Whites and Asians seem to be far and away the best inventors, at least when it comes to America. As of 2016, 96.5% of US inventors were either White or Asian. What's more impressive is that both races outperformed their per capita percentage, with Whites (being 61.6% of the population in 2020) representing 73.64% of inventors, while Asians (being 6% of the population in 2020) representing 21.89% of inventors. It should be noted that some percentage of both figures are Jewish people (who, imo, are functionally not White), but neither the study nor Wikipedia census data accounted for that Race and ethnicity in the United States - Wikipedia
Conversely, despite being 12.1% of the United States population in 2020, Blacks were inventors 1.635% of the time. Hispanic/Latino people made up 18.7% of the United States population in 2020, yet they were inventors only 3.692% of the time FtPVig9WcAAwVTw (738×357) (twimg.com) . This makes my face frown.
For all the talk about Asians not being very creative, it appears when you put them in countries not stifled by odious amounts of totalitarianism (i.e. a lot of their own countries), they tend to start shining with inventions.
For all the other talk about people "Whitewashing" history or current days by excluding Black inventions: they're just not inventing very much. They're thoroughly underrepresented because they're just not inventing very much. There's a similar but slightly better story for Hispanics.
So the next time you see an invention in the United States, you can bet your top dollar that a White or Asian person was the inventor.
Other interesting notes from the paper that aren't relevant to the OP (but still interesting):
Women represent a bit under 12% of inventors, with young women only closing this gap with relative young men to about 16% (young inventor defined as age < 36).
Over 30% of inventors are foreign born, and of that over 30%, 40% of them come from either China or India.
Inventors mostly work at larger, older firms, rather than fresh start ups, although the inventions from younger firms tended to be more impactful.
Inventors tend to be closer to middle age than young age, despite the decrease in neuroplasticity.
