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DNA Test To Determine Kids' Sports Futures
bs0d3 writes "Parents are being sold on the idea of buying DNA tests for their kids, to find out which sports they will be better at. The company called Atlas is based in Boulder, Colorado; and is selling DNA tests for $160. They are looking for what's called the ACTN-three gene, the gene behind what is called 'fast-twitch explosive muscles.' Children that don't have ACTN-three will be better suited for endurance sports like long distance running or swimming. Children that have a lot of it will be better suited for sports like football, rugby, wrestling, or hockey. Kids that have some ACTN-three will not be the fastest and not the slowest, they don't burn out the quickest and they don't last the longest. They are categorized as capable of playing just about any type of sport they like."
How will their performance be in Madden Games?
Great idea. I'm glad this service exists. You know what it's going to be really good for?
Lying. Saving your money but telling your kid you ran the test anyway, and what it said.
Breakfast served all day!
That'll be when the fun begins. Until then, it's just a mindfuck.
I predict a strong showing of reactionary "what's wrong with people today?" comments. I have to wonder if getting an ultrasound was originally greeted with as much crankiness as I often see from articles like this.
Myself, I'm a relentless progressive. So much so, I thought Gattaca looked kind of nifty.
Of course, sometimes I say that just see the horrified expressions on people's faces.
There's an even easier test. Look at your kid's birthday. Now look at the cutoff date between age brackets for each sport. Now pick the one where your kid will always be the oldest player on the field. More physical development = wins more = gets more practice AND likes the sport more = positive skill-building feedback loop.
This sounds really stupid and surely you end up best at the sport you enjoy and practice the most. I think this will just show which parent have the pushiness gene.
Seems useless unless you can find one that will predict what sport the kid will enjoy the most. Enjoying a sport will have a much bigger effect than anything else.
I bet there are loads of top athletes without this gene. I wonder if Usain Bolt has this gene.
Screening for athleticism, and "intelligence" based on today's limited knowledge of genetics and biology of athleticism is dumb, and will probably remain dumb for at least 50 to 100 years.
I always thought the crucial gene for high school (and junior high) sports was how soon you grow tall, and how tall (and big) you actually get. Fast twitch or slow twitch is just a minor adjustment compared to those.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
-k?
There are countries where ultrasounds are popular for determing the gender of unborn children. that way you can abort the girls.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Exactly. Where's the gene that says I might have a decent shot at bowling, but other than that, stick to the computer?
tagline kinda says it all, doesn't it?
Well, if that isn't the start of Gattaca-esque trait selection, I don't know what is. Just don't let anyone select candidates for sports on the basis of the gene, okay? Give people with or without the gene a chance of doing what they like best, regardless of the statistics.
Insert self-referential sig here.
Step 1: Find a method to determine skill (in whatever desired area) from DNA.
Step 2: Find a method to artificially combine two DNA strands that doesn't take more than a day or so.
Step 3: Be able to grow a fully-functional human from the DNA generated in Step 2.
Step 4: Start with the DNA of a few hundred people (preferably top athletes), and apply a evolutionary algorithm to combine, test, combine test, etc.
Result: Within weeks, not centuries, you'll have the DNA for super-athletes, super-nerds or super-soldiers. We're almost there!
Ugh. Anyone who knows anything about genetics has the understanding that we do not know nearly enough what genes or combinations of make anything a dead cert. Yes, they can be indicators, but it all should be taken with all the grains of salt in the Dead Sea. But I will applaud the fact that someone, yet again, is making money off idiots. Good luck to them.
I write professional videogame reviews! http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/
AC's ironic remark raises the question: in what sport would people of short stature have an advantage?
Well, given that selective female infanticide is driven by an underlying set of economic beliefs, with a surface coating of culturally localized misogyny, I suspect that the ability to prenatally identify computer geeks is rapidly drawing to the end of where it would be used to select against them. The cultural layer is taking longer to break down; but the economics of being a geek vs. being an athlete haven't exactly been tilting in the athlete's favor lately...
Incidentally, I always have to wonder how long it will take before countries with an enthusiasm for female infanticide will have it bite them in the ass and force a (likely very ugly) midcourse correction: Demanding dowries isn't going to work so well when there are 150 men per 100 women, and history suggests that young men with no real chance of getting married, or even getting laid, tend to take up unpleasant hobbies like crime and politics with considerable enthusiasm...
A more accurate method of determining one's optimal sport is to do a muscle biopsy. It takes an insignificant amount of muscle and compares the ratio of fast, intermediate, and slow twitch muscle fibers. I highly doubt that a single gene can be used to reliably predict that ratio.
OTOH, most people figure this out in childhood. Either you excel at sprinting, distance, or are mediocre at both. Plus, factors like body habitus play a greater effect than raw muscle composition, and practical experience is the only thing that factors everything in. But that's kinda irrelevant. Let the kid do what they like rather than push them into something they're most likely to win at. They'll probably wind-up picking their optimal sport anyway, and if their parents think the lost year or two of grade school training is a problem then there are some serious issues at hand.
Sad but true. A bunch of savages people are.
Life is not for the lazy.
The parents could just look at themselves... A *ton* of pro athletes have pro athlete dads/moms. There is a reason why a lot of brothers and sisters make it together to the top tier. It's in their DNA, and the family knows it.
And honestly, you want to look at the twitch muscle gene? How about height and build? You have to paint a picture that predicts accurately a child's build at 18. There is no one gene.
Some day DNA tests will be used used to black list people on to the preexisting list if we keep the old system in place. This is down side to tests like this.
What'd be interesting to me is if you administered this test to current athletes and found the ones who the test wouldn't have predicted would be good. I can only think of a few sports where only one thing is the determinant for success. Those sports are typically ones in which you're not dealing with other people directly. So, track and field, and weightlifting. In every other sport that I can imagine, there's an element of having to react to another human being's actions. And sometimes, if you're really good at that and making appropriate decisions based on it, you can beat the guy with better size/speed/power.
One gene and probably just one trait. How much can you infer from a single trait other than you have at least one ingredient for a recipe for whatever skill or gift is desired.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Why does every single kid have to play sports now? It seems like every precious little snowflake HAS to be some wannabe sports superstar nowadays.
Sports is a giant clusterfuck of machismo brainless competition garbage. There are much better ways to keep your kid active without signing them up to some stupid team sport bullshit where you (and them) have to spend every free moment in practice or at a game or some other bullshit, time better spent on education and LEARNING.
But no, we don't want that. We want dumb kids to grow up playing or watching the sport-of-the-week and not having any real education so they're not smart enough to see how we, as a society, are pretty much fucked.
the gene behind what is called 'fast-twitch explosive muscles.'
Sounds like competitive Starcraft ability right there. That's a sport right?
It's too bad that such crooks discredit the entire genome testing industry. I've personally been very satisfied with https://www.23andme.com/ , due in large part to their very rigorous criteria before claiming any effect from any particular gene.
You know, golf and tennis are "white folk" sports also. It's unfortunate that the Williams sisters and Tiger Woods didn't know that -- they could have saved themselves from the agony of success.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Football IS an endurance sport. The amount of running needed over the full 90 minutes of a game is easily up there with some of the longest track events. Or did they mean some other game? (clue: if it's played exclusively with the feet it's football).
Anyone who wants to really go anywhere in any sport has to put a great deal of time into training. That's often not very fun, and a lot of it is done totally alone, like starting out each day by running a few miles, even if the weather is crappy.
While having the right kind of muscles for the sport will contribute to one's success, far more important is the mental determination and discipline.
By contrast, there are plenty of highly overweight couch potatoes who have lost all their weight and achieved good health and good looks through regular exercise and improved diet. It doesn't matter how badly out of shape you are, if you can get the mindset to be physically fit, you can achieve it.
I rather enjoy heavy physical exercise, but I avoid sports like the fucking plague. There is just about nothing about any sport that I enjoy. But as a child I was always heavily into bicycling. I would ride off many, many miles farther than my parents ever realized I was going, or that today's parents would allow their children to ride unaccompanied.
The difference between cycling for me and most other sports is that I don't compete, nor do I ride with others. I do it for the experience of cycling, and not for what I can achieve.
Now suppose my parents had sensed my innate interest in cycling and pushed me to be an olympic cycler. That would have made my childhood a living Hell.
I don't see any good coming from this test. Kids get plenty of opportunity to find out what sports they are good at in gym class. All I see coming from this test is that parents will try to fulfill their sick fantasies by forcing their kids into sports that they have the genetic markers for, but no real desire to participate in.
So, lots of ACTN-three makes children well-suited for football and the like, while no ACTN-three makes them well-suited for long distance running and so forth. And a medium level of ACTN-3 lets kids play any sport they like. But which gene makes children well-suited for slouching on the sofa while cramming Cheesy-Poofs into their pie-holes?
Sure, genetics have a lot to do with success at sport but will and determination are far more important.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Producing a top sportsperson is not the goal of raising a child.
They should be raised healthy, happy, and with good habits.
They have to be encouraged to do whatever form of sport/exercise they are willing/happy to do.
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Well, not really a scam, but it's incredibly overpriced and gives you no useful information. That gene has very little effect outside of maybe the elite of the elite. Your body shape contributes much much more to your "ideal" sport. (More important is what the kid enjoys.)
For $200, you can test 500,000 SNPs with 23andMe, get much more useful health info plus ancestry information.
My result from 23andMe:
rs1815739:CT "One working copy of alpha-actinin-3 in fast-twitch muscle fiber. Many world-class sprinters and some endurance athletes have this genotype."
I've actually seen a number of companies that test for a few SNPs, charging $hundreds and making misleading claims. I can't say for sure if they're fly-by-nighters out to make a buck, but there are much cheaper ways of getting more information.
There is nothing better than a good scam I am in on. Desperate parents are a great source of revenue.
"... did we tell you name of the game boy,
we call it riding the gravy train."
[pf wywh].
Shameless (and copyvio) copy/paste from 23andMe:
This gene produces a protein called alpha-actinin-3 that is only turned on in fast-twitch muscle fibers (the kind used for power events like sprinting or weightlifting). The protein forms part of the contractile machinery in muscle cells, where it is thought to play both structural and signalling roles.
The T version of the SNP in this gene prevents the full protein from being made. People with two copies of the T version thus have a total lack of alpha-actinin-3 in their fast-twitch muscle fibers. Those with the CT genotype have one functional copy of the gene and can still make the protein.
Surprisingly, a complete lack of the alpha-actinin-3 protein doesn't seem to cause any type of disease. This is probably because another closely related protein can step in for alpha-actinin-3 in people without a functional copy. The substitute protein likely does not perform its job as well as alpha-actinin-3, resulting in worse performance in power exercises.
Despite lack of a disease outcome, researchers wondered if the absence of alpha-actinin-3 might have an effect on athletic performance. Studies of elite athletes in Australia and Finland showed that power athletes—those whose performance depends on fast-twitch muscle fibers—were much more likely to have at least one working copy of the gene than non-athletes. In one study of Olympic power athletes (i.e., the best of the best), all had at least one working copy. Similar results were found in a study of Spanish professional soccer players.
But does alpha-actinin-3 make a difference for non-athletes? In fact, it does.
One study looked at a group of Greek teenagers who had been tested for a variety of fitness measures related to power and endurance sports. In this group, ACTN3 genotype had no effect on the girls, but boys with the TT genotype were significantly slower in a 40 m sprint. Interestingly, running was the only power event that the different versions of ACTN3 seemed to affect. For activities like throwing a basketball or jumping into the air, performance was unaffected by genotype.
Another study looked at arm strength in a group of people before and after 12 weeks of strength training. ACTN3 genotype appeared to have no effect in men, but women with the TT genotype had lower strength at the beginning of the study. After the training program women with the TT genotype—those without a working copy of alpha-actinin-3—had made greater gains than the women with at least one functioning copy. This was true in both European and Asian women.
Scientists aren't really sure why having alpha-actinin-3 would improve power performance. One theory is that the protein prevents damage in fast-twitch muscle fibers. The group who conducted the study of Greek teenagers thinks this explains why only running and not other power activities were affected by a lack of alpha-actinin-3. Running involves repeated use of the muscles, while jumping only uses muscles once: damage is not an issue.
The scientists who saw that women with the TT genotype were able to build up more strength than other women also think alpha-actinin-3 protects muscle fibers from damage. Muscle damage is what stimulates muscles to adapt and become stronger. Those with the TT genotype lack the protection against damage that alpha-actinin-3 normally provides, thus allowing a greater gain in strength.
Alpha-actinin-3 may also affect athletic performance by virtue of its effects on oxygen usage in muscle. Two studies (one in mice and one in humans) have shown that fast-twtich muscle fibers that lack functional copies of ACTN3 use more oxygen than those with at least one working copy. This type of metabolism might slow them down. Mice studies have also shown that these altered fibers are weaker and smaller than fibers containing alpha-actinin-3, but they are more efficient an resistant to fatigue—a situation that is better suited to endurance sports than sprinting.
> So where's the "I really want to do it" gene?
Right on. That was the core message from "Gattica", that the will to do it can mean more than the theoretical ability to... as I saw all too many times in high school and university.
Until we plug into that, the ACTN-3 is going to be just the beginning of a long, painful road.
Luke, help me take this mask off
don't worry, if used for gender bigotry, the institutionalized misandry of today will ensure that the technique will be used to abort boys first...and it won't get mentioned by the media and no one will care.
Children that don't have ACTN-three will be better suited for endurance sports like long distance running or swimming. Children that have a lot of it will be better suited for sports like football, rugby, wrestling, or hockey. Kids that have some ACTN-three will not be the fastest and not the slowest, they don't burn out the quickest and they don't last the longest. They are categorized as capable of playing just about any type of sport they like.
Better hope your kid is in the third group, otherwise it's a crap shoot as to whether they'll be forced into sports they don't like.
Um... is fast twitch muscle fiber more, uh, tender when cooked? I'm just asking... and how early will we know which children have more of it? Can these kids maybe have some kind of labeling system so that if some of them come near my cave or cross my bridge I'll be able to recognize them?
I'm really wondering if children gifted with more this kind of muscle fiber would be better stewed or roasted.
Thanks for taking the time to answer, I know that we trolls have a bit of a bad rep on the internet due to a certain subspecies. We're not all bad guys, some of us just want to catch and eat children, not ruin your enjoyment of message boards.
I don't know anything about the gene in question (nor a ton about genetics), but it is possible to have "a little" or "a lot" of a gene instead of 0, 1, or 2. There can be multiple copies of a gene on a single chromosome, and this could cause more of the associated protein to be created, and thus enhance whatever effect that gene has. I don't know how common this is in nature, but I know they recreate some neurological diseases in lab mice by inserting multiple copies of the affected gene into the the genome.
I stole this Sig
GATTACA
We'll never make it.......oh! we made it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWf3iJjqYCM&list=FL7kKrE4eTs17mQl7eyvJIOg
Former East Bloc (i.e. communist eastern Europe) looked at the proportion of red/white muscles to see who would become explosive or athlete. This is an extension, but down to the family level... Even worse.
Thinking of the busy-body moms in today's China. Poor, poor kids. Jwish moms used to be seen as bad, overreacting psycho-freaks
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-sachs/chinese-moms-vs-jewish-mo_b_807569.html
but, the Chinese are worse.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html
Soccer moms and Hockey dads, for what reason?
Calm down, all you mothers from Hell.
>>...that a too small challenge is just as bad as a too big one. They get bored. Exactly like with a game that's too easy. Like those who were bad at school because they were bored.
Exactly. But it depends on personality. While I think the evidence in Outliers is fairly compelling (at least that there's a *bias* toward kids on the upper end of their age brackets), being the youngest in my class (starting 1st grade at the age of 5, started college at 16) I ended up becoming very competitive with older kids, trying to work against their advantage and experience, and ended up doing quite well in high school as a result (a valedictorian and countywide co-MVP in my sport). My whole family is competitive, though... my paternal great-grandmothers were absolutely ruthless at cards, talking trash and never giving quarter, even to small kids... and you can still see that at the family reunions, where their great-great-grandkids are walking around with decks of cards, talking trash and challenging their elders to play hearts with them.
For my sister, though, it sort of had the opposite effect. She, at some point, decided that she couldn't compete, and sort of gave up. So I'm not saying it's a panacea or anything - but I do think healthy competition is good for kids.
Yeah, I notice there's no "geeky and no good at any sports" option on their list.
This will be used by parents who are going to bully their kids into playing sports whether they want to or not. Society will be poorer as a result.
No sig today...
What the hell is the broad jump?
No sig today...
Standing Long Jump
Could you explain a bit more about your children and your sporting abilities?
Since this post is about sports and genetics, I am wondering, what are your and your wife's sporting abilities? Are you two also swimmers?
Also, what made both your kids swimmers? Did they naturally incline that way, or was it, as the article seems to indicate, something genetic? Or perhaps something in the environment (Access to swimming pool early in the age, all kids their age choose swimming etc...)
What about their capabilities in other sports? Do they have trouble performing sports of the wrong ACTN group?
Lastly, do you believe in this theory? And would you have performed that test and chosen accordingly?
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
The universal reason for an abortion is an "unwanted child", why does the reason it is unwanted matter? Why do we question the motivations behind abortion, but not other forms of contraception?
There are a bazillion reasons why the parent doesn't want the kid, and most of them have nothing to do with health, they include such reasons as; "I don't want stretch marks", "I can't afford it", "I would need a bigger car", and "I can't afford a girl". Once you start requiring people to state a "legitimate" reason for not wanting the child, you turn some simple but controversial yes/no legislation into a minefield of legal "what if's". The end result being that even relatively stupid people will just pick a reason from the "legitimate" list and lie, thus burying any hard evidence of "gender bigotry" or "gender economics".
Besides, we have our own glass house of cultural absurdities, eg: google "circumcision deaths", now think that "serious complications" is probably 10X that number, we can't blame economics for that one so, "gender bigotry" it is!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Kids don't start to do any real sports until they are at least a few years old, by which time any half-decent parent will have already noticed what their kid is good at. Nobody needs this test.
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Golf and tennis are "rich folk" sports, and historically rich people were mostly white. Fortunately, this is less true now than it was a couple of decades ago.
Hockey, on the other hand, is more of a "white folk" sport because of the conditions (ice is not a natural habitat for black people) than because of the cost or elitism.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Oh, OK. The way that was written I thought it meant something like the long jump... but for broads.
No sig today...
I don't see a mention of sports in your post anywhere. How well did you do at physical games? Wait, you're on /. I think I know the answer to that.
23andme.com will genotype 1,000,000 markers (SNPs) for $99 + a year of subscription at $9/month. So you get the ACTN3 allele (variation) plus many other genes ... for over 200 disease risks and traits: https://www.23andme.com/health/all/
"Parents are being sold on the idea of buying DNA tests for their kids, to find out which sports they will be better at..."
Translation: Parents are spending money on DNA tests to see how quickly they can live vicariously through their children's accolades, and (more importantly) find out how quickly their child can ink a seven-figure sports contract so the parents can retire and sit on their ass living off their children's accolades.
"...They are categorized as capable of playing just about any type of sport they like."
Wow. A $180 test has actually replaced a good parent leaning over and asking little Johnny, "So, Johnny, what sport would you like to play?"...I don't suppose the concept of the child actually picking the sport, you know, just for fun, because they might actually enjoy playing, is still alive, is it? Just a thought.
This will become yet one more thing some parents use to put unrealistic expectations on their kids. Sure, physical traits determine one's aptitude for sport (DUH); but almost all of us will never play at a level that has any financial impact on our lives; let alone at that elite pro level. Even at the top pro level the competition is so tough that few make a viable career of it.
So now some parents will ratchet up their expectations and further push their kids towards an unrealistic goal. Instead of playing a sport because you enjoy it and reaping the benefits of that, they will be pushed into what they are good at.
Real ability is a lucky combination of physical gifts, mental gifts and hard work. Even within a family one person may have it and another will be at best a journeyman player. Even so, as other's have pointed out a better marker may be having parent and grandparent or two that were world class athletes. Even then, you may just be a regression towards the mean.
Of course, no one ever went broke betting on the stupidity of the American public or on the sports parent's willingness to shell out for any edge.
I truly feel sorry for the kids - sports should be fun and a way to socialize; not yet another thing you must compete at and win for your parent's sake.
Now, "GET OFF MY GRASS!!!"
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Why all the hate toward performance improvement? If the genetic marker they were searching for indicated likely knee trouble, so they could advise kids with weak knees to take up no-impact swimming, I bet there wouldn't be the 1984 style "two minutes hate". Oh your son has the genetic marker for unrepairable shoulder injury? I see we have our next track and field long distance runner candidate, etc.
I could see that being abused, much like the XX chromosome results in speaking dolls that say "math is hard". But sports related health and safety results would probably not be hated as much as sports related performance results.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
co-MVP at my sport
You're blind. You should go get some even bigger dork glasses.
See, it cuts both ways.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
And here I thought kids could be a retirement plan. Produce a well paid pro and the parents are set. Heck there are even tv commercials about this - family teaching their 5 year old to dunk... so it must be true.
>>I don't see a mention of sports in your post anywhere. How well did you do at physical games? Wait, you're on /. I think I know the answer to that.
As the other poster said, you failed at reading comprehension. I was one of two MVPs in San Diego County for varsity men's volleyball my senior year, and won various other awards as well. So it worked out pretty well, and sort of serves as a counterexample to Gladwell's age thesis (though by high school, the difference between a 12 year old and a 13 year old is perhaps as profound as between a 5 year old and a 6 year old... though in some ways it is). However, my success did correlate with his other thesis about needing to put in many hours of intensive work to get really good at something - I helped coach the women's volleyball team during the fall quarter, our school had an optional volleyball club running during the winter that I signed up for, and then varsity men's volleyball during the spring quarter. We'd also go to various community gyms around the county when they'd host volleyball nights, to get extra practice in, too. I was pretty terrible my freshman year, but all the time I put in got me a starting position on the varsity team my sophomore year, and we won our league every year after that.
I'd have continued playing at UC San Diego, but it would have entailed missing class every Friday, and spending 20 hours a week doing unpaid janitorial service in the school gym. Since my classes had quizzes every Friday, and I wasn't willing to compromise my academics, I ended up just playing club and community volleyball, and still do.
Complete enough response for you? Not every person on Slashdot is a couch potato.
The one they enjoy.
Sure they might be better suited for another sport, but anyone will always exceed and try harder at the one they actually want to play.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
what about a test to tell if your spawn won't be a fucking idiot?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
is that they don't always know which genes result in which traits. In fact, it could be possible to have the "fast-twitch" ability based on a different presentation or combination of genes. So not having these specific gene expressions does NOT absolutely guarantee that someone won't have this fast-twitch ability.
Our genetics understanding is just not advanced enough to say definitively that this gene expression = this ability / trait for most traits of interest.
https://www.23andme.com/health/Avoidance-of-Errors/ .. had the dna thing done for ancestry and noticed this was only $10 more. Checked the box before really thinking about how the results might be viewed by teachers, future employers, myself...
...capable of playing just about any type of sport they like. Take the money you saved on the test and buy your kid a bicycle.
black list people
Something is wrong with the words order in this sentence.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
An even better counterargument: Association football ("soccer" to Americans) is widely played by people of every race and nationality from just about every social background imaginable. There's absolutely no statistically significant pattern of race and skill at the game.
I am officially gone from
I am pretty sure that if the kids have all their limbs, and aren't mentally handicapped, that no matter what level of ACTN-III they might have, they qualify to play any sport they like.
And maybe even if they don't. These are just the first ones that popped into my head.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I didn't recognise the significance of co-MVP, but that's due to my own ignorance I'll admit, I suspect it's a more commonly used term in the states, I've never heard it used here in Ireland.
Back to the topic though:
You're saying you didn't get a volleyball team starting position until sophomore year. Can you think back to people who had been on various teams through the age brackets all the way up through school, and what age they are/were relative to their peers?
Nothing in the thesis says that you can't have some measure of success being the younger person later on when age is less of a divider, and what's needed is hard work and practice.
You have yet to offer anything that invalidates the arguments above.
Your original post looked to me like you valued your competitiveness on an intellectual level greater than the 5 words you offered to sport, when this article is all about sport, so you have to forgive the misunderstanding.
This is not about being a couch potato, but about being successful at competitive levels of sport based on your genetics. While playing and coaching volleyball for your university is a laudable achievement, it is not within the scope of the article. The ability to genetically test children to identify what sports they would be suitable for, is an attempt to pick one they can be highly successful (I'm thinking Olympics) at later on in life, by putting them on the path really early on.
The counter argument, of this thread, is it really doesn't matter that much, what is more important is to put the child into a sport where they will always have an age advantage, which will build confidence and success.
I would subscribe to a combination of both, where you find out a list of suitable sports, then pick one where they got the age advantage also. It's no use when someone reaches the age of 20, at a professional level, where everyone is 19.5 but they are better suited, genetically, to the sport.
"The term "Most Valuable Player" is typically only used in Canada, the United States, the Philippines and South Korea."
Courtesy of Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Valuable_Player
Perhaps I should Google every TLA I don't understand when I read /. posts, or perhaps people should be more aware that there are countries outside the US and make their posts more internationally understood, but then we might have world peace which is bad for business.
Either way, in thread about sporting achievements, in an article about genetic testing for the purpose of sporting achievements, the parent really went to a lot of trouble to outline sporting achievements...
His follow up post was very informative, but still doesn't win the argument for age vs hard work.
"The term "Most Valuable Player" is typically only used in Canada, the United States, the Philippines and South Korea."
Courtesy of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Valuable_Player
Term MVP is also used in European basketball competitions.
In love, war and slashdot discussions, everything is allowed.
So I guess the starting point would be to have a parent have their kids taken to this DNA testing place to test for which sports their kids would be good at and kid turns out to have great fast twitch muscles but wants to run cross country as his/her sport..... is a parent really going to be like no your not made for that? No, the kid is going to play whatever they want to play and so this is a waste of time and money. If you have a professional athlete in the making in your household you will find it out in a hurry and don't need a DNA sample to prove it - just let the kids play