Not having read any of the other posts, I may be treading on ground already trod-upon. With that caveat, please allow me the following thoughts.

I am Jewish. 170 IQ. My 15 year-old daughter - 166 IQ. My parents were both bright, professional (Jewish) people. This is not to brag, only to emphasize that I do believe that there is a higher average Jewish intelligence than the general population. But not because of any "racial superiority". I'll leave that kind of 'reasoning' to the Aryan supremacists.

I believe Mr. Saletan and his group of IQ panelists (?) may have missed a very large point, to wit: Jews have, over the centuries, been culled by non-Jews in the most brutal fashion. Jews were, time and again, murdered, divested of everything they owned, forced from their homes, excluded from virtually all trades and perpetually reduced to the most marginal precincts of whatever country in which they were allowed to settle. And yet. And yet.

And yet, despite all this, they flourished, and continue to do so to this day. Could it be that a Darwinian process has been at work in all this? As the Dark ages ebbed (you can read this in Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century), Jews were first dragooned into money-lending by the French (of course), because the Bible forbids "usury" by Christians.

The vicissitudes of finance, especially when the king takes 90% of your profit (true!) as his fee for the "privilege" of lending money to his illiterate nobles, quickly separates the smart Jews from the average ones.

People who can figure out how to avoid the death and the devastation of pogroms, who can figure out how to lend money in the early Renaissance, how to make a living on a 10% profit margin, and thrive, can be said to have been forced to be more intelligent than the average person.

People who are excluded from every guild (medieval labor groups) and can still make a living, may be said to have been forced to be more intelligent than the average person.

Now, let's also force these same people, who prize reading and analytical thinking, because those are the sources of knowledge, which is power (and completely transportable when you're kicked out of the country in which you live), to live in a (frequently walled-off) area called a ghetto. They are not allowed, under pain of death, to intermarry with anyone but other Jews. Since they were rarely allowed to travel, that meant intermarriage within their home ghetto.

What a concept! The less intelligent Jews in a merciless world are killed off/fall by the wayside. Those Jews who can persist/survive/thrive are (gasp!) perforce more intelligent! Smart Jews marrying other smart Jews. Go figure!

Of course, that process also allowed deleterious recessive genetic traits to evidence themselves, the usual consequences of inbreeding. To say, however, that Jewish recessive genetic traits are likely related to/a cause of higher Jewish intelligence is naive, at best; apples and oranges. I don't see anyone trying to suggest that the same problems now evidencing themselves among the self-ghetto'd (?) Amish are related to their penchant for horse-and-wagon transportation and barn-raising. Inbreeding causes recessive traits to evidence themselves. Pennsylvania Dutch likely have different recessives than Jews, which is why they don't suffer Tay-Sachs Disease.

The simple answer to a greater Jewish intelligence is, I believe, the survival of the smartest Jews under the lash of non-Jews' murderous ignorance. The human genome took care of everything else.

Sounds like a plausible theory.

However, I'd suggest that Jews not put too much stock in this theory and certainly not bring up the subject very often themselves. Anyone who mentions their high IQ is not likely to win over many friends that way.

I wouldn't put it like "the Bible forbids usury by Christians".

The Bible forbid usury by JEWS. This was back long before

the birth of Jesus. So somehow, Christians reversed that one, and I guess the Jews had to go along with it. I haven't researched as to why or how this happened.

This was my first guess at an explanation, too. When I saw the data on the high percentage of Jews who scored above a high IQ (I forget the exact threshold), I started calculating how many Jews you'd have to kill below that threshold to turn a "normal" population into a smart one.

I think somebody tried to explain to me once why this intuitively appealing explanation wasn't as plausible as it appeared. But it's hard to get the intuitive appeal out of your head. Recently a friend made some remark about the personalities of Jews or Israelis, I forget which, and the first thing out of my mouth was, "All the credulous Jews are dead."

Saletan:

This was my first guess at an explanation, too. When I saw the data on the high percentage of Jews who scored above a high IQ (I forget the exact threshold), I started calculating how many Jews you'd have to kill below that threshold to turn a "normal" population into a smart one.

...Recently a friend made some remark about the personalities of Jews or Israelis, I forget which, and the first thing out of my mouth was, "All the credulous Jews are dead."

Yes, this is why the idea that some races are _inherently_ less intelligent than others is implausible. To the extent that IQ is affected by genetics, it must be possible to breed intelligence into any human race or population. (Whether or not that is been done with this or that race is another question.)

1. To say that Jews have a higher, genetically based average intelligence is by definition a claim of "racial superiority", regardless whether you think it is a gift of God or a product of evolution. It is like saying that pronouncing humans to be smarter than dogs is not really bragging if we acknowledge that both are descended from the same single cell organisms.
2. There are other examples of groups who have experienced marginalization and population decimation through conflict. Do you have any explanation why the surviving native populations of North America or Australia haven't ended up a bunch of geniuses? (true the duration of persecution has been shorter, but the genocidal rate is much higher than what Jews have faced, which ought to speed up natural selection).
3. I wonder what you or Mr. Saletan think of the following hypothesis for the lower measured IQ of blacks: they are descended from slaves, who were selected for physical strength and mental weakness (which fosters obedience, etc.). Strikes me as no less a "scientific" speculation than what you posted.
4. Here is an alternative hypothesis: IQ is a noisy measure of innate intelligence - not entirely bogus, but not perfect either, in that it contains residues of upbringing and cultural factors. Thus, a 10 point difference in average measured IQ is easily explainable by variations in such cultural factors, without having to invoke genes (a 50 point difference would be much harder to explain that way). To my modest IQ, it sounds like a good occasion to apply Occam's Razor.

Dear Mr. Seville:

1.) "By definition" depends on what you are defining. I would agree that Jews now probably have a 'racial' superiority in intelligence. The point that I was trying to make was that this superiority was not there ab initio (from the beginning) but has been gradually produced by a culling of the less intelligent of my 'race'. Jews are said to have descended from a mountain tribe that got it into their heads to move up in the world, eventually developing monotheism and a world-class civilization. (I state this as a prelude to answering your second point.) I was never bragging. I was trying to formulate a theory as to why Jews intellectually are as they are. One shouldn't brag about superior inherited traits, physical or intellectual. Such traits are not of the owner's doing.

2.) Yes, I do have a rather obvious explanation as to why the tribes in the Outback and the wilderness of North America never became "geniuses". Look at the Jewish civilization(s), the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Until they got their separate clocks respectively cleaned by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, they had existed as a very advanced culture for almost 400 years (Judah lasting the longest). The aborigines of Australia were a Stone Age culture, at best. No buildings, no writings, just pictographs and animal skins. Don't get carried away by boomerangs here, please. (Or bows and arrows.) They weren't forced to live by their wits, they were exterminated whenever possible. Add to that the onslaught of diseases against which they had no immunity and it's a wonder there are any aborigines at all. I was in Australia a few years ago. Ask me how the aborigines have handled alcohol. Now apply most of that to the 16th century North American inhabitants. (Not Native Americans - I'll reserve that honor for the Clovis people, who the Siberian immigrants we call Indians most likely slaughtered and subsumed.) Jews were not allowed to integrate socially with non-Jews, but they adapted to the cultures in which they settled, relinquishing none of their basic cultural and intellectual skills in the process. The populations you mention never had any such skills beyond, as I said, a Stone Age level. And that's not meant to demean. It's just the way it is. If Spanish galleons hadn't sunk and released horses onto the North American Continent, Plains 'Indians' would have been found walking around.

3.) Let's not get into the whole morass of 'slavery', puh-leeze! Let's simply look at what I just said in 2.) above. Analyze the existing populations. African slaves were not in any way selected as you believe. African slaves were gotten as follows. OTHER African tribes would conquer weaker tribes and sell off the captives to Arab slavers, who would also raid weaker tribes and bring their captives to market. Europeans (Portuguese and Spanish) would land along the wild coasts of Africa and try a bit of raiding themselves. Such tribes may have been a bit more advanced than the Australian aborigines, but not by a lot. Not even up to the Bronze Age in most cases, and the tribes that had gotten a leg up on civilization (some Egyptian genes?) were rarely raided - too strong and too well-organized. Slaves were not chosen for obedience - that could be beaten into them. They were chosen for survival, because they were going to be crammed into a tiny wooden ship and sent thousands of miles over a duration of months. They were stock items on a shelf and they had to reach market before their expiration date. Farm machinery. Once again, most of them were not all that far along the scale of cultural development to begin with. The traits needed to survive/thrive in their mostly hunter-gatherer cultures were athleticism and endurance. Poets, sculptors, architects and inventors (thinkers!) were not of value.

4.) I do agree that IQ tests may be imprecise measures of intelligence per se. Intelligence frequently seems to fragment along verbal, arithmetical and spatial lines. However, in a society such as ours, where information is totally unrestricted, I give rather little weight to "upbringing" and "cultural residues" factors as IQ test advantages. Low IQ scores tell me that the testee may not have been exposed to much outside of a very insular culture nor is accustomed to being tested. (If anyone starts quoting 'emotional intelligence' in their posts to me, I will hunt them down and send them out to do errands in the nude - not so fast, Barber-boy!) But IQ tests work pretty well. I did not come from a family with yachts or mansions, believe me. I was simply turned on to reading at the earliest possible age, and given books and books and books. Books by mostly DWEM's, I should add. Which favor I have done for my daughter. Is that simple enough to satisfy your modest request for the use of Ockham's (I prefer the traditional spelling) Razor, Mr. Seville?

Mr. Saletan: I was, to say the least, astounded to see your comments on my post in the Fray. I am (probably very unnecessarily) flattered. The post by BarberofSeville raised some points to which I have responded. If you have the time and the inclination - Sincerely, Bob Brass

I wanted to ask what role the Jewish internal religious/social structure plays in all this as well?

Considering the heavy emphasis we have on becomnig educated and literate.

Bob B,

I do agree that IQ tests may be imprecise measures of intelligence per se.

It is a common misconception that psychological measurements of human abilities are generally more prone to error or inaccuracy than are physical measurements. In most psychological research, and especially in psychometrics, this kind of measurement error is practically negligible. If need be, and with proper care, the error variance can usually be made vanishingly small. In my laboratory, for example, we have been able to measure such variables as memory span, flicker-fusion frequency (a sensory threshold), and reaction time (RT) with reliability coefficients greater than .99 (that is, less than 1 percent of the variance in RT is due to errors of measurement). The reliability coefficients for multi-item tests of more complex mental processes, such as measured by typical IQ tests, are generally about .90 to .95. This is higher than the reliability of people's height and weight measured in a doctor's office! The reliability coefficients of blood pressure measurements, blood cholesterol level, and diagnosis based on chest X-rays are typically around .50.

(Arthur Jensen. The g Factor. p50.)

Intelligence frequently seems to fragment along verbal, arithmetical and spatial lines.

Intelligence fragments into categories known as group factors. These are the result of the factor analysis extraction prior to the extraction of g and usually are seen at the second order. There are about 8 or so group factors, but they show up only when the test is designed to test for them. It takes at least three first order factors to produce one second order factor. Various researchers have designed tests to produce structures that match their preferences as to what is the best representation of intelligence. For example, McGrew designed (with two helpers) the Woodcock-Johnson III test in a form that matches the theory that was espoused by Cattell-Horn-Carol (known as CHC). This model is acceptable to many, although it incorporates Gc, which is crystallized intelligence. Other researchers have pointed out that Cc and Gf (fluid) are not separate because both load on g at about the same degree. For the past two years, W. Johnson and T. Bouchard have written a lot of papers claiming that there are three factors that properly belong directly under g: visual, rotational, and perceptual.

However, in a society such as ours, where information is totally unrestricted, I give rather little weight to "upbringing" and "cultural residues" factors as IQ test advantages.

It was this incorrect comment that prompted my reply. Neither of these factors has ever been shown to influence intelligence.

From Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Praeger:

Sandra Scarr, after conducting the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study: "Within the range of 'humane environments,'variations in family socioeconomic characteristics and in child-rearing practices have little or no effect on IQ measured in adolescence." P. 476

"There is simply no good evidence that social environmental factors have a large effect on IQ, particularly in adolescence and beyond, except in cases of extreme environmental deprivation." P. 476

By adulthood, all of the IQ correlation between biologically related persons is genetic. P. 178 Phenotypic g closely reflects the genetic g, but bears hardly any resemblance to the (shared) environmental g. P. 187

But IQ tests work pretty well.

Yes, they do.

I'm an atheist. IQ off the scale. Come from a long line of clever atheists.

I'm not sure exactly what it is about your post that makes me uneasy. You say you're not bragging but you sure strike me as quite arrogant.

I believe you are propagating a racial myth.

What are the vicissitudes of finance? Are we talking about adding/subtracting and calculating compound interest here?

You think 600 years is enough time for the results of this supposed inbreeding and supposed culling to take place? That's maybe 25 to 30 generations of non-directed mutation and selection. When I think about evolutionary adaptation I think in glacier time and millennia upon millennia.

who prize reading and analytical thinking, because those are the sources of knowledge, which is power

This of course explains Dubya don't it? But maybe he's the exception that proves your well-wrought rule?

You also seem to have managed to call every non-Jew murderous and ignorant which is pretty good going. Of course you didn't mean it like that, it's so hard sometimes for smart people to frame their sentences just so.

Who knows, maybe when God was handing out IQ tests maybe only the smart Jews stood forward?

Cheerio!

Dear Sir (Brit, are we not?) Atheist:

And, of course, you are most humble - but let's not compare our relative egos. I was/am not "propagating" anything. I was/am commenting on Mr. Saletan's article and offering my own explanation(s) as to what everyone seems to notice but which no one wishes to admit exists.

When I wrote "vicissitudes of finance", I was not referring to basic mathematical skills. Surely, if your IQ is "off the scale" (how you ever wrestled it up there is a wonder), you must have known that I was referring to overall risk assessment/aversion, judging the caliber of the applicant for the loan, how much to charge for the loan, how long to make the loan, what collateral to require, how one will collect in the event of a default, and all that as a member of a people who have never had any rights of any sort within the society in which they resided. That's a rather major lot of vicissitudes, wouldn't you agree?

Jews were accused of charging outrageous interest on loans. When 90% of what the lender makes is taken from him by the king, when the lender assumes all the risk, when a noble to whom he has lent large sums can go to the king and get the king to 'waive' the loan - I think 'vicissitudes' is rather plain on its face, yes? Charging enough to make the loan worthwhile in the first place became a necessity and resulted in a burden of calumny completely undeserved. (See: vicissitudes, above)

It would help if you had actually considered/read what I had written in the sense of its entirety rather than leaping on a particular phrase like a squirrel with ADD onto a nut. I used the fourteenth century to illustrate a point. The culling had gone on since the Jews had been ousted from their two kingdoms, thousands of years ago. Remember? I did mention the fall of the two kingdoms!

I used the evolutionary model to frame the effect of continually-occasional (stay with me) negative forces and events that required skills be developed/honed to cope with those forces and events. I simply posited that the Jews originally came from genetic/cultural stock sufficiently capable of doing just that. Nothing more. Seen any Babylonians or Assyrians in their original form lately?

Show me a similarly cohesive genetic and cultural group that has undergone the 'experiment' which has been practiced on the Jews over thousands of years. Kept apart (control group), subjected to a variety of psychological and physical stressings (no homeland, the Holocaust, pogroms, forcible evictions and relocations, social discrimination by law); look at the result, and tell me that the Jews have not been forcibly evolved to a more intelligent state.

The evolutionary periods to which you referred are the timelines required for genetic/somatic changes within fairly simple organisms through random events. Humans have taken charge of the planet (no, everybody, please let's not get into how that's a good/bad thing!) mostly because our response time and intellectual growth has been/is far greater/faster than any other species.

And, no, I'm NOT trying to say that Jews run everything. If we did, there wouldn't have been any Holocaust! I will go so far as to say that any human group with a culture and cohesiveness similar to the Jews, subjected to the same forces as have been the Jews, would have turned out exactly as have the Jews! Maybe even the French!! (A stretch, I know, but I'm trying to be inclusive!)

Your equating my statement re: knowledge leading to power with our President is inane, pointless and belies your statement about your personal IQ (never mind your grammar). Of course, you never did state off which end of the scale your IQ had fallen.

As to my statement about ignorant, murderous non-Jews, that was made in the context of the fourteenth century, previously cited in my original comments, and is exactly correct. (See: squirrel, nut, above) That's precisely what the non-Jews at that time were. You have only to check around today to see how many people believe in the blood libel, how many people think The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was really written by the Jews, how many people think that the Holocaust never happened, or that the number of those who were murdered therein is greatly exaggerated, and you might think we'd never gotten out of the Dark Ages. The amount of 'fashionable anti-Semitism' evinced by supposedly educated professors in our colleges is astounding. I have proof of that. Here, in Montana (I'm a transplanted New Yorker - yes, a gen-u-ine New York Jew!!), there's a retired University of Montana professor of English who not infrequently throws a crypto-swastika-laden Letter To The Editor into the Missoulian. My daughter, a straight A student in Corvallis High School, was not infrequently called "Christ killer" by her fellow school chums while walking betwen classes. Nothing has changed; it's only hiding in the walls. And not very well hidden at that.

God had nothing to do with Jews being who and what they are. People other than the Jews had almost everything to do with it. As some blacks who have a grip on reality have said "Thank you!" to the long-deceased people who brought their ancestors to this country in chains, so we Jews should thank, ironically of course, those who have repressed, murdered and robbed us over the millenia. We couldn't have done it without you (See: irony, above).

Ta!

Morgan:

I believe you may have mis-read my statement as to "upbringing" and "cultural residues". I stated that I gave them little weight as to advantageous IQ test results, i.e, that they conferred no advantages. You called my statement "incorrect" and then you stated exactly the same thing.

Yes? No?

Dearest Heleva:

I believe it played/plays the major role. First, you learn who and what we were/are, then you learn how we got where we are and why, then you learn why all of that is of paramount importance, and then you learn that you must teach exactly those things to your children. QED

XOXO

Bob

Bob Brass:

Morgan:

I believe you may have mis-read my statement as to "upbringing" and "cultural residues". I stated that I gave them little weight as to advantageous IQ test results, i.e, that they conferred no advantages. You called my statement "incorrect" and then you stated exactly the same thing.

Yes? No?

Sorry. I apparently misread it.