Intellect clearly has a genetic component to it, race and genetics are also correlated. Nature or nurture ? Certainly both come into play. There are many different types of intelligence as well. On standardized tests of verbal and visuospatial problem solving abilities there are distinctions to be made between the bell curves of different races. On tests of athleticism there are also different race based bell curves. There is really no real argument against racial differences, they clearly exist and are well documented. I personally think people are different yet they are equal. From what I have seen, there is a lot of overlap between the bell curves of various racial groups on IQ tests, I believe Asians have the highest average intelligence, Caucasians have the second highest average intelligence but have more individual extremely intelligent geniuses than any other race, and black people average somewhat lower but still with large numbers of very smart people (although they have very few extremely intelligent geniuses). This isn't a racist thought, it is the data collected from IQ testing. It is somewhat controversial though, many claim that blacks are at an unfair advantage when it comes to IQ tests because the IQ tests may not be entirely culturally neutral. I believe this cultural bias is especially true for tests of verbal intelligence, and indeed blacks tend to do better on visuospatial tests.