Tapsearch Com EditorJews and IQ
April 3rd 2007 01:24
It's been a long-standing controversy: Why do Jews, and particularly Ashkenazi Jews, score so highly on IQ tests?
Charles Murray has a brilliant essay in Commentary, and he considers the theses that (A) persecution played the part of evolutionary selection pressure, making it so that only smart Jews were able to survive or remain Jews and (B) historically, in Jewish culture, the mating game placed high value on brainy occupations -- scholars and businesspeople rarely died single and thus had more children.
However, he posits a third idea, one I have not heard before:
In this way of thinking, Jews didn't evolve intelligence; rather, the unintelligent simply made themselves not Jewish. Then, the higher-IQ folks intermarried -- Jews tend to marry other Jews -- to create the brainpower inequality we still see today.
My only issue is that the first explanation (that Judaism forced education, which cost farmers without benefiting them) is less a leap of faith than Murray's. The former is in straight-up economic terms, whereas Murray's idea involves looking at social pressures from centuries past and declaring them significant. It would have helped to cite some literature indicating that some Jews indeed found it embarrassing to read out loud, so much so they'd renounce their faith.
By Robert VerBruggen
Charles Murray has a brilliant essay in Commentary, and he considers the theses that (A) persecution played the part of evolutionary selection pressure, making it so that only smart Jews were able to survive or remain Jews and (B) historically, in Jewish culture, the mating game placed high value on brainy occupations -- scholars and businesspeople rarely died single and thus had more children.
However, he posits a third idea, one I have not heard before:
In 64 C.E. ...the Palestinian sage Joshua ben Gamla issued an ordinance mandating universal schooling for all males starting at about age six. The ordinance was not only issued; it was implemented. Within about a century, the Jews, uniquely among the peoples of the world, had effectively established universal male literacy and numeracy.
...
Between the 1st and 6th centuries C.E., the number of Jews in the world plummeted from about 4.5 million to 1.5 million or fewer. About 1 million Jews were killed in the revolts against the Romans in Judea and Egypt. There were scattered forced conversions from Judaism to another religion. Some of the reduction may be associated with a general drop in population that accompanied the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. But that still leaves a huge number of Jews who just disappeared.
What happened to them? Botticini and Eckstein argue that an economic force was at work: for Jews who remained farmers, universal education involved a cost that had little economic benefit. As time went on, they drifted away from Judaism. I am sure this explanation has some merit. But a more direct explanation could involve the increased intellectual demands of Judaism...Since worship of God involved not only prayer but study, all Jewish males had to read if they were to practice their faith—and not only read in private but be able to read aloud in the presence of others.
In this context, consider the intellectual requirements of literacy. People with modest intelligence can become functionally literate, but they are able to read only simple texts. The Torah and the Hebrew prayer book are not simple texts[, and] few people enjoy being in a position where their inadequacies are constantly highlighted... I suggest that the Jews who fell away from Judaism from the 1st to 6th centuries C.E. were heavily concentrated among those who could not learn to read well enough to be good Jews—meaning those from the lower half of the intelligence distribution.
...
Between the 1st and 6th centuries C.E., the number of Jews in the world plummeted from about 4.5 million to 1.5 million or fewer. About 1 million Jews were killed in the revolts against the Romans in Judea and Egypt. There were scattered forced conversions from Judaism to another religion. Some of the reduction may be associated with a general drop in population that accompanied the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. But that still leaves a huge number of Jews who just disappeared.
What happened to them? Botticini and Eckstein argue that an economic force was at work: for Jews who remained farmers, universal education involved a cost that had little economic benefit. As time went on, they drifted away from Judaism. I am sure this explanation has some merit. But a more direct explanation could involve the increased intellectual demands of Judaism...Since worship of God involved not only prayer but study, all Jewish males had to read if they were to practice their faith—and not only read in private but be able to read aloud in the presence of others.
In this context, consider the intellectual requirements of literacy. People with modest intelligence can become functionally literate, but they are able to read only simple texts. The Torah and the Hebrew prayer book are not simple texts[, and] few people enjoy being in a position where their inadequacies are constantly highlighted... I suggest that the Jews who fell away from Judaism from the 1st to 6th centuries C.E. were heavily concentrated among those who could not learn to read well enough to be good Jews—meaning those from the lower half of the intelligence distribution.
In this way of thinking, Jews didn't evolve intelligence; rather, the unintelligent simply made themselves not Jewish. Then, the higher-IQ folks intermarried -- Jews tend to marry other Jews -- to create the brainpower inequality we still see today.
My only issue is that the first explanation (that Judaism forced education, which cost farmers without benefiting them) is less a leap of faith than Murray's. The former is in straight-up economic terms, whereas Murray's idea involves looking at social pressures from centuries past and declaring them significant. It would have helped to cite some literature indicating that some Jews indeed found it embarrassing to read out loud, so much so they'd renounce their faith.
By Robert VerBruggen
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I'm an idiot, but I apparently have a high IQ, if this has anything to do with my ancient history then way back Gengis Khan's army massacred the capital city of the country I was born in, cos they were idiots who were too busy reading books and figuring out mathematical formula's no one would until the 1970's... idiots.
Despite all that I don't want to say that IQ has a relation to actual human intelligence or even potential, I ought to know, I'm supposed to be f'n Einstein and I'm a uni bum.
I think that everyone needs to work to achieve something and in the end people who do get screwed over by mr. life that do make a recovery can recover spectacularly, if you want something you can get it if you put in the effort, even if the doctors diagnosed you as a clinical nutcase, you can change it but you have to work hard for it.