Orientals Are The Superior Race?

The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Vol. 82, No. 2 429-434
Copyright © 1997 by The Endocrine Society

Racial Differences in Bone Density between Young Adult Black and White Subjects Persist after Adjustment for Anthropometric, Lifestyle, and Biochemical Differences1,2

Bruce Ettinger, Stephen Sidney, Steven R. Cummings, Cesar Libanati, Daniel D. Bikle, Irene S. Tekawa, Kimberly Tolan and Peter Steiger

Division of Research (B.E., S.S., I.S.T., K.T.), Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Oakland 94611; Department of Medicine (S.R.C.), University of California, San Francisco 94143; Division of Endocrinology (C.L.), Department of Medicine, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Loma Linda 92357; Mineral Metabolism Unit (D.D.B.), Veterans Administration Medical Center, San Francisco, California 94121; Hologic, Inc. (P.S.), Waltham, Massachusetts 02154

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Bruce Ettinger, MD, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, 3505 Broadway, Oakland, California 94611-5714.

This study tested whether racial differences in bone density can be explained by differences in bone metabolism and lifestyle. A cohort of 402 black and white men and women, ages 25–36 yr, was studied at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Northern California, a prepaid health plan. Body composition (fat, lean, and bone mineral density) was measured using a Hologic-2000 dual-energy x-ray densitometer. Muscle strength, blood and urine chemistry values related to calcium metabolism, bone turnover, growth factors, and level of sex and adrenal hormones were also measured. Medical history, physical activity, and lifestyle were assessed. Statistical analyses using t- and chi-square tests and multiple regression were done to determine whether racial difference in bone density remained after adjustment for covariates. Bone density at all skeletal sites was statistically significantly greater in black than in white subjects; on average, adjustment for covariates reduced the percentage density differences by 42% for men and 34% for women. Adjusted bone density at various skeletal sites was 4.5–16.1% higher for black than for white men and was 1.2–7.3% higher for black than for white women. We concluded that racial differences in bone mineral density are not accounted for by clinical or biochemical variables measured in early adulthood.

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/82/2/429

 

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That does not back up your claim that you can never have as high of bone density. This is something that changes with your lifestyle.

 

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No need to place bets; the ones that cannot sustain themselves according to the environmental constraints are the ones that are genetically "weaker"; e.g. increased obesity, cancer, heart diseases, will appear earlier in the population, until the birth rate falls and the death rate increases. Thats just an example of what is seen currently. Other changes you may see are changes in adaptability (like e.g. increased genetic defects, increased incidence of mental defects) etc. Nature does not tolerate inefficiency.

 

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So you're saying the African population (currently being devastated by AIDS, malarie, etc) is healthier than that of developed nations? You're a bit out of touch with reality. And African Americans, for instance, suffer from all the things you mention more than anyone else.

 

Africans are being devasted by AIDS because they don't have the proper medication (AIDS cocktails), education and birth control (condoms) that we have readily availabe here in the US. As far as African Americans being more prone to diseases such as heart disease, you are right, but I think it has more to do with the diet here in US and that fact that there bodies have been conditioned for thousands of years to a different environment and diet.

 

That's true. And the reason they don't have access to those things is that they live in harmony with nature and don't exploit it leaving them dirt poor.

SAM regards this as a positive attribute and believes that it enhances their fittness. I don't concur.

 

that kinda explains the diffenent characteristics of the races however they can over come by Individuals ..and drugs

 

So then no country should ever let a sub-Saharan African within their government?

 

I completely agree with this statement. I'd go so far as to say that most suffering and poverty in the world and throughout human history is a result of the same problem.

But SAM had cited Africa as more "fit" from an evolutionary perspective since they don't exploit the environment as much as the US. You know, due to the fact that they're dirt poor. I was simply pointing out that poverty is not a sign of evolutionary fittness.

 

Your right, it is though a sign of less evolutionary intelligence.

 

Fraggle,

Your analysis adds up to one thing - that sub-Saharan Africans have exerted no control whatsoever over their environment or history. It's suprising the wind hasn't blown them all off the continent.

According to Rushton's research sub-Saharan Africa's failiure to industrialise is to a large extent due to a constitutional inability in the people who live there to comprehend and manipulate matter to the very sophisticated level required by a modern industrial nation.

When we talk about the West 'exploiting' nature we are really talking about the huge degree of CONTROL we exert over the natural world for our own benefits. There is absolutley no need for us to build the space shuttle - a vehicle more sophisticated than the common house fly - we did it because the Western mind is like a vector (arrow) - it seeks direction and power. The African mind is like a circle - it does not discriminate, it's perfectly at home in its surroundings (living in harmony with nature).

IQ tests measure our ability at logical progressions (vector like thinking) and hence Africans will always come off worse. This is not a result of bad leaders, exploitation of resources, etc.. its a physical boundary which separates two distinct races. Neither does it make Africans inferior in any way. Nature made us this way and we need to get used to it.

Most people are familiar with the idea that humans and primates are closely related but how many are aware that primates have different coloured skins? Some have 'white' skin, some 'black', some 'brown'. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we were never the same in the first place so we shouldn't expect to find any ground or common ancestor in which we are all identical. Look at any map of human migration and you'll see arrows (vectors) pointing out of Africa. Well those arrows represent not just how we went but why we went.

We should stop expecting sub-Saharan Africa to become like us.

 

u r correct about the effects of diet on all of those characteristics, but surely most of the differences must be due to genes. if that weren't the case, than if a large enough group of blacks or whites were to adopt the asian diet and culture, the average person of that group should have nearly the characteristics of the average asian.

also, these trends are true for asians living in america, and i don't think the average asian in america lives by the asian culture or eats the asian diet on a consistent basis.

 

I'm not sure that they would not. Neither is Professor Rushton, so far as I can tell. That was my point. Rushton may assume racial that all differences between the races are innate products of evolution, but it's not science until he adequately controls for the possibility that the traits in question may be (in whole or in part) artifacts of culture (including, but not limited to, diet) or otherwise arising fromother sources than genetics.

 

I can flat out right now tell you it's genetics. Of course environment affected those genetics over time but it doesn't change overnight due to a change in environment. I grew up in a mixed family and have known many other mixed families because of it so there was a lot of contrast witnessed throughout the years. Things that are ingrained or inherited stay with you for a very long time and can not only affect your inclinations, but personality, and how you think about things. We even have discussed how a full-blooded asian woman's son or daughter from a previous marriage was very different in temperament and ways from her mixed child even though they were raised in the same household and the full-blooded child had almost no contact with the other parent. But we already knew the reason why and nodded, genetics. I even see it about myself and my family from physical characteristics as not wrinking as fast as others and other subtle peculiarities and ways. They are all successful and all their children have done very well in school. It's also common to think they study more than other children but that's not totally true, they are a bit more efficient at it. I had plenty of friends who goofed off but they all seemed to know when to put the nose to the grindstone when push came to shove. But even without extra studying, they would still have done better than the average student. Many of them actually did well in sports, I know one asian guy who played football and every other sport but still because of bulk of size of other players, he would not have the advantage in that area. We all have our areas of strength and weakness.

 

Why i realised it is wrong to make assumptions about individuals based on race.

One thing I've come to realise, (despite some of these claims holding true when you talk about differences of distributions BETWEEN groups), is that there is MORE variation WITHIN groups (than there is between groups).

The distribution of intelligence, height, weight, strength, aggression, etc. WITHIN each racial group is much greater than it is BETWEEN the averages of different groups.

It is for this and some other reasons, that I won't make assumptions on an individual based on their race, gender, etc - even if some studies/stats find differences (in averages) between groups.

Despite the findings of some group differences on say height, aggression, IQ, which could be due to a range of factors including, genetics, environment, nutrition.....

There's still a very good chance that say, the height, IQ, or whatever you might wrongfully assume, of an individual (based on e.g. race) will be outside of the range of variation due to race, and instead different due to the other factors, environment (upbringing, education, nutrition, health, etc etc.)

Here's an example:
I'm not going to jump on someone with the PC police for pointing out differences in IQ scores or crime statistics - for the AVERAGE OF A GROUP. Those stats are there to be discussed along with ALL factors that could influence them, not ignored in the interest of political correctness or cowardess. But furthermore they should be aware of ALL the factors that could influence such a difference. They could be diet, lifestyle, education, upbringing (parental style) societal culture, many things could influence scores, as well as genetics, shaped by evolution.

It is wrong to claim (far-left example: As my biased Sociology subject lecturer and tutor claimed) that there are simply "no genetic differences between racial groups" - we know there are, anatomical differences (muscle fibres, bone densities, height) and differences in prevalence of health conditions, and we should be open to maturely and respectfully discuss all possible factors that might lead to these differences, including environmental and genetic.

It would also be wrong to assume something about an individual based on their race. Lets use the far-right example of someone who assumes that a person of darker skin is less intelligent than them. Its not just some whites who do this by the way. In fact I would argue that today (2007) whites find it the MOST intolerable and offensive to make assumptions of an individual based on race, compared with other groups.

The distribution of intelligence within say, whites, is much greater than the current finding of a difference between racial groups. In the case of an average IQ of 100, and a standard deviation of 15, meaning that 16% of people have IQs higher than 115, and another 16% have IQs lower than 85.

This is a commonly discussed figure depicting differences between groups in IQ scores, although I don't claim it is entirely accurate.

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See how much of these distributions overlap?

So much of one distribution overlaps the distribution for other racial groups, that there is a very good chance that the random person a BIGOT might assume to be less intelligent than themselves, is in fact more intelligent than
the average person of the BIGOTS OWN group.

There is more difference WITHIN groups, than BETWEEN groups. Furthermore, the difference BETWEEN groups is likely due to a number of factors including both environmental and genetic. If you even out all the environmental differences, I assume these differences would be closer together.

In the case of this example, there is a damn good chance that the person one makes racial assumptions about is in fact not as one assumes them to be, for genetic, or MANY different and important environmental reasons.
Making assumptions about a person is potentially very offensive, if expressed openly.

Therefore I find it inappropriate to make assumptions about individuals based on race.

I would like to ask the opinions of others here;
Many countries, including the (apartheid) state of Israel, and other countries like Japan and China, currently employ immigration policies FAR more racially restrictive than countries in the "West".
In Japan for example, they recognised higher crime rates in non-Japanese ("gayjin") groups, and (in my opinion rightly so) decided to make it harder for other non-Japanese to enter Japan, and to gain citizenship.

Is it inappropriate to have peaceful preferences/opinions regarding ones own country's immigration policy, and for those opinions to be partially informed by statistics which show differences between ethnic groups?
Is it wrong to look at certain statistics, group trends, and to develop personal opinions on what your country's immigration policies should be?

 

If Japan and China and Israel have tougher screening policies, then no, it is not wrong, to implement them. Security checks around the world are tougher if you are percieved as to come from a certain country, Its about perception.

However, if you were outright denying entry or limiting entry to individuals without examining their record first.... then yes.. THAT would be wrong.

 

Finally, an explanation of why Eskimos and Inuit and Siberian tribes and Lapps and the northern Red Indians had such high IQs, low rates of promiscuity, and long lives compared with the easy-living Mediterranean Jews and Greeks and Romans.

Now we know why Hannibal and his fellow soldiers, the Egyptian Pharoahs and their craftsmen, the Mayans and Incas and their generations of plant breeding, had such poor impulse control and lack of discipline, compared with the Picts and Celts and Vikings and Mongols and the other northern, white and "oriental" exemplars of family stability and calm intelligence.

We especially praise the author's highlighting of the large genetic contribution to the present day racial characteristics of "orientals" made by the members of the Mongol Horde from the north, whose physical features, calm and unaggressive personalities, and devotion to family stability have so obviously stamped the oriental race with the characteristics it enjoys today.

Either that, or this author's thesis is so stupid it drools. Has the author noticed that there is a south and a north in Africa, a quite varied geography, featuring survival challenges at least as severe as anything faced in the warm, wet, rich lands of SE Asia and India, or the soft sand beaches of the Indonesian Archipelago?

And what is the author's explanation for the Reds of the Americas? They seem to run and jump very well, don't do so well in school, fare poorly in measures of family stability, etc, yet the factors influencing the white and yellow divergences from the black base would seem to have been strongest of all among them.

Meanwhile, we know that blacks in the US suffer disproportionately from lead poisoning as children, do not enjoy the same diet or lifestyle as white Americans on average, and in general cannot be used as controls for comparing races in the "same" environment.

And we also know that not all blacks have more fast twitch muscles, greater bone density, etc - Kenyans and Ethiopians do not, for example. They can't jump any better than whites, on average. They rule the marathon, though.

The entire question is vain. Until races have been defined in some non-sociological way, controlling for sociological influence is hopeless.

 

Please produce the data and the statistical controls you used to reach your conclusion. Or are you just relying on anecdotal evidence you pulled from your own experience? Even if you grew up in a mixed family, though, that's *not* science.

You want to see a powerful non-genetic effect on I.Q.? Then note that the first born child tends to be significantly smarter than his younger siblings. link Also, if that first-born dies or leaves, the I.Q. of the second-born tends to increase. If birth order has such a significant effect on I.Q., then imagine how many myriad other non-genetic influences there may be.

To simply assume the IQ difference is genetic is foolish. You might as well conclude that Americans are genetically inclined to be fatter than Europeans.

 

Idiot, I wasn't even talking about iq. I was talking about the fact he was very 'asian' in overall temperament compared to his halfsibling raised in the same household and both the mother and I agreed it was genetics as I was raised the same way but genes can be strong. From every habit and ways that we know as we're asian so we know, got it? Just as an african doesn't become white overnight just because he moves to alaska. I don't have a formal study but I know what I've witnessed so if you lack that much common sense, it's your problem.

And I would have to argue with you that genetics don't have something to do with iq, I think it does but nurturing does play a role in present and the potential you inherited. I agree with Iceaura's summation except for the diet aspect of african-americans, they like most americans enjoy a bounty of available food, sometimes much healthier than what whites eat. I would say other factors such as drug-infested and crime areas as well as cultural norms as well as genetics play a role in that aspect.