Tangent: The data is actually about Ashkenazic Jews only. The result is consistent across a wide range of tests, including not just IQ but also Wonderlic and others. It is deeply unclear if this is due to environmental, genetic or other effects. There’s also been some suggestion that the Ashkenazic population for some reason has a lot of outliers that are what is actually causing the result. There’s a disproportionate number of Nobel Prize winners who fit in that category. However, it is important to note that Ashkenazic Jews are one of the most widely studied groups in the world when it comes to genetics and so far no alleles that seem to have to do with intelligence have been discovered in the population.
I think that, for many centuries, the Ashkenazi environment rewarded establishing a rigid social structure that studies and followed strict rules (preventing assimilation), but selected very strongly for individuals that could step outside the status quo at the right time. I can see how that would lead to Nobel prize winners.
Given the time scale involved, it doesn’t seem like genetic selection could change more than how well you integrate successful memes. Some anecdotes from my own genealogy about relevant selection pressures:
Marriages were usually arranged by parents to get the best possible match. My great, great grandfather was wealthy for the village they were in. When he needed a husband for his daughter, he asked around for the most promising yeshiva student, and gave him a ten year stipend to continue study for marrying her (apparently the standard was more like 2 years).
When Poland got jumped, my grandparents ended up on the Soviet side of the line. My grandmother went back to the Nazi side twice to try to convince her friends and family that they had a better chance of surviving with the Soviets, but they didn’t want to leave the cities to go somewhere unknown. They were all trapped in the Ghetto system, and liquidated within four years.
My grandfather escaped the soviets twice—the first time, he noticed that his transport train was picking up stowaways who would jump off around curves (turned out they were farmers who lived near the tracks but not a station), and he just pretended to be one of them while everyone else stayed on the train to Siberia. The second time he drank all night with the guards, and convinced them that they would never get in trouble for letting him go to find his wife. Shortly after his third capture, Hitler double-crossed Stalin, and all the Poles were released to go fight the Germans. He always said that you need an escape plan for everything in life, and refused to enter any room with only one exit.
My grandfather escaped the soviets twice—the first time, he noticed that his transport train was picking up stowaways who would jump off around curves (turned out they were farmers who lived near the tracks but not a station), and he just pretended to be one of them while everyone else stayed on the train to Siberia. The second time he drank all night with the guards, and convinced them that they would never get in trouble for letting him go to find his wife. Shortly after his third capture, Hitler double-crossed Stalin, and all the Poles were released to go fight the Germans. He always said that you need an escape plan for everything in life, and refused to enter any room with only one exit.
He emigrated to Israel in 1948 with a wife, two kids, and no money. He worked as a day laborer, claiming various construction skills to whoever pulled up and asked. One time he claimed he was a plumber in the old country, and spent two days installing an outdoor toilet. He finally saved up enough to buy a small grocery, so that he could run his own business. He walked out back after buying the place to find—the outhouse he had built years before.
He was definitely a badass, but the cancer was pretty far along by the time I knew him and I didn’t speak Hebrew.
There’s also been some suggestion that the Ashkenazic population for some reason has a lot of outliers that are what is actually causing the result.
That does not seem to me a very plausible suggestion. Outliers could explain the Nobel prizes, but would not affect the mean, which is measured to be different. It is conceivable that some non-gaussian distribution would explain both, but larger populations that have been studied in more detail exhibit bell curves, or at least thin tails (ie, not affecting the mean).
However, it is important to note that Ashkenazic Jews are one of the most widely studied groups in the world when it comes to genetics and so far no alleles that seem to have to do with intelligence have been discovered in the population.
This fact alone leads me to think that the most parsimonious explanation is just that Ashkenazi Jews have a cultural tradition of scholarship, whereas public-school culture in the English-speaking world is often starkly anti-intellectual. If we’ve turned over the genetic rock and had a good look under it without finding anything interesting, we should update to think it more likely that the explanation is under a different rock.
Tangent: The data is actually about Ashkenazic Jews only. The result is consistent across a wide range of tests, including not just IQ but also Wonderlic and others. It is deeply unclear if this is due to environmental, genetic or other effects. There’s also been some suggestion that the Ashkenazic population for some reason has a lot of outliers that are what is actually causing the result. There’s a disproportionate number of Nobel Prize winners who fit in that category. However, it is important to note that Ashkenazic Jews are one of the most widely studied groups in the world when it comes to genetics and so far no alleles that seem to have to do with intelligence have been discovered in the population.
I think that, for many centuries, the Ashkenazi environment rewarded establishing a rigid social structure that studies and followed strict rules (preventing assimilation), but selected very strongly for individuals that could step outside the status quo at the right time. I can see how that would lead to Nobel prize winners.
Given the time scale involved, it doesn’t seem like genetic selection could change more than how well you integrate successful memes. Some anecdotes from my own genealogy about relevant selection pressures:
Marriages were usually arranged by parents to get the best possible match. My great, great grandfather was wealthy for the village they were in. When he needed a husband for his daughter, he asked around for the most promising yeshiva student, and gave him a ten year stipend to continue study for marrying her (apparently the standard was more like 2 years).
When Poland got jumped, my grandparents ended up on the Soviet side of the line. My grandmother went back to the Nazi side twice to try to convince her friends and family that they had a better chance of surviving with the Soviets, but they didn’t want to leave the cities to go somewhere unknown. They were all trapped in the Ghetto system, and liquidated within four years.
My grandfather escaped the soviets twice—the first time, he noticed that his transport train was picking up stowaways who would jump off around curves (turned out they were farmers who lived near the tracks but not a station), and he just pretended to be one of them while everyone else stayed on the train to Siberia. The second time he drank all night with the guards, and convinced them that they would never get in trouble for letting him go to find his wife. Shortly after his third capture, Hitler double-crossed Stalin, and all the Poles were released to go fight the Germans. He always said that you need an escape plan for everything in life, and refused to enter any room with only one exit.
Your grandfather sounds like a badass.
He emigrated to Israel in 1948 with a wife, two kids, and no money. He worked as a day laborer, claiming various construction skills to whoever pulled up and asked. One time he claimed he was a plumber in the old country, and spent two days installing an outdoor toilet. He finally saved up enough to buy a small grocery, so that he could run his own business. He walked out back after buying the place to find—the outhouse he had built years before.
He was definitely a badass, but the cancer was pretty far along by the time I knew him and I didn’t speak Hebrew.
That does not seem to me a very plausible suggestion. Outliers could explain the Nobel prizes, but would not affect the mean, which is measured to be different. It is conceivable that some non-gaussian distribution would explain both, but larger populations that have been studied in more detail exhibit bell curves, or at least thin tails (ie, not affecting the mean).
This fact alone leads me to think that the most parsimonious explanation is just that Ashkenazi Jews have a cultural tradition of scholarship, whereas public-school culture in the English-speaking world is often starkly anti-intellectual. If we’ve turned over the genetic rock and had a good look under it without finding anything interesting, we should update to think it more likely that the explanation is under a different rock.