Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence

Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence, often referred to as the "Jewish genius",[1][2][3][4] is a subject that explores the perception that Ashkenazi Jews tend to have a higher intelligence than all other ethnic groups and excel disproportionately in many fields and has been an occasional subject of scientific controversy.

The average IQ score of Ashkenazi Jews has been calculated to be from a range of 108–115 under some studies, which would be significantly higher than that of any other ethnic group in the world.[5][6][7]

Evidence for a group difference in intelligence

A 2005 paper by three authors who have been linked to theories described as "scientific racism,"[8] "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence"[9] proposed that Ashkenazi Jews as a group inherit higher verbal and mathematical intelligence with somewhat lower spikes in spatial intelligence than other ethnic groups, on the basis of inherited diseases and the peculiar economic situation of Ashkenazi Jews in the Middle Ages.

Ashkenazi Jews have had success in a variety of academic fields disproportionate to their small population size, including science, technology, politics, and law.[10] For instance, Ashkenazi Jews have won more than one quarter of Fields Medals, Turing Awards, and Regeneron Science Talent Search awards. People of Ashkenazi Jewish descent are also disproportionately represented among world chess champions (54 percent),[11] National Medal of Science recipients (37 percent), U.S. Nobel Prize winners (29 percent),[9] and Nobel laureates in medicine or physiology (42 percent).[11] Furthermore, Jews comprise up to one third of the student populace at Ivy League schools[10] and 30 percent of U.S. Supreme Court law clerks.[12]

Ashkenazi Jews have also had disproportionate success in non-academic fields such as business and commerce. According to the 1931 census of Poland, Jews comprised 9.8 percent of the Polish population but controlled 22.4 percent of the wealth in the country.[12] Despite their small population, Ashkenazi Jews in Poland also owned 55 percent of large and medium-sized commercial businesses in 1938 and dominated the textile, chemical, food, transportation, paper manufacturing, and building material industries.[12]

A more direct approach is to measure intelligence with psychometric tests. Different studies have found different results, but most have found above-average verbal and mathematical intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews, along with below-average spatial intelligence.[13][14]

Genetic explanations

Assuming that today there is a statistical difference in intelligence between Ashkenazi Jews and other ethnic groups, there still remains the question of how much of the difference is caused by genetic factors.

"Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence"

"Natural History of Intelligence",[9] a 2005 paper by Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, and Henry Harpending, put forth the conjecture that the unique conditions under which Ashkenazi Jews lived in medieval Europe selected for high verbal and mathematical intelligence but not spatial intelligence. Their paper has four main premises:

  1. Today's Ashkenazi Jews have a higher average mathematical and verbal IQ and an unusual cognitive profile compared to other ethnic groups, including Sephardi and Oriental Jews.
  2. From roughly 800 to 1650 CE, Ashkenazi Jews in Europe were a mostly isolated genetic group. When Ashkenazi Jews married non-Jews, they usually left the Jewish community; few non-Jews married into the Jewish community.
  3. During the same period, laws barred Ashkenazi Jews from most jobs, including farming and crafts, and forced them into finance, management, and international trade. Wealthy Jews had several more children per family than poor Jews. So, genes for cognitive traits such as verbal and mathematical talent, which make a person successful in the few fields where Jews could work, were favored; genes for irrelevant traits, such as spatio-visual abilities, were supported by less selective pressure than in the general population.
  4. Today's Ashkenazi Jews suffer from a number of congenital diseases and mutations at higher rates than most other ethnic groups; these include Tay–Sachs disease, Gaucher's disease,[15] Bloom's syndrome, and Fanconi anemia, and mutations at BRCA1 and BRCA2. These mutations' effects cluster in only a few metabolic pathways, suggesting that they arise from selective pressure rather than genetic drift. One cluster of these diseases affects sphingolipid storage, a secondary effect of which is increased growth of axons and dendrites. At least one of the diseases in this cluster, torsion dystonia, has been found to correlate with high IQ. Another cluster disrupts DNA repair, an extremely dangerous sort of mutation which is lethal in homozygotes. The authors speculate that these mutations give a cognitive benefit to heterozygotes by reducing inhibitions to neural growth, a benefit that would not outweigh its high costs except in an environment where it was strongly rewarded.

Other scientists gave the paper a mixed reception, ranging from outright dismissal to acknowledgement that the hypothesis might be true and merits further research.[16]

In a television interview, Cochran said:[17]

"It doesn't have to be extremely heritable for this [intelligence inheritance] to have happened, because you only need small changes in each generation, and there might be forty generations over 1000 years. So if [Ashkenazi Jews] increased a third of an IQ point per generation, that would almost certainly be enough to make this effect happen."

Other proposed genetic explanations

The enforcement of a religious norm requiring Jewish fathers to educate their sons, whose high cost caused voluntary conversions, might explain a large part of a reduction in the size of the Jewish population.[18] Persecution of European Jews may have fallen disproportionately on people of lower intelligence.[16]

Criticism of the genetic explanations

In medieval Ashkenazi society, wealth, social status, and occupation were largely inherited. The wealthy had more children than the poor, but it was difficult for people born into a poor social class to advance or enter a new occupation. Leading families held their positions for centuries. Without upward social mobility, genes for greater talent at calculation or languages would likely have had little effect on reproductive success. So, it is not clear that mathematical and verbal talent were the prime factors for success in the occupations to which Jews were limited at the time. Social connections, social acumen, willingness to take risks, and access to capital through both skill and nepotism could have played at least as great a role.[19]

On the other hand, controversial research by Gregory Clark has indicated that social mobility has been consistently low but non-negligible throughout history, and that social mobility was no lower in previous centuries than it has been in recent times.[20]

Genetic studies have suggested that most Ashkenazi Jewish congenital diseases arose from genetic drift after a population bottleneck, a phenomenon known as the founder effect, rather than from selective pressure favoring those genes as called for by the Cochran, et al. hypothesis.[19][21] To take one example, the mutation responsible for Tay–Sachs disease arose in the 8th or 9th century, when the Ashkenazi Jewish population in Europe was small, just before they spread throughout Europe. The high frequency of this disease among Ashkenazi Jews today might simply be the result of their not marrying outside their group, not because the gene for Tay–Sachs disease confers an advantage that more than makes up for the fact that the disease usually kills by age three.[19] However, an examination of the frequencies and locations of the genes for 21 Ashkenazi Jewish congenital diseases suggested that six of them do appear to result from selective pressure, including the mutation for Tay–Sachs disease.[21] There is still no evidence one way or the other about whether the reason for this is increased intelligence for commercial skills or something else.[22]

Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker suggested that "[t]he most obvious test of a genetic cause of Ashkenazi the advantage would be a cross-adoption study that measured the adult IQ of children with Ashkenazi biological parents and gentile adoptive parents, and vice versa", but noted, "No such study exists, so [Cochran]'s evidence is circumstantial."[23]

Cultural explanations

Another type of explanation for higher intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews is differences in culture which tend to promote cultivation of intellectual talents.

For example, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jewish culture replaced its emphasis on ritual with an emphasis on study and scholarship.[24] Unlike the surrounding cultures, most Jews, even farmers,[9] were taught to read and write in childhood. Talmudic scholarship became a leading key to social status. The Talmudic tradition may have made the Jews well suited for financial and managerial occupations at a time when these occupations provided new opportunities.[19]

The emphasis on scholarship came before the Jews turned from agriculture to urban occupations. This suggests that premise #3 of Cochran et al. may have the causal direction backward: mastery of written language enabled Jews to thrive in finance and international trade rather than the other way around.[19] Similar cultural traditions continue to the present day, possibly providing a non-genetic explanation for contemporary Ashkenazi Jews' high IQs and prevalence in intellectual fields.[19]

Other proposed cultural explanations:

  • Talmudic scholarship was so respected in European Ashkenazi Jewish ghetto society that outstanding (though often poor) scholars were highly sought after as husbands for the daughters of even the wealthiest merchants, who could afford to support the married couples. A father who made it possible for the groom to devote himself to Talmud study was performing a Mitzvah. This attitude provided selection pressure in favor of intellectual aptitude, and enhanced social mobility.[16][25]
  • Ashkenazi Jews (as well as other ethnic Jews) were marginalized by pogroms and discrimination, and therefore had to put more effort to survive and be outstanding.[26]
  • The rise of Islamic civilization created demand for educated professionals with intellectual skills. According to Eckstein and Botticini, between 750 and 900 AD, nearly all the Jews in Mesopotamia and Persia left farming and moved to the big cities of the Abbasid Caliphate, where they specialized in jobs more lucrative than farming. Jews had a clear advantage in these professions as a result of centuries of literacy.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Jewish Genius". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Is There Really Such a Thing as Jewish Genius?". Haaretz. 2011-10-13. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
  3. ↑ "What Is Genius? - The Genesis of Jewish Genius". Retrieved 2018-03-30.
  4. ↑ "Jewish Genius | My Jewish Learning". My Jewish Learning. 2007-04-12. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
  5. ↑ "On the high intelligence and cognitive achievements of Jews in Britain". Intelligence. 34 (6): 541–547. 2006-11-01. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2006.03.011. ISSN 0160-2896.
  6. ↑ "Study: Ashkenazi Jews Smartest on Earth, Partly Due to Diseases". Israel National News. Retrieved 2018-01-23.
  7. ↑ "Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so high?". ieet.org. Retrieved 2018-01-23.
  8. ↑ Southern Povery Law Center. "Henry Harpending". Southern Poverty Law Center. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Cochran, Gregory; Hardy, Jason; Harpending, Henry (September 2006). "NATURAL HISTORY OF ASHKENAZI INTELLIGENCE". Journal of Biosocial Science. 38 (5): 659–693. doi:10.1017/S0021932005027069. ISSN 1469-7599.
  10. 1 2 Efron, Noah J. (2014). A Chosen Calling: Jews in Science in the Twentieth Century (Medicine, Science, and Religion in Historical Context). Medicine, Science, and Religion in Historical Context. Johns Hopkins University Press (published April 21, 2014). pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-1421413815.
  11. 1 2 Entine, Jon (2007). Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People. Grand Central Publishing (published October 24, 2007). ISBN 978-0446580632.
  12. 1 2 3 Nisbett, Richard E. (2010). Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count. WW Norton (published January 26, 2010). pp. 171–172. ISBN 978-0393337693.
  13. ↑ Backman, M. E. (1972) "Patterns of mental abilities: ethnic, socioeconomic and sex differences." American Educational Research Journal, 9, 1–12.
  14. ↑ Levinson, B.M. & Block, Z. (1977) "Goodenough-Harris drawings of Jewish children of orthodox background." Psychological Reports 41, 155–158.
  15. ↑ It has been noted that precisely Jews with Gaucher's disease are likely to work in positions demanding very high IQ. See Nisbett 2012
  16. 1 2 3 Wade, Nicholas. "Researchers Say Intelligence and Diseases May Be Linked in Ashkenazic Genes", The New York Times, June 3, 2005. Retrieved February 12, 2007.
  17. ↑ Laughing Man (2014-05-27), Hjernevask - Brainwashing (Eng Sub) Part 6 - Race, retrieved 2018-01-26
  18. ↑ Botticini, Maristella; and Zvi Eckstein. "From Farmers to Merchants, Conversions and Diaspora: Human Capital and Jewish History", September 2007, Vol. 5, No. 5, Pages 885–926 doi:10.1162/JEEA.2007.5.5.885
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ferguson, R. Brian. How Jews Become Smart: Anti-"Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence", 2008.
  20. ↑ Clark, Gregory (2014). The Son Also Rises.
  21. 1 2 Bray, Steven M.; Jennifer G. Mulle, Anne F. Dodd, Ann E. Pulver, Stephen Wooding, and Stephen T. Warren. "Signatures of founder effects, admixture, and selection in the Ashkenazi Jewish population", Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 14 September 2010; 107(37): 16222–16227. doi:10.1073/pnas.1004381107
  22. ↑ Wills, Christopher (February 11, 2009). "Review: The 10,000 Year Explosion by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending". New Scientist. 201 (2695): 46–47. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(09)60457-7.
  23. ↑ Pinker, Steven. "The Lessons of the Ashkenazism: Groups and Genes Archived January 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.". The New Republic. Posted June 17, 2006. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
  24. ↑ Maristella Botticini & Zvi Eckstein, "From Farmers to Merchants: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish Economic History", Discussion Paper No. 3718. Centre for Economic Policy Research (2003).
  25. ↑ Ralph E. S. Tanner (2011). Chance and Probability: The Limitations of the Social Sciences. Concept Publishing Company. pp. 96–. ISBN 978-81-8069-729-6.
  26. ↑ Norbert Jaušovec; Anja Pahor (30 January 2017). Increasing Intelligence. Elsevier Science. pp. 14–. ISBN 978-0-12-813430-6.

Further reading

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