drtbear1967
Musclechemistry Board Certified Member
Genetic Manipulation
The article below is not intended to be racist in any way; it is merely a discussion about genetics’, genetic manipulation and human intervention.
In body building we are always hearing about genetics and how they play a huge role in going from a contender to being an IFBB champion. Genetics plays a huge part in the size, shape, and potential size of the muscle, but you have to put in the work. You can be loaded with potential and if you are too lazy to work for it, you will get nothing. In the animal kingdom, we see the role of genetics played out daily, how the genetic potential is manipulated to produce the best specimen possible. Therefore, I want to give a few examples and hope to at least make people think outside of the box when having discussions about genetics.
Having spent the majority of my youth on a farm and around big time farmers both dairy and beef producers, you learn very quickly how genetics can have a huge impact on the bottom line. In the dairy business, the money is generated by the amount of milk that a cow can produce on a daily basis. The cow is the primary holder of the genetic material as you want to breed the best producing cow, with the bull that produce more female than male calves. Those cows that do not produce as much are often culled or sold for slaughter. So in the dairy world, we look at the female as having the genetic material that we want to reproduce.
In the beef industry what a farmer wants is a meaty cow to be able to produce predominantly male calves that puts on muscle very fast so that they can be sold within 6 to 9months. It is best if the calves are small at birth, so as to increase the chance of an easy birth, which will help to keep the cow healthy and strong for years to come. So, we need to look at the genetic of the bull/male. You want a long lean bull, with a flat back, thickly muscled and a good temperament can also play a huge part. When you are dealing with an animal that is 1000 to 1500 pound, you don’t really want him to be mad and pissed off all the time. You also want him to have more male calves that female as the male calves are primarily what are sold for beef.
Many farms also use artificial Insemination for their farms. They buy semen from some of the best bulls in the nation and add that bloodline into their herd. This is a way to continue to improve the heard, both in the dairy and in the beef farms without having to spend a great deal of money for a head sire /Bull
So that is a little run down on how you can see genetics at work on a farm. Now I want you to think about how we have seen this same scenario played out across the world in the human kingdom.
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life is a 1994 book by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and is a better predictor of many personal dynamics, including financial income, job performance, birth out of wedlock, and involvement in crime than are an individual's parental socioeconomic status. They also argue that those with high intelligence, the "cognitive elite", are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence. The book was controversial, especially where the authors wrote about racial differences in intelligence and discussed the implications of those differences. This was an example of intelligence and both genetic and environmental factors. Many of the arguments put forth by the authors were controversial, ranging from the relationships between low measured intelligence and anti-social behavior, to a genetic component of the low observed test scores for African-American(compared with whites). There were a plethora of authors that came out and disputed the research and actual did their own research on the topic, however without the bell curve, there may not have been discussion at all.
We have also seen the negative side of trying to manipulate genetics. Adolf Hitler had praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf in 1925 and emulated eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States once he took power.[SUP][42][/SUP]Some common early 20th century eugenics methods involved identifying and classifying individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, promiscuous women, homosexuals, and racial groups (such as the Roma and Jews in Nazi Germany) as"degenerate" or "unfit", leading to their segregation or institutionalization, sterilization, euthanasia, and even their mass murder.[SUP][43][/SUP]The Nazi practice of euthanasia was carried out on hospital patients in the Aktion T4 centers such as Hartheim Castle.
By the end of World War II, many discriminatory eugenics laws were abandoned, having become associated with Nazi Germany.[SUP][43] [44][/SUP]H. G. Wells, who had called for "the sterilization of failures" in 1904, [SUP][45][/SUP]stated in his 1940 book The Rights of Man: Or what are we fighting for? That among the human rights which he believed should be available to all people was "a prohibition on mutilation, sterilization, torture, and any bodily punishment".[SUP][46][/SUP]After World War II, the practice of "imposing measures intended to prevent births within [a population] group" fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide, set out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[SUP][47][/SUP]The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also proclaims "the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at selection of persons".[SUP][48][/SUP]In spite of the decline in discriminatory eugenics laws, some government mandated sterilizations continued into the 21st century. During the ten years President Alberto Fujimori led Peru from 1990 to 2000;allegedly 2,000 persons were involuntarily sterilized.[SUP][49][/SUP]China maintained its coercive one-child policy until 2015 as well as a suite of other eugenics based legislation to reduce population size and manage fertility rates of different populations.[SUP][50] [51] [52][/SUP]in 2007 the United Nations reported coercive sterilisations and hysterectomies in Uzbekistan.[SUP][53][/SUP]During the years 2005–06 to 2012–13, nearly one-third of the 144 California prison inmates who were sterilized did not give lawful consent to the operation.
But we don’t have to look across the ocean to see genetic manipulation, a study, which examined the genomes of 3,726 African-Americans, found differences in African-American genetic ancestry according to regional patterns. African-Americans living in the South had the highest percentage of African ancestors. Those living in the North and West regions had significantly lower percentages of African ancestors, and higher percentages of European ones. These genetic differences originate from the movements of people during the Great Migration—the massive exodus of over six million black people from the South to Northern cities between 1910 and 1970.
Geneticists use the term admixture to describe when two previously isolated genetic groups—such as Europeans and Africans—combine by interbreeding. Today, most African-Americans have both African and European ancestry. This can be traced back to the horrific legacies of slavery, during which European slave masters raped the African women they owned. Many of those that were raped were those that worked in the houses and were found to be more attractive and acceptable to the slave owner, and often a lighter skinned baby would be produced from the encounter.
<iframe name="google_ads_iframe_/56091333/qz_1__hidden__" width="0" height="0" title="" id="google_ads_iframe_/56091333/qz_1__hidden__" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border: currentColor; border-image: none; vertical-align: bottom; display: none; visibility: hidden;"></iframe>African-Americans living in the South had the highest percentage of African ancestors. Simon Gravel, an assistant professor of human genetics, and his team at McGill University created a model of genetic data to approximate the point at which African and European genes had combined. Unsurprisingly, they found that admixture began before and around the time of the Civil War. Historically, the end of slavery largely meant the end of the systemic rape of enslaved black women, which also fit the end point for admixture in the genetic model.
These findings suggest that earlier waves of the Great Migration were comprised of black people with a greater percentage of European heritages than later waves. This makes sense, given the historical privileges accorded to lighter-skinned African-Americans. The fact that people with lighter skin were likely to face less job and housing discrimination may have enabled them to move away earlier than darker-skinned people.
The slave owners looked at the slaves much like the farmers of today look at their cattle. They would breed the biggest male with the strongest woman to get the best of both in the child. One could hypotheses that we can see this genetic manipulation today in sports, especially in the United States. In sports both amateur and professional you will find many of the best athletes are predominantly black.
If you take a snap shot of sports across the entire world, you will have a kaleidoscope of color, except for the US. The only place that you find such a high percentage of black athletes vs. other races is in Africa. Is it any wonder that the US only excels on the world stage where black athletes are involved? In the Olympics we excel in very few winter sports where we have very few black athletes, but if you look at the summer games where we often have a lot of black athletes, we are often seen wearing the Gold.
Is it any surprise that many of the best athletes in the United States are black? It shouldn’t.
In the bodybuilding world we see both black and non black athletes rise to the top of the profession. However when you look at champions like Ronnie Coleman, Lee Haney, Phil Heath, Dexter Jackson, Sergio Oliva and Robbie Robertson, they have and continue to set the standard for what was and will be consider a champion.
When you look at the completion of today, we have to look at the drugs and the amounts that are being taken just to compete. Justin Compton and Dallas McCarver are two of the best up and coming bodybuilders but will they be able to ever win the Mr. O? Is that due to genetics?
The question that we should be asking is what does the future hold, both good and bad due to the genetic manipulation?
The article below is not intended to be racist in any way; it is merely a discussion about genetics’, genetic manipulation and human intervention.
In body building we are always hearing about genetics and how they play a huge role in going from a contender to being an IFBB champion. Genetics plays a huge part in the size, shape, and potential size of the muscle, but you have to put in the work. You can be loaded with potential and if you are too lazy to work for it, you will get nothing. In the animal kingdom, we see the role of genetics played out daily, how the genetic potential is manipulated to produce the best specimen possible. Therefore, I want to give a few examples and hope to at least make people think outside of the box when having discussions about genetics.
Having spent the majority of my youth on a farm and around big time farmers both dairy and beef producers, you learn very quickly how genetics can have a huge impact on the bottom line. In the dairy business, the money is generated by the amount of milk that a cow can produce on a daily basis. The cow is the primary holder of the genetic material as you want to breed the best producing cow, with the bull that produce more female than male calves. Those cows that do not produce as much are often culled or sold for slaughter. So in the dairy world, we look at the female as having the genetic material that we want to reproduce.
In the beef industry what a farmer wants is a meaty cow to be able to produce predominantly male calves that puts on muscle very fast so that they can be sold within 6 to 9months. It is best if the calves are small at birth, so as to increase the chance of an easy birth, which will help to keep the cow healthy and strong for years to come. So, we need to look at the genetic of the bull/male. You want a long lean bull, with a flat back, thickly muscled and a good temperament can also play a huge part. When you are dealing with an animal that is 1000 to 1500 pound, you don’t really want him to be mad and pissed off all the time. You also want him to have more male calves that female as the male calves are primarily what are sold for beef.
Many farms also use artificial Insemination for their farms. They buy semen from some of the best bulls in the nation and add that bloodline into their herd. This is a way to continue to improve the heard, both in the dairy and in the beef farms without having to spend a great deal of money for a head sire /Bull
So that is a little run down on how you can see genetics at work on a farm. Now I want you to think about how we have seen this same scenario played out across the world in the human kingdom.
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life is a 1994 book by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and is a better predictor of many personal dynamics, including financial income, job performance, birth out of wedlock, and involvement in crime than are an individual's parental socioeconomic status. They also argue that those with high intelligence, the "cognitive elite", are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence. The book was controversial, especially where the authors wrote about racial differences in intelligence and discussed the implications of those differences. This was an example of intelligence and both genetic and environmental factors. Many of the arguments put forth by the authors were controversial, ranging from the relationships between low measured intelligence and anti-social behavior, to a genetic component of the low observed test scores for African-American(compared with whites). There were a plethora of authors that came out and disputed the research and actual did their own research on the topic, however without the bell curve, there may not have been discussion at all.
We have also seen the negative side of trying to manipulate genetics. Adolf Hitler had praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf in 1925 and emulated eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States once he took power.[SUP][42][/SUP]Some common early 20th century eugenics methods involved identifying and classifying individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, promiscuous women, homosexuals, and racial groups (such as the Roma and Jews in Nazi Germany) as"degenerate" or "unfit", leading to their segregation or institutionalization, sterilization, euthanasia, and even their mass murder.[SUP][43][/SUP]The Nazi practice of euthanasia was carried out on hospital patients in the Aktion T4 centers such as Hartheim Castle.
By the end of World War II, many discriminatory eugenics laws were abandoned, having become associated with Nazi Germany.[SUP][43] [44][/SUP]H. G. Wells, who had called for "the sterilization of failures" in 1904, [SUP][45][/SUP]stated in his 1940 book The Rights of Man: Or what are we fighting for? That among the human rights which he believed should be available to all people was "a prohibition on mutilation, sterilization, torture, and any bodily punishment".[SUP][46][/SUP]After World War II, the practice of "imposing measures intended to prevent births within [a population] group" fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide, set out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[SUP][47][/SUP]The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also proclaims "the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at selection of persons".[SUP][48][/SUP]In spite of the decline in discriminatory eugenics laws, some government mandated sterilizations continued into the 21st century. During the ten years President Alberto Fujimori led Peru from 1990 to 2000;allegedly 2,000 persons were involuntarily sterilized.[SUP][49][/SUP]China maintained its coercive one-child policy until 2015 as well as a suite of other eugenics based legislation to reduce population size and manage fertility rates of different populations.[SUP][50] [51] [52][/SUP]in 2007 the United Nations reported coercive sterilisations and hysterectomies in Uzbekistan.[SUP][53][/SUP]During the years 2005–06 to 2012–13, nearly one-third of the 144 California prison inmates who were sterilized did not give lawful consent to the operation.
But we don’t have to look across the ocean to see genetic manipulation, a study, which examined the genomes of 3,726 African-Americans, found differences in African-American genetic ancestry according to regional patterns. African-Americans living in the South had the highest percentage of African ancestors. Those living in the North and West regions had significantly lower percentages of African ancestors, and higher percentages of European ones. These genetic differences originate from the movements of people during the Great Migration—the massive exodus of over six million black people from the South to Northern cities between 1910 and 1970.
Geneticists use the term admixture to describe when two previously isolated genetic groups—such as Europeans and Africans—combine by interbreeding. Today, most African-Americans have both African and European ancestry. This can be traced back to the horrific legacies of slavery, during which European slave masters raped the African women they owned. Many of those that were raped were those that worked in the houses and were found to be more attractive and acceptable to the slave owner, and often a lighter skinned baby would be produced from the encounter.
<iframe name="google_ads_iframe_/56091333/qz_1__hidden__" width="0" height="0" title="" id="google_ads_iframe_/56091333/qz_1__hidden__" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border: currentColor; border-image: none; vertical-align: bottom; display: none; visibility: hidden;"></iframe>African-Americans living in the South had the highest percentage of African ancestors. Simon Gravel, an assistant professor of human genetics, and his team at McGill University created a model of genetic data to approximate the point at which African and European genes had combined. Unsurprisingly, they found that admixture began before and around the time of the Civil War. Historically, the end of slavery largely meant the end of the systemic rape of enslaved black women, which also fit the end point for admixture in the genetic model.
These findings suggest that earlier waves of the Great Migration were comprised of black people with a greater percentage of European heritages than later waves. This makes sense, given the historical privileges accorded to lighter-skinned African-Americans. The fact that people with lighter skin were likely to face less job and housing discrimination may have enabled them to move away earlier than darker-skinned people.
The slave owners looked at the slaves much like the farmers of today look at their cattle. They would breed the biggest male with the strongest woman to get the best of both in the child. One could hypotheses that we can see this genetic manipulation today in sports, especially in the United States. In sports both amateur and professional you will find many of the best athletes are predominantly black.
If you take a snap shot of sports across the entire world, you will have a kaleidoscope of color, except for the US. The only place that you find such a high percentage of black athletes vs. other races is in Africa. Is it any wonder that the US only excels on the world stage where black athletes are involved? In the Olympics we excel in very few winter sports where we have very few black athletes, but if you look at the summer games where we often have a lot of black athletes, we are often seen wearing the Gold.
Is it any surprise that many of the best athletes in the United States are black? It shouldn’t.
In the bodybuilding world we see both black and non black athletes rise to the top of the profession. However when you look at champions like Ronnie Coleman, Lee Haney, Phil Heath, Dexter Jackson, Sergio Oliva and Robbie Robertson, they have and continue to set the standard for what was and will be consider a champion.
When you look at the completion of today, we have to look at the drugs and the amounts that are being taken just to compete. Justin Compton and Dallas McCarver are two of the best up and coming bodybuilders but will they be able to ever win the Mr. O? Is that due to genetics?
The question that we should be asking is what does the future hold, both good and bad due to the genetic manipulation?
