[Loyalist]

Professor Harpending has just touched the third rail of human genetics. I don't know enough about the subject to comment cogently about the validity of his hypothesis. But if it is correct, he will be treated far more harshly than the Church ever treated Galileo.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Why, he and his colleagues at the University of Utah asked, have Jews of European descent won 27 per cent of the Nobel Prizes given to Americans in the past century, while making up only 3 per cent of the population? Why do they produce more than half the world's chess champions? And why do they have an average IQ higher than any other ethnic group for which there's reliable data, and nearly six times as many people scoring above 140 compared with Europeans?

And think of this................

How better the human condition on the planet earth if Hitler hadn't slaughtered the European Jews?!!!

[Publius6961]

Prof. Harpending suggests that the reason is in their bloodline — it's genetic.

With all due deference to the good Professor, I believe it's because culturally they are driven to actually try harder, not just go through the motions.
As a consequence, and incidentally, I have never feared Jews as an announced or de facto master race.

Nothing has ever prevented me from trying harder myself. I just chose not to.
And I am painfully aware that most, and almost an entire race, have chosen to try substantially less than I have.

[Graymatter]

So basically, the Jews are intelligent because necessity is the mother of invention. Well, that doesn't explain why the Scottish are the second most accomplished people... :)

I read somewhere that the Jews "bred for brains" by encouraging their best and brightest---their priest class---to marry and beget, rather than be celibate. As good as any other simplistic answer. Doesn't explain why Eastern Orthodox Catholics aren't a lot smarter than Roman Catholics.

Personally I think encouraging the kids to learn a second language and study hard has more to do with it. But I'm a homeschooler, may be prejudiced.

[ahayes]

Ping to self.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Speaking of condemnation, what of Herrnstein and Murray and their 'The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life'? See my tagline

[Graymatter]

Ever since the eugenics movement a century ago, which led to forced sterilizations in Canada and the United States to improve the racial stock of the human species, and then the horrors of Nazi Germany, such questions have been taboo.

Taboo? Taboo didn't stop the extermination of Terri Schiavo---an atrocity most Jews are too smart to approve of.

[razorback-bert]

Oh boy, the fhit is going to hit san.

[RightWhale]

Yep, he's in trouble. He should have stuck with something less controversial such as Global Warming.

[tet68]

Isn't this a sad statement coming from the "land of the Free".

Two U.S. journals refused the paper, an unusual experience for this widely published scholar. “We finally had to send the paper to England, where they're not so obsessed with political correctness,” Prof. Harpending said.

[marblehead17]

ping. Interesting story.

[thoughtomator]

Maybe it's because Jews without exceptional smarts (and luck) didn't escape the ovens and their historical predecessors.

[Bon mots]

Interesting post.
Have you seen:

La Griffe du Lion

Stalking The Wild Taboo

Or Richard Lynn's "IQ and the Wealth of Nations".

Country	IQ estimate
Hong Kong (China)	107
South Korea	106
Japan	105
Taiwan (ROC)	104
Singapore	104
Austria	102
Germany	102
Italy	102
Netherlands	102
Sweden	101
Switzerland	101
Belgium	100
China (PRC)	100
New Zealand	100
United Kingdom	100
Hungary	99
Poland	99
Spain	99
Australia	98
Denmark	98
France	98
Norway	98
United States	98
Canada	97
Czech Republic	97
Finland	97
Argentina	96
Russia	96
Slovakia	96
Uruguay	96
Portugal	95
Slovenia	95
Israel	94
Romania	94
Bulgaria	93
Ireland	93
Greece	92
Malaysia	92
Thailand	91
Croatia	90
Peru	90

Country	IQ estimate
Turkey	90
Colombia	89
Indonesia	89
Suriname	89
Colombia	88
Brazil	87
Iraq	87
Mexico	87
Samoa	87
Tonga	87
Lebanon	86
Philippines	86
Cuba	85
Morocco	85
Fiji	84
Iran	84
Marshall Islands	84
Puerto Rico	84
Egypt	83
India	81
Ecuador	80
Guatemala	79
Barbados	78
Nepal	78
Qatar	78
Zambia	77
Congo-Brazzaville	73
Uganda	73
Jamaica	72
Kenya	72
South Africa	72
Sudan	72
Tanzania	72
Ghana	71
Nigeria	67
Zimbabwe	66
Congo-Kinshasa	65
Sierra Leone	64
Ethiopia	63
Equatorial Guinea	59

[sourcery]

does it follow that another group has less?

And if so, does that mean that any such group is fully entitled to welfare and legal protection from discrimination?

[hosepipe]

[ And why do they have an average IQ higher than any other ethnic group for which there's reliable data, and nearly six times as many people scoring above 140 compared with Europeans? ]

Yeah and WHY has it evaded most Jews that socialism IS slavery by government.?.
Because they generally don't have any common SENSE.?.

Most american jews are as liberal as a lemming stampeding over a cliff..
as left wing as a Moonbat flying in circles in the bat cave..
"AS"... (like that)..

[MRadtke]

I think a lot of this is cultural. If you're willing to work and study hard, you will probably become more accomplished than one who spends their time pursuing the "sex, drugs, & rock'n'roll" thing.

[Bon mots]

Arthur Hu has put up an interesting page on this

[fso301]

His group's theory is that during 1,000 years of persecution, social isolation and employment restrictions in Europe that kept Ashkenazi Jews from farming, they were forced into (then disreputable) jobs such as trade and finance, which demanded mental agility. Success in these fields could lead to food, shelter and family. Under such pressures, the paper suggests, genetic traits related to intelligence became more prevalent among central and northern European Jews.

Might the Ashkenazi already have been predisposed? Doesn't the bible contain a number of examples of Hebrews and later Jews such as Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon who from a secular standpoint must have been extraordinarily talented?

[Old Professer]

It is commonly understood that certain truths are invalid on observation for the sake of peace.

[Vicomte13]

"If a complex trait such as intelligence can be inherited, for instance, and you say one ethnic or racial group tends to have more of it than others, does it follow that another group has less?"

Ummm, yes.
It follows as a matter of logic that if ONE group has MORE of it than others, than all others have LESS than that one group anyway.

I am suspicious of IQ tests, however. Had to formally take professionally administered ones twice, once as a kid, once as an adult.
I came out with a 90 both times.

To me, this disproves the validity of IQ tests as measures of any reasonable definition of intelligence. The consistency over 15 years of time largely eliminates the "fluke" explanation. One score of 90 would be a fluke. Two, several years apart, professionally administered, with the same result demonstrates that whatever they are measuring, it was below the norm. But whatever that "IQ" they were measuring was, it certainly wasn't intelligence.

If Jews or Chinese have measurably more IQ, in test after test, this might prove something (that they are better, as groups, at doing whatever is tested on those tests) but it does not prove greater intelligence.

[kdot]

Ok, I know this might be a stupid question, but I mean no disrespect to anyone. I thought Jewish was a religion, not a race. As a christian, I believe Jesus was the son of God. A Jew believes he was a profit. That's it. Where is the "race" in it? If Jews raise more accomplished children than ___ (fill-in-the-blank), I would question the family values, etc., not the root belief of their religion.

I honestly don't get it.