Already been done - you just have to collect the data, somehow. When I was a student at Penn, I donated blood at a Hillel blood drive. As an "attraction", they also tested for Tay-Sachs (I'm negative, but a good friend of mine tested positive). I presume they did the same elsewhere, and may even still be doing it today. Whether you can get you hands on the data is another story...

Testing the Cochran et al. hypothesis is something that I have looked into. Although there is at least one prominent Israeli evolutionary biologist who is eager to look at whatever data that can be readily collated, he says that he is alone in this. No one else who has the means or to unearth and analyze the available data in Israel wants to do so. Apparently, they are afraid of what they might find.

A similiar experiment might be doable with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

With these it might not be a those with the schizophrenia genecomparison between carriers, non-carriers, and those afflicted, but between genetic schizophrenics whose disease is expressed (has been triggered) and those have not yet developed schizophrenia. I have known two or three schizophrenics who were dramatically more than normally productive and creative before they expressed their disease, and during remissions.

Some of the great thinkers of history were so strange that I ask whether they might have been mentally ill, but in a supportive social circumstance because of class or monastic affiliation which allowed them to be productive during their lucid periods.

As bipolar disorder and schizophrenia become better known, I expect that they will turn out to be multi-gene disorders with multiple forms, but the gist of what I say might still be valid.

As bipolar disorder and schizophrenia become better known, I expect that they will turn out to be multi-gene disorders with multiple forms, but the gist of what I say might still be valid.

i saw a book in the library about schizo ~ creativity once. on my TODO list. now, the diff. between schizo & tay sachs is that the latter is a relatively simple mendelian trait, schizo is probably a threshold/quantitative polygenic trait which a strong non-additive genetic variance component. biological questions can be simply answered in the case of tay sachs in regards to the simple hypothesis and prediction greg, henry and jason hardy made. nevertheless, there are hundreds of schizophrenia studies, and none testing the tay sachs hypothesis....

It's even simpler. There are plenty of services that test for Jewish genetic diseases. Just get their mailing list, and see how many Tay Sach's carriers are Dr.'s or live in rich zip codes.

nevertheless, there are hundreds of schizophrenia studies, and none testing the tay sachs hypothesis....
It's even worse: TSD is clearly genetic. Even if ignorant of the particular gene, we'd see recessive autosomal inheritance. So it makes sense to ask if having this gene correlates w/ having smarty genes. However, Schizophrenia is probably not genetic, so asking the question is awfully presumptuous.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/re...cial/ germs.html
www.isteve.com/Infectious_Causation_of_Disease.pdf (Ewald & Cochran's technical paper)

Randall Parker has a topic on "brain creativity" w/ a few brief entries on how creativity relates to bipolar & schizotypal disorders -- NB: not full-blown schizophrenia. Roughly, Asperger's : full autism :: schizotypal : schizophrenia.
http://www.futurepundit.com/ arch...creativity.html

Great quote from Ewald's Plague Time (Chapter 11, final sub-section: "Artistic Genius"):
Depressive illnesses, for example, are more common in novelists, painters, playwrights, and poets than in the general population. If these illnesses are caused by infection, is it appropriate to conclude that some aspects of artistic talent are attributable to infection? Did Van Gogh owe his artistic genius as much to a pathogen as to his genes or upbringing?

People find genes sexy probably b/c they're "natural" -- hence gay men insisting proudly that it's genetic. But our cognitive biases make us feel disgusted when we think of foreign, tiny living things worming their way through our brain and tweaking our behavior. But offensive as it may be, Ewald's quote is worth investigating.

I wonder how overrepresented cat-lovers or those born around cats are among the artistically gifted? Hell, TS Eliot, Edward Gorey, & Andrew Lloyd Webber loved them so much they devoted some of their most famous works to the cute little critters -- in this case, all based on Eliot's original obsession!

..and of course Hemingway - but must we include Lloyd Weber on this list?

It should be easy to test the hypothesis. Most people marrying in Israel undergoes this test. However, there is medical secrecy.

I believe Cochran may be on to something and it is worth to test the hypothesis. Anecdotally, when I married in 1983, tests were not reliable and frequently a second test had to be made. I was called for a second test and in the waiting room I met a collection of young people notable for their beauty and intelligent, interesting faces. Nota bene: This comment is utterly subjective and unscientific, but I have been carrying it with myself since that time and this is a friendly place to discharge it. Thanks.

What kills me is just how much low hanging fruit there is on hbd stuff like this.

It appears that the GNXP readership isn't very elite (at least, it doesn't appear to include Jewish students at elite universities). (-:

Oh, there are some of us who went to elite universities back in the day. I think the hard part is getting anyone to agree to this; the Jewish community is scared sh**less of anything having to do with eugenics because, well, look at who the last guys doing it back in Germany in the 1930s were. You might be able to do it on the sly. Keep in mind that stealing the mailing list for a *testing* service won't do you any good. One way might be to look at the family trees of famous Jewish scientists, etc.; were there children who died of Tay-Sachs who there is some record of?