Oh, yeah! I've been thinking about this since our interview in late April. Over the past five years, I've read articles by different people about Jewish IQ. But when you brought up Tay-Sachs, you explained how it relates to Jewish intelligence. I knew Jews could have Tay-Sachs, but I didn't realize it was thought to have a positive influence on intelligence.
"In contrast, most Ashkenazi Jews were middle-class, in the sense of directly participating in the market economy as buyers and sellers."
Are you sure about that? After reading Singer and other Jewish writers' descriptions, I got the idea that there quite a few proletarian Jews in. the shtetls, with the very poorest sometime leaving the Jewish communities altogether. On the other hand, the richest and most successful families had more children. Wouldn't Gregory Clark's argument come into play here?
"There is extensive evidence of Jewish polygamy, or more precisely -- polygyny, throughout history up to and even after the proscription by Rabbi Gershom circa 1000AD. Moreover the ecologically imposed monogamy of northern Europe had long since given way to socially imposed monogamy of Christianity by the time the Ashkenazim definitively appear some hundreds of years before Gershom. The reason for this change from ecological to social imposition of monogamy can be easily seen in the change from monogamy to polygyny that characterizes the transition from hunter gatherer to agricultural societies: Caloric availability of agriculture removes the ecological restraints on polygyny.
How much more does the presence of urban centers, the specialized habitat of the Ashkenazim, concentrate caloric availability and hence the ecological support for polygyny?
The answer: For elites -- at least an order of magnitude.
Grain stores for transport and trade are concentrated most in urban centers hence the opportunity for elites to benefit from caloric availability far more than even neolithic farmers such as the Bantu's displacing the Saan and other hunter gatherers with a polygynous culture. (See Destro-Bisol G, Donati F, Coia V et al: Variation of female and male lineages in Sub-Saharan populations: the importance of sociocultural factors. Mol Biol Evol 2004; 21: 1673– 1682.)
Is it known what the harem sizes tended to be prior to the Ashkenazim proscription on polygynous practices?
Is it known over what time the Ashkenazim practiced polygyny among northern Europeans?
Is it known that they actually ceased practicing de facto polygyny (we must not lightly discount routes to fertility other than marriage) when they said? Although it is easy to accuse indigenous northern Europeans of mere hysteria, a common theme in antisemitism has been concern about one-way gene flow out of the Ashkenazim while maintaining the Ashkenazim lineages. How do we verify that this was mere hysteria rather than a reaction to de facto polygyny among the Ashkenazim?
Fortunately, we don't need to engage in debate of these questions -- we can answer them with a generalization of the technique used by Michael J. Wade and Stephen M. Schuster in Estimating the Strength of Sexual Selection from Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA Diversity (Evolution, 58(7), 2004, pp. 1613–1616). The generalization revolves around the fact that we know the mutation rate for the Y-Chromosome is high enough that we have reasonable temporal resolution on when various mutations appeared. From that we can have some idea of what the reproductive harem sizes were of the Ashkenazim elites through various points of time."
Kevin MacDonald notes that, when controlled by Intelligence, Jews still over-represent Whites in high-status fields, earn more etc., etc., etc. Dr MacDonald postulates Jews being high(er) in Ethnocentrism/In-Group Favouritism explains the gap.
Nathan Cofnas, and I agree with him, replies that there's no reliable evidence for that, plus, on the other hand, Jews out-marry at such great rates: hence, not consistent with high(er) Ethnic Nepotism.
Dr Cofnas, also, hints at "Personality Differences" between Jews and Gentiles to explain the gap neatly.
Personally, what fascinates me the most is Emil Kirkegaard's hypothesis that: Jews are high(er) in mental disorders/illnesses, hence that (indirectly) makes them more open to "think outside-the-box" – so, the gap is clarified.
Anyway... What are Dr Frost's thoughts on Jewish "mentally ill" brain profile to account for the "Personality Differences"?
A company with a small early lead attracts more customers, capital, and talent, thus widening the gap over time.
Related concepts include cumulative advantage, positive feedback loop, compound growth, and winner-take-all situations.
Of course, this isn’t Kevin’s argument. He has argued that Jewish Americans use ethnic networking to maximize their advantage within various American institutions. But this networking has its down side. Bernie Madoff, for instance, leveraged his ethnic identity to create a Ponzi scheme within the Jewish community, which ultimately suffered a heavy financial loss.
In summary, I would say:
Yes, the cognitive advantage doesn’t fully explain the real-world advantage.
Most of the unaccounted advantage is due to the natural tendency of a small advantage to snowball into a bigger one.
There is also conscious ethnic networking, where appeals to Jewish identity are used to mobilize support for various projects. These projects, however, can turn sour and collapse because they often require more losers than winners even among project supporters. Support for Israel seems to be the one big project that has mobilized the most ethnic support over the longest span of time.
There is a higher incidence of mental disorders among Ashkenazi Jews, but this is a side effect of selection acting on a limited supply of intelligence-boosting alleles. Typically, these disorders are harmful in the homozygous state while being beneficial in the heterozygous state.
"There is a higher incidence of mental disorders among Ashkenazi Jews,"
If Kirkegaard is correct that such "mental disorders" cause Jews to reason "in unusual and novel ways", hence more likely to crack problems no-one else could've... that could, in turn, corroborate Edward Dutton's hypothesis on "clever sillies": ivory-tower academics who, despite high IQ, endorse utterly stupid ideas like Wealth Redistribution and the like...
After all, being able to reason "in unusual and novel ways" is a double-edged sword – that "super-power" has an equal likelihood of inducing one to endorse absolute nonsense, as you're so low in primordial instincts.
(However, unless I'm mistaken, I read that IQ as it goes up correlates with better "mental health"; so I've no idea how all of that could compute without contradiction...)
"Support for Israel seems to be the one big project that has mobilized the most ethnic support over the longest span of time."
Dr Cofnas noted, in one of his papers on the subject, that Neo-Conservatism is "the best-case scenario" where Dr MacDonald's theory *might* work...
I truly hope Dr Cofnas addresses Neo-Conservatism viewed as "a group evolutionary strategy", eventually!
He didn't do so because, originally, "The Culture of Critique" does not deal with it at all: I think Dr MacDonald included a chapter on Neo-Conservatism in some later edition, if I remember correctly...
Great analysis of the Ashkenazi/IQ issue, with copious notes. This topic interests me. Thanks.
"Many such alleles have been identified for IQ, with more remaining to be found, but we know enough of them to estimate the mean IQ of a population."
It is intriguing to surmise the level of intelligence a person could attain if they had all the positive intelligence alleles.
"These polygenic scores are usually based on alleles associated with differences in educational attainment — a reasonable proxy for IQ."
I believe we have discussed this before. I contend that educational attainment is becoming a less reasonable proxy for IQ, thanks to lower standards for higher education admissions and graduation.
"Also, current IQ tests are often biased in favor of verbal intelligence, which contributes disproportionately to Ashkenazi IQ.32"
This fact has confounded me. Why hasn't the bias been neutralized?
Oh, yeah! I've been thinking about this since our interview in late April. Over the past five years, I've read articles by different people about Jewish IQ. But when you brought up Tay-Sachs, you explained how it relates to Jewish intelligence. I knew Jews could have Tay-Sachs, but I didn't realize it was thought to have a positive influence on intelligence.
"In contrast, most Ashkenazi Jews were middle-class, in the sense of directly participating in the market economy as buyers and sellers."
Are you sure about that? After reading Singer and other Jewish writers' descriptions, I got the idea that there quite a few proletarian Jews in. the shtetls, with the very poorest sometime leaving the Jewish communities altogether. On the other hand, the richest and most successful families had more children. Wouldn't Gregory Clark's argument come into play here?
Regarding Jewish polygamy and its proscription, this post raises some interesting questions:
https://jimbowery.blogspot.com/2005/06/ignoring-800lb-polygynous-ashkenazi.html
"There is extensive evidence of Jewish polygamy, or more precisely -- polygyny, throughout history up to and even after the proscription by Rabbi Gershom circa 1000AD. Moreover the ecologically imposed monogamy of northern Europe had long since given way to socially imposed monogamy of Christianity by the time the Ashkenazim definitively appear some hundreds of years before Gershom. The reason for this change from ecological to social imposition of monogamy can be easily seen in the change from monogamy to polygyny that characterizes the transition from hunter gatherer to agricultural societies: Caloric availability of agriculture removes the ecological restraints on polygyny.
How much more does the presence of urban centers, the specialized habitat of the Ashkenazim, concentrate caloric availability and hence the ecological support for polygyny?
The answer: For elites -- at least an order of magnitude.
Grain stores for transport and trade are concentrated most in urban centers hence the opportunity for elites to benefit from caloric availability far more than even neolithic farmers such as the Bantu's displacing the Saan and other hunter gatherers with a polygynous culture. (See Destro-Bisol G, Donati F, Coia V et al: Variation of female and male lineages in Sub-Saharan populations: the importance of sociocultural factors. Mol Biol Evol 2004; 21: 1673– 1682.)
Is it known what the harem sizes tended to be prior to the Ashkenazim proscription on polygynous practices?
Is it known over what time the Ashkenazim practiced polygyny among northern Europeans?
Is it known that they actually ceased practicing de facto polygyny (we must not lightly discount routes to fertility other than marriage) when they said? Although it is easy to accuse indigenous northern Europeans of mere hysteria, a common theme in antisemitism has been concern about one-way gene flow out of the Ashkenazim while maintaining the Ashkenazim lineages. How do we verify that this was mere hysteria rather than a reaction to de facto polygyny among the Ashkenazim?
Fortunately, we don't need to engage in debate of these questions -- we can answer them with a generalization of the technique used by Michael J. Wade and Stephen M. Schuster in Estimating the Strength of Sexual Selection from Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA Diversity (Evolution, 58(7), 2004, pp. 1613–1616). The generalization revolves around the fact that we know the mutation rate for the Y-Chromosome is high enough that we have reasonable temporal resolution on when various mutations appeared. From that we can have some idea of what the reproductive harem sizes were of the Ashkenazim elites through various points of time."
" It now rewarded those who possessed not only marketable skills but also the ability to identify market opportunities and act on them quickly."
You have to include drive, stamina, work ethic, or whatever you want to call it.
Kevin MacDonald notes that, when controlled by Intelligence, Jews still over-represent Whites in high-status fields, earn more etc., etc., etc. Dr MacDonald postulates Jews being high(er) in Ethnocentrism/In-Group Favouritism explains the gap.
Nathan Cofnas, and I agree with him, replies that there's no reliable evidence for that, plus, on the other hand, Jews out-marry at such great rates: hence, not consistent with high(er) Ethnic Nepotism.
Dr Cofnas, also, hints at "Personality Differences" between Jews and Gentiles to explain the gap neatly.
Personally, what fascinates me the most is Emil Kirkegaard's hypothesis that: Jews are high(er) in mental disorders/illnesses, hence that (indirectly) makes them more open to "think outside-the-box" – so, the gap is clarified.
Anyway... What are Dr Frost's thoughts on Jewish "mentally ill" brain profile to account for the "Personality Differences"?
Thank you, in advance!
First, a small advantage over a competitor will, over time, produce a much larger advantage. This is called the Matthew effect. For instance:
A slightly better-known researcher gets more citations, leading to more visibility, which leads to even more citations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect
A company with a small early lead attracts more customers, capital, and talent, thus widening the gap over time.
Related concepts include cumulative advantage, positive feedback loop, compound growth, and winner-take-all situations.
Of course, this isn’t Kevin’s argument. He has argued that Jewish Americans use ethnic networking to maximize their advantage within various American institutions. But this networking has its down side. Bernie Madoff, for instance, leveraged his ethnic identity to create a Ponzi scheme within the Jewish community, which ultimately suffered a heavy financial loss.
In summary, I would say:
Yes, the cognitive advantage doesn’t fully explain the real-world advantage.
Most of the unaccounted advantage is due to the natural tendency of a small advantage to snowball into a bigger one.
There is also conscious ethnic networking, where appeals to Jewish identity are used to mobilize support for various projects. These projects, however, can turn sour and collapse because they often require more losers than winners even among project supporters. Support for Israel seems to be the one big project that has mobilized the most ethnic support over the longest span of time.
There is a higher incidence of mental disorders among Ashkenazi Jews, but this is a side effect of selection acting on a limited supply of intelligence-boosting alleles. Typically, these disorders are harmful in the homozygous state while being beneficial in the heterozygous state.
"There is a higher incidence of mental disorders among Ashkenazi Jews,"
If Kirkegaard is correct that such "mental disorders" cause Jews to reason "in unusual and novel ways", hence more likely to crack problems no-one else could've... that could, in turn, corroborate Edward Dutton's hypothesis on "clever sillies": ivory-tower academics who, despite high IQ, endorse utterly stupid ideas like Wealth Redistribution and the like...
After all, being able to reason "in unusual and novel ways" is a double-edged sword – that "super-power" has an equal likelihood of inducing one to endorse absolute nonsense, as you're so low in primordial instincts.
(However, unless I'm mistaken, I read that IQ as it goes up correlates with better "mental health"; so I've no idea how all of that could compute without contradiction...)
"Support for Israel seems to be the one big project that has mobilized the most ethnic support over the longest span of time."
Dr Cofnas noted, in one of his papers on the subject, that Neo-Conservatism is "the best-case scenario" where Dr MacDonald's theory *might* work...
I truly hope Dr Cofnas addresses Neo-Conservatism viewed as "a group evolutionary strategy", eventually!
He didn't do so because, originally, "The Culture of Critique" does not deal with it at all: I think Dr MacDonald included a chapter on Neo-Conservatism in some later edition, if I remember correctly...
Great analysis of the Ashkenazi/IQ issue, with copious notes. This topic interests me. Thanks.
"Many such alleles have been identified for IQ, with more remaining to be found, but we know enough of them to estimate the mean IQ of a population."
It is intriguing to surmise the level of intelligence a person could attain if they had all the positive intelligence alleles.
"These polygenic scores are usually based on alleles associated with differences in educational attainment — a reasonable proxy for IQ."
I believe we have discussed this before. I contend that educational attainment is becoming a less reasonable proxy for IQ, thanks to lower standards for higher education admissions and graduation.
"Also, current IQ tests are often biased in favor of verbal intelligence, which contributes disproportionately to Ashkenazi IQ.32"
This fact has confounded me. Why hasn't the bias been neutralized?
Very interesting!