Pat, again I am at a disagreement with you. The subject of jewish intelligence is greatly overated.
3 examples:
Olmert as a president.
Most jews vote democrat, and are completely delusional in their political views.
Israeli peace seeking policies.
When I see how other members of my tribe discuss the benefits of keeping a low profile during holidays, supporting antisemites for political office to show their tolerance, worrying that support Israel will cause more people to hate them, I am convinced that jews are the dumbest people on earth. The fact we are still around, makes me believe in God and miracles.
vinny,
That some in a given population are highly intelligent does not mean that all are nor that those who are will use it wisely or well. I suspect there is a Jewish proverb that says as much.
I do know this from painful personal experience: it is very difficult to overestimate the stupidity of people in groups. Group think has a stupidity field that is almost impossible to overcome. It takes a self defined person with an iron will, a character as hard as a diamond, and a persistence that would make the biblical Job look like a hysteric to do it. Even then its iffy.
It's hard to think great thoughts if you live in a society where you can be hauled away in the night. If you don't stand up, you won't be pounded back down.
The intellectual heart of Islam has rotted and degenerated. Overmuch reliance on argumentum ad baculum on the part of the alleged leadership in Islam has made the matter of status as a religious leader completely independent from ability.
Asking religious leadership about when a woman is supposed to veil herself, how to was yourself after defecation, etc. is ludicrous superstition. Why don't they ask imams to cut open a bird and make fatwas based on its entrails as a follow-up?
Excellent post.
I for one am most grateful for the large and noisy leftist Jewish contingent.
They convincingly dispel the myth and stereotype that all Jews are intelligent.
Think about comparing the cultural achievements of the West over the last five hundred years with the "achievements" of the Muslim world during the same period (prayer rugs & suicide bombers?). OK, not fair. So let's just consider the cultural achievements of Western Jews over that period. No, still not fair. American Jews? No, still way lopsided...Maybe we can compare the cultural achievements of all of Islam during the past five hundred years to the cultural achievements of Jews living in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn during the 1950's....Still not fair?
I think that Jews overachieve in scientific disciplines because their extended family structure promotes, demands, and rewards intellectual achievement. It takes generations to create this kind of ethos and there is much to be admired and emulated.
Genetic intelligence could be a factor. Any particular society that is relatively closed for genetic purposes is going to "choose" mating partners that best fill the characteristics they value. If intelligence is valued, then the most highly intelligent are likely to seek mates who are also most intelligent, and because they are the most valued in the society, they will have their choice. But if men only are educated, how do you choose a mate with equal intelligence? In arab cultures, women are simply broodmares - chosen for alliances, not for personal characteristics. Now, if they are produced by the most successful of the tribe, chances are good that they carry the genetics that enhance whatever is defined as desireable in that group, but it's still fairly random. If intelligence is valued, then you have to test both mates, and western (and Jewish) cultures have selected that characteristic through the process of education. For that reason - greatly abbreviated, but I think you get the idea - I think it _is_ possible that Jews are more intelligent, and arabs won't progress much until they educate their women - whether the women work or not - because education is a barometer of intelligence.
Jews are indeed, on average, more intelligent than others. But we often associate intelligence with other things it has no relation to, such as reason. In fact, there is an inverse relationship present, as intelligence quickly attatches itself to vanity to annihilate reason.
But we are not confused that intelligence is related to character or courage. And as Dr. Johnson said, if you don't have courage, none of the other virtues will be of use.
The combination of guilt with a lack of courage produce the product known as the Suicide Jew.
Those do not win Nobels in science, however, since discovery requires great energy, boldness, and risk.
The idea that Jews are smarter because the merchant's daughter married the rabbi illustrates the disassociation of intelligence and reason. More likely, contributing factors were the bar of the Bar Mitzva, where those who were too stupid to pass were less likely to pass on their genes among the Jewish population--we got them; and, three thousand years of exiling, with the continual life or death adjustment that demanded, culling people and groups.
Out here on the West Coast, there was a lot of talk and analysis about how Asian students were dominating school honor rolls, scholarships, admissions, etc.
It's the same reason as Jews dominating so many fields; both Asian and Jewish cultures place a high value on learning and knowledge, and that is going to show.
In his last book Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan mentioned in passing how his parents -- blue-collar garment workers during the Depression -- did without to make sure their son Carl was educated. At that moment, I knew Sagan had been raised Jewish; of European ethnics in NYC, only Jews place that much value on learning.
First of all, we are using how many Nobel prizes to measure the smartness or success of a group of people. It also begs the question on the measuring stick being how "influential" to the western hemisphere.
HUG,
I was going to post something about the asians. Not only a person has to be smart, but he has to know how to "market" it himself.
"If you are good at what you do, others (hopefully your boss) will notice it." First generation asians' been culturally groomed to downplay one's achievement or smartness. In other words, they lack the business-smarts to advance for themselves.
Newer generation asians are expected to excel in school/learning, but they (like all Americans born here) have other goals to achieve, not just in their parents' narrow technical fields.
As I understand it, female suicide bombers get the right to admit family members into heaven regardless of said family members sins.
Wow, it is certainly ego-feeding to have sigy, carl, and alfred all agree with me. There is no argument that jews tend to win more academic prizes and that they tend to devote more of their energy to academic pursuits. The question of the average jewish intelligence being higher than other group's is debatable and probably irrelevant to any serious goal.
The challenge in this war of ideas is to get the current educators to drop the foggy glasses of delusion, and teach others to perseive their world clearly. That is a tall order in light of the incredibly thick fog of liberal dogma present on our campuses.
BTW, while discussing jewish academic achievements we should also mention the columbia president inviting murdering trash from Iran to preach in its halls. Reminds of a joke: a jewish soldier was caught in north vietnam and his fate is being decided. The interrogators are not sure who the jews are and ask him to name some other jews: so he says Jesus, and they jews are bad: lets kill him. Then he mentions Karl Marx, and they say jews are good: lets spare his life. So if you measure intelligence as a function of interpersonal agreement, the 100k+ strong demonstrators screaming death to piglet, death to coca cola, death to amerika (misspelled signs are must at these gatherings), are probably the brightest humans on this planet.
About female suicide bombers, I wonder how many of them have taken a moment and thought about the fact that for eternity they will be with only virgin men whose jerky movements are painfull and misguided. Also consider the 72 men per day, who are not virgins by choice but rather by appearance. All that pain sure sounds alot like hell.
Those imams must be amazing salesmen.
Jews are not inherently more intelligent. It is our upbringing which emphasizes education, study, analysis, intellectual achievement, and rational thought that leads to our success in the West. It is also the product of the FREE society in which we live. This is the single most important factor. No human being can flourish in a totalitarian environment. Human beings living in a constant state of fear accomplish nothing. This is the problem in the Islamic world, that and uncontrolled religious tyranny. They're welcome to it. I also feel that their repression of women is dooming half their population from any contribution either culturally or scientifically to their respective countries.
Unfortunately, they need to know that their education is deficient before any real changes can be made. Who knows how long it will take for them to realize that by only learning about lies (the protocols...I never knew that the jews worshipped shiva...), the real world will forever elude them.
It's a real world example of the parable of the cave, what they know is what they know, good luck learning about the outside when the entire society is blind.
I wonder where ytba has been? I should like to hear his thoughts on this very interesting subject.
Regarding envy:
“Particularly envious individuals cannot tolerate the pain of not possessing and controlling the "good object," so they preemptively spoil it so that they don't have to bear the pain.”
The dynamics of envy are more complex, since they can differ so radically on a case by case basis.
Personally, if I dislike the one I’m envying, then the dictionary definition is pretty accurate. But if I like them, the “feeling” becomes closer to one of curiosity linked to respect - I try to discover what it is they’re doing right for my own growth and advancement.
If my attitudes are ‘baseline’, then I suspect you’re gonna have to figure out how to get the Palestinians to like the Jews first.
These are some sandpaper rough days to be a republican. The inbred NASCAR fans back in Iowa, Texas, Colorado, Florida, and other primeval palookavilles of this great country are wearing paper sacks over their heads in shame because their team is getting bitch-slapped out there. You can throw a rock (and make it a big one!) in any seedy public lavatory throughout the country and hit at least one deeply conservative, self-righteous, holier-than-thou congressman, senator, or mega church pastor, leaving the true deceivers/believers to wonder--WTF?
"Oh heal them, Lord, in the beautiful blood of the lamb!" they beseech in prayer, "I heard voices, and I heeded the call, as I selected these, my public servants, these Godly soldiers, these nadirs of probity, to represent both me and your will and enforce that same unchanging certain correctness on my town, my state, and this whole nation. I empowered them so that they might smite the harlot-filled Babylon of Hollywood, so that they might purge the filthy restrooms of various Gomorrahs throughout the country, so that they might force the accursed liberals and other fornicators from the dank dens where they blaspheme. I trusted them to raise high the blow torch of decency, restore the fear of god, and enshrine your holy will in law, by this holy Jihad!"
Yet, it is dumbfounding to consider how many professed conservatives have been violating the traditional values they profess to hold dear. For every knucklehead you recognize--Larry Craig, David Vitter, Ted Haggard, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff, Tom Foley, Tom DeLay, Randy Cunningham, John Doolittle--there are hundreds at state and local levels whose hypocritical indiscretions never make it CNN. And don’t even get me started on all those pedophilic Catholic priests out there. They count too.
Isn't it incredibly obvious that those who align themselves with social conservatism are far more likely to engage in inappropriate behavior than those who call themselves liberals. I’m not talking rocket science here.
We all have urges, some we’d prefer not to see the light of day, but these are people who seemingly lack the skills of introspection, or even common sense. And along with the obvious repression they struggle with, the repercussions of their stunted emotional state are likely to be exacerbated because the same factors that make self-examination impossible--loveless parenting, strict religious upbringing, for example--also tend to magnify their less-savory natural urges.
And that is the reason so many conservatives, doubtful of their own ability to control their sleazy desires, and projecting their own failings and bewilderment on the rest of humanity, come to be what they are. That is why they push for strictness in the home and to have morality rammed into law. They recognize a looming menace from which we must be protected, but cannot grasp that the foundation of the danger lies within themselves.
This is not to suggest that the majority of those who appear to be values-fixated Republicans are in fact pedophiles-in-waiting, repressed homosexuals, or thieves, waiting for opportunity? They are probably generally decent, doing their best to get by and perhaps willing to live and let live. But it also means that there is something in their experience with their family or community that guides them to believe that people are not to be trusted to contain their seamy urges.
It is not hard to identify those who pose the greatest danger to us, those who are incapable of self-examination, and are oblivious to their own transparency, for they are the ones that shout the loudest, spew warnings of moral rot and disobedience, that seek to exploit the fear they provoke to advance their own power and influence, that seek to raise an army of the self-righteous to march on the seat of wickedness and double standards. Imagine their shock when they realize that the seat is made of porcelain. That they themselves are the one besieged and the army they raised waits for them, right outside the stall door.
Ummm, Decaf, Karl. Decaf.
And you might want to lay off the drugs, too.
Carl has provided a little tasting of one's own medicine here at a web log which routinely says these kinds of things about those left-handed folq we all know and cherish.
As always, this observer wishes both sides many curses.
Carl Gordon, who specifically are you referring to? I can't pass people on the street and determine that they "are incapable of self-examination". Is there a uniform they wear; mis-matched socks perhaps?
I find that, generally, those who howl the loudest about other people's lack of self-awareness tend to also be the least self-aware.
One should think Mr 'MNIN' may be describing someone such as Sam Brownback or John Lewis, Rudi or Chillary.
Oh, wait, they know exactly what they are doing.
Slime begets slime, time after time.
Dr. Sanity, I thought everyone knew what female suicide bombers receive in paradise....
72 Chippendales !
On the other hand, 'Ubeid's Al-Jazeera interviewer seemed to have some common sense and insight. Maybe there is some hope, after all.
Jews certainly are more intelligent, but the difference in average intelligence is not that much (around 10 points above average).
However, because of the properties of the normal distribution (Bell curve) that means that there are many more Jews at the very high end - where the Nobel Prizes tend to come from.
As to the preponderance of leftist Jews being a counter argument to intelligence, just consider Evan Sayet's ultra-lefty "cousin" (actually sister). Clearly she would be around as smart as Evan. She is proof that no matter how good the innate intelligence, one can always make oneself stupid.
Are Jews smarter?
No. But they're ethnically mixed, subject for centuries to evolutionary population pressures, the kind of Darwinian forces that lead to a spiky intelligence map.
The spikes are people like Albert Einstein. And many others.
Peoples that are not pressured or disturbed by outside cultures settle at a level. Peoples that are pressured tend to bounce all their characteristics around (especially if there's some ethnic mixing), and then take advantage of the favorable variants. The unfavorable variants die out, or get killed off.
So the off-and-on oppression of the Jews over the last half-millennium likely led to some of the best human thinking (like Einstein, Feynman, Teller), and some of the most mediocre (the average American Jew's voting record).
Speaking to the piece above by Brett McS, just this very day I stumbled onto a copy of Herrnstein and Murray's 1994 "The Bell Curve" in a thrift shop. I missed the first publication, and it created such controversy that it's been unobtainable ever since. I'm sure it'll generate many insights as I work my way through its 845 pages.
So don't expect any reasoned commentary anytime soon. I'll talk to the good doctor about scheduling a post-mortem as I work my way through it. That should be good for a shouting match or two.
Niccolo, I attended a talk by Douglas Murray a little while ago in Sydney - one of a series of speakers "In praise of elitism". He noted the modern phenomenon of bright kids getting to college never having been "intellectually humiliated", as most of us are at one time or another. In the past they were put is advanced schools and pressed up to their limits.
He also said that the controversy over The Bell Curve was generated by people who had not read it.
Here's something to ponder: When the US Army started IQ testing in WWI, Jews (as a group) tested at the very bottom. Today, they test at the top.
Actually, the whole phenomena of IQ scores climbing so rapidly that every 15 years or so the tests have to be "re-normed" is somewhat of a mystery. That Jews have climbed faster than any other group probably won't be explained without an explanation of the whole phenomenon.
Actually, lists of Nobel or Turing awards or any other exceptional achievements tell us almost nothing about smartness of general population. They only demonstrate very high excess of geniuses, and also exceptional motivation for success pertinent to this particular culture. But, motivation aside, this means very heavy "tale" of normal (Gaussian) distribution, that is, high variance. But since bell curve is symmetric, its opposite tail is also heavy, so we must expect just as many exeptionally dumb persons as geniuses in this population. Another observation jumps to the eyes when reading long lists of authors in cited literature to scientific papers: names like Cohen, Kagan, Kaganovitch or Levit, Levin, Levitzky and so on are encountered disproportionally often in comparison to other Jewish names. So not all Jews, but descendants of priestly castes of Cohanim and Levi make major contribution to intellectual achievements of Jews. The same can be said about Indian scientists, who also are disproportionatly represented in intellectual spheres: most of them are clearly belong to higher caste of Brahman (names like Singh). Chinese scientists are also overrepresented in proportion to numbers of Chinese diaspora in developed countries. These 3 nations with large diaspora, obvious leaders in free society, share common characteristic: several thousand year long history of literacy and cult of education as the ultimate measure of social success and prestige.
The first root of why Arabs (indeed all Muslims) are held back is theological:
'So what does Islamic law say about this science and this philosophy? According to Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 136
, they are unlawful, serious affronts to Islam, a form of apostasy. Apologists for Islam in the West brag about the "Islamic science" and "Islamic philosophy" that their accomplices in the Islamic world condemn.'
Pious Jews, Christians, et al, can engage in science and philosophy with a clear conscience, not so Muslims.
I.Q., schmIQueue.
For many, "chutzpah" has been more than just a word for a long time now. Einstein was smart enough to know that he had to work his way up the physics food chain. That idiosyncratic geek 'discovered' his special theories of relative street smarts somewhere outside of himself.
"The only equality a woman in this sick culture can aspire to is as a suicide-bomber (and do they also get 72 virgins for their trouble? Inquiring minds want to know)."
The eternal prize (h/t Tim Blair): chicks get midgets.
Islam, equal-opportunity debasement.
"The only equality a woman in this sick culture can aspire to is as a suicide-bomber "
Sadly some of those women who killed themselves had no choice because it was either s-b or being honor killed after being trapped in a sting.
"this means very heavy "tale" of normal (Gaussian) distribution, that is, high variance. But since bell curve is symmetric, its opposite tail is also heavy, so we must expect just as many exeptionally dumb persons as geniuses in this population."
This doesn't follow. Rather than the curve having a long tail at both ends, the 'mean', the center of the curve could be shifted toward the high end. Even a small shift will mean that there will be a lot more people at the far reaches of the curve in the favored population, and much fewer at the low end.
Commenting by HaloScan.com
