According to this article in The Guardian, a soccer team in the UK wants to give its players a genetic test to see if any of them have a propensity for greatness. The inspiration was research published by a professor at Aberdeen University:

My first reaction was much like that of this soccer official quoted later in the story:

In European soccer, as in American baseball, players who reach the highest levels tend to be born in particular months. Those months, not surprisingly, are right after the cutoff dates for Little League or the equivalent. Let's say a league's cutoff date is July 31, with kids before that date assigned to one age group and kids born after it assigned to the next one down. Kids born in August will always be the oldest in their leagues, giving them an advantage. Kids born in July will always be the youngest in their leagues, putting them at a disadvantage.

You'd think that the advantage would eventually disappear, as the athletes mature physically and they compete in high school and college, where the age cutoffs are different. But it doesn't. Apparently, being the oldest and best players throughout childhood has an effect that continues into adulthood.

What does that have to do with genetics? Nothing, which of course is my point. It's all about circumstances that led to early advantages over their peers. Another type of advantage might be having your father as a coach, giving you more opportunities to play than other kids with similar skill sets. Yet another advantage might come from affluence -- better-off families can afford to send their kids to camps where they'll get better coaching and develop more advanced skills than their peers.

None of this is to say that physical prowess isn't, at least in part, determined by genetics. I could've been born in the best month for whatever sport I wanted to play and gotten all the best coaching in the world, and I still wouldn't have had the talent to take advantage of it. I still would've been slow, weak, nearsighted, and at best modestly coordinated.

But even among athletes who possess all the key attributes, there's still something else that produces athletic greatness, particularly in team sports. According to this article, some baseball teams are experimenting with a new way to evaluate talent:

If it works, it might prove to be baseball's equivalent of the NFL's Wonderlic tests, which measure players' intelligence.

But as much as the NFL values intelligence in its quarterbacks and offensive linemen, the players who take the test already have a long history of accomplishment at their positions. If a quarterback can't throw a football, and hasn't been a star in high school and college, he's not going to get offered the chance to redeem his career with an IQ test.

So put me on the side of those who doubt if there'll ever be a genetic test that predicts superstardom, at least in team sports. Success remains the best predictor of success.

Monday blog meat

• Talk about your mixed messages: This report says more women than ever begin pregnancy with diabetes. But this report says chocolate can lower the health risks associated with diabetes. I understand that the scientists who did the second study are talking about flavonoid-rich chocolate, which is different from your basic Snickers bar, but still ...
• An overweight prisoner in Arkansas has sued his jailors for starving him, claiming that he's lost more than 100 pounds in eight months while being forced to survive on just 3,000 calories a day. I guess he doesn't understand that things are tough all over.