‘n Mens hoor dikwels die argument dat sportrekords (veral atletiekrekords) voortdurend verbeter word, word ons beter en daarom is evolusie waar. Maar is dit so: word ons beter? Indien nie, hoekom word rekords dan voortdurend gebreek? Daar is ’n hele paar redes:

• Tegnologie verbeter: Ek was verstom toe ek die artikel hieronder (High-tech Swimsuits: Hype Or Expensive Performance Enhancers?) lees om te verneem dat ’n swempak so ’n groot verskil kan maak aan ’n swemmer se prestasie. Om nie te praat van ander sporttoerusting nie soos fietse, rakette, gholfstokke, spykerskoene, ens.
• Oefenmetodes meer wetenskaplik: Om ’n voorbeeld hiervan te gee: ek ry fiets en ek het altyd gedink dat as ek oefen moet ek so hard as moontlik ry. Dit is nie waar nie. Dit is belangriker om te oefen teen die regte hardklop en eerder langer te oefen.
• Mense met talent word meer getrek as vroeër: As iemand vandag lyk of hy sporttalent het, word dit as ’n loopbaan oorweeg. Vergelyk dit met ’n paar jaar gelede. Gary Player se pa wou hê dat hy ’n graad moes gaan studeer in pleks van gholf speel. Daar is ook ’n gerug dat Ernie Els se ouma vir hom gevra het wanneer hy nou eendag ’n regte beroep gaan volg.
• Almal wil ’n sportheld wees: Die status om ’n sportheld te wees kan ’n rol speel dat meer mense sport wil doen.
• Beter voeding en gesondheid: Deesdae het ons toegang tot enige kossoort en mediese geriewe. Dit kan voorkom dat kinders vir lang tye siek is en dat hulle liggaamlik beter ontwikkel om as hulle groot is, liggaamlik sterker en groter te wees.
• Steroïdes: Ek verstaan dat ’n groot klomp sportmanne/vroue steroïdes gebruik in alle sportsoorte. Dink maar aan Marion Jones, Ben Johnson en nog baie ander. Hulle sal betyds ophou om dit te gebruik sodat dit nie meer in hulle liggame is tydens die byeenkoms nie. Dus is daar ’n hele paar goeie redes wat kan verklaar hoekom sportrekords voortdurend gebreek word sonder dat mense beter hoef te word. Dit is dus nie ’n bewys dat ons beter word nie en ook nie ’n bewys vir evolusie nie.
• Nuwe sportsoorte: In ’n nuwe sportsoort soos byvoorbeeld swem sal ’n mens verwag dat rekords gereeld verbeter sal word omdat daar nog geleer moet word wat die beste manier is om daardie sportsoort effektief te beoefen.

Die volgende TED talk aanbieding bevestig hierdie gedagte, alhoewel ’n mens die idee kry dat die aanbieder ’n evolusionis is:

Are athletes really getting faster, better, stronger? | David Epstein

En wat van slimmer? Word ons nie slimmer nie?

Nee – daar is ’n groot verskil tussen hoë intelligensie en baie kennis: Einstein byvoorbeeld het moontlik ’n baie hoë IK gehad, maar hy kon nie ’n rekenaar bou nie, want die kennis op daardie stadium was beperk. Net so kry ons vandag mense wat gemiddelde IK’s het, maar wat met baie hoë tegnologie werk. Indien kennis nie deur geslagte oorgedra word nie, volg agteruitgang, soos gesien kan word in die artikel The people that forgot time (and much else, too).

En leef ons nie langer nie?

Die gemiddelde ouderdom van mense is besig om te styg, maar nie omdat mense beter word nie – slegs omdat mediese tegnologie en voeding verbeter. As dit nie vir die mediese wetenskap was nie, is daar heel waarskynlik mense wat jy ken wat nie vandag meer hier sou wees nie – wat dood sou gewees het agv ’n siekte of ’n ongeluk. As jy vandag ’n babatjie 3000 jaar terugneem met ’n tydmasjien en die babatjie word groot soos al die mense 3000 jaar gelede, gaan hy nie langer leef as die res nie. Inteendeel, hy gaan heel moontlik korter leef omdat hy genetiese inligting verloor het. (Kyk Hoë Bybelse ouderdomme.)

Kyk ook:

• Will athletes ever stop breaking world records? (1 Augustus 2012)
• An ancient textile factory?
• The diminishing returns of beneficial mutations: “Beneficial mutations are often seen as the engine of evolution Mutations: evolution’s engine becomes evolution’s end!). However, beneficial mutations by themselves don’t solve the problem (see Beetle Bloopers. Mutations not only have to be beneficial, but they have to add biological information, i.e. specified complexity. However, practically all beneficial mutations observed have been losses of specified complexity (The evolution train’s a-comin’), with only a few disputable examples of mutations increasing information ever found (e.g. bacteria that digest nylon, citrate or xylitol.”
• From ape to man via genetic meltdown: a theory in crisis
• Plant geneticist: ‘Darwinian evolution is impossible’
• Study suggests humans are slowly but surely losing intellectual and emotional abilities
• Time—no friend of evolution
• Plant geneticist: ‘Darwinian evolution is impossible’ – Don Batten chats with plant geneticist John Sanford
• Hoe evolusie werk en hoekom dit nie werk nie (Daniel Louw)

Is die skepping-evolusie kwessie belangrik?

Hier volg ’n paar aanhalings uit die artikel From (theistic) evolution to creation:

• ‘How could the Fall of man have brought sin and death into the world, if the fossils were showing a creation ‘groaning’ for millions of years before man? How could man be both a rising ape and a fallen image? These were agonizing questions for my father.’
• How could God, who was Himself perfect goodness, countenance the suffering and death of countless creatures for billions of years, and then proclaim His creation ‘very good’
• Prof. Rendle-Short is acutely aware of the harm done to Christianity by evolutionary compromises. Some years ago he met a pastor who, on finding that Prof was now a ‘full on’ creationist, reacted strongly. He said that many years ago, he had heard Prof espouse theistic evolution. This had started this pastor on a downhill road which, he exclaimed, ‘nearly destroyed my faith.’
• Having discovered the crying need for Christians to ‘wake up’ to the power of the creation message, Prof has written a number of related books,…. It deals with the impact of Darwinism on the lives of four British Christians in the 19th and 20th centuries. Philip Gosse F.R.S. (a scientist who is best remembered for his disastrous effort to counter Darwin by explaining fossils as created ‘ready made’), George Romanes F.R.S. (another scientist, who abandoned his Christianity on becoming a close personal friend of Darwin’s, but regained his faith in the last few months of his short life and was one of Darwin’s literary executors), Prof’s own father, and lastly John Rendle-Short (Prof) himself.

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High-tech Swimsuits: Hype Or Expensive Performance Enhancers?

The swimsuits, says one expert, are bad news for the sport

Published on Aug 8, 2008 – 8:42:13 AM By: Indiana University

Aug. 7, 2008 – For Olympic champions, their swim times boil down to years of dedication, hard work and sacrifice. For exercise physiologists and swimming experts at Indiana University, it’s a matter of statistics.

These researchers can successfully predict winning swim times based on previous years’ performances, drawing attention to when anything other than chance — such as doping or high technology swim suits — gives athletes a boost.

Eight years ago, when the first generation of bodysuits was introduced prior to the Olympics, swim time predictions by researchers at IU’s Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming were so accurate that researchers concluded the suits had no impact on swim times. In Beijing, it could be a different story. At the U.S. trials in June, Counsilman Center researchers called all but two of the women’s individual races but accurately predicted only one of the men’s races.

“The men swam faster than expected,” said Joel Stager, director of the Counsilman Center and a professor of exercise physiology. “Something not taken into account in previous races contributed to the performances.”

If the high-tech swimsuits alter buoyancy, it would make a bigger impact with men because women generally are more buoyant, he said. Or, because men swim faster than women, the effect of lowering drag might also be more obvious.

Stager said the majority of the swim coaching community is in favor of banning high-tech swim suits in age-group competition. The swimsuits’ high cost raises equity issues, places an extra financial burden on athletes and swimming programs (swimming is not a revenue-generating sport) and could represent a major change to the sport — and one introduced by business interests. Stager notes that Olympians do not pay for their suits.

“The issue is half a million swimmers feeling forced into purchasing $500-plus swimsuits in order to be competitive,” said Stager, a coach and United States Masters Swimming champion. “Everything is based on impression.”

Stager said athletes report the new bodysuits last for only six to eight races.

“If all athletes are wearing these new suits, then what’s the point?” Stager said. “All we have done is artificially elevate performances across the board. The new suits are only effective if only ‘some’ athletes have access to them.”

Backgound:

* Equipment? International rules that govern swimming prohibit the use of equipment (or rather, “devices”) that improves performance or increases buoyancy, which is why swimmers do not compete using such training devices as fins, paddles or neoprene wet suits. Since Speedo introduced its new LZR bodysuit earlier this year, dozens of world records have been set. Normally, around 10 world records are set in a given year.

* Big jump in times? Over time, swim times improve in smaller increments as swimmers approach a theoretical limit to human performance. The top eight swimmers in the men’s 50-meter freestyle in the 2004 Olympics, for example, swam .08 seconds faster than their peers in the 2000 Olympics. This represents a .3 percent improvement. The mere nature of water also makes incremental improvements more challenging. The IU researchers say resistive forces caused by the water increase exponentially with an increase in swim speed. Thus, to swim a little faster (at high speeds) becomes more difficult because propulsive forces must increase exponentially to mirror the exponential increase in resistive forces of the water. “If the suits make a 10 percent, or even a 2 percent difference, as predicted by the manufacturer, it’s phenomenally fast when compared to annual improvements of much less than 1 percent,” Stager said. “What this forces you to do is to start asking, how fast would Mark Spitz have gone in 1972, how fast would Jim Montgomery have gone in 1976, if they would have had one of these suits? It places all the previous records sort of out of context.”

More Olympics insights:

* To read what IU professors have to say about pollution, Chinese image issues and the impact controversy involving China can have on athletes, please visit Olympics 2008: Tips for the Beijing Olympics.

* To read what IU professors have to say about controversial high-tech swimsuits, Tibetan independence, China’s efforts to protect endangered species, a faulty track & field starting system, and sports law, please visit Olympics 2008: Tips from Indiana University.