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Very moving music indeed. All the lyrics and links much appreciated. Now I'm sure that you have all seen “Gods and Generals”, “Gettesburg” and other fine civil war films, good music included. I have to say that I was very surprised and moved by “Cold Mountain” images that linger and suffering so illustrated makes me sad and proud.
Genetically, Africans are not much different than anyone else. When comparing the DNA of say two complete environmental opposites, Eskimoes and Nigerians, one will find the genetics to be nearly identical.Skiguy, totally theoretical disscussion, mind you I don't say anyone here is wrong. I do like to volley ideas. 😀 Now, the chimpanzee has 94% shared DNA with humans, the differences are well, evolutionary. I have three brothers, two were natural athletes, sure they practiced but it was obvious that they had natural talent, my middle bro. was a flop a every sport he ever tried, except darts and fishing where he excelled. It matters how the genetic soup is ladeled out and if you come from two tall, strong, high jumpers your chances of being one yourself is greatly improved!
Scout, you are correct and I am in err. Jean Baptists Lamarck, a contemporary of Linnaeus,(both published around 1750's-1780's) made the observation about the giraffe. His mistake was thinking that the adaptation would occur during a lifetime but he did later adjust his thinking, to 'change over generations.' He was a botanist and is know for his study of invertabrates.Mr.Baker, you are correct, Carl Linnaeus was also a botanist, known as the 'father of modern taxonomy'. He classified thousands of species of plants and animals, some incorrectly but overall his body of work is staggering. He was the first to classify whales as mammals and yet he thought sparrows spent the winter at the bottom of a lake. ;DDarwin regarded him as a genius as did Haekel and other biologists of the eighteenthcentury.
As a caveat the athleticism argument. If blacks have superior athletic attributes because of athleticism how do you then account for the apparent dominance of Kenyans and other East Africans in Distance running? Surely you are not going to insist that they bred themselves?
No Scout the Kenyons are built differently, to this day you see them, they are marathon runners. The Gold Coast tribes were built larger, the Maasi were tall and gracile. Women may have been taken from one tribe for breeding but I don't there was a lot of inter tribal mixing. Remember slaves taken from the interior, were taken by other Africans.
I read somewhere a good point in this argument. Is it not possible that the conditions of slavery naturally selected for stronger people? Slavery is definitely a condition in which only the strong can survive. Another point to consider is even without deliberate selective breeding isnt it plausible that slave owners only let their more productive slaves marry or take wives as a form of reward?
I agree, only the strongest would survive, there, we have already improved the odds for stronger bloodlines.Certainly some slave owners did allow thier slaves to marry by choice while some were forced into relations with unknown and unwanted partners.
I also question whether a few hundred years of selective breeding could produe such profound changes as are claimed. That is at most six to ten generations even assuming the females were bred as young as possible. Humans have a much longer breeding period than dogs or horses.
To that I say I am no Mendel but (as I understand it)traits are passed along depending on whether or not both parents carry a gene for hieght, freckles or sickle cell anemia for that matter. Even then the trait can be dormant and passed on in the next generation. Ideally a woman can have a baby once every two years and breeders would have taken good care of breeding women.
I am not saying some breeding did not happen, it is clear from the record that some did. What I am disputing is the notion of a large scale slave breeding program that could be responsible for the supposed athletic abilities currently observed.
Generally speaking Africans evolved to meet thier needs on the savannah, in the jungle, or desert and time was spent on surviving. Linnaeus describes a precursor to Darwin's theory, that a giraffe grew his neck because he willed it, Darwin would say he needed it. So did the Africans need thier physical adaptations which could have been improved apon by selective breeding.I agree it was not, could not, have been large scale operation, since most slave holders only had one or two slaves.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XB_-gBJF6yoC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=jefferson+breeding+slaves+edu&source=bl&ots=JqoQwJng0C&sig=MIKtxQSF1rAaVTfmpe0ly70fzOc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA36,M1Here is Jefferson specifically adding emphasis to breeding women, as a key to profitable ownership and the methods by which it can be done.It goes on to reveal his considerations for the plight of slaves and the ultimately unworkable plan to achieve a socially just place for former slave to live.
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp6.htmlThis is an interesting detail of Portugal, Spain, gold and Nazis.
http://www.isteve.com/blackath.htmHere is an oft cited article on the black v white athelete disscussion.Any genetic traits for skillful running and jumping would have come with a slave from Africa. Isn't it possible that a lineage exists among descendants of slaves, who share physical traits that were hand in hand with brawn and hieght? Some have suggested that diabetes(often afflicting blacks more than whites) can be traced to the days of sugar cain production. The idea that a slave owner could find a 'stud' and insist apon unions for desired traits is documented, not everywhere and not by all. Only about 5% of slave owners in US had more than one or two slaves, there are demographics to show that even after slaves ships were illegal and denied passage across the Atlantic, the populations continue to swell, while they decrease in Europe, Barbados etc. The reasons for which are multi-faceted but I think it can be inferred that breeding has a part in it.Are slaves' diaries any more anecdotal than a letter from Jefferson to Madison? Jefferson clearly expressed the need to grow his slave population, they were scare and expensive and you would not want to beat a slave to death.
http://us-civil-war.suite101.com/article.cfm/slave_breeding_in_the_antebellum_southThis addresses Lynch's appeal to breed slaves. Certainly livestock was selectively bred, why not slaves?
If I could add to my comments, I will provide documentation to backup my points here, just need a little time to be sufficient inn my response. Also, I want to say that I in no way intended to single out Southern Plantation owners for particular scorn, nor do I condemn T.Jefferson for being a man in the time of slavery. He was known to be quite decent as slave owners go and the institution was far greater in scope and influence than any one group of people.
I know this stretching to help make your point Scout but I can't resist writing 'cadre' 😉 and my best example would be the jungle warfare in WW2, Burma, India and Guadalcanal. The cadre reached a pinnacle during Pacific campaigns, much like E-Z Co. in Europe.
There is a difference Scout, in the way Rome and other ancient empires treated slaves, in that many ultimately had a chance at freedom. Even so called 'free states' enforced the Fugitive Slave Act.Race didn't matter, slavery was a social class except in the Dutch colonies of the New World, slavery becomes a lot for dark skinned peoples of Africa, Carribean, Cuba etc.I don't say that male slaves were first bred to be strong for the sake of creating a master race of bohemoths, the point was to destroy the family and the unity shared by husband and wife, the connection of mother and child. Jefferson in his "Letters from the Farm, tells us the true value of the female slave is to reproduce, increasing the wealth of the slave owner, by the time J. wrote these letters slaves were no longer being taken from Africa, so reproduction was the best way to have more slaves.Frederick Douglass describes this alienation of family members quite clearly in his Narrative, that it was imperative to controlling a slave population, that they be turned against one another, to point where spys were set in among slaves and in response you see the psycological conditioning at work to the extreme of slaves praising masters who were likely to flogg a slave, as being superior.
Oh he does Mr. Baker, not to overlook all the grand contributions of the rest of this group.I feel like I'm stealing! All of this information, all the years of study, right here to be assimilated.Its a great gift from all of you, and I am in my glory. Thank you 🙂
