Чарльз Мёррэй о еврейских мозгах
May. 11th, 2007 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ymarkovJewish Genius
Charles Murray
Since its first issue in 1945, COMMENTARY has published hundreds of articles about Jews and Judaism. As one would expect, they cover just about every important aspect of the topic. But there is a lacuna, and not one involving some obscure bit of Judaica. COMMENTARY has never published a systematic discussion of one of the most obvious topics of all: the extravagant overrepresentation of Jews, relative to their numbers, in the top ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine, finance, entrepreneurship, and the media.
I have personal experience with the reluctance of Jews to talk about Jewish accomplishment—my co-author, the late Richard Herrnstein, gently resisted the paragraphs on Jewish IQ that I insisted on putting in The Bell Curve (1994). Both history and the contemporary revival of anti-Semitism in Europe make it easy to understand the reasons for that reluctance. But Jewish accomplishment constitutes a fascinating and important story. Recent scholarship is expanding our understanding of its origins.
And so this Scots-Irish Gentile from Iowa hereby undertakes to tell the story. I cover three topics: the timing and nature of Jewish accomplishment, focusing on the arts and sciences; elevated Jewish IQ as an explanation for that accomplishment; and current theories about how the Jews acquired their elevated IQ.
[...]
Jews have been found to have an unusually high mean intelligence as measured by IQ tests since the first Jewish samples were tested. (The widely repeated story that Jewish immigrants to this country in the early 20th century tested low on IQ is a canard.) Exactly how high has been difficult to pin down, because Jewish sub-samples in the available surveys are seldom perfectly representative. But it is currently accepted that the mean is somewhere in the range of 107 to 115, with 110 being a plausible compromise.
The IQ mean for the American population is “normed” to be 100, with a standard deviation of 15. If the Jewish mean is 110, then the mathematics of the normal distribution says that the average Jew is at the 75th percentile. Underlying that mean in overall IQ is a consistent pattern on IQ subtests: Jews are only about average on the subtests measuring visuo-spatial skills, but extremely high on subtests that measure verbal and reasoning skills.
[...]
In sum, I propose that a strong case could be assembled that Jews everywhere had unusually high intellectual resources that manifested themselves outside of Ashkenaz and well before the period when non-rabbinic Ashkenazi accomplishment manifested itself.
How is this case to be sustained in the face of contemporary test data indicating that non-Ashkenazi Jews do not have the elevated mean of today’s Ashkenazim? The logical inconsistency disappears if one posits that Jews circa 1000 C.E. had elevated intelligence everywhere, but that it subsequently was augmented still further among Ashkenazim and declined for Jews living in the Islamic world—perhaps because of the dynamics described by Cochran, Hardy, and Harpending (that is, Oriental Jews were concentrated in trades for which high intelligence did not yield wealth).
[...]
Insofar as I am suggesting that the Jews may have had some degree of unusual verbal skills going back to the time of Moses, I am naked before the evolutionary psychologists’ ultimate challenge. Why should one particular tribe at the time of Moses, living in the same environment as other nomadic and agricultural peoples of the Middle East, have already evolved elevated intelligence when the others did not?
At this point, I take sanctuary in my remaining hypothesis, uniquely parsimonious and happily irrefutable. The Jews are God’s chosen people.
Charles Murray is the W.H. Brady scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author most recently of In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State (2006). This article has been adapted from a presentation at the annual Herzliya Conference in Israel in January.
Charles Murray
Since its first issue in 1945, COMMENTARY has published hundreds of articles about Jews and Judaism. As one would expect, they cover just about every important aspect of the topic. But there is a lacuna, and not one involving some obscure bit of Judaica. COMMENTARY has never published a systematic discussion of one of the most obvious topics of all: the extravagant overrepresentation of Jews, relative to their numbers, in the top ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine, finance, entrepreneurship, and the media.
I have personal experience with the reluctance of Jews to talk about Jewish accomplishment—my co-author, the late Richard Herrnstein, gently resisted the paragraphs on Jewish IQ that I insisted on putting in The Bell Curve (1994). Both history and the contemporary revival of anti-Semitism in Europe make it easy to understand the reasons for that reluctance. But Jewish accomplishment constitutes a fascinating and important story. Recent scholarship is expanding our understanding of its origins.
And so this Scots-Irish Gentile from Iowa hereby undertakes to tell the story. I cover three topics: the timing and nature of Jewish accomplishment, focusing on the arts and sciences; elevated Jewish IQ as an explanation for that accomplishment; and current theories about how the Jews acquired their elevated IQ.
[...]
Jews have been found to have an unusually high mean intelligence as measured by IQ tests since the first Jewish samples were tested. (The widely repeated story that Jewish immigrants to this country in the early 20th century tested low on IQ is a canard.) Exactly how high has been difficult to pin down, because Jewish sub-samples in the available surveys are seldom perfectly representative. But it is currently accepted that the mean is somewhere in the range of 107 to 115, with 110 being a plausible compromise.
The IQ mean for the American population is “normed” to be 100, with a standard deviation of 15. If the Jewish mean is 110, then the mathematics of the normal distribution says that the average Jew is at the 75th percentile. Underlying that mean in overall IQ is a consistent pattern on IQ subtests: Jews are only about average on the subtests measuring visuo-spatial skills, but extremely high on subtests that measure verbal and reasoning skills.
[...]
In sum, I propose that a strong case could be assembled that Jews everywhere had unusually high intellectual resources that manifested themselves outside of Ashkenaz and well before the period when non-rabbinic Ashkenazi accomplishment manifested itself.
How is this case to be sustained in the face of contemporary test data indicating that non-Ashkenazi Jews do not have the elevated mean of today’s Ashkenazim? The logical inconsistency disappears if one posits that Jews circa 1000 C.E. had elevated intelligence everywhere, but that it subsequently was augmented still further among Ashkenazim and declined for Jews living in the Islamic world—perhaps because of the dynamics described by Cochran, Hardy, and Harpending (that is, Oriental Jews were concentrated in trades for which high intelligence did not yield wealth).
[...]
Insofar as I am suggesting that the Jews may have had some degree of unusual verbal skills going back to the time of Moses, I am naked before the evolutionary psychologists’ ultimate challenge. Why should one particular tribe at the time of Moses, living in the same environment as other nomadic and agricultural peoples of the Middle East, have already evolved elevated intelligence when the others did not?
At this point, I take sanctuary in my remaining hypothesis, uniquely parsimonious and happily irrefutable. The Jews are God’s chosen people.
Charles Murray is the W.H. Brady scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author most recently of In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State (2006). This article has been adapted from a presentation at the annual Herzliya Conference in Israel in January.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-12 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 04:32 am (UTC)Say Charles Murray comes up with a study that finds that Jewish women have the best looking breasts. Even if that were true, would everyone and their brother be publicizing this study like it was a mitzva min hatorah to do so? No. Somehow that would be untznius, immodest. But to rave about some professor's highly criticized conclusions that Jewish brains are better than others- well, that must be fine. Nothing immodest there.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 04:41 pm (UTC)Or should we just ask all the Jews to step dow, give back their Nobel prizes and not except them anymore?
As to the hypothetical situation you describe above - it is much less relevant to our lives and the world's well-being as apposed to the intellectual power.
The fact of smart Jewish Brains is not something that I (personally) should be arrogant about. But I am proud to be a part of such talanted people.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 01:25 am (UTC)First of all, it is not that the Jews contributed the most. There were certainly more nonJews than Jews that won the Nobel prize, etc. The point is specifically that Jews are overrepresented statistically. There are many conclusions we could draw from this, but first I would like to be sure that the term Jew is used halachically here. I do not think that Charles Murray or those other people who count up how many Jews have won the Nobel prize limit themselves to "born of a Jewish mother" or "giyur kehalacha". I would guess that they most certainly count those people only whose fathers are Jews. But, aside from that, even if Jews are overrepresented, what conclusions can we make ?
Well, I think a logical conclusion might be that Jews are socially conditioned to be literate and educated. Education is highly valued in Jewish societies and children are encouraged to excel- whether that be in Talmud or medicine, depending on the particulars of the society. It can also be concluded that Jewish people were discriminated against and had to "be twice as good to get half as far" as others. What is not reasonable to conclude is that Jews are just smarter than everybody else.
Also, please note that if the ultra-orthodox groups had their way, there would be absolutely no Jewish scientists or Nobel prize winners, there would only be iluyim and gedolim. The whole reason that Jews are able to learn and excel in math, science, etc is because of the increasing secularization of society ( enlightenment period) and not something Torah scholars are very happy about, with the exception of the Torah U'Madah crowd.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 02:14 am (UTC)exactly what I wrote
There are many conclusions we could draw from this, but first I would like to be sure that the term Jew is used halachically here. I do not think that Charles Murray or those other people who count up how many Jews have won the Nobel prize limit themselves to "born of a Jewish mother" or "giyur kehalacha". I would guess that they most certainly count those people only whose fathers are Jews. But, aside from that, even if Jews are overrepresented, what conclusions can we make ?
This is an iteresting question.
I do not know if a halachic Jew would really show the proper picture, b/c to non-Jews those whose father is Jewish are Jews and they're treated the same - meaning, the external conditions which force them to try to excell are the same + they Jewish "education" mania rubs of.
My parents, who were as far from Judaism as it gets, always insisted on good education b/c a Jew needs more in order to make it - and it applies to halachic & "civil" Jews equally.
However, this is an interesting point.
Also, please note that if the ultra-orthodox groups had their way, there would be absolutely no Jewish scientists or Nobel prize winners, there would only be iluyim and gedolim.
No, they would run out of supportes for all the learners & the tide would swing in the opposite direction. It may slow down the "secular science ganius" machine for a few years, but will re-fuel it again rather quickly.
The whole reason that Jews are able to learn and excel in math, science, etc is because of the increasing secularization of society ( enlightenment period)
This statement contradicts the fact that there were Jewish doctors, financial and political advisors throughout the Jewish history.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 02:19 am (UTC)I will guess they were underrepresented. How many can you name? Rambam. Don Yitzhak Alfasi or whatever. Who else?
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 09:35 pm (UTC)But, as someone who suspects that elevated Jewish intelligence was (a) not confined to Ashkenazim and (b) antedates the Middle Ages, I will outline the strands of an alternative explanation that should be explored.
It begins with evidence that Jews who remained in the Islamic world exhibited unusually high levels of accomplishment as of the beginning of the second millennium. The hardest evidence is Sarton’s enumeration of scientists mentioned earlier, of whom 15 percent were Jews. These were not Ashkenazim in northern Europe, where Jews were still largely excluded from the world of scientific scholarship, but Sephardim in the Iberian peninsula, in Baghdad, and in other Islamic centers of learning. I have also mentioned the more diffuse cultural evidence from Spain, where, under both Muslim and Christian rule, Jews attained eminent positions in the professions, commerce, and government as well as in elite literary and intellectual circles.
After being expelled from Spain at the end of the 15th century, Sephardi Jews rose to distinction in many of the countries where they settled. Some economic historians have traced the decline of Spain after 1500, and the subsequent rise of the Netherlands, in part to the Sephardi commercial talent that was transferred from the one to the other. Centuries later, in England, one could point to such Sephardi eminences as Benjamin Disraeli and the economist David Ricardo.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 01:29 am (UTC)Since when does relevancy to world's well being have anything to do with tznius and anavah? It is simply in very poor form to go around thinking that you belong to a group that is smarter than everybody else. Just like it is in poor form to go around thinking that you belong to a group that is wealthier/prettier/more artistic/more well-endowed than everybody else. Regardless of whether this is true or not.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 02:16 am (UTC)I am proud that Jewish women are the most attractive, have the best figures and make the best food. I am also proud that Jews control all the banks and media. Just hope that those Jews will one day remember me and pass some of that $$ on over here.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-15 01:13 am (UTC)I am proud of thing my father had done (and may he be able to con't doing them till 120) - not as a show off pride - he is my father, I love him, and I'm proud.
The truth is, I feel this type of pride for any human being, who accomplishes extraordinary things, but the feeling is much stronger when it's somebody I'm connected with in some way.
immodest, untznius and arrogant in the extreme
Date: 2007-05-14 09:47 pm (UTC)Your comparison doesn't hold. Find something that doesn't have sexual connotations, because even a whiff of that throws all tzniut calculations off :-)
to rave about some professor's highly criticized conclusions
[looking around] Who's raving? Where?
BTW, most of the criticisms, IMHO, do not stand up to scrutiny. I own the book. Murray and Hernstein were very careful to outline their assumptions and potential controversies (such as what kind of intelligence is measured by IQ scores, how heritable it might be, the potential bias in the tests - the whole bit later presented by opponents as findings of hidden evil intent).
Re: immodest, untznius and arrogant in the extreme
Date: 2007-05-14 10:19 pm (UTC)Um, okay. I was always taught, by my PC chabad kiruv people that the reason dressing immodestly is wrong is mostly because we don't want to be arrogant and bring attention to our body instead of our soul. But you and I now know better.
So, a different example? Sure. Say Charles Murray comes out with the news that Jewish women have the best diamond rings or the most expensive fur coats. Or make the best kugel, for that matter. Are we all going to be so proud of these things or are they um... superficial and would that be arrogant of us to focus on them?
Re: immodest, untznius and arrogant in the extreme
Date: 2007-05-16 07:01 pm (UTC)Your example switched from flaunting a natural gift (one's body) to flaunting a particular use of a natural gift (material success arising from the use of mind). Catch-22 - I don't know if one can provide a good example. The mind just has no easy parallels.
Even so, you do have a point - drawing too much attention to ourselves may not be prudent. The question is, how much is too much? Like I said above, IMHO it's not so dangerous to point out that Jews, on average (important!), are as smart as Asians (rather than "smarter than anybody else").