if you can’t beat the Kenyans then join them
Zane Robertson famously moving from Hamilton in 2007 at age 17, along with his twin brother Jake, in part to escape bullying and a broken family, to live and train in Kenya with the hope of mixing it among the best distance runners in the world.
A lot of these runners come from ethnic groups which live in highlands and mountains: extensive aerobic training in lower-O2 environments, then competing at standard elevations, seems to be the most important advantage: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225064362_Kenyan_an...
There is probably a minor genetic component, microevolution promoting higher hemoglobin/etc than average, similarly to many Tibetans. But childhood conditioning seems to be a more powerful effect.
I'd wager there's probably a social factor too: if for any reason a given population is slightly better at X then X becomes more popular which leads to more support, more practitioners and in turn this becomes self-reinforcing.
Rugby in New Zealand is a good example of this. Our small country with a small population is (and basically always has been) one of the top teams in the world.
Not only at the elite level, but our junior teams and even school teams perform well on the world stage.
Like you say, that social factor plays a huge part in it. Support, funding, etc etc
India has 1.4bn people. It is honestly weird they are not dominating in more sports. Once they really move out of being a developing nation and spend more on frivolous pursuits like Olympic medals I bet they will do just that.
It's mostly cultural. Your parent's background deeply impacts your own and your relationship to education, science culture. Read Bourdieu if you haven't already.
Its actually 60-80% heritable. The twin adoption study showed that twins raised in different environment have the same IQ. It also makes sense logically; why would only physical characteristics be heritable and not mental ones.
>Read Bourdieu
"Bourdieu contended there is transcendental objectivity, [definition needed] only when certain necessary historical conditions are met."
You're saying "60-80% heritable" as if that meant something. But you're also wrong: not only do separated twins raised in different SES settings have differing IQ results, but the heritability of IQ itself (whatever its cause) is also SES-dependant.
recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%.[8] IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults."
Bouchard, Thomas J. (7 August 2013). "The Wilson Effect: The Increase in Heritability of IQ With Age"
Correlation is not causation. Generally, adoptive families in these studies come from similar socio-economic backgrounds [1].
With your theory, how would you explain adopted refugees children doing much better at IQ tests than they would have if the stayed in their home countries?
Also dismissing Bourdieu as a midwit? Yeah, ok. Come back when you actually want to expand your world view.
From your own low-effort wikipedia 1st google result link:
" recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%.[8] IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults."
Bouchard, Thomas J. (7 August 2013). "The Wilson Effect: The Increase in Heritability of IQ With Age"
As for Bourdieu:
"Bourdieu was in practice both influenced by and sympathetic to the Marxist identification of economic command as a principal component of power and agency within capitalist society."
"According to Bourdieu, tastes in food, culture and presentation are indicators of class because trends in their consumption seemingly correlate with an individual's place in society."
If both of these were true you would never have class mobility. I do well for myself but still like hamhocks and beans.