[ExI] the anti-Jews

[Lee Corbin]

John Grigg wrote:

> Lee Corbin wrote:
> "Bad" envy of Jewish precociousness in the arts
> and sciences contributes also to this (in America,
> I claim, 70% component).
>  
> Lee, in your view what are the reasons for the great success of Jews in 
> the arts and sciences?

Finally, everyone acknowledges that it's both
genes and culture, and in retrospect, it's not
easy to see how and why so many people disputed
that genes had something to do with it. More
twentieth century behaviorism, sprinkled with
a lot of leftist/communist wishful thinking
about the (non-genetic) adaptability of humankind,
no doubt.

An extremely good looking new book (though I've
just ordered it) is "The 10,000 Year Explosion:
How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution"
by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, which
should soon have some very informative reviews
online, if it doesn't already.

It devotes an entire chapter to the genetic
component of the success of Ashkenazi Jews.
There have also been threads on SL4 discussing
this, and perhaps even here, though I don't
recall them.

Now, as I understand it, what happened with the
(Western) Ashkenazi Jews falls under the concept
of eugenics. Jews were driven out of most
occupations and had to settle for being merchants,
moneylenders, and other urban occupations, which
slowly increased their fitness over 1500 years
in these relatively intellectual areas.

The irony is that their enemies were responsible
for their eugenic advances!

The other half of the explanation, of course, is
cultural. Jews, partly because of the early
urbanization, but partly because of the literary
demands of their religion, evolved a culture in
which book-learning was highly regarded. I know
it used to be contended that in this atmosphere
rabbis had more children than non-rabbis, and
that this also helped the genetic selection
for intelligence; not sure that this view is
still generally held.

Anyway, there you have it. A successful (natural
or unnatural, however you view it) experiment in
eugenics.

Now if most ethnic groups could realize the
advantages of breeding based on good genes...

Lee