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The Secrets of Jewish Genius: It’s not about having higher I.Q.s.
NYT ^ | 12 27 2019 | Bret Stephens

Posted on 12/28/2019 7:56:45 AM PST by yesthatjallen

SNIP

Sarah Bernhardt and Franz Kafka; Albert Einstein and Rosalind Franklin; Benjamin Disraeli and (sigh) Karl Marx — how is it that a people who never amounted even to one-third of 1 percent of the world’s population contributed so seminally to so many of its most pathbreaking ideas and innovations?

The common answer is that Jews are, or tend to be, smart. When it comes to Ashkenazi Jews, it’s true. “Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average I.Q. of any ethnic group for which there are reliable data,” noted one 2005 paper. “During the 20th century, they made up about 3 percent of the U.S. population but won 27 percent of the U.S. Nobel science prizes and 25 percent of the ACM Turing awards. They account for more than half of world chess champions.”

But the “Jews are smart” explanation obscures more than it illuminates. Aside from the perennial nature-or-nurture question of why so many Ashkenazi Jews have higher I.Q.s, there is the more difficult question of why that intelligence was so often matched by such bracing originality and high-minded purpose.

SNIP

But as the story of the Lithuanian rabbi suggests, Jewish genius operates differently. It is prone to question the premise and rethink the concept; to ask why (or why not?) as often as how; to see the absurd in the mundane and the sublime in the absurd. Ashkenazi Jews might have a marginal advantage over their gentile peers when it comes to thinking better. Where their advantage more often lies is in thinking different.

SNIP

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: 2020election; ashkenazijews; bellcurve; bretstephens; chat; chatforum; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; election2020; georgesoros; gregorycochran; henryharpending; iq; jasonhardy; jewish; jewishgenius; jews; mediawingofthednc; monsey; nature; newyork; newyorkcity; newyorkslimes; newyorktimes; nurture; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; rudygiuliani; smearmachine; splc
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To: tired&retired
Wrong. It's a simple matter of evolution & natural selection. The bell curve perfectly illustrates the concept. In any given population, discrete segments will develop based on environmental pressure(s). In the struggle for survival amidst competition for scarce resources, every organism attempts to parlay and leverage whatever beneficial mutation may have granted them a (temporary) advantage.

As civilization progressed, needs arose for more complex, organizational thinking: trade/tariffs, tax assessments/collections, calendar planning (agriculture), money/exchange. Certain groups were able to adapt to this new way of living ie indoors utilizing brain processing vs outdoor physical labor. After around 6-7k years, today we call them Jews. Change the name, destroy the race, and the same type of group(s) would (re)emerge yet again simply due to the demand placed upon the skills they deliver.

The fact that they were/are persecuted for their unique advantages created outside pressure which drove them further into tribal insularity, including coining such self serving phrases like 'chosen people'.

41 posted on 12/28/2019 8:46:16 AM PST by semantic
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To: yesthatjallen

42 posted on 12/28/2019 8:48:13 AM PST by UnwashedPeasant (Trump is solving the worldÂ’s problems only to distract us from Russia.)
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To: yesthatjallen

So they are more pragmatic than the average gentile.


43 posted on 12/28/2019 8:48:31 AM PST by READINABLUESTATE
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To: UnwashedPeasant

:-)


44 posted on 12/28/2019 8:50:08 AM PST by Jane Long (Praise God, from whom ALL blessings flow.)
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To: All

Let me know when a newspaper prints an article about how great white people are.


45 posted on 12/28/2019 8:50:09 AM PST by escapefromboston (Free Assange)
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To: yesthatjallen

Family destruction has eliminated many of the advantages of being Jewish. What held true for previous generations can no longer be assumed to remain true. Jewish kids are being abandoned and abused by leftists on a widespread basis just like other kids are, overwhelmingly by voluntarily-single radical feminist mothers and by Communist schools.


46 posted on 12/28/2019 8:51:30 AM PST by thoughtomator (... this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.)
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To: BlueStateRightist

God makes sure that Jews can’t forget being Jewish by making sure they are out of step with a culture that would otherwise absorb them.

The more religious, the more conservative because being religious is the acknowledgment of forever not belonging to the broader culture


47 posted on 12/28/2019 8:52:14 AM PST by jjotto (Next week, BOOM!, for sure!)
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To: Leaning Right

“And the father was talking to the son. I could hear what the father was saying. He was quizzing his son on basic math and science facts, based on what they saw as they walked along.

That’s why Jews are so “smart”. Case closed.”

Yes, and that’s the result of a higher IQ. A successful culture is applying brain power to figuring out what’s the best way to behave now that will bring future success.


48 posted on 12/28/2019 8:54:32 AM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you care!)
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To: BipolarBob

lol, I took the bait I fed it into an online translator. I thought it might be Yiddish. Then I looked closer.


49 posted on 12/28/2019 8:59:07 AM PST by gibsonguy
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To: yesthatjallen

What percentage of the Supreme Court grew up Catholic?


50 posted on 12/28/2019 9:15:35 AM PST by Fido969 (In!)
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To: semantic

That’s an interesting theory. It sort of goes hand in hand with the urban/rural divide in political preference. I don’t think any group of people become less liberal when they choose to live in urban areas, they seem to invariably become more liberal than rural living members of the same group. Jews are probably the most urban living group in the world and in all of history. Where a group tends to live, no matter the reason, might be the most determinate factor in political preference.

I wonder if there is any exit polling that includes rural living Jews. In anything I have ever seen they seem to be always included in the ‘other’ type categories with no breakdown between different faiths/ethnicity.

Freegards


51 posted on 12/28/2019 9:15:45 AM PST by Ransomed
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To: yesthatjallen
I grew up in an upper middle class Jewish neighborhood.The kid next door to me had a father who was a physician and a mother who was a research scientist. The father was quite nice,quite likable, but the mother was an absolute witch.

He used to look down from his bedroom window into our yard while we were playing catch and we'd call up to him..."hey,Ritchie,c'mon out and play". He'd say "nah,my mother wants me to stay up here and read". The only "fun" he was allowed was to play bridge. I kid you not.

He wound up graduating from a top medical school,has a beautiful wife and a beautiful house....and he's just about the unhappiest guy on the planet.

Yes,I know....that's just one story.

52 posted on 12/28/2019 9:17:06 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (The Rats Can't Get Over The Fact That They Lost A Rigged Election)
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To: Gay State Conservative

I hate bridge


53 posted on 12/28/2019 9:18:26 AM PST by combat_boots (God bless Israel and all who protect and defend her! Merry Christmas! In God We Trust! Hi)
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To: Leaning Right

Amen! They won’t allow their kids to be TATTOOED, PIERCED. drop out of school, think that being smart is TOO WHITE, they send them to Hebrew School to learn their Bar Mitvah parts, etc.


54 posted on 12/28/2019 9:19:33 AM PST by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: combat_boots

Never played it...never will. But the thought of a teenage (or pre-teenage) American boy playing bridge boggles my mind.


55 posted on 12/28/2019 9:21:25 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (The Rats Can't Get Over The Fact That They Lost A Rigged Election)
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To: KC_for_Freedom

Or think of adults keeping the mind sharp. Tonight is a celebration of completing one page of Talmud a day. It takes over seven years. Tens of thousands of Jews around the world will celebrate the completion of such a cycle. It’s called ‘Siyum HaShas’ of the ‘Daf Yomi’.


56 posted on 12/28/2019 9:33:30 AM PST by jjotto (Next week, BOOM!, for sure!)
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To: Gay State Conservative
But the thought of a teenage (or pre-teenage) American boy playing bridge boggles my mind.

That little boy ...

... was me ...

57 posted on 12/28/2019 9:45:43 AM PST by x
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To: Leaning Right
And the father was talking to the son. I could hear what the father was saying. He was quizzing his son on basic math and science facts, based on what they saw as they walked along.

I did that with my kids when I walked them to school every day... squares, square roots, multiplication tables in their head... every single morning.

One morning I forgot and my young son said, "Dad... aren't we going to do math this morning?" He later went on to get a Masters Degree in Mathematics and teach at an Ivy League University part time while still in his 20's.

58 posted on 12/28/2019 9:48:25 AM PST by Bon mots
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To: semantic

Excellent!


59 posted on 12/28/2019 9:54:32 AM PST by gandalftb
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To: yesthatjallen

While the Catholic Church held a total monopoly on European learning in Latin for 1500 years, leaving the masses in total ignorance (as taught in Tyranny 101), EVERY Jewish male learned to read the Torah in their vernacular language. Jews had the advantage of a 50% literacy rate vs. a .01% Vatican inspired literacy rate for those 1500 years, up until Gutenberg. New discoveries in epigenetic inheritance would indicate that humans CAN pass on acquired characteristics via bio-genetic means. Which is another way of saying that stupidity is not an aid to survival in the way Social Darwinism’s observations about fitness would have us mesmerized.


60 posted on 12/28/2019 9:57:32 AM PST by Yollopoliuhqui
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