I disagree with your claim about Lebron James, but I don't think there's enough data for an evidence-based debate. I do think, however, that people want to believe that others who operate at the genius level in various activities have genetic gifts. It gives us an excuse for why we don't.
I agree that there are going to be variations in inherent intelligence, body composition, or even ability to play basketball. I just don't think it's as extreme as some people do, nor do I think it's enough to be the sole enabler of people who operate at the genius level in activities.
[1] Assuming they don't have a hormonal problem, which are known to cause people on reasonable diets to become obese.
I don't have much time right now, but I did find a good starting point: http://www.ajcn.org/content/53/6/1561S.abstract "In this regard, the proneness to store energy primarily as fat or as lean tissue is a major determinant of the response to a caloric surplus."
Also: http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v8/n7/abs/oby200063a.html Talks about insulin secretion being different between races even after accounting for other factors.
gasp we all aren't created equal! We all don't have the same benefits. Some people are born disadvantaged and must work for things!
And to the comment a few levels up, my ~3,500kcal diet would make some people obese even after accounting for my activity levels! 1 kcal for you is not the same as 1 kcal for me, bodies differ in conversion, storage, and utilization.
I have a hard time understanding why people don't like admitting that just as we differ on the outside (beauty, fitness) we are also different on the inside (metabolism, disease susceptibility)
I can only speak for myself, but "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" sums it up pretty well for me.
Beautiful to whom?
Fit for what?
Susceptible to which diseases? Concrete example: Carrying a gene for sickle-cell disease is obviously bad... unless you want some resistance to malaria. So which is it now, good or bad?
Of course people are different, and that's awesome. But the idea that you can give people "scores" on a bunch of axes like the ones above, and then figure out who is "better" or "worse" seems to me naive at best.
So there is a backlash against that. Thankfully. And along the way, in the push back, facts may get lost. Fact's that really, in the context of war, were not helpful.
And now humanity's leading edge seems to be becoming comfortable with that fact we are all different and actually kind of the same and are accommodating of wonderful multiplicity.
Whilst watching the shadow aspects of our egos, in case they come out to grandstand.
Why would you think we're equally able to improve ourselves, either?
It's naive to think everyone is born equal that way.
It's naive and ignorant to ignore nurture in the debate. A lack of Vitamin D or cholesterol can inhibit myelin growth, which notably in the womb causes a miscarriage or still-birth/brain dead baby. It's reasonable to assume that a lack of Vitamin D or cholesterol in a child's formative years is going to cause severe developmental problems.
Natalie Portman has a degree and an oscar for one simple thing: She works hard.
If she didn't work hard she might be a recognizable actress, but she'd be like a huge number of university enrollees in that they never get any degree.
Genetics is a firm foundation, bad genetics can cause lots of problems. But only work is going to build a house, and only hard work is going to build you a mansion.
Anyway, your point gets into issues of free will and consciousness that philosophers have been debating for centuries. If everything has a cause, how can we say what we're actually responsible for, and how much is just a reaction to random chance? Perhaps consciousness is largely an illusion: the brain makes decisions based on firmly ingrained circuits that function at a subconscious level, and only later does that bubble up to the conscious level.
We may all end up near enough (for all practical purposes) at the same endpoint if we all worked hard and performed necessary rotations and frame changes given our situations. The brain is very malleable.
There is also the fact that people start at different places for different areas and that chooses where they end up specializing. And there is probably some self-fulfilling prophecy going on that trains people to avoid smarty pants subjects which are vital for developing rigorous thinking. why is it a matter of pride to be terrible at maths and technical subjects? or the fact of growing up with certain teachers and society all but directly informing you that certain races aren't up for certain more mathy subjects. I can certainly attest to that stuff messing up your ability to keep on when things get difficult.
We have nature, nurture and random chance that create all of us. I wouldn't have said "life's too short" and moved country if I hadn't read a single book (The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin) that I have no clue how it came to be in my possession.
My entire life is based on seemingly random chances. I met my wife via friends of friends of friends whom I originally met in a chat room. I got my dog (Dachshund x Jack Russell) by going to the SPCA when they were flooded with Labrador crosses and they had no terriers up for adoption, but she was getting taken out for a walk at that very moment.
Our entire lives are quantified by our reaction to random chance. I had less odds of being where I am today than I have of winning the lottery, but why do the events of my life occur so but my lottery ticket is always going to be a dud for the rest of my life.
It's the mixture of our nature and nurture that define who we are, by how we react to random occurrences. What random shit defined your life so far?
But more significantly, intelligence is a very fuzzy concept, much harder to describe and more so define than eye color or height. It is also as much of a cultural concept as things like beauty, charisma, etc... Which is also why it is a more touchy subject than eye color or height: it is much more related to one own ideology.
Because intelligence is much less understood than most of the rest of our bodies. For example, there have been various discoveries that seem to indicate our language has an effect on what we can know and understand [1, 2, etc.]. Perhaps there are dramatic differences in what each of our brains are capable at the "hardware" level, but the "software" (language) dampens the effect.
[1] The Piraha can't learn numbers after a certain age because they have no words to describe them
[2] An article a few months back about deaf people growing up without any language ended up bringing out the fact that some asian languages have words to describe some aspect of color that westerners do not. Babies are able to see the difference but gradually lose the ability as they grow up with no way of expressing it.
If you want to be the best in the world, it's true that factors outside of your control come into play. If you can "settle" for being in the top 10, top 100, or top 1000, instead of #1, you probably don't need much besides a lot of well-directed effort.
In my experience.
Another case in point: taxi drivers apparently have growing brain regions for geographic stuff (learning their city by heart). I guess you wouldn't expect most taxi drivers to have above average intelligence, but if you tested their geographic "senses", they might register as geniuses. But they also probably didn't become taxi drivers because of their talent - it developed by them being taxi drivers.
I'm just happy if they have a GPS navigation system and can vaguely understand the directions issued from same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#...
When taxi drivers are required to demonstrate a deep knowledge of the geography of their area and are not allowed to rely on maps or GPS navigation systems in order to be certified, you end up with taxi drivers that are very good at navigating the city.
Most people can get within less than 2 seconds of Usain Bolt's best time. Going beyond that you run into a sheer cliff face. For athletes those fractions of a second is where biology starts to make a difference, the vast majority of differences in skill however, can be found in hard work.
I don't think this is true at all. People who are average intelligence or below can be very successful but have no chance of succeeding in high level intellectual pursuits. People who are smart don't understand this, because to them learning anything is just a matter of effort.
I think there is truth in what you are saying, because at a certain level of intelligence, hard work and attitude become more of a bottleneck than ability. This is supported by facts as well, studies have found that success increases by IQ score, but levels off or drops at a certain point where brainpower is more of a handicap to mental health than a benefit.