> On the other hand, there's probably some partition - even if it's preference of {boxers, briefs, lingerie, 'commando'} - for any academic field by which one nation is better for each part.
This is not at all self-evident and if any such factor so strongly correlated with academics, it would be born out in real life and society. "Smarter people like vanilla over chocolate ice cream." The only reason race has come to matter so much is that it IS such a massive factor on one's life experience, whereas having brown hair vs. blonde hair does not and causes far less controversy.
The list of attributes that correlate to academic performance is long and picking from them is arbitrary. Eg:
{ People who study, people who cut class }
Country A: one freak Nobel laureate who likes to study, and a million citizens who scrape by but cut class.
Country B is the inverse: a million studious citizens, and one class-cutting deadbeat.
A's single Nobel laureate scores better at Math than than B's million nerds, and A's million deadbeats score better than B's sole deadbeat. Now country A is better at Math.
This is not at all self-evident and if any such factor so strongly correlated with academics, it would be born out in real life and society. "Smarter people like vanilla over chocolate ice cream." The only reason race has come to matter so much is that it IS such a massive factor on one's life experience, whereas having brown hair vs. blonde hair does not and causes far less controversy.