Israeli high-tech success

The Freakonomics blog post on Israel has some interesting stuff, but also a lot of garbage.

First, the interesting:

Israel has the highest density of tech start-ups in the world. More importantly, these start-ups attract more venture capital dollars per person than any country — 2.5 times the U.S., 30 times Europe, 80 times India, and 300 times China. Israel has more companies on the tech-oriented NASDAQ than any country outside the U.S., more than all of Europe, Japan, Korea, India, and China combined. But it’s not just about start-ups. Scratch almost any major tech company — Intel, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Motorola, and so on — and you will find that Israeli talent and technology play a major role in keeping these multinational companies on the cutting edge.

This is interesting because it’s seldom reported. It disproves the anti-Semitic meme that Israel is a waste of a country which contributes nothing useful to the world.

The obvious explanation for Israeli success is that nearly half of the country’s population is composed of Ashkenazi Jews, which we know to have an average IQ significantly higher (as much as 15 points higher) than the average gentile European. Of course, HBD is that which must not be discussed, so the blog post attempts to find politically correct explanations for Israeli success.

Chutzpah is offered as an explanation:

In the U.S. there are isolated pockets of chutzpah. But an outsider would see chutzpah everywhere in Israel: in the way university students speak with their professors, employees challenge their bosses, sergeants question their generals, and clerks second-guess government ministers.

I think there could be some truth here. Some in the HBD blogging community have wondered why East Asians, who have a higher average IQ than gentile Europeans, seem to have lagged behind Europe in scientific and cultural achievements. It has been suggested that Asians are conformist worker bees who, on average, lack the ego and individuality to make original contributions to science and culture at the higher rate of Europeans.

Of course, it should be pointed out that chutzpah, without a high IQ to back it up, is a negative trait and not a positive trait. The typical ghetto black has a lot of chutzpah, but you don’t go to the ghetto for high-tech startup talent.

Furthermore, it’s not clear to me that, even among a high IQ population, if too much chutzpah is not a bad thing. Israel might have an excess of chutzpah which is holding the country back more than it’s helping.

Immigration is offered as an explanation:

A key lesson from Israel is that innovation is not just something that goes on inside companies; it comes from a wider culture that fosters both innovation and entrepreneurship. Israel is a country of immigrants — there are over 70 nationalities represented in this tiny country. Two out of every three Israelis are newcomers, or the children or grandchildren of newcomers. . . . Immigrants are natural risk takers since they were willing to uproot themselves and start over.

Ah yes, how convenient that Israeli economic success can teach us a politically correct lesson about the importance of allowing more immigrants into the United States.

The thing about Israeli immigration is that it’s mostly composed of high-IQ Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Bloc countries, who share a cultural and racial heritage with Israel’s existing Jewish population. In contrast, United States immigration is mostly low-IQ Hispanics, and most of the high-IQ immigration comes from Asia and they don’t share a cultural background with America’s predominant white European population, nor are they of the same race.

The blog post also suggests that military service benefits Israel:

The compulsory service produces a maturity not seen in Israelis’ foreign peers who spend that time in university. “They’ve got more life experience,” British Telecom executive Gary Shainberg told us, which “is critical, since innovation is all about finding ideas, and finding new ideas is often about having perspective.” And perspective typically comes with age. But in Israel you get perspective at a young age because so many transformational experiences are jammed into Israelis — including military service — in their late teens and early 20’s.

. . .

In Israel, employers look for and value the leadership skills of young officers who have already received tremendous management skills by age 21. By age 25, they have both military experience and a university degree. In the U.S., by contrast, too many corporate executives are illiterate when it comes to reading a military resume. We heard one story about an Iraq-war vet being interviewed by a corporate recruiter. The vet walked through all his incredible leadership experience from the battlefield. But at the end of the interview, the interviewer said, “that’s all very interesting, but have you ever had a real job?”

This is a big red herring. I worked for the U.S. Army as a civilian, and it was the most poorly managed organization I ever worked for. I was able to see firsthand that battlefield experience does not result in skills which are especially useful in white collar office jobs.

The comments to the blog post are filled with a great deal of anti-Semitism. I was surprised that this gets passed the NY Times censors. I guess that Israel is no longer favored by the PC police because she is seen as the oppressor and the poor peaceful Islamic Palestinians are the victims.

Anyway, the typical comment from this genre says, “Israel wouldn’t be doing so well without billions of dollars a year in U.S. aid.” Nearly all of the U.S aid to Israel is in the form of military hardware, with the lion’s share of that being really expensive airplanes. It’s hard to see how giving Israel a super-powerful air force contributes much to the civilian economy.

I believe that Israel would be a much more economically powerful nation today had the country been founded someplace safe, such as Alaska. Without having to devote such a high percentage of its resources to the military and to security against terrorists, a nation with such a high percentage of high-IQ Ashkenazi Jews would probably be one of the world’s wealthiest nations (on a per capita basis) without any U.S. aid at all.

Comments

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"Japan, Korea, India, and China combined."

I don't know about India, but this is more evidence in favor of La Griffe's theory for why Asians Lag.

Japan, South Korea and China should have a far larger number of scientists with IQs over 145 than the number of Ashkenazi Jews who have IQs over 145 because Japan, South Korea and China have so many more people.

And yet, Japan only has 13 Nobel Prizes in the hard sciences since WWII yet Germany has over 50 nobel prizes the war and Ashkenazi Jews (or scientists who are half Ashkenazi, half white) are 27% of all postwar American nobel prize winners.

Why is it that East Asians underperform at the elite levels of science? There is no evidence that the white IQ variance is greater than East Asian IQ variance.

There probably are other psychological factors that give Europeans and Ashkenazis a big scientific advantage over East Asians that can't be explained by IQ scores (such as verbal IQ and Hans Eynseck's personality theory of genius).

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"I believe that Israel would be a much more economically powerful nation today had the country been founded someplace safe, such as Alaska."

I also agree with this.

I think it would be prudent for Israel and or the State Department to have backup plans for moving Israel by buying a piece of Northern Brazil and moving there as a backup plan.

[James Watson, you are a god among men.]

I know, Israel would likely have the highest income per capital in the world, if they were more like Singapore of the arctic. A Jewish state in Alaska would have been awesome. Yiddish Policeman's Union should have been real. There maybe would have been show like Northern Exposure in reverse if a Jewish state in Alaska had been a reality. That would have been really cool, sadly to say it will never happen.

[mike]

I don't see how this proves the worth of Israel. These Jews could be just as productive without an imperialistic religious ethnostate.

[anonymous]

The British government in 1903 offered the Zionists a territory in east Africa to be administered by them but under British "suzerainty." Here is the headline from the NY Times: "JEWISH STATE FOR JEWS; Great Britain Offers territory to the Zionists. Sixth Congress Opens at Basel -- Meet- ing in This City Last Night."

The offer was rejected, setting up the unending conflict over that tiny piece of mostly desert sand that may very well result in a worldwide calamity one day.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D01E4D71339E333A25757C2A96E9C946297D6CF

[factcheck]

"The obvious explanation for Israeli success is that nearly half of the country’s population is composed of Ashkenazi Jews, which we know to have an average IQ significantly higher (as much as 15 points higher) than the average gentile European."

These numbers are wildly wrong. According to Richard Lynn, the average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews in North America is 110 but the average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews in Israel is 103 (lower than the 105 average for East Asia). Also, the non-Ashkenazi Jews in Israel average in the low 90s.

[D]

Be prepared for the tard camp section of the HBD-sphere to foam at the mouth about anything positive related to Jews.

[Monkey]

Largely agreed with most of what HS has to say....however, one thing that is holding Israel back is its socialistic/bureaucratic tendencies --- something, I think that, for some reason, tracks very well with Ashkenazi Jews.

[not here]

It has a lot to do with culture. For example, if you consider science Olympiads, Israel does very very poorly, including at math, physics, informatics, chemistry, and biology. Judging from this you would say they have low iq. On the same lines, India has very few medals if any at summer Olympiads. You could also draw the conclusion that Indians must have some genetic drawback (especially after taking into consideration that there's a billion of them). Tech is even more biased, because it requires the right government policies, the right culture and mentality, the right image (would VCs invest in corrupt Russia?), political stability, etc. To say this is evidence of high iq is bullshit.

[ENB]

moving Israel to another place (it can be almost anywhere really, I mean now they are in the middle of the desert) would make so much sense for everyone involved there, yet is basically impossible because of religion. Kind of sad.

[Nanonymous]

"probably be one of the world’s wealthiest nations (on a per capita basis) without any U.S. aid at all"

The whole issue of the US aid to Israel is a red herring in itself. In monetary terms, it is simply not very important for Israel. Its symbolic value is what matters much more. Consider:

Annual US aid to Israel is around $3 billion
http://wrmea.org/component/content/article/245-2008-november/3845-congress-watch-a-conservative-estimate-of-total-direct-us-aid-to-israel-almost-114-billion.html

Israel's GDP is about $200 billion (+/- $10B according to various sources; just google it).

Anyone who thinks that 1.5% of country's GDP make or break its economy is crazy.

Israel's per capita GDP is around 30th in the world - on a par with New Zeland. Not bad for a country burdened with huge military expedentures and low IQ population reaching about 50% of total.

[S]

"I believe that Israel would be a much more economically powerful nation today had the country been founded someplace safe, such as Alaska. Without having to devote such a high percentage of its resources to the military and to security against terrorists, a nation with such a high percentage of high-IQ Ashkenazi Jews would probably be one of the world’s wealthiest nations (on a per capita basis) without any U.S. aid at all."

It goes without saying that high IQ is good.
But if they'd gone to Alaska, what would have REALLY enabled 'em to be among the wealthiest countries is all that Alaskan oil.

[HS: The Alaskan oil is in the northern uninhabitable part of the state. Israel would have been given some chunk of land in the southern part of the state.]

[amir]

I agree that army service contributes a lot especially for acquiring leadership skills and taking initiative. Not management skills.Also, the army itself is an incubator for hi-tech. I thought the "talpiot" program was secret but they have their own Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talpiot_program
Look at the names for their graduates. Typical Israeli names. These are not new immigrants. I googled "Israeli entrepreneurs" in English and Hebrew and most of the names that came up were typical Israeli names. No doubt that immigrant names like Alex and Vlad will show up more and more in the future, but I don't think that the wave of immigration from the Soviet block is a very good explanation for what's happening now.
Finally the idea that "national service programs" can provide the same kind of leadership training that military service provides seems absurd to me. It's apples and oranges.

[Sensitive Jerk]

"Nearly all of the U.S aid to Israel is in the form of military hardware, with the lion’s share of that being really expensive airplanes. It’s hard to see how giving Israel a super-powerful air force contributes much to the civilian economy."

Too much Marx; too little Smith and Hayek. If you can reduce taxes because an outside country is happy to subsidize your military, then your civilian economy can grow faster. (But the real reason is probably IQ.)

"I believe that Israel would be a much more economically powerful nation today had the country been founded someplace safe, such as Alaska."

I've always thought New Mexico, but I guess Alaska makes at least as much sense. New Mexico seems more similar to Israel (climate-wise) than Alaska, but who cares when most Israelis hail from chilly Europe?

"I was surprised that this gets passed the NY Times censors."

Censors or editors?

[BrunoBrazil]

"In Israel, employers look for and value the leadership skills of young officers who have already received tremendous management skills by age 21. By age 25, they have both military experience and a university degree. In the U.S., by contrast, too many corporate executives are illiterate when it comes to reading a military resume. We heard one story about an Iraq-war vet being interviewed by a corporate recruiter. The vet walked through all his incredible leadership experience from the battlefield. But at the end of the interview, the interviewer said, “that’s all very interesting, but have you ever had a real job?”

An unsaid thing is that much of the hiring decisions (although the politically correct HR girls deny it. But I´ve got many jobs ignoring the HR) is made by social convention. Both the US and Israeli military are advanced fighting forces with high technology. However, in one place, Israel, being a military is a plus for a job and in the other, being an ex-military is a minus.

My opinion is that, if the military work was in a transferrable skill, a company should benefit a lot with an ex-military. A former B-2 pilot who did 20-hour runs will be a skilled Airbus captain who won´t complain about long hours.

[BrunoBrazil]

It’s hard to see how giving Israel a super-powerful air force contributes much to the civilian economy.

Boeing, Lockheed and Honeywell get their money and hire people. The manufacturer, subcontractors and employees spend these money in the local economy, boosting GNP.

[Lil' Barry Bailout]

“Israel wouldn’t be doing so well without billions of dollars a year in U.S. aid.”
=

This statement is absolutely true. Without U.S. aid, Israel would be doing very poorly, because it wouldn't be Israel, it would be Palestine. Which of course means it would be an economic disaster and a breeding ground for Islamofascist terrorism.

[Gor]

What lots of people dont get about Jews - and Ive had good chance to observe this close up growing up in a very Jewish area - is that Jews are extremely aggressive. Because of the high IQ the aggression is masked and is channeled into ambition and work, but if Jews werent high IQ theyd be thugs.

The Jewish personality just seems different from the genitle one - more agression, more energy, and more ambition in general. More drive. I cant quite put my finger on it.

Some anecdotes about Jews convey this, like * put 2 Jews in a room and you:ll have 3 opinions* to the ancinet Biblical * a stiff-necked people*.

But nothing like being amongst Jews a lot to see it firsthand. Its not just intelligence, there:s a lot of energy there.

Whatever has been happening in Europe for the past 2 thousand years, a very interesting and strange group of people have emerged as a result.

[An engineer]

"Of course, HBD is that which must not be discussed, so the blog post attempts to find politically correct explanations for Israeli success."

This is something you say often, implying that HBD is rejected by an author, in favor of a more "correct" theory.

Perhaps, more often than not, they never consider HBD and thus never reject it.

Maybe there is nothing more sinister here than just not being as smart as you are and missing the "obvious explanation."

[nothing]

Why do brown people have to ruin everything? Think of where the world would be without brown people causing all of life's problems? It seems like successful nations have to allocate a portion of their budget towards the containment of the brown people. It's a sad truth that we all have to accept. And then there's the white proles. Who just have to tell you their stupid jokes at the ATM machine and in the grocery store line.

[Eman]

Israel is already a failing state.

More Ashkenazi Jews leave Israel for the USA, Europe, Australia, etc than arrive as new Jewish citizens. Most Ashkenazi births occur amongst Haredi Jews, and they do not work, serve in the military, learn secular subjects, etc.

The overwhelming evidence seems to suggest that, despite all of their intelligence, Jews are unable to maintain a nation of their own and must always live amongst others.

[HS: Israel would be a fine country were it not for the neighborhood it's in. This is one of those borderline anti-Semitic comments, blaming Jews for the geographical location of Israel. The reason why Jews are moving out of Israel is because it's surrounded by Muslims who hate the Jews. No mystery there.]

[Pookie]

Vets can have entitlement problems and emotional issues when they try to make it in the private sector. Also the military is highly structured, unlike a lot of small businesses and even large tech companies.

It is a real problem. An example is a guy whose staff member went to Iraq from the National Guard and came back an emotion wreck. He's a patriotic guy so he basically paid her for 6 months without her contributing to the business out of patriotic guilt.

Since they get affirmative action in government hiring, a lot of them end up there. I have never heard of a vet coming back and starting up a big company outside of "4 years to pay for college" people.

Israel's mandatory military service probably holds back its economy since ages 18-21 are some of the last years when you can really learn new things quickly.

Also holding it back is the large population that doesn't study anything but the Torah for college, and gets all sorts of special privileges for it.

Over time I expect that the highly intelligent secular Israelis will immigrate to the US rather than pay high taxes to support its large religious welfare state and west bank imperialism and the country will look more and more like Lebanon circa 1970.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"Without U.S. aid, Israel would be doing very poorly, because it wouldn't be Israel, it would be Palestine."

The aid is only 1.5% of their GDP. And most of that comes in the form of military aid from the US.

But even if we stopped selling Israel weapons the Israelis would just buy high tech weaponry such as Leopard 2a6 tanks and Grippen fighters from Western Europe.

[Daniel Gonzalez]

The original freakonomics posters and the blog's author omitted the not insignificant amount of U.S. aid to Israel, not just in the form of military assistance but also in the form of low interest loans, grants, etc..
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html
In nominal terms u.s. aid to Israel for the last 60 years has been approx. 100 bill dollars,so in current dollars it should amount to around 250-300 billion, a huge boost for a small country (only 7.5 mill in 2009)

[James Watson, you are a god among men.]

And then there's the white proles. Who just have to tell you their stupid jokes at the ATM machine and in the grocery store line.

I know what you are talking about,nothing, and it usually something juvenile like sex or bodily noises. They treat you like your stupid if do not like the joke. White proles at like overgrown middle schoolers, which middle school is likely when they reach their intellectual peak.

[Jason Malloy]

Gor's comment on Jewish energetic ambition deserves more research. The truth of the matter is that Ashkenazi IQ in Israel is respectable, but not super high (I will discuss some direct measurements I've tracked down on gnxp at some point), and in absolute numbers, there aren't that many high IQ people in Israel. TIMSS and PISA show nothing spectacular going on on the right tail of math and science scores in Israel.

The General Social Survey shows that even dumb and uneducated Jews earn a lot more money than gentiles, and this x factor is at least as important as IQ in explaining Jewish success.

[HS: For individuals, IQ has a low correlation with income. It's only for large groups that IQ does a great job of predicting income differentials. Obviously there's a lot more to making money than IQ.]

[sabril]

"Israel is already a failing state.

More Ashkenazi Jews leave Israel for the USA, Europe, Australia, etc than arrive as new Jewish citizens. Most Ashkenazi births occur amongst Haredi Jews, and they do not work, serve in the military, learn secular subjects, etc."

It seems to me that Israel's demographic situation is not too shabby compared to other Western nations. The total fertility rate among Israeli Jews is a respectable 2.8 and much of that is the result of secular Jews who are having families as well as Modern Orthodox Jews (who work, serve in the military, etc.) who have big families.

More importantly (in my opinion), it's politically acceptable in Israel to advocate for policies aimed at maintaining a Jewish majority. Israeli Jews believe (for the most part) that they have a right to control their country and a right to exist.

Compare that with other western nations and it seems like Israel is actually doing pretty well in comparison. Which isn't a guarantee of success, but still.

[GS]

I'm a Jew and a huge supporter of Israel. With that said, the country is going down the demographic drain. Non-hasidic Ashkenazim Jews are a rapidly dwindling percentage of the population. They could be super rich, but no when ~25% of the population has to support the other 75%. Ontop of that they are pretty socialistic.

[OneSTDV]

"I believe that Israel would be a much more economically powerful nation today had the country been founded someplace safe, such as Alaska."

Thank you for saying this. I;ve argued with plenty of Jews about this. I point out the very obvious fact (that founding a country surrounded by a billion Muslims was probably not a good idea) and they simply won't concede the point.

And almost none of them are even religious. They oppose it on the grounds of tradition, that the Biblical tradition and the historic notion of Israel/Palestine as the rightful Jewish homeland is too important to ignore. Of course, I guess blindly following tradition trumps, ya know, not being in perpetual war.

This is why I hesitate to call myself a conservative. I'm not a conservative because I think tradition has ingerent value (like all those secular Jews who think Israel should be in the Middle East for cultural/traditional reasons). I'm a conservative because conservatism usually work, period.

Practicality generally triumphs all. The early Zionists should have understood this and not chosen the Middle East as the Israeli location.

[Melykin]

One thing that may hinder science in east Asia is corruption. There is a lot of corruption in the China. South Korea and Taiwan aren't much better.

A few years ago there was a fraud involving cloning in Korea. The whistle-blower in the case was vilified for bringing shame to Korea. Read about it here.

http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=1825

Corruption ruins everything.

[Gor]

The only Jews moving out of Israel are the low-skill types who cant really compete in the Israeli economy. Well, not the only, but the majority for sure I see Israeli immigrants in NYC all the time and they are nothing like the majority of the Jews in Israel, which I have visited. It makes sense that low quality Israelis would seek opportunities elsewhere.

There is also a recent NYT article about massive immigration of American Jews INTO Israel recently, because of the better economy. Go figure.

[TurkishThought]

Half Sigma....are you smokign something? The military poorly managed? Right, of course, it is real easy to train and move men and supplies to the front. Provide, food, medical, and other supplies for millions of soldiers.

You may have worked FOR the military but you sure as hell did not work in it. If you had, the complexity and management skills needed to operated in this environment would have been obvious.

Just how much military experience to our elites have? I'm guessing none considering how incompetent they have shown to be in managing their own companies finances.

[as]

Hey Half Sigma,

Will you comment on the Amanda Knox case?

It seems like she is innocent to me.

[rob]

"...blaming Jews for the geographical location of Israel."

Did you miss the comments pointing out that Zionists were offered land in both Alaska (which is not in the Middle East) and East Africa (terrible 'hood now, but not in the mid-east)

Zionists picked the Middle East. How is anyone else responsible for that? It wasn't a secret that Muslims lived there.

[APH]

I'm a nominal Catholic who once traveled to Israel and spent a lot of time with young 20 somethings who were serving in the IDF. The majority of the men and a good % of the women were studying something math/science related: physics, computers, engineering, etc...Mostly really good people too.

I was pretty darn impressed.

One thing I did not like about Israelis is the rudeness encountered, especially with service/retail workers. I'm not sure if it's a Middle East thing or what, but you'll get an attitude and NO politeness at the grocery store or anywhere else.

[Yawner]

"It’s hard to see how giving Israel a super-powerful air force contributes much to the civilian economy."

If Israel had to develop and deploy those aircraft with its own money, the civilian economy would be held back accordingly.

[HS: But if Israel didn't have to "develop and deploy" those aircraft, for example, if Israel didn't suffer a threat to its existence because its surrounded by Muslim enemies who made war in the past and only haven't attacked Israel since 1973 because of Israeli military superiority, then Israel could blossom economically without any aid from the United States.]

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"If Israel had to develop and deploy those aircraft with its own money, the civilian economy would be held back accordingly."

They wouldn't need to "develop" any aircraft.

Israel could just buy them off the shelf from a European arms company.

You guys are also vastly overstating the economic importance of the $3 billion or so the US gives Israel.

[Peter A]

"It disproves the anti-Semitic meme that Israel is a waste of a country which contributes nothing useful to the world."

Not at all. It proves the opposite - Israel is a gigantic waste of time for everyone. If these smart Jews were living in the US, the UK or Israel (hell, or even Argentina, Brazil, or Russia) the world would be much better off. There is absolutely no reason for Israel to exist other than crazy crackpot religious fundamentalism. Ashkenazi Jews are Europeans - they should live and work in European or European descended countries. Not in the middle of Arabs. The idea of Israel makes about as much sense as Rhodesia did. Let the indigenous people have their land to fuck up. You realize Israel is a stupid idea when you say "I believe that Israel would be a much more economically powerful nation today had the country been founded someplace safe, such as Alaska." Sure, it would be called the USA. Jews have the USA, they don't need Israel.

[HS: Saying there's no need for a Jewish state ignores hundreds of years of persecution against Jews, and the Holocaust.]

[Alex]

"Boeing, Lockheed and Honeywell get their money and hire people. The manufacturer, subcontractors and employees spend these money in the local economy, boosting GNP. "

This is a clever variation of the "broken windows fallacy". One could argue that giving kids free baseballs improves the economy, because the kids will use the baseballs to destroy windows and create jobs for the window repairmen and workers.

[ntl]

Ashkenazi Jewish populations seem to be really high in ingenuity, on top of their high mean IQ and "chutzpah." That's important for succeeding in a fast moving and dynamic market place. Asia and India have lots of high IQ and hardworking educated professionals, but they tend to be low in innovativeness. Definitely good workers, but less likely to come up with the next big thing.

That's one reason I'm skeptical about claims that the Chinese and Indians are going to be the new masters of the universe. Another reason is that outside large cities and coastal trading areas, there probably hasn't been much selection for high IQ. Which may be why there's such stagnation outside of a few prosperous areas.

I predict that in this century, Ashkenazi Jews will continue to produce more big thinkers and innovators. Though China and more especially India are going to relatively gain a lot of ground due to sheer size.

[Truth(er)]

But what is the average age of the Ashkenazi immigrant? If Israel is getting an older population, then it is quite likely that a big chunk of those immigrants are simply people in their peak earning years and those will have higher education and training.

[Linda]

"[HS: For individuals, IQ has a low correlation with income. It's only for large groups that IQ does a great job of predicting income differentials. Obviously there's a lot more to making money than IQ.]"

The correlation between IQ & income (for individuals) is 0.4 according to Jensen. That's hardly low.

[sabril]

"And almost none of them are even religious. They oppose it on the grounds of tradition, that the Biblical tradition and the historic notion of Israel/Palestine as the rightful Jewish homeland is too important to ignore. Of course, I guess blindly following tradition trumps, ya know, not being in perpetual war."

To some extent, I agree with your friends. Is it better to be at war but to be confident of your right to exist? Or to be at peace but to not believe you have a right to exist?

[Linda]

"Too much Marx; too little Smith and Hayek. If you can reduce taxes because an outside country is happy to subsidize your military, then your civilian economy can grow faster. (But the real reason is probably IQ.)"

Well it's because of IQ that they are subsidized in the first place. That is because of the extremely high average verbal IQ of Ashkenazi Jews in America, Ashkenazi Jews are dramatically overrepresented among powerful Americans (billionaires, lobbyists, think tanks, academics, the white house inner circle, congress, the media-including blogs) and are very skilled at using that power to Israel's advantage either through influencing America's foreign policy & through investing in Israel as private citizens. So I would say that the IQ's of Ashkenazi Jews in America has more to do with Israel's success than the IQ of Israel itself (which is only 94).

In fairness all races & ethnicities are genetically programmed to advance their genetic interests, but Ashkenazi Jews are especially successful at it because they're so smart especially in the verbal domain which is especially useful in the age of mass media.

[Turambar]

"In the U.S., by contrast, too many corporate executives are illiterate when it comes to reading a military resume. We heard one story about an Iraq-war vet being interviewed by a corporate recruiter."

Yeah, I dont think I'll buy a book by an author who thinks a corporate executive and a recruiter are the same thing. Shows a poor level of understanding.

[Yawner]

I wasn't saying there was no military threat to Israel and that US aid was thus unjustified and unnecessary. I simply argue that US aid - which is so much more than just advanced aircraft, and includes bribing Egypt to leave Israel alone - unquestionably frees up Israeli resources for productive economic activity.

[James]

I wouldn't be so quick to discount the importance of "chutzpah" and entrepreneurship when accounting for Jewish success. Jewish people have more than just a high IQ, they have a high VERBAL IQ and very enterprising personality tendencies. This kind of personality is necessary to avoid the "lazy European" phenomenon where you have a high-IQ workforce that would rather sit around and play WoW all day than go to work.

In my experience the high verbal IQ of whites and Jews helps creative hi-tech industries directly. Individuals with high nonverbal but low verbal tend to be out of touch with the cultural trends around them. They can design great software and hardware in functional terms, but they cannot predict the market direction or consumer reactions, so their products often fall flat. This is why Asian companies often stick to components manufacturing and let Western companies or consultants handle design and planning.

A professor friend of mine had another insight into Asian personality problems. After advising many Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese Ph.D. students, he feels that they suffer from a paralyzing fear of failure. They experience tremendous stress at the thought of an experiment going wrong or public humiliation if they make a proposal that counters the mainstream. It isn't so much that they lack the raw creativity, they are just so sensitive to public shame that they always "play it safe". The result is a very conservative business culture that is industrious but slow to change, and scientists who do not make major breakthroughs. In Kuhnian terms, they can only do normal science, not revolutionary science.

India, on the other hand, seems to have more of the Jewish entrepreneurial streak, albeit without the benefit of the stratospheric IQ. Unfortunately this low IQ leads to a very corrupt and unethical business culture.

[Peter A]

"Saying there's no need for a Jewish state ignores hundreds of years of persecution against Jews, and the Holocaust."

The reason Jews survived the holocaust in the first place is because Jews were dispersed across dozens of countries throughout the world. Concentrating Jews in one homeland is a ridiculous way to ensure Jewish safety - it's an anti-Semite's dream. Zionism is a 19th century notion that was already obsolete when Israel was founded.

[Jason Malloy]

"Of course, it should be pointed out that chutzpah, without a high IQ to back it up, is a negative trait and not a positive trait."

If this is true, then it probably isn't the x factor, since low IQ Ashkenazi are also disproportionately successful.

I wonder if some social trait might contribute. Perhaps Jews are better at networking or otherwise building and utilizing social connections. This seems like something they might have evolved as a cohesive, yet geographically dispersed, middleman minority group.

[Melykin]

James wrote:
"India, on the other hand, seems to have more of the Jewish entrepreneurial streak, albeit without the benefit of the stratospheric IQ. Unfortunately this low IQ leads to a very corrupt and unethical business culture."
--------------------------

I don't know what causes corruption, but I don't think it is low IQ. China and Russia are both very corrupt (especially Russia) but I don't think people there have lower IQ's than people in north west Europe, which has the lowest corruption in the world. Check out the map of the corruption perception index at transparency.org

http://www.transparency.org/

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"I wonder if some social trait might contribute. Perhaps Jews are better at networking or otherwise building and utilizing social connections."

There's more to success than just a population's raw IQ score.

Hans Eynseck stated that genius was probably linked not only to a high IQ but to a very special combination of personality factors.

The Jewish talent with business may simply be down to Jews being extrovert like other Southern European ethnic groups such as Italians.

Because of Jewish extroversion we are very good at working at the strategic level of major corporations and at working well with other people in corporate America.

[dearieme]

"I believe that Israel would be a much more economically powerful nation today had the country been founded someplace safe, such as Alaska." You don't think that she'd have been held back by the costs of all the wars with Canada?

[The Undiscovered Jew]

I have a question for Jason Malloy,

Do extroverts tend to financially outperform people who are less extrovert even when IQ is factored in?

For example, Europeans are much more extroverted than NEAsians.

Despite NEAsians having 2-5 point higher IQs than Europeans, European countries like Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden all have higher per capita GDPs than NEAsian nations such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.

Perhaps extroversion and the ability to work well with other people with different ideas and agendas is more important for success in business (and maybe science?) than raw IQ?

[sabril]

"HS: Saying there's no need for a Jewish state ignores hundreds of years of persecution against Jews, and the Holocaust."

It may very well be that more Jews have been lost to assimilation and inter-marriage than to pogrom. But having a homeland helps with this problem too.

"The reason Jews survived the holocaust in the first place is because Jews were dispersed across dozens of countries throughout the world. Concentrating Jews in one homeland is a ridiculous way to ensure Jewish safety - it's an anti-Semite's dream. Zionism is a 19th century notion that was already obsolete when Israel was founded."

It seems to me that if Israel had been founded in 1925, the Jews probably would have come through the Holocaust a lot better. Anyway, from a political and sociological point of view, if a group has a homeland it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone in the group has to move there. What it means is that people from other groups may NOT move there.

[James]

"I don't know what causes corruption, but I don't think it is low IQ. China and Russia are both very corrupt (especially Russia) but I don't think people there have lower IQ's than people in north west Europe, which has the lowest corruption in the world. Check out the map of the corruption perception index at transparency.org"

Corruption is caused by multiple factors. One of them is clearly low IQ, just look at the African and Arab worlds. In all countries low IQ correlates with criminality. High IQ individuals can succeed while playing by the rules, and they also foresee the long-term consequences of lawlessness. Low IQ individuals cannot succeed as easily, so they try to cheat. They also tend to think more short term, and they are more vulnerable to exploitation by charismatic religious and political leaders.

To put it bluntly, low IQ people act more like animals. I know that sounds like an extremely racist statement, but please trust that I am identifying IQ as the critical factor, not race. Low IQ whites are just as animalistic as low IQ blacks.

Corruption is also caused by centralized authority. This is explained on a recent Econtalk podcast covering the world of the eminent social scientists Elinor and Vincent Ostrom: (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/11/boettke_on_elin.html) China and Russia have long histories of centralized power. Centralized power eliminates the most important check against corruption: the ability of the people to move to a less corrupt province.

No doubt there are also genetic personality factors at work, but I don't know of any research that has really pinned them down yet.

[Funbag Freak]

-It disproves the anti-Semitic meme that Israel is a waste of a country which contributes nothing useful to the world.-

Crazy talk, I agree. Israel contributed Daphne Rosen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Rosen

[Stu]

I am posting as someone who is Jewish and who lives in the USA but who has visited Israel a number of times.

On the surface level, Israel is hurt by its location. Being surrounded on all sides by Muslims causes a lot of the mental and economic energy of Israel to be channeled in to the military.

If Israel were located in an equivalently sized piece of land in Southern Alaska, or in Brazil, Life would be better in many ways for the Israeli citizens.

But I believe that the rate of marrying out of the faith would be much greater.

I think the evidence is, throughout the history of the jews, that when the smartest and most successful of their non Jewish neighbors have been happy to marry jews that many jews have intermarried and been lost to the faith forever.

Think back to the hellenic period (google "hellenized jews") and you will remember that when the more sophisticated non Jews of that period were friendly to Jewish people and socialized with them that the result was Jews marrying the non jews.

A similar example can be seen today. Brazil and the US have relatively little anti semetism. Some of the more culturally sophisticated and economically successful non jews in America and in Brazil are ok with their children marrying jews and as a result many of Jews are lost to the tribe forever.

Just to cite two recent examples, President Clinton was ok with his daughter marrying a jew. And Donald trump was cool with his daughter marrying a jew. Now you could argue about whether the merits of marrying in to the Clinton family or marrying in to the Trump family, But no one can argue that it is a sign of lack of anti semetism Among US elites that so many non jewish elite people are cool with their kids marrying jews.

Can you imagine the arab equivalent of Bill Clinton or the Arab equivalent of Donald Trump encouraging his kids to marry a jew? Of course not. So to some extent, Israel benefits from its location surrounded by people who hate jews

Now think what Israel would look like if it it were loated in a corner of North or South America. Chances are the Jewish kids of Israel would have plenty of chances to socialize with their neighbors and marry them.

Let me make one other point. Secular jews in Israel of course do not have as many kids as religious jews. But my understanding is that all over the world, well educated secular people tend to have very few kids. I mean, the educated secular people in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Russia, Western Europe, North and South America all seem to have below replacement level fertility. The birth rate among secular israelis is not great, but it is pretty damn high when compared to other secular people. Is it possible that being surrounded by vicious enemies actually gives secular israelis an urge to reproduce that they might not have if they were living in North or South America?

I am not adamant about the above points and would be grateful for comments, either supportive or not.

[Linda]

"If this is true, then it probably isn't the x factor, since low IQ Ashkenazi are also disproportionately successful."

Assuming this is true, I'd say that even low IQ members of high IQ ethnicities benefit from high IQ relatives & the high IQ community, connections, advice & culture that high ethnicity provides. But why do you need an X factor? The 110 average IQ of Ashkenazi in North America & Western Europe is the highest ethnic mean ever reported (with the possible exception of Indian Americans who are also highly successful)so that alone explains their success. They're a full 10 points higher than whites. Whites are 10 points higher than Hispanics & look at the huge difference in success between those groups.

"I wonder if some social trait might contribute. Perhaps Jews are better at networking or otherwise building and utilizing social connections. This seems like something they might have evolved as a cohesive, yet geographically dispersed, middleman minority group."

A lot of people would argue the opposite. I've heard from a lot of people (including a professional psycholgist) that Jews have higher rates of aspergers syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by impaired soocial cognition, lack of empathy, relatively strong verbal ability & obsessive interests:

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Jewish-Social-Ostracisation-and-The-Aspergers-Autism-Connection-A-Theory

Einstein is believed to have had aspergers (or some other autism)allowing him to obsess in a focused way on his intense interest in physics allowing exceptional creativity to emerge. If anything, this obsessive focus might be the X factor you are looking for in Jewish genius, while also explaining the difficulty Jews have had getting along with other ethnicities. An interesting idea, but I don't know how much research there is to support it.

[Yawner]

"They wouldn't need to "develop" any aircraft. Israel could just buy them off the shelf from a European arms company."

That assumes the Europeans would sell, which should by no means be taken for granted given the high level of Israel-hate in Europe.

The reason Israel needed to become a US client in the late 1960s was that the Europeans (especially the French) were increasingly reluctant to sell to Israel.

"You guys are also vastly overstating the economic importance of the $3 billion or so the US gives Israel."

What's the economic value of keeping Egypt from attacking Israel? A hell of a lot more than $3bn a year - so $3bn a year actually vastly UNDERSTATES the value of US aid to Israel. At the very least, Israel costs the US $2bn a year beyond what we give to Israel, because that's the amount of aid we give Egypt, which we surely would never do if not for Israel.

[Basil Ransom]

Israelis also hold the sciences with higher esteem - maybe because the applied sciences (ie defense-related engineering) is so integral to their survival.

[Genius]

The idea of Israel being established in any place in the world other than exactly where it is now, or that it could be moved to any other place, is about as intelligent as saying the same about any other country. Why not situate Greece in Alaska? How about we carve out a chunk of Brazil for France?

The early Zionists did consider other places, but pretty early on they realized that if their aim was to cure and to correct the problems of Jewish exile, creating a Jewish country in any other part of the exile would just continue to fuel those problems - because they'd still be in exile.

They may have been creepy socialists and they may have been wrong about more than they got right, but one thing they understood very well was that they had to make decisions not only for themselves, but on behalf of the WHOLE Jewish people. Only building a Jewish state in Israel could be a long-term solution for all the Jews.

That's the same reason they revived Hebrew instead of using their own common language (Yiddish) or what Herzl preferred (German). I'm surprised I didn't see any comments above complaining that we speak Hebrew here instead of English. I'm sure someone has a theory about how Hebrew is holding us back... For a bunch of clever people with plenty of interesting things to say, the collective ignorance of all this blogs' commenters about Israel is astonishing.

[Haumea]

This Alaska business is just silliness.

I mean, really, this is Half Sigma's "big" idea?

With no historical connection to a place, you're going to create a Jewish state ex nihilo? Lunacy.

[tommy]

Israel is doing fine. It's time for the Israelis to support themselves and gradually reduce foreign aid.

[yippo]

I disagree that Israel's large military expenditure hinders its economy. Most of United States' best technological innovation were developed by its military industrial complex. For example, the internet was a DARPA project; in its early days, majority of IBM's funding come from the Pentagon; automated, numerically controlled steel cutting technology was developed by the defense industry; The computer graphical user interface and global positioning system were first developed by DARPA; most of the cutting edge laser, plasma and artificial intelligence technology are developed by the military industrial complex which were then trickled down to the private sector, whom modify these technologies for civilian uses. Israel's large military industrial complex (8% of GDP) is likely the reason for its success. And the most valuable part of U.S aid to Israel is the technology transfer.

[tommy]

"You guys are also vastly overstating the economic importance of the $3 billion or so the US gives Israel."

Since it isn't that important, then we can reduce that amount gradually without consequence. Israel is a First World nation that can stand on its own.

How about reducing aid by 10% per year over the next ten years?

If that is too much, we could instead reduce aid in proportion to the percentage at which the Israeli GDP grows. If Israel's economy grows by 3% in a year, then we would reduce aid by 3% that year. If the economy has a bad year, we might have to increase aid, but eventually Israel's GDP will double and, at that point, we can call it quits.

[tommy]

[HS: Saying there's no need for a Jewish state ignores hundreds of years of persecution against Jews, and the Holocaust.]

Implying the Jews aren't safe in the United States ignores history. All significant incidents of Jewish persecution have occurred outside the United States. There has been more lethal violence targeting Jews in Israel than there has been in the United States.

[yippo]

Also Israel's military and security expenditure practically pays for itself. Israel is the the world's 3rd largest weapons exporter after United States and Russia. And ever since George W. Bush declared War on Terror, Israel's security industry has become the most profitable in the world due to Israel's experience with dealing with Palestinians. Israel is now the number one exporter to United States of video surveillance equipments, biometric ID, high-tech fences (which I read US government officials want to buy and install on its southern boarder) and terrorist profiling systems.

[Jason Malloy]

The correlation between income (REALRINC) and IQ (WORDSUM) in the GSS is only .21. The correlation between income and education is .34. If we control for IQ, the correlation between income and education drops to .32, but if we control for education the correlation between income and IQ drops to .07.

Among Jews the correlation between IQ and income doesn't even reach significance.

There are some new personality questions in the GSS, but the sample sizes are still small. There is a significant correlation between income and being sociable/outgoing (BIG5A2): .12.

None of the other BIG5 personality measures significantly correlate with income (including questions about ambition and work ethic), save one: the correlation between nervousness and income is -.16.

I don't think the secret to Jewish success is low neuroticism.

[Linda]

"Just to cite two recent examples, President Clinton was ok with his daughter marrying a jew. And Donald trump was cool with his daughter marrying a jew. Now you could argue about whether the merits of marrying in to the Clinton family or marrying in to the Trump family, But no one can argue that it is a sign of lack of anti semetism Among US elites that so many non jewish elite people are cool with their kids marrying jews.

Can you imagine the arab equivalent of Bill Clinton or the Arab equivalent of Donald Trump encouraging his kids to marry a jew? Of course not. So to some extent, Israel benefits from its location surrounded by people who hate jews"

When I heard Chelsea Clinton married a Jew I had the exact opposite thought. That Jews benefit from absorbing elite genes from non-Jews. Ashkenazi are a hydrib of two populations, Euopeans & Middle Easterners, & yet somehow they have ended up with IQ's much higher than both groups (in theory they should be in between). Perhaps this happened in part because historically only the most elite Middle Easterns & Europeans were accepted by the Jewish community, able to become Jewish or marry Jewish people, resulting in a hybrid population that absorbed the best genes of both groups. And perhaps this tradition continues even today with Jews absorbing the genes of the presumabley high IQ Clinton family.

This may also help explain why the average IQ of Ashkenazi in Israel is 103 while Ashkenazi in North America & Western Europe is 110. The Ashkenazi outside Israel is better positioned to aborb the best genes from the non-Jewish population.

Of course there are all kinds of other theories for how Ashkenazi got such high IQ's which probably also played a big part.

[Jason Malloy]

Linda,

" But why do you need an X factor? The 110 average IQ of Ashkenazi in North America & Western Europe is the highest ethnic mean ever reported ... so that alone explains their success. "

The average white gentile income in the General Social Survey is $21,678, the average Jewish income is $36,055, or about 2/3 of a standard deviation higher. If we only compare people with the same scores on the WORDSUM IQ measure, Jewish income is still about 1/2 SD higher than white gentile income. So, no, IQ doesn't account for most of the difference, much less all of it.

[Melykin]

"Corruption is also caused by centralized authority."
----------------------------

This might explain why the countries of Europe that were historically Protestant are less corrupt that the countries that were historically Catholic.

Other explanations might be the fact that the Protestant movement was a reform movement, born out of a need to reform a corrupt church, and that idea somehow got embedded in the culture. Or perhaps it was a higher level of literacy, since the Protestants wanted everyone literate so they could read the Bible in the vernacular. The Catholics only cared about the priest reading it in Latin.

[If Only...]

--(which I read US government officials want to buy and install on its southern boarder) and terrorist profiling systems.--

What gov't officials want to install fences to keep low IQ hispanics out? But the profiling systems worked really well on Hasan! And it almost stopped this murder:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/state_university_of_new_york_at_binghamton/index.html?inline=nyt-org

If only we had it in place earlier...

[Pessimists went to exile, optimists went to Auschwitz]

to conclude that since there was never real persecution of Jews in America there will never be such in the future is dubious logic. As can be seen in the Wikipedia's "German Jews" article, things were going pretty well for Jews there since the end of Thirty Years War. Moreover by 1933 German Jews were highly assimilated, educated and successful, which indeed contributed to the German middle class dislike of the more savvy business competitors. Which dislike ultimately broke forth in persecutions of the late 1930s, beginning with the anti-Jewish business boycott after Kristallnacht. Moral of the story is, past is not always good predictor of the future. Things change.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"Jewish income is still about 1/2 SD higher than white gentile income. So, no, IQ doesn't account for most of the difference, much less all of it."

Most Americans live in high cost of living urbanized areas where the salaries are higher.

Maybe that is the reason for the difference?

[The Undiscovered Jew]

Most Americans

I meant,

Most JEWISH Americans

[factcheck]

"The correlation between income (REALRINC) and IQ (WORDSUM) in the GSS is only .21. The correlation between income and education is .34. If we control for IQ, the correlation between income and education drops to .32, but if we control for education the correlation between income and IQ drops to .07."

But WORDSUM is not a valid IQ test by any stretch of the imagination. Vocabulary is only a rough proxy for IQ (it's biased against those with less schooling), and WORDSUM is an unreliable estimate of vocabulary. It consists of only 10 words, & it's multiple choice so people can get lucky, & each word is only scored right or wrong for a maximum of only 10 points. By contrast the vocabulary subtest on the WAIS-III consists of 33 words, each word scored either 2,1, or 0 for a mximum of 66 points. And that's just one of 11 subtests used to calculate IQ on the WAIS-III.

"Among Jews the correlation between IQ and income doesn't even reach significance."

Well considering that Jews have a verbal IQ above the functional ceiling of WORDSUM, I'm surprised WORDSUM correlated with ANYTHING among Jews.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"That assumes the Europeans would sell, which should by no means be taken for granted given the high level of Israel-hate in Europe."

No.

Europe would still sell the weapons inspite of anti-Israeli sentiment because European politicians are cutting back on funding of their own militaries. As a result of these Western European military budget cuts, European arms developers are increasingly dependent on overseas arms exports to stay in business. European leaders would allow Israel to buy weapons simply for the sake of increasing revenue for their weapon manufacturing industry.

"Since it isn't that important, then we can reduce that amount gradually without consequence. Israel is a First World nation that can stand on its own.

How about reducing aid by 10% per year over the next ten years?"

Fine.

[Aki_Izayoi]

"The average white gentile income in the General Social Survey is $21,678, the average Jewish income is $36,055, or about 2/3 of a standard deviation higher. If we only compare people with the same scores on the WORDSUM IQ measure, Jewish income is still about 1/2 SD higher than white gentile income. So, no, IQ doesn't account for most of the difference, much less all of it."

Wow, that is a low income for a white. I thought the official figure was in the or 30-40 thousand range for whites per capita?

[Jason Malloy]

"Most Americans live in high cost of living urbanized areas where the salaries are higher. Maybe that is the reason for the difference?"

I looked at that originally and found it didn't account for much.

"But WORDSUM is not a valid IQ test by any stretch of the imagination."

The WORDSUM has been validated in the research literature by the same criteria as other IQ tests. This is not to say it's the best test or without problems, but it is not invalid.

"Well considering that Jews have a verbal IQ above the functional ceiling of WORDSUM"

The ceiling of the WORDSUM is about 125. Jews in the GSS score about 107.

"Wow, that is a low income for a white. I thought the official figure was in the or 30-40 thousand range for whites per capita? "

The GSS REALRINC variable adjusts the income figures so they are comparable across 40 survey years.

[Peter A]

"I'm surprised I didn't see any comments above complaining that we speak Hebrew here instead of English. I'm sure someone has a theory about how Hebrew is holding us back.."

I'll bite. Yes, the revival of Hebrew was important to promote the myth that European Jews had some mystical claim on a piece of land that some of their ancestors may have lived on 2000 years earlier, and from which they emigrated mostly voluntarily for a better life in Rome or Asia Minor. So Hebrew is critical to Israeli self-perception. But the price to Jewish culture has been high - nearly five hundred years of Yiddish writing and thought is now almost inaccessable to modern Jews. In their pursuit of their 19th century nationalist dream the Zionists have purged Judaism of much of what has made it distinctive. Today the greatest Jewish works of art and thought are produced in English, followed by Russian. Modern Hebrew is a far more provincial and limited language than 20th century Yiddish was. And of course the European immigrants brought their accent and even grammatical habits with them when they learned Hebrew so the result is a bastard tongue that is not really the Hebrew of the Old Testament at all. Some linguists think Modern Hebrew is more accurately described as Yiddish syntax with Hebrew vocabulary, basically an invented creole with very little real connection to the historical past.

[HS: On the other hand, everyone speaking Hebrew allows everyone to read the Torah and other holy books in the original language. For some reason, Judiasm has strongly condemned the idea of having religions services in the language that the congregation actually understands.]

[sabril]

"Some linguists think Modern Hebrew is more accurately described as Yiddish syntax with Hebrew vocabulary, basically an invented creole with very little real connection to the historical past."

As HS says, it does seem that speakers of modern Hebrew are able to read the Bible in the original Hebrew. So the difference cannot be too huge.

[Linda]

"The WORDSUM has been validated in the research literature by the same criteria as other IQ tests. This is not to say it's the best test or without problems, but it is not invalid."

Your standards here seem very low. Yes WORDSUM shows some degree of validity, but it's vastly inferior to other IQ tests. WORDSUM for example has an internal reliability of only 0.7 in contrast to the WAIS-R vocabulary subtest which has an internal reliability of 0.96. WORDSUM only only correlates with other verbal Wechsler tests at a value of 0.4. The Wechsler vocabulary test correlates with other verbal Wechsler tests at a value of 0.72. The idea of trying to correlate IQ (as measured by WORDSUM) & income with education controlled is absurd, because education level itself is a better proxy IQ than WORDSUM is, so essentially what you are doing is correlating IQ with income with IQ controlled, so it's hardly surprising that you're finding near zero correlations. And the results are further confunded because much of the non-g variance in WORSUM scores reflects education level itself.

"The ceiling of the WORDSUM is about 125. Jews in the GSS score about 107."

It's not surprising that an unreliable test like WORDSUM would minimize group differences in verbal IQ as evidenced by the underperformance of Jews you cite. The ceiling may be 125, but you get just one question wrong & it probably drops you to 115. WORDSUM provides very little reliable information about anyone's intelligence so it's not wise to draw conclusions from it.

[HS: Having done a lot of work with the GSS, I assure you that Wordsum is a better proxy of IQ than education, because it correlates with most things a lot better than education level does. The exception, of course, is income. Income correlates with educational credentials for people in the top half of the bell curve. In the bottom half, IQ (or Wordsum) is a more important predictor of income. Basically, low IQ predicts poverty a lot better than high IQ predicts wealth.

You continually post misleading assertions to the contrary. You sould spend some quality time with the GSS or other data sets and see what's really going on.]

[Linda]

"Having done a lot of work with the GSS, I assure you that Wordsum is a better proxy of IQ than education, because it correlates with most things a lot better than education level does."

Well I have great respect that fact that you have researched WORDSUM & its correlates a lot more than I have but I remain skeptical for very good reasons. Education level, according to Jensen, correlates about 0.6-0.7 with IQ. Meanwhile the WAIS-III Vocabulary subtest (which has near perfect reliability has a g loading 0.83). If vocabulary has a g loading of 0.83, what should be the g loading of a 10 word vocabulary test like WORDSUM? I know from reading a published study that WORDSUM has a reliability of only 0.7, thus (assuming my logic is sound) to estimate the g loading of WORDSUM, we can multiply the 0.83 g loading of a vocabulary test with near perfect reliability by the the 0.7 reliability of WORDSUM. This gives an estimated g loading 0.58 for WORDSUM which is less than the correlation between IQ & education.

In addition, the conclusions you & others have come to using the GSS are contradicted by a study Jensen published in the peer reviewed academic journal INTELLIGENCE. Perhaps you are not controlling for age, as the correlation between IQ & income increases greatly from the 20s (where it may even be negative) to the 50s. You may argue that Jensen's study is outdated, but it seems more likely that the measure of IQ he used is simply a lot more g loaded than WORDSUM & thus is able to pick up on relationships your data misses. Of course when you look at enough correlates, statistically you should expect to find some results that are wildly wrong just through sampling error.

It's possible that I am underestimating the value of WORDSUM as a meaure of g, but if it were possible to get a good measure of g using only 10 words, why do tests like the Wechsler (the most widely used IQ tests) which has been repeatedly revised by some of the best psychometricians in America over the last 70 years & costs thousands of dollars to purchase use 33 words on their vocabulary test & a far more elaborate scoring system despite their constant efforts to make the test less time consuming. Are they simply too dumb to realize that 10 words scored by multiple choice is enough?

[HS: You probably misread Jensen's paper, or read the spin instead of what the research actually showed.

I did control for age. You can find my past blog posts on this subject using Google.]

[joe williams]

Israel's success in high tech probably has quite a few contributing factors beyond the number of smart people. The number of gentile geniuses in the US alone outnumbers the total number of Jewish geniuses globally by about 3:1. On the other hand, the Jewish State is universally despised in the Middle East and face nations on their borders intent on grinding them down through increasingly sophisticated forms of terrorism. Young smart Israeli's embark on an IT career with its potential military value probably with the same sense of excitement and patriotic fervor that young White Americans went into science and engineering in the early 1960's. Secondly, Israeli's do not outsource their work. They hire fellow Israeli's because they probably have a realistic view about ethnicity and nationalism: they know that if a Chinese or Indian develops something of high value for a foreign company, they will want to transfer this knowledge to the home team. So Israeli engineering successes stay in Israeli hands, mostly. And thirdly, because R&D teams share common values and culture there is probably a higher sense of the importance of team goals as opposed to who gets the corner office. Also, there is little ethnic cuckolding, where a department gets quickly taken over by one ethnic group -- like the Indians or Chinese -- who immediately start importing workers from their family or province, regardless of their abilities or qualifications.

[Jason Malloy]

"The idea of trying to correlate IQ (as measured by WORDSUM) & income with education controlled is absurd, because education level itself is a better proxy IQ than WORDSUM is"

WORDSUM is not a "proxy" for IQ, it is an abbreviated measure of ability, with reasonably comparable validity to other IQ tests. And, no, education is not a better "proxy" for intelligence.

There are at least four other cognitive type evaluations in the GSS. First, the interviewer is asked to rate how well the respondent comprehended the interview questions. (COMPREND)

http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2009/12/wordsum-serves-as-valid-iq-proxy.html

Second, 8 of the 14 similarity items from the WAIS-R are included. (ALIKE(1-8))

Third, the GSS asks 5 science questions. (SCITEST(1-5))

Fourth, the GSS asks 2 probability questions.(ODDS(1-2))

For all of these different types of tests, the WORDSUM correlates more highly with correct responses than education does. And, in most cases, correlates more highly with the different questions than the questions correlate with each other (e.g. you can better predict a respondent's success on a probability question by knowing their WORDSUM performance, than by knowing how well they did on the other probability question).

[Eileen]

"HS: Saying there's no need for a Jewish state ignores hundreds of years of persecution against Jews, and the Holocaust."

Having a separate, Jewish state is not the only way of avoiding persecution.

An alternative preventative measure might be to assimilate as fully as possible (i.e. stop being a separate sub-group) since we know that having multiple sub-groups in any society tends not to work out so well (thinking about Putnam's research here, etc., etc.).

[Eileen]

The chutzpah probably has to with all the ADHD genes in the European Jewish population:

"The gene that wouldn't sit still"
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/020819/archive_022328_print.htm

People with ADHD are often aggressive -- not necessarily meaning violent, but, rather, in the sense of being driven. The founder of Jet Blue, for example.

[tommy]

"Fine."

Excellent, and while AIPAC probably wouldn't appreciate the reduction in the short run, reducing foreign aid would give Israel more flexibility in dealing with the Palestinians in the long haul.

[factcheck]

The following study compares IQ & income using a far more better IQ test (the AFQT which includes an indepth measure of vocabulary (not 10 words only), arithmetic, math knowledge, & reading comprehension):

http://www.bus.ucf.edu/mdickie/Research%20Methods/Student%20Papers/Other/Moedinger-IQ%20&%20earnings.pdf

It finds that at age 25 the correlation between IQ and income is only about 0.25, but by the mid 30s, the correlation baloons to nearly 0.4.

For each one percentile increase in IQ, income increases (on average) by over $200 per year, even after controlling for education, race, marital status etc. This could mean that even among people of the same education, someone with an IQ at the 85%ile (IQ 115) would make over $40,000 more a decade than someone with an IQ of the 65%ile (IQ 105) & that's only with a trivial differences of 10 IQ points.

[HS: The regression charts in that person's term paper clearly shows that having a graduate degree results in a much higher increase in income than having a 99% IQ instead of a 50% IQ.

It's interesting that IQ as expressed as a percentile has a much higher correlation with income than IQ expressed as an absolute number. This demonstrates the diminishing marginal utility of IQ.

The study doesn't try to analyze only people whose IQs are in the top half of the bell curve, so it doesn't at all disprove my assertion that for smarter people, it's educational credentials and not IQ which predicts income. Low IQ predicts poverty much better than high IQ predicts wealth.]

[factcheck]

"The study doesn't try to analyze only people whose IQs are in the top half of the bell curve, so it doesn't at all disprove my assertion that for smarter people, it's educational credentials and not IQ which predicts income. Low IQ predicts poverty much better than high IQ predicts wealth."

This study may not clarify those issues, but the author cites other studies to conclude that the correlation between IQ & income is highest at higher levels of education, a conclusion Jensen also confirms in "The g Factor". This makes sense because high education jobs are more g loaded & thus job performance is better predicted by g, & presumably, job performance predicts income.

[factcheck]

"It's interesting that IQ as expressed as a percentile has a much higher correlation with income than IQ expressed as an absolute number. This demonstrates the diminishing marginal utility of IQ."

Not sure if this argument makes sense. Yes percentiles minimize IQ differences at the high end, but they also minimize IQ differences at the low end.

[rob]

"Ashkenazi are a hydrib of two populations, Euopeans & Middle Easterners, & yet somehow they have ended up with IQ's much higher than both groups (in theory they should be in between)."

Sure, if your theory is real crappy. The ancestors of the Askenazi may not have been a random sample of Jews and Europeans.

If they had been a random sample, there's this thing called called evolution by selection. A population can differ considerably from their ancestors.

[Yawner]

"Europe would still sell the weapons inspite of anti-Israeli sentiment because European politicians are cutting back on funding of their own militaries. As a result of these Western European military budget cuts, European arms developers are increasingly dependent on overseas arms exports to stay in business. European leaders would allow Israel to buy weapons simply for the sake of increasing revenue for their weapon manufacturing industry."

No.

If economics and not politics decided European arms sales, they would already be selling arms to the Chinese.

Israel would be suicidally reckless to wager their national existence on the European arms industry.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"they would already be selling arms to the Chinese."

The EU wanted to drop the weapons ban on China that was established after the Tianmen Square Massacre but the Bush administration twisted diplomatic arms to prevent them from lifting the EU ban on weapons exports to China.

If it hadn't been for Bush, the ban would be lifted already.

[Yawner]

TUJ, you're just supporting my point, which is that politics, not economics, determines EU arms trade policy. Israel, take note!

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"TUJ, you're just supporting my point, which is that politics, not economics, determines EU arms trade policy."

No it doesn't.

The EU wanted to sell weapons to China because they wanted money not because they support China politically.

[ilona@israel]

“Israel wouldn’t be doing so well without billions of dollars a year in U.S. aid.” ha-ha. this money goes for army. and its developments. its not to support the real normal economic of country so i think we could deal without them-anyway, the things we create for USA-we cant afford them for ourself as they are too expencive