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I think he is correct. I find HBD plausible in principle, but it's terrible political tool in practice. For one, its radioactive and attracts a high proportion of radioactive supporters. Second, many better tools already exist (standardized tests, colorblind policy, merit based immigration vetting). HBD is a worse substitute than existing policy frameworks. It purports to partially explain a wide variety of complex human behavior of ill defined groups. Interesting in principle; a bad policy tool for a nation that focuses so much on the individual (culturally and legally).
The viability of standardized tests, colorblind policy, and merit-based immigration vetting all depend on either their outcomes being race-neutral, or HBD being at least tacitly accepted. The strong belief that all racial groups are equal, combined with the demonstrated fact that they are not, means you have to give up or distort standardized tests and merit-based immigraiton vetting, and discard colorblind policies.
Why can't it be like something like the NBA - where EVERYONE can see that certain groups are vastly over- or under-represented, and it's still understood to be almost completely based on merit?
It’s interesting that the NBA is your example, because it’s an example of overrepresentation that probably isn’t genetic- other major sports leagues aren’t that black, and basketball rewards height and hand-eye coordination- things blacks are unexceptional at- more than, say, sprinting speed or hitting puberty early- things blacks have an advantage at. It’s also really easy to tell how well players merit being where they are, and as far as we know those are simply the best players available.
It’s probably cultural reasons, not genetic ones- blacks really like basketball and everyone knows it, so they become good basketball players and not good baseball players. There might be some HBD around the edges, but most of it is that blacks like basketball a lot.
Sprinting is the obvious one. Also marathons.
Why doesn’t white privilege from all the fancy coaching help them here? Does white culture really not highly prize athletic performance?
It’s pretty obviously not “blacks just like basketball so much more than whites” that explains black overrepresentation here.
Tons and tons of American white boys, far outnumbering blacks, try as hard as they can to make it big in basketball and football.
And there’s a lot more white football players than in basketball. It’s reasonable to think that culture is the main reason for that particular discrepancy.
Blacks make up over half the NFL so they’re still overrepresented by a factor of four.
Culture doesn’t cut it there either as an explanation because both whites and blacks have very strong cultural motivations for those two sports.
Where culture does tend to explain things is when blacks aren’t overrepresented because it’s a sport where black kids are less likely to have a shot or interest. Famously, the Winter Olympics don’t have a lot of Africans on the podium. The NHL is very white and that almost certainly is explained by culture and not by skating genes. Similarly, baseball has a different cultural situation.
Blacks make up over half the NFL in part because they hit puberty earlier, and this is a sport where physical size in high school really matters to whether you get a career or not. They’re also better sprinters, which matters a lot in football.
That being said, blacks are also more willing to accept their sons being injured or missing educational opportunities for the sake of an athletics career, which is very relevant for football. So I think there is a strong cultural component, and that a key piece of evidence for that is the stars being much whiter than the league as a whole, although still probably blacker than genpop- the stars are presumably a pure-talent selection, and we would expect that to match the distribution of talent more closely than any cultural factors.
If by “stars” you mean “skill positions” like QB, well…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_issues_faced_by_black_quarterbacks#:~:text=Due%20to%20%22racial%20stacking%22%20in,considered%20a%20%22thinking%22%20position.
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