Why are there so many tall people in the NBA?

[Cartesiantheater]

The average height of an NBA player is far higher than the average height of Joe Shmo.

Why?


Was Basketball designed specifically for tall people? (The answer is no.
Basketball was designed as an indoor sport that could be played during the winter)


Or is it that tall people coincidentally have an advantage in basketball, and because those who have advantages tend to score more points, etc, they tend to be the players that NBA owners draft?





What is the moral? Most of the people in the NBA are not there because the sport was intentionally designed to accommodate tall people. They are there because there was a SELECTIVE ADVANTAGE given to tall people, because it is easier to score in basketball when you can see the goal. When you are tall, it is harder for someone smaller than you to restrict your vision or swat away your shot.

As a result of this SELECTIVE ADVANTAGE, the highest level of play of basketball in the world is FULL of the very tallest people on the planet.


The creator of basketball did not DESIGN his sport to be played by tall people. It just so happened that tall people had an advantage.

As TIME WENT ON, the smaller people in the NBA were SELECTED AGAINST, and as a result, modern basketball has a very high average height for its players (there are still some "small" players, 6', 6'2", etc, but they are the vast minority). This is a type of SELECTION. SELECTION causes changes in the members of a group as time progresses. Originally, the best basketball players were of all heights. As time progressed, the tallest players began to gravitate toward the highest level of play. Selection at work.


In any environment where there are rules, you will see creatures in that environment slowly take on a certain form as time progresses, due to selective pressures, advantages, and disadvantages. It happens quite automatically.

[Cyranothe2nd]

...because they can dunk easier than short people.

[PanamaGuy]

thats pretty true..........

[JenaS62]

In any environment where there are rules, you will see creatures in that environment slowly take on a certain form as time progresses, due to selective pressures, advantages, and disadvantages. It happens quite automatically.

So as part of evolution people are getting taller so that they can play better basketball?

[Mezurashi]

So as part of evolution people are getting taller so that they can play better basketball?

makes as much sense as the stuff about 2012 ...

or God ...

[Cartesiantheater]

So as part of evolution people are getting taller so that they can play better basketball?

lol no.

The point was that BECAUSE tall people have an advantage in basketball, and advantage that has nothing to do with the design of basketball, as time has progressed, the only players you see in the NBA are tall people. Even the "short" people in the NBA are tall (6'1", etc).


Just like Darwin's finches over the interval in which certain beak sizes gave advantages, and resulted in the majority of the birds having beaks of a certain size.


Basically I am comparing one type of selection with another.

[Tired Old Man]

So many ways to go with this thread.
The strongest or fastest in evolution is not always the last one standing.
I'll give you the best for the job ( ? ) at the time. If that is what you are trying to point out.
Tall people do better at basketball than short people. But in evolution it is a different game.

[Mezurashi]

and I just thought of an exception to the rule -

his name is Steve Nash and one of his nicknames is The Sniper.

look him up, he's not freakishly tall, he's not a prima donna, he's about as white as a caucasian can get, yet he was the NBA's MVP and he's Canadian (and Basketball was INVENTED by a Canadian btw).

so ... an example where 'natural selection' is bypassed by 'unpredictable variables.'

but I'm sure there are other factors which makes this perfectly reasonable within the structure of the argument ...

[Cartesiantheater]

and I just thought of an exception to the rule -

his name is Steve Nash and one of his nicknames is The Sniper.

look him up, he's not freakishly tall, he's not a prima donna, he's about as white as a caucasian can get, yet he was the NBA's MVP and he's Canadian (and Basketball was INVENTED by a Canadian btw).

so ... an example where 'natural selection' is bypassed by 'unpredictable variables.'

but I'm sure there are other factors which makes this perfectly reasonable within the structure of the argument ...

Just like in the wild, you will see general evolutionary trends, but you WILL occasionally find creatures who have managed to fill a very unique niche. This is Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, etc.

[Mezurashi]

Just like in the wild, you will see general evolutionary trends, but you WILL occasionally find creatures who have managed to fill a very unique niche. This is Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, etc.

next question should be, "So, are these 'niche' organisms likely to multiply or be eradicated by the 'dominant' organism?"

translated into sports talk - Does this mean short-ass Asians might someday make it into the NBA based on Skill and not Height?

*inspired by thoughts of Sadaharu Oh and Ichiro Suzuki - the guy who started people thinking the impossible and the guy who did the impossible - albeit in an entirely different sport*

[Cartesiantheater]

next question should be, "So, are these 'niche' organisms likely to multiply or be eradicated by the 'dominant' organism?"

translated into sports talk - Does this mean short-ass Asians might someday make it into the NBA based on Skill and not Height?

The "dominant" species will not affect it. It's a totally different niche. These "creatures" cannot survive outside the niche, and the niche (which is controlled by the environment itself) is not going to expand. (you aren't going to see bacteria living in Yellow Stone suddenly spread to the surface and eliminate all the surface bacteria).

Worse case scenario is that there comes a long a "breed" that does what Steve Nash does better than he does. So, if short little Asians migrate over to the NBA and are able to handle the ball and distribute it to the big guys better than guys like Nash then we'll see a change, but...

in niche evolution even when one creature is ousted, the new one shares several striking similarities with the one that was "defeated," and this is because the niche requires it, as you no doubt are aware.

With the current NBA, the refs seem to allow more physical play, so whoever the short guys are, they have to be strong enough to deal with this.

*inspired by thoughts of Sadaharu Oh and Ichiro Suzuki - the guy who started people thinking the impossible and the guy who did the impossible - albeit in an entirely different sport*

Who knows? Very clever stuff, however. Very clever, lol.

[Cherisa]

I heard that the species was actually getting shorter

[Cartesiantheater]

I heard that the species was actually getting shorter

Well, that's incorrect in both the species and in basketball (since the inception of basketball).

In the species it is due to better nutrition, not evolution by natural selection. In the NBA it has been both nutrition/technology and selection.

[Cherisa]

Apparently just the americans and the dutch..That's not the whole speices..lol

"Cro-Magnon men were about the same height as modern men," said Professor Henneberg. But the subsequent Ice Age dealt a blow to the anatomy. "Big game became scarcer and many populations switched to agriculture in which food supply was limited, while great body strength was not necessarily at a premium any more . . . agriculture is bad-quality food and that causes the shrinkage in stature."

From the Neolithic Age, about 5000 years ago

[Mezurashi]

when it comes to biological evolution I remember humans being spoken of as 'apex generalists' in that we've not adapted to any specific environment but rather gone the route of being able to adapt rapidly thanks to our being 'not so efficient' as compared to other Earth organisms.

although there are a lot of other plants and animals on Earth that are good generalists the majority seem to have developed specialization to their environment to the point where even minor shifts can have detrimental effects on those organisms that is more significant in proportion than the effect it would have on a more generalized organism in the same environment.

we don't have claws, overpowered jaws, long range eyesight, sensitive ears or noses as compared to other organisms. yet here we are, and it has been put out there that our success as a species is a result of our leaning away from specialization as a group.

as individuals this point would not apply - one rule does not govern all, though it offers guidelines for everyone. but evolution relies on individuals passing on traits ... it gets confusing.

and now for something completely different ...

[Cartesiantheater]

Apparently just the americans and the dutch..That's not the whole speices..lol

"Cro-Magnon men were about the same height as modern men," said Professor Henneberg. But the subsequent Ice Age dealt a blow to the anatomy. "Big game became scarcer and many populations switched to agriculture in which food supply was limited, while great body strength was not necessarily at a premium any more . . . agriculture is bad-quality food and that causes the shrinkage in stature."

From the Neolithic Age, about 5000 years ago

Yes, that is my point. As I said, increase in height is not due to evolution, it is due to nutrition. Thus, it is obvious that only the developed rich nations would show this increase.

But in basketball, selection is also one of the reasons the average height of a basketball player at the top levels is so much higher than the species and has increased since the inception of the sport.





The key point is this: There IS NO selective pressure for height any taller than the current average in the species- thus IF there is any height increase, it would be due to NUTRITION, not evolution.

However, there IS selective pressure for height taller than the average of the species in basketball. That is why there are taller people playing in the NBA than the average population. Do you get this part of what I'm saying?

[JenaS62]

Yes, that is my point. As I said, increase in height is not due to evolution, it is due to nutrition. Thus, it is obvious that only the developed rich nations would show this increase.

But in basketball, selection is also one of the reasons the average height of a basketball player at the top levels is so much higher than the species and has increased since the inception of the sport.





The key point is this: There IS NO selective pressure for height any taller than the current average in the species- thus IF there is any height increase (which there is compared to the Industrial revolution), it would be due to NUTRITION, not evolution.

However, there IS selective pressure for height taller than the average of the species. That is why there are taller people playing in the NBA than the average population. Do you get this part of what I'm saying?

NO. Maybe I am being totally thick here but again it sounds like you are saying that people are getting taller because of basketball. LOL

[Cartesiantheater]

NO. Maybe I am being totally thick here but again it sounds like you are saying that people are getting taller because of basketball. LOL

Yeah, it's going over your head. Start over. I don't think I can explain it better than I did in the original post.



I was comparing the average height of the species (which has NO SELECTIVE PRESSURE to be tall)

to the average height of an NBA player (which DOES have a SELECTIVE PRESSURE to be tall).


The one with the selective pressure is the one with the grossly inflated average height.





That is what selection pressure does. It causes divergence in the traits of creatures pressured by that selective pressure.

The moral is that when there is a selective pressure, you end up with populations that display characteristics that are favored by the selective pressure.

Since there is a selective pressure for basketball players in the NBA to be tall, because tallness grants players an advantage, you will find a very high average height among NBA players.


This is NOT the case with the general population. There IS NO selective pressure to be very tall in the main population. That is why the average height of the general population is so much shorter than that of players in the NBA.




Does that clarify it more?

[JenaS62]

Does that clarify it more?

Yes but it's like you are stating the obvious. Of course basketball players are going to be taller because there is a distinct advantage to being tall in basketball. So naturally, people that are overly tall are attracted to and are recruited to basketball. The same can be said of football. You rarely ever see a pro football player who is 5'5" and weighs in at 135 pounds. They would not survive on a field full of 6' - 6"3, 200+ pound players - well not for long anyway. The same can be said for sumo wrestling. Certain sports require certain physical characteristics to be successful in that sport.

[Cartesiantheater]

Yes but it's like you are stating the obvious. Of course basketball players are going to be taller because there is a distinct advantage to being tall in basketball. So naturally, people that are overly tall are attracted to and are recruited to basketball. The same can be said of football. You rarely ever see a pro football player who is 5'5" and weighs in at 135 pounds. They would not survive on a field full of 6' - 6"3, 200+ pound players - well not for long anyway. The same can be said for sumo wrestling. Certain sports require certain physical characteristics to be successful in that sport.

The same can be said about evolution by natural selection. The mechanism is OBVIOUSLY true, in the same way described thus far.


Furthermore, the theory accurately predicts features of creatures living in specific niches.


You hit the nail on the head. Congrats, you win!




There are many types of selective pressures, and ALL of them affect the things they select upon.