You are correct that psychological traits can be inhereted but they are not meaningfully distributed among different racial groups but it's all there in the literature just keep reading and make sure to scrutinize the methods of any journal studies you look at. I found an excellent article about this recently and now I don't know where I found it. Sorry, my cab is coming in 10 minutes I will look again later.
edit: Gah! meant psychological, that's what happens when you're in a hurry.
Have a safe trip!
haha the last thing you quoted is another very controversial topic and probably the last thing in the world this thread needs but a glance at that study will give you an indication of what I'm talking whether you agree with it or not.
I still see your point. I think the main disagreement on that point is that you put it down to genetic/evolutionary reasons and I say that, in this day and age, it is mostly due to cultural expectations and gender roles, which are driven by cultural ideas.
Another interesting part of the Environment is culture. Culture is basicly a whole bunch of habits that is passed on from generation to generation. A culture is practiced within a group (family, company, country, friends, any group). I think a culture only consists of knowledge. Culture is being practiced when a person uses the knowledge: talking, painting, dancing, organising, building, anything that we do.
Needless to say is that those habits are also shaped by the environment (a caveman in France paints a horse because he has seen a horse).
So which race is more suited to play chess? It cannot be answered yet. Races do not really exist. Our genes have mixed into a huge pool (with 'hotspots'). Eversince humanity started we have mixed our genes, quite intensively, and alongside cultures mixes all the time. Internet and globalisation have spread culture more than ever! This proces will likely continu and chances are that humans will become a more homogeneous group, both in genes and culture.
But at this time we can say for sure that there are differences. The thing that I believe grows chess GMs for the biggest part is culture. In some parts of the worlds chess is part of the history. There where facilities to play and a group of people that supported it. An equal talent in Russia will probably proliferate his chess skills much more than someone in Africa. A talent thrives on its environment. Also it depends how much fitness chess gives you. Fitness as in: how much chess benefits your live. Perhaps chess is not as much rewarding in one place or the other. In general I believe chess is formed by culture mostly and for a tiny bit by genes. My bet is that an Asian guy will be world's nr1 in 50 years :)
+1
Culture and economics (e.g. opportunity) play a huge role in how we interact with the world and certainly with a game such as chess. Given a proper opportunity, pretty much anyone can excel in chess and with enough time (starting young), enough passion and some (maybe a lot of) talent anyone of any race or gender can become GM strength. Super GM probably needs a little something more but again, race and gender play only a minor role overall.
Culture probably has the biggest impact on how any particular person will react to this game. Certain cultures, in general, may not have the mindset to take to the game (mindset is not intelligence).
Economics also plays into and is likely influenced by culture. A region or culture that does not have the economic security or leisure time to pursue a game that has has little, or obvious, economic incentive is unlikely to pursue said game and if they do, it would unlikely be beyond a casual way.
Sure, there are likely to be exceptions and certain cultures may place a higher emphasis on leisure activities and more intellectual pursuits. The whole outlook that race is the issue, especially in something that is at its essence, a mind game, is heading to the wrong conclusion and can better be explained by culture and the opportunities presented to that culture.
The argument being made for race playing role, can point more to cultural and economic realities. Sure, you can argue that race helps define culture, to some extent; especially among a homogenous sub-group or region.
Similar arguments can and have been made about gender. Again, culture plays a very large role in what certain societies present as the proper role for each gender and things like Science, Mathematics, Warfare, and Chess as examples, have historically been acceptable for male endeavors but have generally been discouraged for females. Even today in many cultures, even ones with the opportunity and economic means to allow people to play a game as a hobby, many women still don't pursue these fields and chess is no exception.
On the gender front, the Polgar sisters are a very good indicator that women can play high level chess and as was posted earlier, it becomes a numbers game. The more women that play chess, the more that will get better and as it becomes more an more accepted, the likelihood of more top level female GMs is higher.
The same can be said of racial differences. For those that have the culture for it and the opportunity and economics, they too will begin having more an more players at the top levels of chess. You just have to look to programs like the IS 318 how well their chess program has done. Justus Williams at over 2300 and other strong players in what is an economically depressed area of NYC. I'm sure there are other examples that I'm unaware of.
If you want to read a good artical on cultural differences, take a look at this article. Again, you can argue, if you wish, that culture is a racial construct, but I think the overall argument that race plays a major role in why there aren't many GMs of African decent, is way too simplistic and ignores a lot of dependent variables.
Pretty much anyone can become GM strength? Bull shot. I'm not talking about race here. That includes every race.
One of the dependent variables being that there are a lot African GM's in checkers and Japanese masters in Go.
Pretty much anyone can become GM strength? Bull shot. I'm not talking about race here. That includes every race.
That was the entire point in Laszlo Polgar's experiment. Wouldn't you say it was successful?
Pretty much anyone can become GM strength? Bull shot. I'm not talking about race here. That includes every race.
That was the entire point in Laszlo Polgar's experiment. Wouldn't you say it was successful?
Thousands of kids have started very young with good coaches. You just hear about the successful ones.
Pretty much anyone can become GM strength? Bull shot. I'm not talking about race here. That includes every race.
Yes, there is a bit (maybe a lot 
) of hyperbole there. The main point is that race and/or gender is not a major deciding factor, if at all, in becoming a world class player. There are other circumstances that can impact the ability of any specific person gaining the rank of GM.
Given the appropriate amount of time (starting young), plenty of resources (appropriate training, access to top players and tourneys, etc), a personal desire to be good at the game, not getting jaded or disgusted with the process, other interests sidetracking the student, and a talent for hard work, I still think most children can become world class; maybe not all (my claim of any) but I'm sure a lot.
A culture that values and supports chess, think one like the Soviet Union in the past, can turn many children into very strong players; Russia has 2178 active titled players, 216 GMs (not counting former Soviet countries). The same could happen in the US if there was a desire to truly support chess and train youth in a more focused manner.
As to the Polgar example, two out of three of his daughters became GMs and the third is a strong player, a WGM. My hypothesis is that you can do the same type of thing with a child of any race, especially if the overall culture supports chess as a worthwhile activity, and turn them into a strong player. Sure, you might get someone like Josh Waitzkin or Jeff Sarwer; so you don't just hear about the successful ones (well they were successful, just not GMs, yet 
)
But my hyperbole doesn't change the idea that race doesn't play a major, if any, role in how strong a player can get. Culture and environment (nurture) plays a much stronger part.
Pretty much anyone can become GM strength? Bull shot. I'm not talking about race here. That includes every race.
That was the entire point in Laszlo Polgar's experiment. Wouldn't you say it was successful?
Thousands of kids have started very young with good coaches. You just hear about the successful ones.
The point is, he wasn't just a coach. They weren't just kids who liked chess so they got in an instructor for a few hours a week.
It was an experiment. They did nothing but chess under his instruction (to the detrement of other education), so saying that plenty of young kids have a good coach but you never hear of them doesn't really fit with the example. It's just not the same thing.
He set out to prove that you could make any child brilliant at something and, in my mind, he obviously succeeded.
Interestingly, I think his experiment also proves the nature + nurture argument. That to be strong, you need an ordinary child. To be at the absolute peak, you need a little something extra. Judit was far stronger than the other two, despite having the same education. She is up there with some of the strongest male GMs in history (ranked 30-35 or there abouts with an elo peak of 2735-ish), The other two are strong players, obviously, but they are not at risk of breaking into that to tier of players as she did.
Pretty much anyone can become GM strength? Bull shot. I'm not talking about race here. That includes every race.
That was the entire point in Laszlo Polgar's experiment. Wouldn't you say it was successful?
Thousands of kids have started very young with good coaches. You just hear about the successful ones.
The point is, he wasn't just a coach. They weren't just kids who liked chess so they got in an instructor for a few hours a week.
It was an experiment. They did nothing but chess under his instruction (to the detrement of other education), so saying that plenty of young kids have a good coach but you never hear of them doesn't really fit with the example. It's just not the same thing.
He set out to prove that you could make any child brilliant at something and, in my mind, he obviously succeeded.
Interestingly, I think his experiment also proves the nature + nurture argument. That to be strong, you need an ordinary child. To be at the absolute peak, you need a little something extra. Judit was far stronger than the other two, despite having the same education. She is up there with some of the strongest male GMs in history (ranked 30-35 or there abouts with an elo peak of 2735-ish), The other two are strong players, obviously, but they are not at risk of breaking into that to tier of players as she did.
That's not true, they were given a normal home school type education which covered all the regular stuff but added chess as a special subject.
Well, no, she IS far stronger, but if were talking who was (past tense) stronger it was Sofia. Both her sisters say so, but Sofia was not as interested and never even made the GM title.
It's true according to anything I have read about them any way. They are making a film about their childhood soon, that may shed some light on it as well. The state tried put a stop to it because they felt they weren't receiving the correct type of education. It was certainly not good for their social development either, which definitely is part of a childs education. Obviously my statement was too absolute, if they did 'nothing else' then they wouldn't be able to function in a normal society. (I really didn't consider someone taking it so literally. I'd imagine to be pedantic more than anything)They certainly didn't receive any curriculum that other children did though. Also, some would say, to the detrement of their childhood.
As for Judit. What is the argument? She is by far the strongest female player in chess history. Who cares if someone was better than her as a child? (though I would love to know your source for that) That is not what I said. I said she is far stronger than the other two....it's irrefutable.
Provide sources please.
Edit: Also, according to an interview with her, she trained for 10 hours a day. I'd love to know how a 'normal' home schooling education could be fit around that.
I didn't know the state was worried about their education. Maybe I was wrong about that, the movie would be interesting.
About Sofia, I forgot where, and I don't care enough about being right to look it up, and so I don't mind if you don't believe me. It was some interview or something where her sisters said said chess skill always came easier for Sofia / she didn't work as hard at it / she was a natural (something to that effect, I don't remember specifically). Sofia also had that great tournament performance at 14 when she beat a bunch of GMs or something. Briefly looking I can't find a cross table for it though : / I'm guessing she made at least 1 GM norm though, I don't think she lost a game.
Yeah, the 'Sack of Rome'. She beat an embarrassing amount of GMs. Also, I do agree it came more naturally to her but that doesn't mean she was a stronger player.
I should also clarify that 10 hours a day was prior to tournaments, not every day. I still think that letting a kid play chess for 10 hours a day a few weeks leading up to a tournament is probably damaging for a normal education though.
Anyway, the point was that his experiment seemed to work. With such a small test sample though, it is hard to tell. Could someone else replicate4 the results? I don't know. They were obviously the product of two very intelligent people so maybe genetically they had a great start. The big difference in long lasting strength appears to indicate that they were not all geniuses though. 135 elo points at that standard is quite a huge difference. Maybe that indicates that Judit had a little something extra. I am just theorising though, I can't say for sure. I just think it is an interesting question.
I should say as well, my original point was to indicate that they were not just good young players with a good coach (as the poster a quoted stated about other children we never hear of again). They were a different thing all together.
Yeah. It would have been even more interesting if he had done the experiment on a few different kids... of course it gets to be quite a burden and maybe unethical, having three kids and then adopting more just for your experiments :p
I dunno. Madonna and Angelina Jolie keep buying up children and nobody cares. Laszlo could create his own army of chess prodigies.
Interestingly, Susan's children play and seem to be winning tournaments already (I can only base that on one documentary where they were holding up their trophies at an event though. Not sure if that's a regular occurence).
I wonder what sort of chess study they are doing. If it is extreme as their mother's. I suppose we might see in a few years. If they are anything like her we'll be hearing about them soon.
Here is an interesting article from "Ebony" magazine, July of 1999 (hint: right-click and choose "view image" to see at full size):
The Wu-Tang Clan rap about chess. And they are a popular black rap group and black people like them. Therefore many many more black people play chess than white people. Also I can name one black chess club and black people in my neighborhood play chess.
Well guy with a confederate flag in your profile picture who spells clan with a k I think you've just put forward a reasonable and irrefutable argument. Thread over.
Yes, there are differences in gender and psychological makeup but how much of that is cultural and how much is evolutionary? And how much do those differences impact how one plays the game of chess?
There is no right way to play chess and even male GMs play the games in different ways at times that play to their psychological makeups. Judit Polgar was in rated 8th in the world in 2005 and is still in the top 100 at 53rd. She had ample opportunity to excel in the game and was/is as strong as male players; she started at a young age, had the economic ability to allow her parents to provide training and access to tournaments. Susan and Sofia Polgar are also very strong players.
Ahh, I think I wasn't clear on this point. I wasn't saying that men are inherently better at chess due to psychological traits, I was saying that more men are more likely to work harder to become good chess players because the game is inherently more appealing to men (due to their psychology, the game was probably invented by men for men, think about it). If you extrapolate this to the rest of what I said about race I think you'll see what I meant.
I think you were plenty clear on your point. And I say that culture and opportunity play a much bigger part in what drives those psychological differences. Introduce the game to a female at a young enough age, give plenty of training and opportunity to excel and you can get someone that is just as good as a male. You always can run into the problem with pushing too hard and then losing interest, but you can get that with a male too.
The thing is, even if you do that in many Western cultures (maybe most) females are given a role and society (the implementation of culture) pushes those gender roles, even though this is becoming less pronounced. So in the case of female players, especially in the US, you have a large number playing at young ages and that falls off as they get older. Until you get to a point that there are fewer high level female players. Culture plays a very big role in this.