Talk:Ashkenazi intelligence

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This article was nominated for deletion on 14 February 2007. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Contents 1 in all objectivity, public opinion... 2 "this article seems racist" 3 Deletion: Ashkenazi is a nebulous category, etc. 4 Ashkenazi Jews/other European Ethnicties and east asians updates 5 references 6 rambling bullshit 7 Formalize Reclamations into Seperate Section 8 This is not scientific 9 Crit Section 10 The Role of Very Strict Intermarriage in "Jewish Intelligence" 11 Few questions 12 Can we erase this bizarre article 13 Buldog123's musings 14 so, this survived deletion, eh? 15 Cleaned up Article 16 Experts' estimates of the Jewish IQ 17 Original Research template & completely disputed 18 Deletion

[edit] in all objectivity, public opinion...

In all objectivity, some people proposed some theories which made it into publications that had a large audience. It doesn't matter how controversial those theories are and even if they turned out to be completely wrong and unfounded. Wikipedia seems against the practice of weeding out theories that aren't popular to appease sensitivities.

[edit] "this article seems racist"

The evidence in this article just doesn't seem one hundred percent credible. I think the veracity of this page should be questioned for the sake of all parties, both those who read this article and those to whom it refers. The subject matter of this article may or may not be incorrect. Misinformation is very dangerous, and this article seems quite racist. Therefore I believe this this article should be flagged as disputed until the information within can be thoroughly proved.

I am proposing this page as a place for people who think that the subject of "Ashkenazi Jews" is about eugenics, racial theories, intelligence testing, IQ, and such. It obviously is an issue these days, but it is not really what the history and culture of over 8 million people is about. So lets have a topical page here about Ashkenazi Intelligence. You fold can write as much as you want here, because you really are on topic on this page. --Metzenberg 06:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like BS and will end up being fodder for anti-semites.

[edit] Deletion: Ashkenazi is a nebulous category, etc.

Recommned the deletion of this page, for a multitude of reasons: 1. The data relied upon is not valid due to small, non-representative sample sizes. The most valid and representative testing so far has shown that Jews have approximately 107 IQ, using a study that tested around 1,300 disporic Jews. (all other proceeding this study had less than a hundred)

2. Ashkenazi is a nebulous category. It's a mixture of religious and ethnic aspects.

3. It's far too narrow. Often I see people trying to compare large ethnic groups such as "white europeans" to Ashkenzaim. White europeans have an average IQ of about 100, but it ranges from low 90s in the case of Serbians to 107 in Germans and the Dutch. 107 is essentially the same IQ as the average Ashkenazim IQ. Additionally, several "east asian" ethnicities have higher IQs yet.

4. there is already a section in the ashkenazi section and someone seems to have the uncanning ability to slip usually invalid data about Ashkenazi intelligence into them.

5. The most pornounced differences occur only in disporic Ashkenazim, which itself is a problem. I don't believe anyone has ever studied groups such as "American born ethnic finnish methodists" which is essentially a category as equally narrow as the ashkenazim Jews used in these studies.

6. Due to number one, almost all the claims /correlations pointed to in this wiki are factually incorrect Ernham 22:10, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

According to this http://sq.4mg.com/corrupt.htm, Israeli ashkenazim IQ hardly seems to be higher then 103,5 (Israeli population: 20% of Arabs (average IQ 87), 40% of sephardim (average IQ about 88) and 40% of ashkenazim. 103,5 is less then Hong Kong average IQ score.--Igor "the Otter" 15:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ashkenazi Jews/other European Ethnicties and east asians updates

Hello. This is generic message I will be placing on several IQ-related atricles that have touched on Ashkenazim Jew IQ. Much is being written/compared/correlated on wikipedia regarding ashekenazim, much of which is incorrect given most modern research regarding it.

The modern interpreation of Ashkenazim IQ is that Jews have slightly higher verbal and mathematical IQ than the average white population and the same or lower IQ in perceptual and spatial. The below letter, compiled with data and written by Richard Lynn, shows that the IQ of diasporic A. Jews just in Verbal IQ is approximately 107. Not only is this substantially lower than many other studies in the past that relied on flawed non-representative samples and had small sample sizes, but it is merely the verbal IQ. One of the main trends of the A.Jew IQ has been very high verbal, with everything else being at least somewhat lower than that, meaning that this data suggests that the IQ of A.Jews may actually be significantly to slightly lower yet. In any event, most assertions being made on wikipedia are completely offbase and needs to be re-written with the understanding of these more recent studies and extrapolations of the experts in IQ, such as Lynn. I'm writing this in hopes people will take it open themselves to clean up wikis related to Ashkenazim since I really don't want to go to the trouble of running down every wiki and editing it myself.

Lynn has also now compiled a list of European nations/ethnicities and their respective IQs. The Dutch, Germans, and Poles all have approximately the same IQ according to the data as A.Jews, which throws even more monkey wrenchs into the wikis I've been reading, ones that say things like Jews success in field X could be linked to higher IQ. If this were the case, their would be way more German, Dutch, and Polish Nobel laureates. This is just an example. Basically, A.Jews, according to the accepted and recent interpretations, slightly exceed several European ethnicities and are essentially the same as many others. Further, now that Lynn has taken the time to break down IQs by ethnicities, all wikis generally related to IQ should include the data if they cite Ashkenazi IQ in the wiki. It smacks of some kind of racism to only single out A.Jews as an ethnicity and not others when we have the data on others. this seems to be a repeated bias I see on IQ-related wikis.

It should also be noted that both Flynn and Lynn have found that when correcting for the FLynn-effect, the East Asian IQ advantage drops to statistically negligble or close to. Again, this is the recent findings and wikis should reflect such. In any event, here is the cite/info-filled letter.

Dr. Richard Lynn The Intelligence of American Jews Sat Feb 14 01:24:26 2004

The Intelligence of American Jews Dr. Richard Lynn University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland http://www.rlynn.co.uk

Summary. This paper provides new data on the theory that Jews have a higher average level of verbal intelligence than non-Jewish whites. The theory is considered by examining the vocabulary scores of Jews, non-Jewish whites, blacks and others obtained in the American General Social Surveys carried out by the National Opinion Research Centre in the years 1990-1996. Vocabulary size is a good measure of verbal intelligence. Jews obtained a significantly higher mean vocabulary score than non-Jewish whites, equivalent to an IQ advantage of 7.5 IQ points. The results confirm previous reports that the verbal IQ of American Jews is higher than that of non-Jewish whites.

Introduction

It has often been asserted that Jews have a higher average level of intelligence than non-Jewish whites of European origin. Herrnstein and Murray (1994, p.275) have written that "Whenever the subject of group differences comes up one of the questions sure to be asked is 'Are Jews really smarter than everyone else?' ” and their answer to this question is an affirmative. Eysenck (1995,p.159) asserted that "As far as Jews are concerned, there is no question that they score very highly on IQ tests". Levin (1997,p.132) has written that “in every society in which they have participated, Jews have eventually been recognised (and disliked for) their exceptional talent”. Seligman (1992, p.133) writes of "the extraordinarily high Jewish g levels”.

Despite these assertions, the purported high IQ of the Jews has never been systematically reviewed and is not even mentioned in recent textbooks on intelligence, such as those of Brody (1992) and Mackintosh (1998).

There have nevertheless been a number of studies of the intelligence of Jews in the United States. Among those who have discussed this question, there is a general consensus on two points. First, that Jews have a higher average IQ than gentile whites (this term is used for non-Jewish whites). Second, that Jews are stronger on verbal ability than on visualization and visual-spatial ability. Beyond this, there is a considerable range of conclusions. A review by MacDonald (1994,p.190) concludes that “taken together, the data suggest a mean IQ in the 117 range for Ashkenazi Jewish children, with a verbal IQ in the range of 125 and a performance IQ in the average range”. Storfer (1990,p.314) writes that “Jewish people, considered as a group, tend to excel in some cognitive domains – for example, verbal and numerical ability – but not in others, as witness their unexceptional performance on certain types of spatial or perceptual problems. Storfer concludes that American Jews have an average IQ of about 112 on the Stanford-Binet, largely a test of verbal ability.

Herrnstein and Murray (1994, p.275) reach a similar conclusion “A fair estimate seems to be that Jews in America and Britain have an overall IQ mean somewhere between a half and a full standard deviation above the mean, with the source of the difference concentrated in the verbal component” (1994, p.275). In the sample they analysed, Jews had an average IQ of 112.6 in relation to American whites on four verbal subtests (word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, arithmetic and mathematics) of the AFQT (Armed Forces Qualification Test). Their estimate of a Jewish advantage of between a half and a full standard deviation is equivalent to an IQ range of 7.5 to 15 IQ points. The estimates proposed by Storfer and Herrnstein and Murray are similar but much lower than that suggested by MacDonald (1994).

Despite the widespread consensus on the high Jewish verbal ability, not all studies have shown that Jews have a higher verbal IQ than gentiles. Furthermore, virtually all the existing studies are unsatisfactory because the samples have been unrepresentative, very small or for other reasons. An early study carried out in the mid-1920s of 702 Jewish and 1030 non-Jewish white 9-13 year olds tested with the Pintner-Cunningham test (a largely verbal test) by Hirsch (1926) found the Jewish children obtained a mean IQ only 1.5 IQ points higher than the gentiles. However, at this time a number of Jewish families spoke Yiddish as their first language and this would have handicapped the children to an unknown extent. A later study by Shuey (1942) of students entering Washington Square College in New York in 1935-7 tested with the American Council Psychological Examination, a test of verbal abilities (with subtests of completion, arithmetic, artificial language, analogies and opposites) found that 764 Jewish freshmen scored 1.2 IQ points below 236 non-Jewish whites. All the students were native born, possibly suggesting that the performance of the Jewish students was unlikely to have been depressed by unfamiliarity with the English language although some of these may still have been speaking Yiddish as their first language.

Furthermore, Jewish and gentile students at this college cannot be regarded as respresentative of their respective communities. A more recent study by Hennessy and Merrifield (1978) with an impressive sample size of 2,985 Jewish, gentile, black and Hispanic college bound high school seniors found a difference of less than 1 IQ point between Jews and gentiles on tests of verbal ability and reasoning but the sample may not have been representative of the populations.

Another problem with a number of the studies that have found that Jews have higher verbal IQs than gentiles is that several of them are based on very small sample sizes. For instance, Seligman (1990, p.130) writes that “Jewish verbal superiority appears unmatched in any other ethnic group. An often-quoted 1970 study performed by the Ann Arbor Institute for Social Research shows Jewish tenth-grade boys with an average verbal IQ equivalent of 112.8 (on the Stanford-Binet metric) about three quarters of a standard deviation above the average for non-Jewish white boys”. This is the Bachman (1970) study in which the number of Jewish boys was 65. In the Herrnstein and Murray (1994) data set in which Jews obtained a mean verbal IQ of 112.6, the sample size was 98 and was not drawn to be nationally representative. There is only one study of the intelligence of American Jews in the last half century which appears to be representative and had a reasonable sample size. This is Backman’s (1972) analysis of the data in Project Talent, a nationwide American survey of the abilities of 18 year olds carried out in 1960. The study had sample sizes of 1,236 Jews and 1,051 white gentiles (in addition to 488 blacks and 150 Orientals). IQs for six factors were calculated. The mean IQs of the Jews in relation to gentile white means of 100 and standard deviations of 15 were as follows: verbal knowledge (described as “a general factor, but primarily a measure of general information” and identifiable with Carroll’s (1993) gc or verbal comprehension factor - 107.8; English language – 99.5; mathematics – 109.7; visual reasoning (“a measure of reasoning with visual forms”) – 91.3; perceptual speed and accuracy – 102.2; memory (short term recall of verbal symbols) – 95.1. These results are consistent with the general consensus that Jews perform well on tests of verbal ability (although not of English language) and mathematics and less well on visual and spatial tests but the verbal IQ of 107.8 is towards the low end of the estimates of Jewish verbal ability suggested by Herrnstein and Murray of an IQ between 107.5 and 115. However, the differences in the IQs for the various abilities are so great as to raise doubts about the results.

The existing state of the research literature on the IQ of American Jews is therefore that some studies have shown that their verbal IQ is about the same as that of gentile whites while other studies have shown that it is considerably higher at 107.8 (Backman, 1972), 112.6 (Herrnstein and Murray, 1994) and 112.8 (Bachman, 1970). However, the last of two of these studies have sample sizes of fewer than 100. There is room for more data on the IQ of American Jews, and it is to the presentation of this that we now turn.

Method

The American National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in Chicago carries out annual surveys on approximately 1,500 individuals in continental United States (ie. excluding Hawaii and Alaska). The samples are representative of the adult population of those aged 18 years and over except that they exclude those who cannot speak English and those resident in institutions such as prisons and hospitals. Full details of the sampling procedures are given by Davis and Smith (1996).

The NORC surveys collect a vast amount of information about the respondents' opinions on a variety of topics and also on their demographic characteristics such as their income, education, age, ethnic group, religion, etc.etc. The first items of information of particular interest to us are the respondents' religion and ethnic group. An analysis of these enables us to categorise the respondents as Jewish, non-Jewish white, black and other. The second item of interest is the respondents' score on a 10 word vocabulary test. Vocabulary is a good measure of both general intelligence and verbal intelligence. For instance, in the standardisation sample of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) the vocabulary subtest correlates .75 with the Full Scale IQ, more highly than any other subtest (Wechsler,1958) and the Full Scale IQ is widely regarded as a good measure of general intelligence or Spearman’s g (Jensen, 1998). We are therefore able to examine the vocabulary scores as a measure of the verbal and general intelligence of the four religious/ethnic groups.

As noted, the annual NORC surveys are carried out on approximately 1,500 individuals. A single year does not therefore provide many Jews. To rectify this problem we can take the results of a number of years and combine them. This gives rise to a further problem that the vocabulary test has not been administered in every annual survey. From 1990 onwards, the vocabulary test was given in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994 and 1996. The data collected in these years are used to analyse the vocabulary scores of the four ethnic/racial groups.

Results

The results are shown in Table 1. Reading from left to right, the columns show the numbers in the four groups, the mean vocabulary scores, standard deviations and conventional IQs based on a gentile white mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15. Thus, expressed in this way, the Jewish group obtains a mean IQ of 107.5, significantly higher than the gentile whites (t=5.82); the blacks obtain a mean IQ of 89.7, significantly lower than that of gentile whites (t=17.89); the “others” obtain a mean IQ of 98.6, not significantly different from that of gentile whites.

Table 1. Vocabulary scores and verbal IQs of American Jews, non-Jewish whites, blacks and others.

Ethnic Group N Mean Sd IQ Jews 150 7.32 2.16 107.5 Gentiles 5300 6.28 2.03 100.0 Blacks 806 4.96 1.94 89.7 Others 219 6.09 2.37 98.6

Discussion

The results provide seven points of interest. First, they confirm the previous studies showing that American Jews have a higher average verbal intelligence level than non-Jewish whites. Second, the 7.5 IQ point Jewish advantage is rather less than that generally proposed and found in the studies reviewed in the introduction finding that Jews have verbal IQs in the range of 110-113 but is closely similar to the figure of 107.8 obtained in the Bachman study which is arguably the most satisfactory of the previous studies in terms of the size and representativeness of the sample.

Third, the present data has strengths in comparison with a number of previous studies in so far as they are based on a nationally representative and reasonably large sample size of 150 Jews and 5,300 gentile whites. The very close similarity between the present result and the Bachman result suggests that the best reading of the verbal IQ of American Jews is 107.5 (present study) or 107.8 (Bachman). These figures are well below previous estimates of Jewish verbal ability.

Four, an average verbal IQ of 107.5 would confer a considerable advantage for American Jews in obtaining success in professional work. There would be approximately four times as many Jews with IQs above 130, compared with gentile whites. This may provide a plausible explain for the 4.8 over-representation of Jews listed in American reference books of the successful such as Who’s Who, American Men and Women of Science, The Directory of Directors, The Directory of Medical Specialists and the like and calculated by Weyl (1989).

Five, the small difference of 1.4 IQ points between the non-Jewish whites and the “other” category is not statistically significant or very informative. The category is largely made up of Hispanics and Asians, which are themselves a heterogeneous category. Hispanics have mean IQs below whites (e.g. Herrnstein and Murray,1994), East Asians have about the same IQ as whites (Flynn, 1992) or slightly higher than whites (Lynn,1995), while South Asians have mean IQs lower than those of whites according to the calculations of Flynn (1992). Aggregating these groups produces a combined mean very close to that of non-Jewish whites.

Six, despite some three quarters of a century of research and quite a number of papers on the intelligence of American Jews there is still a lot of useful research to be done on this question. Probably the best approach would be to analyse Jewish abilities in terms of the construct of g and of the eight second order cognitive factors in the taxonomy of intelligence proposed by Carroll (1993) and the similar taxonomy advanced by McGrew and Flanagan (1998). These second order factors are fluid intelligence (reasoning), crystallized intelligence (verbal comprehension and knowledge), general memory and learning, visualization, broad retrieval ability, cognitive speed and processing speed. Probably all that can be concluded with a fair degree of confidence at present is that Jews have high crystallized intelligence (verbal ability) of which the vocabulary test used in the present study is a good measure and that on this ability their IQ in relation to gentile whites is approximately 107.5. The Backman (1972) provides IQs for several of the second order factors (given in the introduction to this paper) but these are so variable and in some instances so low as to raise doubts about their credibility. It is difficult to credit that the Jewish sample could have a non-verbal reasoning IQ of 91.3, and at the same time a mathematical IQ (“quantitative reasoning” in the McGrew and Flanagan taxonomy) of 109.7. It is also difficult to credit that the Jewish sample could have a verbal IQ of 107.8 while at the same time having a short term verbal memory IQ of 95.1. These results are in need of checking and replication. At present it is doubtful whether any conclusion can be reached about the intelligence of American Jews except that their verbal intelligence or, if this is preferred, their gc (crystallized intelligence) is about 107.5.

And here is a link to the list of White ethnicities IQs: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2105519,00.html Ernham 03:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Some of the reasoning above seems artimetically off - 4 times as many Jews above as the goyim. First this is probably BS - ( a study I read say that Jews are barely even, but forget that ) I believe it should read 4 times as likely per 1000 population etc. But with such a small poplulation this would mean Jewish success must not be merit based - nepotism, money, power ( getting those research grants, etc). None of this leads to heaven.

[edit] references

please consider adding these references

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/ashkenaz.htm

http://www.apfn.net/Messageboard/02-14-04/discussion.cgi.24.html

also here's a link to Pinker, Steven. "The Lessons of the Ashkenazim: Groups and Genes." The New Republic, June 2006. The one you have seems to be just the introduction.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2006_06_17_thenewrepublic.html

best regards, Sergei

[edit] rambling bullshit

A big part of this article is rumbling unintelligible BS that must be verified and wikified

[edit] Formalize Reclamations into Seperate Section

As an ashkenazi jew myself, I at first approached this article with the common fallacy of believing what I wanted to believe, that my people really were smarter than most. Hell, we've been calling ourselves the chosen people so long it gets easy to believe it sometimes. After reading the literature offered here, I must agree that the studies done were done badly and should be read with credulity. Although I don't think the page should be deleted (just as an article on Lamarck's model of evolution shouldn't be deleted just because it is unsupported by evidence), I do think the proclamations against the "evidence" should be formalized, wikified, and made prominent enough that the reader does not take the article as fact (but also doesn't have to wade through the abovementioned "rambling bullshit").

Can someone confirm or refute this statement, since 1900 have Nobel Lauretes been people identifying themselves as Ashkenazi Jews? Thank you Chas11098 05:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)Chas110908

[edit] This is not scientific

"For example, although Ashkenazi Jews represent only about 0.25% of the world population, they make up 28% of Nobel prize winners in physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics, and have accounted for more than half of world chess champions.[5] In the United States, Ashkenazi Jews represent 2% of the population, but have won 40% of the US Nobel Prizes in science, and 25% of the ACM Turing Awards (the Nobel-equivalent in computer science). A significant decline in the number of Nobel prizes awarded to Europeans and a corresponding increase in the number of prizes awarded to US citizens occurred at the same time as Nazi persecutions of Jews drove them from Europe during the 1930s and the Holocaust reduced their number in Europe during the 1940s."

This whole paragraph makes me ashame. It's almost the only "evidence" (?) in the whole article to "prove" the hypothetical higher intelgence in Ashkenazis.

Well, it's easy to admit that there could had been many other factors than simple "inteligence" in order to select the actual Nobel prices, isn't it?

You can't base on the ammount of Nobel prizes to claim that Ashkenazis are more intelligent. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.123.132.164 (talk • contribs) 25 December 2006.

Note that this IP's only other contribution (around the same time) has been to call Judaism a "ridiculous and racist religion". I reverted that edit, because it was accomanied by vandalism (removing others' discussion). - Jmabel | Talk 21:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It's really weird to assume that the drop in Nobel prizes was just due to the Holocaust rather than Europe generally being devestated by Fascism and war. This whole article is pretty wtf. P4k 13:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crit Section

It jumped out at me reading the article that the critique section contains an item that gives an intrawiki link on the word "verifiable" to a page about a tenuous, controversial thesis by none other than Charles Murray. I will delete the last item in the critiques section (which seems to also contain an original argument), unless I am asked not to. A statement as strong as "the giants of post renaissance science are gentiles from three countries" needs a lot more in support of it than the ramblings of a highly controversial and largely discredited figure like Murray. 66.222.62.214 13:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The Criticism section should be considered for deletion. It is simply a subjective rant.

The first item cites "creativity, combined with motivation and capacity for sustained work" as a possible explanation for accomplishments in science. Then goes on to cite Einstein’s "physicist's intuition and a rare strength in imaginal thinking" as a reason for his accomplishments. Stating that some standard intelligence tests do not measure these features is criticism against some standardized tests, not the entire body of evidence supporting the phenomenon - which encompasses disproportionately high test scores, high achievement, and some genetic evidence. The difficulty in measuring imaginal intelligence is not evidence against its existence.

The second item states "that giants of post-Renaissance exact sciences are Gentiles coming mainly from three countries: Britain, Germany and France" (consequently after major Jewish expulsions from these countries), and that could not be a result of a "national intelligence". This argument is irrelevant. Ashkenazi Jews have never comprised a nation. They are a genetically isolated group of people - which are the exact subject of scientific inquiry. Jkrup4 19:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)J. Krups 1 February 2007

On the contrary, deleting the criticism section would be extremely POV.24.199.119.162 20:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Role of Very Strict Intermarriage in "Jewish Intelligence"

Jews (particularly the Ashkenazim) have always shown a VERY strong aversion to outmarriage (i.e. until recent times they very rarely married and had kids with non-Jews) [1] (pg. 10) -- this is well known and documented in many sources. More could be said in this article about the role that strict intermarriage plays in Ashkenazi intelligence, because many believe that this has helped the Ashkenazim retain their strong mental/intellectual characteristics over time, the characteristics honed over many generations in the self-ghettoized shtetls of Eastern Europe. There are portions of the Talmud that states that if a partner is not available for a young woman, she is allowed to marry and have kids with her uncle so as not to marry outside of the ethno-religious community, the uncle/niece marriage sanctioned in the Old Testament. In fact, antisemitic accusations against Jews have at times accused them of semi-fanatical "inbreeding" in order to keep their bloodlines "pure" at all costs and to avoid breeding with non-Jews at all costs as well. Indeed, orthodox and highly traditional Jews today still "sit shiva" if and when one of their relatives marries outside of the ethnic/racial community; this basically means that they 'mourn' the person's death (even though they aren't really dead: they've just "married out").

There were/are also supposed "eugenic" practices where top Jewish scholars (usually top-notch yeshiva students/scholars, rabbis, Talmudists) would marry the daughters of rich Jews and produce MANY children (we're talking 8, 9, 10 or even more) since they had the means to support that many kids due to wealth of the female's father; this allowed the so-called "prime genes" of these top Jewish scholars/rabbis/Talmudists to be passed on much more so than the more "average" Jews in that particular community, thus hypothetically increasing these "good genes" over time in the overall Jewish gene pool. So, I think a bit more could be written here about the Jewish tendency NOT to intermarry with the populations they live amongst and it's role in facilitating Ashkenazi intelligence. --172.164.250.117 06:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, it was not at all uncommon (in fact, it was very common, even EXPECTED) for Ashkenazi Jews to marry and have children with their cousins even on in to modern times, since Ashkenazi Jews had such huge families (at least 5-6 children per woman, often more), and those people had many kids, and so forth. This left a large pool of closely related potential marriage partners and, since these extended families often lived near each other in the shtetls and Jewish ghettos, they would naturally gravitate toward marrying and having kids with each other (throughout history, neighbors often married each other in extremely tight-knit, closed-off communities).

For instance, even in 1919, Albert Einstein married his cousin Elsa Löwenthal...actually she was his 'double cousin' (Elsa was Albert's first cousin [maternally] and his second cousin [paternally]); in America this is stuff we joke about happening in West Virginia (a state thought to be very 'backwards,' i.e. cousins marrying cousins and other close relatives), but apparently this tradition of consanguineous [2] marriage (marriage to blood relatives) has a VERY LONG tradition in Jewish communities, particularly Ashkenazi ones. In fact, it seems that the Ashkenazi groups in Central/Eastern Europe were, for at least 1,000 years, VERY large extended families with high levels of endogamy (marriage within the kinship group), all living within the same general area/region. This seems to be where their intelligence springs from, even though it has, over time, narrowed the genetic diversity of the population and has been the springboard for certain diseases/disorders that are/were quite common amongst Ashkenazi Jews because of this inbreeding. --172.132.53.161 02:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Few questions

I have researched in the scientific literature data on cranial capacity for Ashkenazi to not avail. Does anyone have any information on that? (with the standard deviation). Also, I think it would be worthy to add the standard deviations for the averages presenteds, from the research I have seen the SD appears to be conflictual. Also, my second question would be, does anyone have any information on Sephardic Jews average IQ, with the standard deviation. While they supposedly represent 20% of the Jews or something such, still they do have an impressive contribution (according their list here on Wikipedia). Has there been an study on such ratio excluding IQ? Thanks. Fad (ix) 04:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can we erase this bizarre article

Can we erease this freaky, quasi-racist article yet? It's very existence disproves its thesis. For goodness sake, Ashkenazi is a Jewish religious sub-category referring to Jews who practice the customs of the Rhema. Can somebody tell me how practicing the customs of the Rhema makes somebody more intelligent? Also, in Judaism if a Sephardi woman marries an Ashkenazi, she becomes Ashkenazi. Can anyone tell me how this marriage would spike her IQ. I think they are incorrectly using Ashkenazi to refer to all of European Jewry, then making wild racist claims. Shia1 08:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I came up with a better idea. Why don't we simply move this article to another name: Weird Zionist Race Theories that Embarass Sensible Jews. Shia1 08:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Agreed, this is disturbing. 70.198.109.57 18:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. An article on "African intelligence" would probably be viewed as racist, and this should be treated no differently. This page is based largely on IQ results. But the intelligence page says that "Intelligence, Intelligence quotient (IQ), and g are distinct. Intelligence is the term used in ordinary discourse to refer to cognitive ability. However, it is generally regarded as too imprecise to be useful for a scientific treatment of the subject." This page is also based on Ashkenazi success in areas that "presumably require high intelligence" -- but that's hardly scientific or reliable terminology. So this article definitely rubs me the wrong way, and I'd propose it either gets a new title and modified, or that we remove it entirely. Organ123 21:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. If there is any verifiable logically-consistent wiki-worthy component to this article (I see very little), it should be in the Ashkenazi jews article instead. 211.27.241.82 21:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Buldog123's musings

Richard Lynn estimated the Jewish verbal IQ to be 107.5, based on General Social Survey data. However, after looking at the data (it's available on the General Social Survey web applet), I've seen because the WORDSUM (as the IQ test is called) scores are not at all normally distributed, it's impossible to use them to make accurate estimates of group IQ. To show you what I mean, the following group means are based on WORDSUM GSS data from 1990 on, setting Americans, rather than whites, as the mean:

Graduate-degree holders - 110

Professional/technical workers - 108

College graduates - 107

Managers, administrators - 102

Blacks - 90

These are all much lower (and for blacks, much higher) than the actual means. Understating group differences is typical of left-skewed distributions like WORDSUM scores (to give you an idea of how left-skewed it is, more than 60% of test-takers score above average). Richard Lynn probably knows this but doesn't care. Bulldog123 13:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

There are many, many ways to make claims of a population if the data is not normal. It seems you have no idea what can be done with statistics when you have a large sample size. That said, where is your source with credentials to compete with one of the world's foremost experts on intelligence testing? Ernham 04:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Richard Lynn didn't. All he did was find the z-score of Jews and convert it to an IQ. He's purposely misrepresting the data--which isn't surprising, given that he's a Holocaust revisionist ( see, for example, http://www.rense.com/general69/short.htm ). Bulldog123 16:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, ok, I think nothing good can come out of a dialogue with you. You can take your personal "research findings" to your blog though, not wikipedia.Ernham 16:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Either all the IQ data collected in the last 50 years of the average IQs of different ethnic, occupational, and educational groups is wrong, or using the simple method of finding groups' z-scores on the GSS vocabulary test vocabulary test, whose scores are nowhere close to normally distributed, and converting them to IQ on a scale where the mean is 100 and the standard deviation 15, yields inaccurate results. Gee, I wonder which is more likely. Bulldog123 01:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

He states why most studies have been flawed. He is an expert; you are a nobody. Who should we believe?Ernham 02:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that we change the article. I'm suggesting that anyone who trusts Lynn check out the data himself. The General Social Survey and Lynn's article are both online. Moreover, in a more recent paper by Lynn (On the high intelligence and cognitive achievements of Jews in Britain, Intelligence, Volume 34, Issue 6, November-December 2006, Pages 541-547, Richard Lynn and David Longley), he revises his old estimate of the IQ of Jewish Americans up to 109.5 (for overall, not merely verbal, IQ; "it is proposed that the best reading of the IQ of Jews in the United States is 109.5."). Bulldog123 15:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

What iwas the sample size and how did they determine "who was a jew"? These are some problems, among others, that plagued essentially all the previous studies because they "cherry picked" samples and often only had tiny sample sizes.Ernham 16:52, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Is spatial IQ really average? In the famous Backmann study, Jews scored only 91 on spatial, compared to 100 for non-Jewish whites. Cochran estimates that Ashkenazi Jews score a half standard deviation below non-Jewish whites on spatial tests - i.e., about 93. Bulldog123 05:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] so, this survived deletion, eh?

Looks like I'm going to have a busy spring break. I count no reasons to keep this versus the massive list of reasons why it should be delete. (ashkenazi are not even a valid ethnic group for study because of conversion)The vote was something like 20 for deletion, 15 against it, none of whom, I might add, supplied any valid reason for keeping it. Apparently "googling" something is a valid reason to some of them, however, a very odd litmus test; "jews suck" probably gets a lot of hits on google, too. The information is contentuous and redundant(it's mention in several other places). This wiki merely adds some silly anecdotal spin on the "facts" generally given in the other wikis. I had no idea anecdotes were what enclopedias dealt in. Silly me.Ernham 00:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaned up Article

I shifted the large second paragraph into the sections of Expert Findings and Achievements, and turned the alternate explanations into bullet points (allowing me to make it more concise). I also did some minor revision, and added sources for IQ estimates. Ashernm 20:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Experts' estimates of the Jewish IQ

Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein, in The Bell Curve, estimate the Jewish IQ to be a half to full standard deviation above the white mean--i.e., 107.5 to 115. They cited the book Intelligence and Giftedness: The Contributions of an Early Environment, by Miles D. Stofer. Storfer estimates it at 112.

Another person who has written about Jewish IQ, Kevin MacDonald, in The Culture of Critique, estimates it at 117 [3]. Law professor Richard Posner and psychometrician Arthur Jensen cite his estimate in their books.

Cochran and others, in their famous paper which made the New York Times and Economist, estimate it at 112 to 115. [4]

Richard Lynn, in his most recent paper on the topic, revised his estimate of the overall IQ of Jewish Americans to 109.5. [5]

The range of IQs as estimated by these experts is: (1) 107.5 to 115; (2) 112; (3) 117; (4) 112 to 115; (5) 109.5. As far as I know, no other experts have written extensively on the topic. Thus, the range of IQs as estimated by experts is 107.5 to 117. The average estimate, if we take the median of the ranges, is 112.7. Bulldog123 01:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The fact you think you can just average the means supplied by a handful of disparate studies and come to any useful number really makes me question anything you say regarding stats/data. Almost every study done to date fails to provide valid sample sizes for a population comparison analysis(you can't "prove" anything statistically) and to make matters worse, next to none of them are representative sample sizes. It's not exactly the scientists fault; it's very, very hard to get a valid,representative diasporic A Jew IQ. It has yet to be done to date. Ernham 16:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

According to this http://sq.4mg.com/corrupt.htm, Israeli ashkenazim average IQ hardly seems to be higher then 103,5, more probably - about 100. (Israeli population: 20% of Arabs (average IQ 87), 40% of sephardim (average IQ about 88-91 according to different sources) and 40% of ashkenazim. 103,5 is less then Hong Kong average IQ score. So some statistics must be wrong - either Euro-American or Israeli. Why the same etnic group shows so different scores? --Igor "the Otter" 09:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Igor, it could be that the Ashkenazim who went to Israel had lower IQ's on average, or that Israeli fertility patterns are more dysgenic, or any number of reasons. The Israeli figure, even if correct, is not authoritative. I'm going to delete that paragraph from the article, because the calculations are somewhat unreliable.

Actually, the oberved phenomenon is for more intelligent persons to immigrate, whether it's a backwards or forwards immigration, as long as that immigration is by choice, which going to Israel would clearly be. There is nothing wrong with the "data" or the calculations either. Those are the numbers when you don't have a bogus cherry-picked Jewish sample like they try to use in the US/UK.Ernham 03:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

2 anonimus Please show me statistic data about Israeli IQ you consider more correct and authoritative then those of Richard Lynn which I've added, then delete my editings. Esle it looks like vandalism. If this article is only about non-Israeli ashkenazim intelligence, then this article must be renamed. I'm restoring my editing back. And please sign your posts. Also I'm adding link to Israeli population percentage.--Igor "the Otter" 18:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original Research template & completely disputed

This article is not only founded on pseudo-scientific racism (hence completely disputed tag), it fails to respect the most basic guidelines of Wikipedia. First, WP:SOAPBOX, second WP:NOR, in particular WP:OR#SYNTHESIS which I will permit myself to quote:

Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article in order to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research.

One article in one review by one controversed Gregory Cochran & al does not warrant a Wikipedia article. Now, to "clean up" of this article, since Wikipedia procedures have failed to delete it (this tells a lot about the editors of Wikipedia, who tends to conflate this with the blogosphere):

• section "expert findings" is not unsourced, but the terms "expert" are laughable. How many more real scientifics debunk these silly claims (which, by claiming Askhenazi Jews are so smart, actually back-fires by backing up all anti-Semitic theories - but the authors of this article obviously haven't considered that if you can argue that "Askhenazi Jews" are so smart, you can also argue the same stuff that Hitler did).
• "Statistic data on Israeli IQ" is irrelevant here (I thought we were talking about "general intelligence of Askhenazi Jews" whatever that pseudo-scientifical concept means. So now we are talking about "general intelligence of Israeli citizens"? I'm sure the non-Askhenazi Israeli citizens will enjoy that.
• "Achievement". How great are the individuals whom the great Askhenazi "race" has managed to create! I fear that soon some Askhenazi will claim that Baruch Spinoza, a Marrano, was actually a "Moor", because of his "heretical" thoughts...
• "Cochran et al." is actually the only "reference" of that article, but it fails to respect WP:RS and has yet to be confirmed by true scientifics.
• "Alternative explanations" is a nice subsection on the specific opinions of contributors to this article.

This is a most desesperate article, which should be, at best, merged to Gregory Cochran since he is the only stumbling block of this sand castle. Good luck, and enjoy yourself editing, but please don't take out these tags until you merged, at minimum, that article to Cochran. Tazmaniacs 21:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this article needs a major overhaul, but there are more sources beyond the report highlighted in this article that have not been added, just do a google search. By the way, according to Wikipedia, Scientific racism is "label sometimes given to theories or arguments which suggest that scientific evidence shows significant evolutionary differences between races." First of all, articles on this type of research should not automatically get a dispute tag if it they are based on scientific sources. Secondly, the explanations for a higher Ashkenazi IQ are not necessarily "evolutionary" based, so again this does not fit. Again, feel free to clean this up, but this article (and Race and intelligence) have survived deletion attempts. Joshdboz 21:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is just an embarrassment. How can people who clearly have such a poor grasp of science make any pronouncements about intelligence, anyway? It should be deleted, because while Wikipedia doesn't make judgments about the veracity of theories it describes, I don't think every crackpot theory needs to have a page, either. If it's not going to be deleted, then at least it should have a section refuting it that is thorough and definitive.QuizzicalBee 04:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Please add one. Joshdboz 20:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is based in part on the findings of psychologists, specifically psychometricians or intelligence experts. You can read the American Psychological Association's statement on the field and the validity of its tests generally here - http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/apa_01.html . Alternatively, see the Snyderman and Rothman 1988 survey of experts in the field. Cochran has volunteered an explanation of the observed difference between Ashkenazim and other groups.

• You are conflating facts and morals; the truth is irrelvant to what Hitler would do or say. You are effectively using the fallacy of 'guilty by association.'
• To find a representative Ashkenazi IQ one would have to poll Ashkenazim from all over the world, including Israel, America, etc. Therefore, it's probably best to specify results by the country tested.
• Spinoza was Sephardic, as in, originally from the Iberian peninsula. In other words, what the hell does heresy and Spinoza have to with Ashkenazi intelligence?
• You are correct in your evaluation of the alternative explanations. I think they are worth deleting, but I'm not quite sure if that's appropiate with regard to Wikipedia's guidelines, so I leave it to someone else's discretion.
• I agree that the article is too 'Cochran-centric,' but the subject has recieved sufficient attention that I think it merits preservation. The psychometric research has been consistent in finding a difference, though not in its specific magnitude.

Ashernm 04:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

I motion for the serious and thought out deletion of the article on the following grounds: 1. The group mentioned has highly ambiguous standards for classification. Also, racial purity is not guaranteed (It was mentioned above that a woman marrying in would automatically become one). 2. The article contains unsourced statements with special regard to statistics. 3. The article contains sections of editorial slant that hint towards the idea of Jewish racial superiority. Even though I am an Irish Catholic doesn't mean that I can just go and say that Irish Catholics are smarter than everyone else. Trust me, I would know. I hope that those of the Jewish faith would share the same persuasion. 4. The article itself seems to be a promotion of its topic. This violates NPOV rules. I just say that we delete this article and/or merge its essential content into a racial intelligence analysis page. Peace, Deepdesertfreman 04:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

All of these don't address the notability of the topic. 1 is true but irrelevant to whether we have sourced content on the topic. 2 is a problem, so if you see any please go throuhg and remove or tag such statements. 3- if there are any editorial slanting issues then by all means NPOV them. 4- I don't see at all. JoshuaZ 04:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)