Quote Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat View Post
Way cool. Me, I've never even got close to being able to dunk.



The thing is, a small difference can make a huge difference at the very highest level. Take the two nearly identical bell curves below of 'dunking capacity', with 'litlle jump capacity' on the left, and 'Michael Jordan' on the right (the 'gifted area'). Neraly half of all reds are better than nearly half of all blues. But, because the top of the one curve is slightly more to the right than the other, in the top and bottom percentiles, and even more in the top 0,001%, the differences between the two groups are huge, even if the averages are very close indeed. This explains why specialised, 'single determining factor' athleticism at the top is so monocultural.

In the picture below, imagine that 'NBA level basketball' would require a gifted capacity of 130 or higher. It now becomes clear that even though red and blue don't differ all that much, at NBA level, blue is very dominant:

This is by far the best explanation I have seen of the phenomenon, both for sense and clarity.

To be honest, I don't understand why there is such an aversion to admitting that people from one place are predisposed to be better at something than people from another. It's quite clear that the human species has adapted to different environments and diverged in some fairly marked ways.

Key example: Black people are much less likely to get skin cancer, and probably other cancers as well, as a knock on.