Where Entine falls down is in making the link between race, biology and performance in sports. He admits that no one has yet isolated a gene for speed, or found that black people have muscle cells that are stronger or nerves that fire more quickly. He also goes too far in documenting the importance of psychological and cultural advantages in sports. Maybe the black athletes are just psyching the white guys out. The period since World War II is just not long enough to prove much about thousands of years of evolution or genetics.
History is unpredictable.
In the 1920s, white men dominated the popular contests of their time. Despite these criticisms, Taboo is an informed exploration of a fascinating phenomenon. Entine marshals such an impressive array of evidence that we should no longer be content to explain why blacks excel at certain sports by simply resorting to the old cultural argument that athletics have been the only avenues of upward mobility that were truly open to them. He's raised the argument to new heights.