As for genetic components:
While the exact nature of the relationship is less clear, it is blantantly obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than a second that a society with a 70 IQ average is incapable of the level of civilization possible to one with a 100IQ average.
It is also well known in psychology that certain character traits such as conscientiousness and agreeability are ALSO inheritable to some degree. For example, multiple studies show whites to be the ONLY race that doesn’t demonstrate strong in-group biases.
Personally, I believe culture and biological race reinforce each other. My favorite example is that Samoans are massive because their culture treats size and bulk as a beauty standard. Naturally, a culture that sees big as beautiful is more likely to produce giants than one that doesn’t.
But when another culture sees romantic poetry as attractive, people act like that culture, thereby, somehow doesn’t breed poets in the same way
