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I agree with your post overall. Especially wrt to intelligence I think that it's composed of thousands of microtasks some of which are specific enough, likely coming complete with dedicated brain functions, to be helped or hurt by genetics. If we knew what they were, we could develop compensatory strategies for each distribution of abilities / deficits.

That is one of the (many) reasons I always argue for fearlessly understanding the full measure of reality as opposed to practicing a new form of Lysenkoism called "we're all equivalent and interchangeable, so the problem lies elsewhere...".

In a sense, all pro-social behavior is a kind of learned compensation which counters an innate desire to just club that other fellow over the head. Compensating for a "lack" in your genes is the stuff civilization is founded on.

That said, this is just wrong:

> If we demonstrate some ethnicity can run faster, they'll start getting picked more to be professional athletes.

You aren't picked to excel; you're born to it and other peple observe that fact. If people were picked to excel then just anyone could be in the NBA. We have all run the 100 yd dash. We've all had opportunities to distinguish oureslves there. Not many of us did. Even fewer did and failed to notice this in themselves.

You can't socially engineer raw talent but you can impose conditions which overwhelm it. That is always a tragedy.