Originally Posted by Poppaspoke

1) People are using the words "race" and "genetics" as is they were synonymous. Not so.
2) Genetic inheritance is entirely individual. You receive your genetic legacy from your biological parents, not some fictitious "race".
3) What do you mean by "race"? Is it skin color? Yes, skin color is inherited, bur so is eye color, hair color, and many other factors. Why do we not consider left-handed people a race, or those with male-pattern baldness?
4) It is a well-established fact that individual variations within a race outweigh by far differenences from one race to another (which are quite minimal).
5) Armstrong's or Indurain's phenomenal cardiovascular potential is a genetic gift, but not any sort of "racial" one.
6) What any one person actually achieves with his genetic potential is influenced by culture, family, etc.
7) Irish immigrants to the U.S. were prominent in the sport of boxing throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In, the last half of the twentieth century African-Americans became dominant. Did Irish racial potential decline, and African-American genetics suddenly emerge?
8) The prominence of any particular sport among any social group is mainly depndent on cultural, social, and economic factors. Within any large-enough social group, there will be a subset of persons with the physical inheritance to excell in ANY sport, if the social support for it is there. This explains why NASCAR hasn't triumphed in Tanzania.
9) The concept of "race" is not a biological one, but a cultural one.