not make the next logical step and ask the question, if both races are equal at linebacker and the country is 70% white then how come its not 83 whites and 27 blacks at the combine? Maybe this guy does realize this but suggesting professional football is simply another form of affirmative action for blacks would be "racist".Edited by: Freethinker
Alpha Male
Mentor
Great find Csonka 72. Good post: the population ratios should be the reverse. I'll save this little gem for debunking DWF arguements.
