/sci/ - Science & Math

There will inevitably be differences between population groups separated for 1000s of years and some of these differences have an impact on ability. New mutations may occur, some genes may become more prevalent.

The effect on ability is mostly irrelevant until you look at statistics on a large scale or olympic athletes pushed to their limits. Genetics is still mostly like a slot machine where you need the right combination of genes (and upbringing) to truly excel at something. An example might be skin color, white people just need sunscreen in sunny countries, black people need dietary vitamin D in cloudy countries, people adapt and compensate for differences easily using human ingenuity. It is difficult to differentiate genetics from environmental causes, however the differences are too great to attribute 100% to environment and there are many examples of specific genes with an objectively proven effect on people so discounting the role of genetics entirely is irrational.

People often have a confirmation bias in deciding which groupings are relevant and which are irrelevant which is a classic error in statistics. You could for instance lump caucasians and negroes together and asians and aborigines in another group and it would have about as much justification as any other racial grouping.

The best stance on this issue is to apply occam's razor, stick to raw facts and don't take the plebs too seriously. Americans spend an obsessive amount of time on this meme issue.