Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
Genetics has a huge influence on what someone is predisposed to and what they can achieve. Certain ethnic groups and families, on average, are more likely to have certain traits and less likely to have others.<p>But genetics doesn&#x27;t <i>matter</i>, in that just because you have &quot;bad&quot; genetics doesn&#x27;t mean you&#x27;ll suck, whether it comes to weightlifting, intelligence, temperment, etc. Maybe you won&#x27;t be in the top 0.0001%, but except for some very specific circumstances, you can defy the average. If you want to know if someone&#x27;s bad at something, actually testing them is much more accurate than looking at their genetics.<p>If you look at the top 10 distance runners, they&#x27;re all from Ethiopia and Kenya. But as you look further down the list into the top 100, you start to see Americans and others. Furthermore, the Americans&#x27; times are really close to the Ethiopians and Kenyans.<p>So, even if we know for a solid fact that some ethnic group is on average dumber than another, or more violent, it doesn&#x27;t mean anything. Because it doesn&#x27;t say anything about the individual people, who vary much more than the difference in averages.