Israel is not incredibly rich but actually poorer than many European countries
You forget how poor Israel used to be. It started in 1948 with a Third-World level GDP. Since then, its economic growth has been among the highest in the world—if I remember correctly, second only to South Korea. Catching up to the level of many European countries is quite an achievement.
the population of Israel is nearly half Ashkenazi jews,
That Wikipedia article you cite says that about half of Jews are Ashkenazi Jews. Jews are only about 75% of Israel. The article also describes some errors in the data it presents. Also, there is a lot of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and other Jews, to the point that the categories described in that chart represent arbitrary designations based on partial ancestry.
Ashkenazi jews, the most intelligent ethnic group on Earth
Drawing conclusions from studies about Ashkenazi Jews to the intelligence distribution of population of Israel is a stretch. Trust me, we’ve got a fair share of non-geniuses around here :-)
Hehe...well it wasn’t meant to be a knock-down argument, but an indication that the correlation between intelligence and wealth is not as strong as the OP indicates.
Why do some places prosper and thrive while others just suck? It’s not a matter of brains. No part of the earth (with the possible exception of Brentwood) is dumber than Beverly Hills, and the residents are wading in gravy. In Russia, meanwhile, where chess is a spectator sport, they’re boiling stones for soup.
You’re right that the article says proportion of Jews, not proportion of Israelis; I was doing things a bit too fast.
You forget how poor Israel used to be. It started in 1948 with a Third-World level GDP. Since then, its economic growth has been among the highest in the world—if I remember correctly, second only to South Korea. Catching up to the level of many European countries is quite an achievement.
That Wikipedia article you cite says that about half of Jews are Ashkenazi Jews. Jews are only about 75% of Israel. The article also describes some errors in the data it presents. Also, there is a lot of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and other Jews, to the point that the categories described in that chart represent arbitrary designations based on partial ancestry.
Drawing conclusions from studies about Ashkenazi Jews to the intelligence distribution of population of Israel is a stretch. Trust me, we’ve got a fair share of non-geniuses around here :-)
Hehe...well it wasn’t meant to be a knock-down argument, but an indication that the correlation between intelligence and wealth is not as strong as the OP indicates.
P.J. O’Rourke makes a relevant comment on this question:
You’re right that the article says proportion of Jews, not proportion of Israelis; I was doing things a bit too fast.
[citation needed]
Institutions matter for the production of wealth. Laws matter. Customs matter. Get those wrong, and you’ll be boiling stones for soup.
If only these things were correlated with the IQ of the population… :-)