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Further notice the England born players are not coming through.

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zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Apologies, folks, for my contribution to derailing what began as a genuinely interesting thread. But I was pretty appalled at the muck that wtf_ben saw fit to post and felt I had to call it.

ps Fred I hope you realise I'm not talking to you after your failure to vote Mushy in the poll.
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
Apologies, folks, for my contribution to derailing what began as a genuinely interesting thread. But I was pretty appalled at the muck that wtf_ben saw fit to post and felt I had to call it.

ps Fred I hope you realise I'm not talking to you after your failure to vote Mushy in the poll.
FTR, I don't have any issue with you calling out what you think is a stupid post with "I think that's a stupid post" but there's a big difference between "That's a stupid post" and "I don't think you should be allowed to post that on CricketWeb and I'm disappointed the moderators haven't taken action" - posting the latter invariably derails the thread beyond repair and takes it completely away from cricket entirely.

If someone makes a post you don't agree with it, replying to it with your counter-opinion and relevant points is the appropriate course of action. If you think a post is completely out of line (and as a general rule we (or myself specifically, at least) will only take action if we believe the member is misrepresenting his opinion to provoke or has taken the discussion beyond cricket into the personal realm), use the report function or email us. If it's a particularly important issue and/or a common theme, start a thread in Site Discussion about it. Posts about moderation are the death of Cricket Chat threads though, and on that note, thread closed. There's obviously no way we can have this discussion on Cricket Web, sadly.
 
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silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Oh dear, this is a right mess, isn't it?

It is immensely difficult to have conversations about race and ethnicity and keep things civil and insightful, but right now we're doing a really poor job of it. I think I can appreciate the principle behind what Ben is saying, unfortunately he is phrasing himself incredibly badly.

What (I hope) he's trying to look at is genetic predisposition - there is no denying that black/Afro-Caribbean origin contributes to success as a sprinter, but let's think about this - who was the last white guy to win the Olympic 100m? Similarly Kenyan/Ethiopian stock is clearly better suited to middle-distance running. I think I have read that this is due to higher blood cell counts due to altitude - though I guess this doesn't explain the lack of Bolivian 1500m runners.

Whites of British/Caucasian origin are, historically, on average, taller and stronger and in possession of more fast-twitch fibres than those of Asian origin. A quick search suggests Indian males average 1.64m (India Times), whilst in the UK it's 1.77m (NHS). For me, this contributes towards explaining the extra depth in the fast bowling stocks of "white nations" over earlier decades - whilst Asian genetics seem to lend more flexibility and better suit the development of spin bowlers and "wristy" batsmen. Of course weather and pitches also come into the equation. This is one of the great beauties of cricket - a game that can be played in different ways. Saying that, there seems to have been a significant increase in the number of taller, faster bowlers coming out of India lately.

Then we have the question raised by SJS and Brumby about proportional representation in the English teams. We are "over-represented" by Black or Afro-Caribbean players, and "under-represented" by British Asians in football, and vice versa in cricket, if you compare the percentages of the population of a particular ethnicity to the percentage of International sportsmen. I would venture that this is more of a cultural issue, and an interesting discussion as, to give the national side as much success as possible, you do not want cultural divides preventing children from gaining access to sports. I do think, though, that white English boys are still playing and enjoying the game as much (if not more) than I've seen through ten years of working in the grassroots - and white English girls are playing more than ever.

There is no reason why this subject is not one that can be discussed, but we do need to go about it in a more informed manner - let's try and use sources if we can for any potentially controversial claims, and think about how what we say could be interpreted: as well as trying to appreciate how any posters intend their meanings.
Without proper controls, it's impossible to make valid conclusions on genetics. For example, you quoted the average height of men in India, vs. men in the UK. That comparison is automatically invalid - look at the average height of a South Korean vs. a North Korean. A more valid comparison might be Indian men born in the UK vs. Caucasian men born in the UK. Even that is not all that conclusive unless one can show that the population of men of Indian origin living in the UK is genetically representative of men living in India.

Secondly, gene distribution for many physical traits has a very small correlation with a specific group of people, and generally there are large enough intra-'racial' genetic differences even for a given trait that it makes larger generalizations pointless. Someone earlier mentioned something about 'blacks' being something. I automatically stop paying attention at that point because to make that claim is to simply be ignorant of the large genetic geographical differences that make up Africa, and many populations are closer to the European genotype than other African genotypes. Modern definitions of race are based on phenotypical differences, not genotypes. And while certain genes are more or less frequent depending on a specific phenotype, the two are not related, and most times there is a fairly small correlation. A modern differentiation of peoples based purely on genotypical differences has never been done, and never will, purely because the large number of genes makes it is impossible to do it with any sort of accuracy. And the fact that genes are not a one-to-one type on/off switch, they interact with other genes, amplifying or diminishing them, can affected by environmental factors, can be enhanced or suppressed by nutrition, etc.

There are certainly genetic differences associated with various geographical population (another bad way of differentiating genes), as there are with gender, and other factors and some have been pretty clearly demonstrated. But most haven't, not by proper studies, because proper studies that can draw a solid conclusion simply can't be done in most situations. As the saying goes, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data", and anecdotal evidence of watching an NBA game on TV is not data.

Next idiotic generalization or insult to anyone in this thread, for any reason, will see the poster warned.

EDIT: oops, started writing this before Prince closed it. If anyone wants to talk about genetics, take it to OT, and I'll be happy to have that discussion there.
 
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