Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

No, extrapolating outside of study sample is the entire point of doing science. Of what use science would be if we could not do that? Imagine, “no, you can’t say that this vaccine is effective, at best you can say that it was effective in the sample of subjects being included in that study, but you can’t extrapolate that outside the sample, that would be a rookie mistake”. This is, of course, absurd. We do science precisely so that we can make useful predictions in day to day life, outside of studies.

> they conclude that genetics must be the decisive factor!

I observe a goalpost being shifted, from “genetic factors alone” to them being decisive. I do not accept that. Please, tell me, where they, or anyone else claims that genetic factors alone determine outcomes.

> they assume AFQT = IQ = g = genetics

I don’t think they do, and it is contradicted by what you wrote in this very comment, where you say they claim genetics is “decisive factor”. This clearly makes no sense under assumption of equality/identity of concepts — you wouldn’t say that A is a “decisive factor” in B, if A and B are the same thing.

> ideological stance, which Herrnstein have been defending for decades prior to the publication of the Bell Curve

Relationship between g and genetics is an empirical, not purely ideological issue. Hernstein has been saying that g is mostly determined by genes precisely because this is the current state of our scientific knowledge, and has been for decades.

"[W]hat’s so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela is that I can see how a better world is being created […] The transformations that Venezuela is making toward the creation of another socio-economic model could have a global impact."

That seems to prove my point, irrespective of whether the IEA is a right-wing thinktank (yes, it is).

No gene works in a vacuum. Genes code for proteins that work together to perform diverse functions. Sure: in some situations you can indeed directly identify that a gene knock out or substitution might affect certain functions, but this is rather misleading!

Genetics is actually very much Turing complete and Genes might best be looked at as a kind of software (this might be considered an understatement).

For comparison: I'm sure we agree that a single machine code instruction by itself is meaningless. However, if you knock out or add a JSR (Jump to SubRoutine aka function call) at the right spot: sure you can claim that the JSR codes for a particular functionality. But: JSR is 3 bytes on a 6502, would you really believe someone who told you that 3 bytes is what it takes to "make Mario jump"?

In reality there's a lot more instructions behind it (with perhaps calls to further subroutines, and more subroutines past that). Genes are not quite 6502 code of course, if anything they're rather more sophisticated.

To look at some of your examples:

You mention eye color which is determined by quite a number of genes working together (eg. location, color select, pigment) .

Height is affected by ... almost everything all at once over a longer period of time (eating, sleeping, age, eating at a particular age, metabolic rate : which itself is fairly sophisticated... there's wall charts that span an entire room). This to the point where some people give up and say "height is actually mostly environmentally determined". (Of course in reality it's an interaction between Genes and environment)

Vulnerability and immunity to diseases is very interesting indeed, if you eg. look at the role of somatic hypermutation in acquired immunity.

And all of these would obviously not work without working cells with DNA transcription, metabolism, membranes, replication, etc. ;-)

In short: be a little bit careful with claims in newspapers that say people have found a "Gene for X".