<p>sorry for triple posting....but lastly, look at my username!</p>
<p>SCREW THE PC.
if ppl keep trying to be politically correct about all those crap, no one can reach the "truth"</p>
<p>I thought you got that username because you like Macs!</p>
<p>to afro.sax.gurl i don't doubt that that your fmaily has drive. drive runs in the family. you got a father. awesome, but the truth is most black child have not fathers, no role models for them. you are very lucky. my father teaches at Morgan State University, and guess what, he has more 30-40 year-old students rather than 18-22 year old's. apparently, popular culture has brainwashed a lot of our black folks, and it takes time before some of them wise-up.</p>
<p>Regarding the debate between culture vs. genetics, let's not forget that they fold into each other. See below. </p>
<p>
[quote]
say you're naturally short, like most asians, u are DESTINIED to not play basketball. now dont give me the "bullcrap" as u metioned about giving some exceptions about NBA players that are 5'9. how many 5'9 ppl can play NBA?
genetics are definitely the prerequisite for sports. it's also a a natural trait to jiump higher or not besides the training. if your body isn't built that way, like asians, you simply cant jump as high no matter how hard you try. just like if you're 5', u simply CANT PLAY BASKETBALL. work 1000000 times as hard and michael jordan, and u still get nothing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yet that begs the question of why is basketball such a big money sport? After all, the vast majority of sports out there are not money sports. Most of the sports played in the Olympics provide minimal money-making potential, and Olympic sports represent only a microcosm of the total constellation of sports in the world. </p>
<p>In fact, only in a few countries, notably in the US and a few countries in Europe is basketball a true money sport in the sense that you can become filthy rich as a professional. Basketball is far from a global sport. Frankly, if there is one sport in the world that can claim the crown of being the most global of all sports, it's clearly soccer. I think we can all agree that you don't need to be tall to play soccer well. You don't even need to be that fast (although that obviously helps). What you need to have is great agility and body control. </p>
<p>I can agree that basketball is a sport in which success is highly predicated on genetics, specifically height. But the reason why basketball become a big money sport in the US - that is cultural. After all, the US, like the rest of the world, could have chosen soccer as a top money sport. Yet that was not meant to be. The top American professional soccer players are largely unknown to Americans, but plenty of Americans know who the top pro basketball players are. In fact, I would venture to say that the top American professional soccer players are better known outside rather than within the US. The choice of which particular activity within a particular country becomes the 'prestige' choice is a matter of culture. It certainly was not inevitable that basketball would become popular in this country. If the US, like the rest of the world, had embraced soccer rather than basketball, then we wouldn't be sitting here talking about the linkages of height, genetics, and sports. </p>
<p>
[quote]
after genetical variation is established, who is to say genetics can affect physical ability but not mental ability?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And even the genetic argument is encapsulated into culture. After all, for the purposes of population ecology, genes don't just have to be expressed within a population, but they also have to be handed down to the next generation. In other words, genetics has to give you a reproductive advantage, and that is itself a matter of culture. In this particular country, highly athletic men are considered to be attractive to women (either because they look good, according to the current cultural definition of beauty, or because they are rich from their athletic endeavors, or whatever), and so highly athletic men enjoy a reproductive advantage. But that advantage is cultural. Other cultures value different attributes. For example, not to overly stereotype, but Jewish culture has tended to strongly value academic and intellectual pursuits. The learned rabbi is seen as a highly desirable husband to have, which is consonant with the old stories of Jewish mothers encouraging their daughters to marry doctors or lawyers. In other words, culture dictates which genes are propogated and which are not.</p>
<p>so is your conclusion in urm cultures (ie. black, hispanic) ppl dont value "intellegence" much so the "physical able" people get the reproductive advantage, while in asian cultures it's vice versa. </p>
<p>So, still, looking at the result, genetic variation exists!!!</p>
<p>thank you for proving that sakky, and considering your credibility on CC i hope people read your post before further comments.</p>
<p>I haven't read all the posts, so forgive me if this was covered, but what if the most important environmental pressures on the gene pool took place one hundred fifty years ( 5 generations?) ago? What if the most economically desirable genes where cultivated when the product was slaves and not students? What if the best "students" and their genes where purposely eliminated? what if affirmative action allows restoration of the original gene pool? Am I not supposed to mention affirmative action?</p>
<p>"dr_reynolds"</p>
<p>actually you're presumption is partially true.
I hate windows, but I find mac hard to use so I still use pc/windows anyway.
but i still hate it although I use it :-p</p>
<p>
[quote]
so is your conclusion in urm cultures (ie. black, hispanic) ppl dont value "intellegence" much so the "physical able" people get the reproductive advantage, while in asian cultures it's vice versa. </p>
<p>So, still, looking at the result, genetic variation exists!!!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think anybody has disputed that genetic variation exists. Of course it does. The real question is * how does genetic variation get translated into social/reproductive advantage*. And that is a matter of culture. </p>
<p>Like I said, if we didn't live in a world that prized basketball skills, then it wouldn't matter that some people are 7-feet tall. Heck, in such a world, those people would probably be considered freaks. In fact, you can see this difference in the way this society treats extremely tall men vs. extremely tall women. Male professional basketball is a far far more lucrative profession than is female professional basketball. For example, the maximum salary of a WNBA player is 100k. Contrast that with the 412k minimum salary of an NBA rookie. Let's face it. If 3-time WNBA MVP Lisa Leslie was a man, she'd be far wealthier and far more famous than she is now, probably by at least an order of magnitude. </p>
<p>But the point is that while genetic variation obviously exists, culture acts to 'superset' genetics. It doesn't matter for the long term evolution of a population if that population has a lot of tall people if those tall people don't enjoy disproportionate reproductive success. </p>
<p>And besides, we also have to be careful about what we mean by black, hispanic, or Asian culture. Frankly, there are plenty of stupid Asians. Most of them tended to stay in Asia. There are plenty of very short and physically weak blacks, i.e. the Pygmies of Central Africa. The African-American population is significantly different, both culturally and genetically, from blacks in Africa, just like the Asian-American population is significantly different from Asians in Asia.</p>
<p>then is it fair to say
IN THE US
the asians are smarter due to genetics and culture
the black ppl are not as smart but more athletic.</p>
<p>since this thread is meant to discuss this phenomenon in "THE US"</p>
<p>no, screwthepc, it is NOT fair to say that in the us, any of those things are true.</p>
<p>because?</p>
<p>btw. plz screw the pc</p>
<p>To go back to the OP's question, maybe afrosaxgurl should do a survey at her high school and see what intended majors are. Maybe that would be the best place to ask students why they don't plan to major in engineering. I suspect that when anyone of any race rejects engineering it is because they either have no interest in technology or because they think it is too difficult.</p>
<p>I also agree that affirmative action casts a shadow of doubt until a person can actually prove himself. But that is the price a very qualified URM person pays for the advantage given to some URM's who are less qualified.</p>
<p>"But that is the price a very qualified URM person pays for the advantage given to some URM's who are less qualified."</p>
<p>completely agreed</p>
<p>Can some please define: "less qualified"?</p>
<p>Inhabits the 10th percentile of the entering freshman class.</p>
<p>I didn't think that "Less qualified" needed further clarification...people who would not normally gain admission to a certain college, earn a scholarship, be hired for a job, etc by merit of their own scores and accomplishments, but ultimately do because of their URM status. These would be less qualified people who receive an advantage.</p>
<p>afrosaxgurl says in her original post that "People may look at a minority student and think oh he/she only go into HYPMS because she/he is black." Yes, some people may unfairly think that, but to be truthful, some people think that because sometimes that happens. The same can be said for athletes and legacies.</p>
<p>Still, to answer the original question, I think people of all races/genders who shy away from engineering do so either because it is difficult or because it just doesn't appeal to them.</p>
<p>Let's talk about soccer people!
we need unity to bring that sport to the top height in the US
let's talk about soccer, the king sport, nothing else ... :D</p>
<p>In 3 B.C. God created soccer in china. Back in the day, it was only the nobles who can play soccer. It's more like a performance than a competition. These soccer artists usually perform in front of the king (and of course his multiple wives who don't know what the heck sports are). Soccer back then wasn't as cool as soccer nowadays. There were 2 holes and people kick the ball thru it to score. But the holes are so high that only flying chinese can fly up and score. It was boring.</p>
<p>However, the american thought that was cool and copied that. But, american can't fly, so we lowered the holes down to 10 feet tall. And since we are fat and can't control the balls with our feet, we use our hands only. And just for fun, we added the little open-ended nets and called the game basketball. So original!</p>
<p>Here comes the bristish, and of course they hate us because we're rivals. Since british are shorter than american, they stole the game and brought it down to the ground. Instead of baskets, they call them nets. They also added the posts around to make borders. They started to write the rules in 19th century at the hottest university in the world (not harvard). After that the british started to go around the world on a mission: to spread soccerism. Everyone was cool with it from Africa to Asia, from north to south, even polar bears have fun with soccer at the poles. Except for the US (and maybe its partner Australia). They invented a weird a$$ game with a cool a$$ copied name: football. The australian is a little bit more creative, they call it Rugby (but it's essentially the same looking oval ball). And since they are the british's rivals, they refuse to accept soccer. Up until now, the fever started to spread over to America and Australia. And just to make things worst, the british sent David Beckham here to make movies and adored by girls. They hope their goal of spreading soccerism is successful. Still, we don't know. One thing we know, though, Soccer rules the world.</p>
<p>I believe, there are only around 3 countries (US, Canada, Australia) in the world that call 'association football' soccer. Most people in the world refer to it as football, which I think, is the more appropriate term. </p>
<p>The word 'soccer' (which is supposedly to be a short for 'association') was first coined by some British guy, probably back in the early 18th or 19th century (I don't remember the exact details, you can wikipedia it if you absolutely have to know) to differentiate it with other codes of football at the time. </p>
<p>Sorry for going off-topic, but I just could not resist...</p>
<p>oh yeah I forgot canada in the history of soccer
it will be added next post :D</p>