A few points:

a) Saletan says that head size is correlated to IQ. Which therefore means that men must be smarter than women - a conclusion he neglects to draw.

b) "The average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 107 to 115, well above the human average of 100."

Saletan insists that IQ is positively correlated to outcomes. Which, given he's opened this can of worms by suggesting a genetic link to IQ, begs the obvious question: if Jews are so terribly clever, why has their history been such an unmitigated series of disasters?

c) He also says that blacks are bigger and sportier than Asians and Jews, but pay the price in having lower IQs.

Having been to both sub-Saharan Africa and China within the last six months, I'm very dubious about this "size" thing. I noticed many more people over six foot in Beijing than I did in Nairobi.

Saletan's science may be dubious but yours is worse GreenwichJ:

a) You may be right about the head size and gender thing, I haven’t seen the stats but I believe they have generally shown that on average women do lag a few points behind men (ick ick ick!). Since the article was titled Race, genes and Intelligence I'm not sure Saletan needs to include that data here. In any case people are already lining up to yell at him for the politically incorrect claims he is making, I think he can be forgiven for leaving out an even more contentious point.

b) Being clever certainly doesn't get you out of being persecuted or oppressed or being a minority. Also, even 115 is hardly frightfully clever, it’s just above average. No one is saying that Jews are a race of geniuses, just that they have a moderate advantage coping in the modern world. I really like how Saletan himself puts it: "[IQ is] not as a measure of human worth, but as a predictor of modern social and economic success." Notice he says modern, for all we know having a high IQ was not an advantage in the pre-modern world. Look at Socrates and Galileo who were persecuted basically for knowing too much (yes I know it was much more complicated than that). In non-meritocratic societies high IQ may be no advantage at all, having strength and valor, or the ability to get on with others may be much more helpful.

c) You are saying that your own anecdotal evidence is better than scientific studies which have shown that blacks are physically more powerful than Asians. In my experience those studies are right. Here’s my non-scientific evidence: look at any American sport which requires physical prowess, African Americans are disproportionately represented, Asians are rare.

>>>if Jews are so terribly clever, why has their history been such an unmitigated series of disasters?

What "disasters" are your referring to? Those below?

Why don't you do us all a favor by refusing to take the polio vaccine or antibiotics.

Given that Jews comprise a mere 1/4 of 1% (13 million) of the world's population (6 billion) and that 99% of the world is non-Jewish, the following list of accomplishments by Jews is quite impressive.

Of the 660 Nobel prizes from 1901-1990, 160 have been won by Jews. Jews have won more Nobel prizes than any other ethnicity. They have won 40 times more than should be expected of them based upon population statistics.

Science and Medicine

• Dr. Jonas Salk created the first Polio Vaccine.
• Dr. Abraham Waksman invented several antibiotics.
• Casmir Funk, a Polish Jew, pioneered a new field of medical research and coined the word "vitamins."
• Dr. Simon Baruch performed the first successful operation for appendicitis
• Dr. Paul "magic bullet" Ehrlich won the Nobel Prize in 1908 for curing syphilis.
• Dr. Abraham Jacobi is considered America's father of pediatrics.
• Dr. Albert Sabin developed the first oral polio vaccine.

Great Thinkers

• Albert Einstein, the most famous scientist of the 20th century, proposed a groundbreaking theory of relativity (including his famous equation e=mc²). Einstein's work laid the foundation for much of modern physics and had a profound impact on everything from quantum theory to nuclear power and the atom bomb.
• Dr. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian physician, was the founder of psychoanalysis and father of psychiatry. He theorized that the symptoms of hysterical patients represent forgotten and unresolved infantile psychosexual conflicts. His psychoanalytic theories profoundly influenced 20th-century thought.

Business and Finance

• Haym Solomon and Isaac Moses are responsible for creating the first modern-banking institutions.
• Jews created the first department stores: The Altmans, Gimbels, Kaufmanns, Lazaruses, Magnins, Mays, and Strausses became leaders of major department stores.
• Julius Rosenwald revolutionized the way Americans purchased goods by improving Sears Roebuck's mail order merchandising.
• Hart, Schaffner, Marx, Kuppenheimer and Levi Strauss became household names in mens' clothing.
• Isadore & Nathan Straus - "Abraham & Straus," eventually became sole owners of Macy's, the world's largest department store, in 1896.
• The fortunes of English-Jewish financiers such as Isaac Goldsmid, Nathan Rothschild, David Salomons, and Moses Montefiore helped England become an empire.
• Armand Hammer (Arm & Hammer) was a physician and businessman who originated the largest trade between the U.S. and Russia.
• Louis Santanel was the financier who provided the funds for Columbus' voyage to America.
• Levi Strauss invented durable pants first used by Forty-niners during the Gold Rush. These "wonderful pants of Levi's" were made of a heavy blue denim material called "genes" in France. The pants he created, called levis or jeans, have become an emblem of the American West and an emissary of the Western lifestyle -- egalitarian, utilitarian, independent -- around the world.

Entertainment Industry

• Samuel L. Goldwyn & Louis B. Mayer (MGM) produced the first full-length sound picture, "The Jazz Singer."
• European Jews are the founding fathers of all the Hollywood Studios.
• Adolph Zukor built the first theater used solely to show motion pictures.
• George and Ira Gershwin & Irving Berlin are three of the most prolific composers of the 20th century
• Harry Houdini (Weiss) is considered the father of Magic.
• Sherry Lansing of Paramount Pictures became the first woman president of a major Hollywood studio.
• Flo Zigfield of "Zigfield Follies" is the creator of American burlesque.
• Steven Spielberg is the most successful filmmaker since the advent of film.

Invention

• Theodor Judah was chief architect and engineer for the American Transcontinental railroad.
• In 1918, Detroit, Max Goldberg opened the "first" commercial parking lot.
• In 1910, Louis Blaustein and his son opened the "first" gas station, eventually founding AMOCO OIL.
• In 1909, four Jews were among the 60 multi-cultural signers of the call to the National Action, which resulted in the creation of the NAACP.
• Emile Berliner developed the modern-day phonograph. The machine he patented was called the gramophone. Berliner made possible the modern record industry. His company was eventually absorbed by the Victor Talking Machine Company, now known as RCA.
• Jewish Louis B. Mayer (MGM) created the idea for the Oscar.

Art and Literature

• Marc Chagall (born Segal, Russia) is one of the great 20th century painters.
• The famous poem of Jewish Poet Emma Lazarus - "give me your tired...your poor...your huddled masses," - appears as the inscription on the Statue Of Liberty.

Greenie,

"Saletan says that head size is correlated to IQ. Which therefore means that men must be smarter than women - a conclusion he neglects to draw."

About the head size notion, of all the things relating to intelligence that sounds bizarre, that probably leads the pack. But I'll tell you, I believe there is at least a possiblity that there's something to it. I don't discount it just because I've heard many times that it's a goofy premise. In my formative years I was also told countless times to go out and lay in the sun, that it'd be good for me. How goofy is that? Also, I was strictly order not to go into the pool after eating. I could cramp and drown. How many hours did I waste sitting at the side of the pool waiting for a peanut butter sandwich to digest?

As for the larger head being the smarter head, I think it has to do with ratio to body size. I mean, if it were strictly head size, the brontosaurus would have invented the television 150 million years ago. The Simpsons wouldn't have debuted yet, but Ed Sullivan would have been around.

"Saletan insists that IQ is positively correlated to outcomes. Which, given he's opened this can of worms by suggesting a genetic link to IQ, begs the obvious question: if Jews are so terribly clever, why has their history been such an unmitigated series of disasters?"

We can call this the "The Geek Paradox X 15 Million". Another words, being smart doesn't make you physically powerful (especially when your numbers are relatively low), and it certainly doesn't exclude you from being bullied.

"He also says that blacks are bigger and sportier than Asians and Jews, but pay the price in having lower IQs."

I think blacks are bigger than the average Asian. In WWII the average Japanese soldier was something like 5'6" and 125 pounds. The average American soldier was something like 5'10" and 155 pounds. I saw it on Ken Burns's WWII documentary. I think Asians are the little guys of the globe. How size equates to intelligence, I don't know. As far as I can figure, it doesn't. I do think blacks are, on average, better at traditional American sports due to a genetic advantage. Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean the blacks are physically "superior" for the same reason that men are not physically superior to women. For one thing, women have a longer natural lifespan. I'll take more years over a high vertical leap any day. And for that matter, whites are not "superior" to blacks intellectually, whether they are "more intelligent" or not. There's a helluva lot more to brain activity than getting good grades at school.

Your Chum,

Tucker Y. McCampbell, Esq.

I'm just a dummy.

Doug23,

Re the Nobel prizes. It's an open secret really. Clan friends vote for and recommend clan friends. Nothing wrong with that, but it should be recognized.

And explain why the IQ of Israel is 94.

Sure, people of self-identified and self-advertised Jewish extraction are much represented in all areas of the professions that require academic training. Kudos to them: they network not only intutively but well. As a people of little rural background they were motivated towards the books and knowing how to do them too from the European Middle Ages onwards. Hence their evident academic and professional success derives from the same reason that Russians are good at chess. They just learn it young and keep practicing it--more than anybody else.

Re: head size and brain power

But the Neanderthals had larger crania than the incoming homo sapiens from the tropics. And it turned out that their technological achievements were not superior to the tropical interlopers.

Damocles, you mention Russians and chess. Did you know that Russian Jews account for less than one percent of the Russian population, but almost half of top Russian chess players. Ashkenazim Jews overall account for over half of world chess champions. Also, 27% of Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans, 25% of ACM Turing Awards, and 26% of the Fields Medals. They also account for 30% of our elite university faculties and 30% of Supreme Court law clerks (source: La Griffe Du Lion, essay, "Assessing the Ashkenazic IQ"). In all fields of intellectual attainment, Jews are astonishingly over-represented at the very top. Somehow, I doubt their networking skills are an adequate explanation.

But note what I said re the Nobels: clan associates recommend and vote for clan members. Example: when recommendations and vettings are being made in camera for university positions, prizes, post-doc positions, etc. the clan members in the crucial decision-making positions in those institutions use their heft to ensure members of the clan move in. Mind you, they are usually adequately qualified, but other applicants are too.

Re chess: Again my point about a people urbanised and immersed in capitalist culture and its mental requirements long before the freed Europan serfs.See Karl Marx on his famous diatribe against Jews and their role in capitalist culture to get my drift.

The Russian serf was freed only in 1865. Russian communism was an attempt to bring the serf into the industrial age as quickly as possible. But the head start the Jews of Russia had and the turmoil of communism made it difficult for the newly freed serf to cast off his "rural idiocy"(Marx)--hence capitalist mind stuff like chess(invented in Persia) was bound to have numbers of Jews playing, practicing and excelling.

OK, so you do think Jews achieved their eminence through networking. Consider the out-caste, persecuted status of Jews up until recent times. In Europe and Russia, Jews were legally excluded from the learned professions. In this country, the Ivies had quotas to limit Jewish enrollment. Top law firms and investment banks routinely excluded Jews, who formed their own which eventually became more successful. Today there is still prejudice against Jews, but mostly on the left with their rants about Zionists and neo-cons. I haven't even mentioned pograms, expulsions, and the Holocaust. To suggest that Jews somehow have had the inside track doesn't make sense.

Dear E. O'Neal,

Re: To suggest that Jews somehow have had the inside track doesn't make sense.

Well, it did make sense to Hitler. And to those who think the way he did, I wish to grow healthy and big like an onion, with their heads in the ground. ;=)

I am of the opinion that Jewish record stands on its own. That so many people among Jews have become great scientists, musicians, and writers is not of much relevance to individual average Jews. They have to live their own lives. The accomplishment of the group or the lack of the accomplishment is something that makes people feel good or bad. But the whole change in our thinking should be to refocus on individuals, on potentials of each person.

The genius of Einstein, Mahler, Bernstein, Mayer, Sarnoff, etc. belongs to all humanity and could not not have happen in isolation.

Agree 100%.

It's always fun to get a right winger to make a liberal argument in a desperate attempt to justify their own boneheaded statements.

Hey Swordfish: if Jews are smarter because they study harder, how come that's not the same reason whites score better on standardized tests than blacks (assuming Saletan's stats are accurate)? You can't have it both ways.

You apparently missed the whole point of my post. It was not to show that Jews are better (or worse) than any other people, but rather that the original poster's statement that the Jewish people have been “disasters" is something only a moronic dipshit jackass would say.

Also, your claim that Jews have been awarded many Noble prizes because they dominate the board is once again pure, unadulterated, horseshit:

<link>

Not a single Jewish affiliation listed in the bios, while Christian and conservative ones.

Rather than making BS arguments on this board, why don't you take the hood off your head and your head out of your ass and join the rest of humanity. Maybe even, (gulp!) go to the library read some books not written by right wing morons.

Re: To suggest that Jews somehow have had the inside track doesn't make sense.

Well, it did make sense to Hitler. And to those who think the way he did, I wish to grow healthy and big like an onion, with their heads in the ground. ;=)

I am of the opinion that Jewish record stands on its own.

The genius of Einstein, Mahler, Bernstein, Mayer, Sarnoff, etc. belongs to all humanity and could not not have happen in isolation.

They also gave us Communism (thanks Karl Marx) and the millions of deaths that resulted from it, an independent State in the Middle East that Americans are forced to pay for, propaganda highlights Jewish deaths during the Holocaust that completely ignores that many more millions of non-jews that partished.

I don't think one can underestimate Jewish accomplishments, and I agree that there is a genetic component as well as cultural one. But we also have to take the good with the bad. Anything less would be superficial.

But since Jews are the smartest it only makes sense for them to rule everybody else, right?

We might as well thank Freud for our era of anti-psychotic drugs used to treat non-existant mental states, and the Jewish lobby for taking the country into war that most Americans disagree with.