Ashkenazi Jews have higher IQs because of their genes

This is not news to anyone familiar with the literature on intelligence.

The news here is that major news organizations, including The New York Times and The Economist have picked up on the story, thanks to a soon to be published research paper which shows that genetic diseases that occur in the Ashkenazi population (such as Tay-Sachs) are related to higher intelligence. The article in The Economist is especially well written.

It has long been taboo to write or speak about different ethnic or racial groups having different average levels of intelligence (intelligence being a genetic trait much like height). The quote in the NY Times article, that “it would be hard to overstate how politically incorrect this paper is,” is probably an understatement.

The publication of these articles could be the historic beginning of a new understanding of society. Now that the yokes of taboo are lifted people can finally seek true answers to troubling social issues which before seemed unanswerable. One might start by reading the excellent book The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Herrnstein and Murray, published in 1994 but just as relevant eleven years later.

Other blogs talking about these articles include: Just One Minute, Steve Sailer, SkaroffBlog, Swerdloff.com, Liberty Dad, Reagan Babies Sinocizied, Gene Expression, Aging Disgracefully, Organic Matter, and Thrasymachus Online.

Comments

[Michael H.]

Hi Half Sigma
This is fascinating. I had always heard that these Northern European Jews performed better on IQ tests, but I never understood why. I still think it is hard to see how these people would have evolved into being smarter people just because they tended not to be farmers.

In India, the priest class of people are very high achievers and people suspect that they may have higher than average IQ. Being a priest(brahmin) in India was very difficult because you had to memorize these very long books called the vaydas. Probably, the lesser people dropped out of the priest class, and wound up being shopkeepers or something else. Maybe a similar process happened the these Northern European Jews.

[Kevin R.C. O'Brien]

Interesting blog. You might also want to check out La Griffe du Lion who has done some statistical analysis of this subject, aiming less to understand why than to at least quantify the "Ashkenazic Effect."

Because of the nature of this material, La Griffe posts anonymously. My understanding is that most of the serious scientists who study this stuff know who he is. I don't.

Two posts by La Griffe in 2000 and again in September 2003 should provide some quantitative background for the Ashkenazic IQ. It's politically incorrect indeed, but every time facts collide with dogma it's ultimately dogma that yields.

[reader]

The title of this post is a bit misleading. What it should say is "Ashkenazi Jews median IQ might be higher than the rest of the population because of their genes." Obviously, not all Ashkenazi have above average IQ.

[Joseph Hertzlinger]

In the case of N-rays or phrenology, the alleged facts collided with the dogma and the facts yielded. Sometimes stuck-in-the-mud dogmatic scientists are right.