[fromthestart]

>that we all have an approximately equal potential for competence

No one wants to hear it, and with good reason, but there is simply no proof of this, and substantial evidence to the contrary. We know intelligence is strongly heritable, for example.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

Life is unfair. But our modern academic institutions are beating around this bush, I think because on a base level, empathetic people are fearful of the consequences of scientific research that may effectively justify certain racist ideas. But that makes for bad science and, possibly, bad policy, if different people require different solutions to different problems. It also makes it hard for me to trust academia, because the bias is so entrenched.