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Notes -
Ignoring race, poverty doesn’t stick nearly so much as genes, so all of your examples about generational issues don’t imply what you want them to.
Again ignoring race, your example about poor education over generations is even more unfortunate, given what a strong proxy that is for intelligence.
Some people just aren’t tall. On average, their offspring probably won’t be very tall either. Height and intelligence are both highly heritable and assortive mating tends to reinforce these things.
Moreover, we have multiple examples of groups that faced intense discrimination and disadvantages and it took a generation or two to catch up or exceed society averages, not centuries. The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean immigrants that came to the US did not tend to come from privileged positions and suffered a great deal of adversity. They do pretty well for themselves.
The classic example is the Ashkenazim, a group of Jews that ended up being evicted to northern Italy, having a genetic bottleneck (and some admixture with the locals), moving into Central Europe for some centuries and growing in size, and then being forced eastwards through Europe all the way to Russia. Centuries of near-constant persecution. Many cases of having to move and start over. Intense generational trauma.
And yet that adversity hasn’t stopped them from being so successful in so many places and fields that it fuels conspiracy theories that are popular on both left and right. Even right here on the Motte if you can believe it.
It’s not a coincidence the Ivy League discriminated against Jews as it more recently has against East Asians.
The mounting evidence is a combination of evermore time, money, and effort trying to rectify gaps and that not working, various twin and adoption studies shedding light on the balance of nature vs. nature, and progress on genetics.
The issue and underlying science is a lot bigger than the sustained achievement gap of one particular minority in the US. The politics sure does revolve around it though.
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