Are all disparities between ethnic groups due to prejudice? From black track athletes to many Americans’ hesitation around spicy food, according to many intellectuals, the disparity is caused by racism. But is this rational—or even biologically accurate?

Everyone agrees that there is lots of cultural variety between ethnic groups. What is rarely mentioned is that ethnic groups differ in certain genetic traits, which may well contribute to the cultural differences between them. Let’s look at some examples.

Firstly, a group’s physical features can affect where its members choose to live. Sociologist Pierre L. van den Berghe suggested that Europe’s colonization of other continents reflected the circumstance that “Europeans were biologically adapted to nontropical climates.” European colonists tended to settle in relatively cool areas. “In tropical areas,” he remarked, “they often were at a biological disadvantage in relation to better-adapted natives.”

The tendency to live in cool climates seems to have deeply shaped the culture of European-descended peoples. For instance, it has been noted that populations that live in cooler climates tend to spice their food less heavily. Unsurprisingly, white people in both America and Europe are known for using less seasoning than members of other ethnicities.

Still, in discussing why white Americans prefer less spicy dishes, many authors tend to mention racial and class identity. In one these writers’ words, “Our seemingly innate human preference for flavorful food has battled with our powerful human tendency to create and reinforce class, racial, and aesthetic hierarchies.” While this argument may fit popular sensibilities around race and class, the far more obvious effects of climate are conspicuously absent from it.

Partly related is the issue of sport. The fact that populations are adapted to different climates likely affects their performance in sporting activities. Thus, evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein has remarked that “different populations dominate different sports”—that, for instance, Ethiopians and Kenyans, rather than Inuits, tend to excel at marathon running because “Inuits are shaped so as to conserve heat,” whereas Ethiopian and Kenyan body types are geared toward “radiating heat.”

More generally, there seem to be general divergences in body type between ethnic groups. In The Sports Gene, journalist David Epstein summarizes:

Every study that has examined race differences in body types has documented a disparity between black and white people that remains whether they reside in Africa, Europe, or the Americas. For any given sitting height – that is, the height of one’s head when one is sitting in a chair – Africans or African Americans have longer legs than Europeans.

Time and again, adds Epstein, such differences have also been shown among Olympic contestants of different races. Could such physiological disparities be one reason why racial groups are represented differently in different sports—why so many world-class runners are black, for instance?

Epstein also mentions the gene ACTN3, which seems to increase running speed. Having two X variants of the gene seems to negate its benefit, and one study Epstein cites found that none of the 32 Olympic sprinters examined had two X variants. Interestingly, the frequency of this “XX” combination varies by ethnicity. It was found in one-fourth of East Asians and “about 18 percent of white Australians.” However, its frequency is below one percent among “Africans or people of recent African ancestry.” Epstein cautions that looking at ACTN3 by itself only allows one to identify people who will not make it into the Olympic final for the hundred-meter dash. However, this does mean that “almost no black people … are ruled out.”

Despite such findings, some continue to blame differences in athletic performance on racism. For instance, anthropologist Alan Goodman and biologist Joseph Graves seek to refute the idea that black people “are genetically predisposed to run faster and jump higher.” Goodman and Graves believe black Americans dominate basketball not because of genetics but because society leaves them few possibilities to succeed otherwise.

They write: “Meanwhile, looking at other sports confirms that race has nothing to do with athleticism. Basketball uses similar muscles as swimming and skiing, but in these sports, White Europeans and Australians tend to dominate.”

This argument, however, ignores key information about the role center of mass plays in athletics. According to one study, black people have a higher center of mass than white people, and in the case of running, having a higher center of mass is an advantage, while a lower center of mass is an advantage in swimming. As for skiing, perhaps whites have an advantage here because they are adapted to colder climates, in line with Weinstein’s remarks.

Other intellectuals contend that black people produce many great athletes because they have been stereotyped as athletic. But if this were the case, as sociologist Noah Carl points out, it would make little sense for sports to be dominated by different groups at different times. Since there was once a popular perception that Finns were good long-distance runners, we might have expected to see more Finns excelling in long-distance running if stereotypes truly determined performance.

The use of alcohol is another facet of culture which is affected by genetic group differences. In Ethnic America, Thomas Sowell describes the cultures of various peoples that have come to the United States. Alcohol figures prominently in some of them. Thus, German immigrants brought a culture of beer consumption to the country. For the Irish, both in Ireland and later in America, drinking was a more harmful habit. Alcoholism and related social and health problems were more common among Irish-Americans than other ethnic groups.

Over a third of East Asians (Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans), however, “show a characteristic physiological response to drinking alcohol that includes facial flushing[,] … nausea, and tachycardia.” (“Tachycardia” refers to a heartbeat exceeding one hundred beats per minute.) The main reason for this reaction is a heritable problem with a certain enzyme, meaning that the cause is indeed genetic. It stands to reason that the Irish or German drinking culture could not have emerged to the same degree in, say, China. The local population’s genetic makeup simply would not have allowed it.

These facts bear relevance to the image of Asian Americans as a “model minority.” According to the Pew Research Center, “the model minority stereotype has characterized the nation’s Asian population as high-achieving economically and educationally,” but “some argue that the myth has been used to minimize racial discrimination.”

Obviously, the notion that Asians are an exceptionally successful minority in the U.S. has some truth to it. Some have attributed this standout success to high Asian IQs. But as we saw above, a less controversial genetic trait can help explain Asian flourishing: On the way to their model minority status, Asians were spared at least one pitfall, namely mass alcoholism. Of course, sobriety alone does not a “model minority” make. But then, enzymes are only one of many things affected by genes, and sobriety is only part of the overall straight-laced Asian culture.

Of course, one should not over-generalize. For example, the problems with processing alcohol described above apply to just over a third of East Asians. Still, a difference does not have to be immense to shape a culture in the long run. And clearly, not all disparities can be so simply explained by racism—no matter how culturally convenient such a claim may be.

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