The Student Room Group

According to economist article, Jews are genetically superior

http://www.economist.com/node/4032638

So if Jews, which in this article have been separated as a race can be more intelligent than non Jews. Can't this be true for non Jews?
For instance East Asians do better in IQ tests and schooling than European Whites. And Europeans do significantly better than Africans.
So I think it is indeed the case that different races have different intelligences.

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
Coming from an economist article?
the unusual history of the Ashkenazim has subjected them to unique evolutionary pressures that have resulted in this paradoxical state of affairs.

Is the key bit, Ashkenazim Jews throughout history have remained pretty much an isolated genetic group where as Europeans and East Asians didn't tend to breed in the same way. Although it is true that Ashkenazim Jews tend to have disproportionately high intelligence from both an IQ and success stand point no one can currently say for sure if it is genetic, social, environmental or a combination of all three. Present day knowledge of genetics hasn't progressed to the point where we can say for sure but this paper is only really relevant to Ashkenazim Jews and is not intended to provide insight into other ethnic groups (especially ones so broad as white Europeans or east Asians) as the development and history of most is completely different
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 3
Original post by Antifascist
http://www.economist.com/node/4032638

So if Jews, which in this article have been separated as a race can be more intelligent than non Jews. Can't this be true for non Jews?
For instance East Asians do better in IQ tests and schooling than European Whites. And Europeans do significantly better than Africans.
So I think it is indeed the case that different races have different intelligences.

So what genes have they located that influence IQ in Jewish people?

Thing is, no one has found any such alleles, and environmental and social effects are huge. And to come out and say that it's probably in the genes sounds pretty stupid to me.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 4
Original post by Eightyeight
Coming from an economist article?


It is unusual but I've found that the economist is very unbiased in terms of topics like these. And that's why I respect them.
Reply 5
Original post by Darth Stewie
the unusual history of the Ashkenazim has subjected them to unique evolutionary pressures that have resulted in this paradoxical state of affairs.

Is the key bit, Ashkenazim Jews throughout history have remained pretty much an isolated genetic group where as Europeans and East Asians didn't tend to breed in the same way. Although it is true that Ashkenazim Jews tend to have disproportionately high intelligence from both an IQ and success stand point no one can currently say for sure if it is genetic, social, environmental or a combination of all three. Present day knowledge of genetics hasn't progressed to the point where we can say for sure but this paper is only really relevant to Ashkenazim Jews and is not intended to provide insight into other ethnic groups (especially ones so broad as white Europeans or east Asians) as the development and history of most is completely different


I think you're wrong. Jews intellectual superiority is clearly genetic. What social or environmental variables are there? European jews live and have lived in the same environment and society as non jewish europeans. And east asians and western europeans are not as broad as you think, they all came from a small pool hundreds of thousands of years ago and have simply increased their population exponentially.
Reply 6
Original post by Piprod01
So what genes have they located that influence IQ in Jewish people?


Intelligence is very complex and it will take a long time to find all the genes that affect intelligence. This study was based on empirical evidence. You can do that by controlling variables. If the genes for black and white skin colours hadn't been found yet would your conclusion be that white and black skin colours don't exist?
Reply 7
Original post by Antifascist
Intelligence is very complex and it will take a long time to find all the genes that affect intelligence. This study was based on empirical evidence. You can do that by controlling variables. If the genes for black and white skin colours hadn't been found yet would your conclusion be that white and black skin colours don't exist?

Do you think that black people have a different pancreas from White people? What about livers?
Original post by Antifascist
I think you're wrong. Jews intellectual superiority is clearly genetic. What social or environmental variables are there? European jews live and have lived in the same environment and society as non jewish europeans. And east asians and western europeans are not as broad as you think, they all came from a small pool hundreds of thousands of years ago and have simply increased their population exponentially.


I'm not saying it is or isn't just that currently we don't have the ability to determine for sure what the reasons are. Social conditions would for instance be that many Jewish parents push their children to do well in school and instill a strong desire to be academically successful, Environmental would for instance be because many Ashkenazim families are wealthy they can afford to send their kids to better schools.

European Jews were for a long time forced into certain fields of work because they weren't allowed to take on certain professions, for the most part their communities were separate and their population was always pretty small. Europe consists of Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, Latin, Finnic ect and as a result of our history (constant conquest, invasions, settling) Europeans tend to have a very broad genetic history, Europe is by far the most genetically homogeneous continent because all these ethnic groups have come together at some point. What the authors of that paper are suggesting is basically that Ashkenazim Jews have been practicing a form of internal eugenics for a long time and as a result they have some acquired unique traits both good (increased intelligence) and bad (more prone to certain diseases).
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 9
I dont know about Jews but the evidence that East Asians are (genetically) higher IQ than Europeans is fairly strong, although not conclusive. I think there has been less research conducted using Jews, for obvious historical reasons.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 10
Original post by Darth Stewie
I'm not saying it is or isn't just that currently we don't have the ability to determine for sure what the reasons are. Social conditions would for instance be that many Jewish parents push their children to do well in school and instill a strong desire to be academically successful, Environmental would for instance be because many Ashkenazim families are wealthy they can afford to send their kids to better schools..
Everything you say is true but its also really obvious and researchers who study intelligence have spent the last 50 years coming up with ways to control for most of it. To take a simple example, adoption studies are routinely used to control for family environment by looking at the performance of children from ethnic group X who have been raised by people from ethnic group Y. It is now almost certain that group IQ differences are not just a result of family upbringing/education/etc, the remaining question is whether they might be caused by more subtle things like stereotype threat.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 11
Original post by poohat
Everything you say is true but its also really obvious and researchers who study intelligence have spent the last 50 years coming up with ways to control for most of it. To take a simple example, adoption studies are routinely used to control for family environment by looking at the performance of children from ethnic group X who have been raised by people from ethnic group Y. It is now almost certain that group IQ differences are not just a result of family upbringing/education/etc, the remaining question is whether they might be caused by more subtle things like stereotype threat.

It's not nearly that clear. There are big problems with even adoption studies. Here is a 2007 paper that tries to set some pointers and explains much of the problem with the field:
Considerations Relating to the Study of Group Differences in Intelligence (2007)
http://pps.sagepub.com/content/2/2/194.abstract
Reply 12
You make me ashamed of my Jewish blood.
Reply 13
I've heard this elsewhere, not just from the Economist - I looked it up at there is an article on Wikipedia about it which has additional facts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence

If it's true, I want an Ashkenazi to father my children, lulz.
You made two threads about jews in one day. Sorry sir but you seem to have an inferiority complex.
Reply 15
Original post by Piprod01
It's not nearly that clear. There are big problems with even adoption studies. Here is a 2007 paper that tries to set some pointers and explains much of the problem with the field:
Considerations Relating to the Study of Group Differences in Intelligence (2007)
http://pps.sagepub.com/content/2/2/194.abstract

Nothing is ever completely clear in the social sciences. Its rare that you can carry out fully controlled experiments, so you just have to do the best with what you have. The evidence for White-East Asian IQ differences comes from a variety of sources, of which adoption studies are only one. You also have things like studies which pair subjects based on parents income/education, studies which investigate factors which are highly correlated with IQ but not obviously affected by social upbringing (eg reaction times and brain size [seriously]), studies which look at how performance differs based on how directly a test measures intelligence as opposed to learned knowledge (Spearman's hypothesis), and so on. Individually you can make criticisms against every one of these things, but when you have a fair bit of evidence from many different kinds of study all pointing in the same direction, it starts to add up. That's just how research works in social science; its very hard to reach conclusions with 100% certainty, you just have to weigh up the evidence that you have.

I cant access that paper for some reason but afaik most of the problems people have with adoption studies are based on speculation rather than on factors which have actually been demonstrated to affect intelligence.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 16
Original post by Piprod01
Do you think that black people have a different pancreas from White people? What about livers?


I would say so, it's likely that throughout our separation we have developed slightly different gene pools, after all we know that due to various evolutionary pressures Africans are far more likely than Caucasians to have sickle cell anaemia, while Caucasians are a lot more prone to cystic fibrosis. This means, yes, we are different genetically and probably have slightly different organs (on average) to people of other races compared to people of your own race.

Not that it's noticeable, but it's a bit ignorant to say that races are genetically identical when there's probably even a genetic difference between the historical English upper class and lower class. (Note: not in a way that makes either superior, but in a purely chance way. Probably each could be identified through their genomes if we bothered to differentiate and study it, simply because the culture of breeding within your own class restricts the gene pool available, and the family pedigrees available, creating a small bottleneck which will cause differentiation.)
Original post by SoNottingH
If it's true, I want an Ashkenazi to father my children, lulz.


Oy vey.
Reply 18
Original post by Hypocrism
Not that it's noticeable, but it's a bit ignorant to say that races are genetically identical when there's probably even a genetic difference between the historical English upper class and lower class. (Note: not in a way that makes either superior, but in a purely chance way. Probably each could be identified through their genomes if we bothered to differentiate and study it, simply because the culture of breeding within your own class restricts the gene pool available, and the family pedigrees available, creating a small bottleneck which will cause differentiation.)

There's a fair bit of research suggesting that those from higher social classes on average have genetically higher IQs. Its not just the culture of breeding, its that if you have (eg) two people both born into a low income family, then the smarter one is on average more likely to succeed and move up a social class, and this builds up over generations. For example see: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606001127 and http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/daniel.nettle/britishjournalpsychology.pdf
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Hypocrism
I would say so, it's likely that throughout our separation we have developed slightly different gene pools, after all we know that due to various evolutionary pressures Africans are far more likely than Caucasians to have sickle cell anaemia, while Caucasians are a lot more prone to cystic fibrosis. This means, yes, we are different genetically and probably have slightly different organs (on average) to people of other races compared to people of your own race.

Not that it's noticeable, but it's a bit ignorant to say that races are genetically identical when there's probably even a genetic difference between the historical English upper class and lower class. (Note: not in a way that makes either superior, but in a purely chance way. Probably each could be identified through their genomes if we bothered to differentiate and study it, simply because the culture of breeding within your own class restricts the gene pool available, and the family pedigrees available, creating a small bottleneck which will cause differentiation.)


I am willing to bet that there are greater differences within the classes than between them.

Quick Reply