The rise in Ashkenazi intelligence seems to be a combination of interbreeding and a history of being primarily in cognitively challenging occupations.
Or of having very high selection for being able to predict when your neighbors are going to try to kill you again. Or of being the only major group of people not having high selection pressure for skill at war for the past 2000 years, letting traits that give other advantages spread more rapidly.
(I don’t think interbreeding can raise a population’s intelligence. It can just keep it from dissipating.)
Great post!
Or of having very high selection for being able to predict when your neighbors are going to try to kill you again. Or of being the only major group of people not having high selection pressure for skill at war for the past 2000 years, letting traits that give other advantages spread more rapidly.
(I don’t think interbreeding can raise a population’s intelligence. It can just keep it from dissipating.)
I think it can, e.g. if it takes an unusual open-mindedness for a local to marry into a despised and/or feared subgroup.