[ExI] The Catholic Impact (was Re: Origin of ethics and morals)

Wed Dec 14 06:30:04 UTC 2011

Here is a source mentioning the article I talked about on the intelligence
of Jewish people in Europe.

Researchers Say Intelligence and Diseases May Be Linked in Ashkenazic Genes

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html

Giovanni

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 12:25 AM, Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com
> wrote:

> I read sometime ago an article that explained that the severe restrictions
> on what Jews could do in terms of jobs put a very strong evolutionary
> pressure on this population.
> They could not own land, they could not do traditional academic jobs, they
> of course could not join the christian clergy (unless they converted). The
> only jobs left were jobs that were considered demeaning like certain kind
> of trade, banking, lawyering  required intellectual skills for survival and
> success.
> I find this explanation very convincing.
> Giovanni
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 11:41 PM, PJ Manney <pjmanney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 2011/12/12 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>:
>> > I think that the ban on Christians charging interest for loans, may have
>> > caused change in the Jewish gene pool, in terms of the selection for
>> > the type of intelligence that excels at finance.  But then the Jews had
>> a
>> > strong merchant class dating back to the Babylonians and the Romans.  I
>> > think if any people have been molded for success by powerful selective
>> > pressures from within and without, it is the Jews.  I find it painfully
>> > ironic that Hitler and the Nazi's considered themselves a "master
>> race," and
>> > persecuted the Jews, when the Jews are a prime example
>> of several millennia
>> > of intense cultural eugenics at work, with the end result being a
>> people who
>> > have achieved so much for humanity.
>>
>> As a resident Ashkenazi (which simply means "German" in Medieval
>> Hebrew), please allow me to weigh in.  Jews will tell you the
>> following might have exerted pressures on their culture and gene pool
>> for increased intelligence:
>>
>> 1) Your above mentioned ban on usury.
>>
>> 2) Your above mentioned experiences in trade.  Jews traveled all over
>> Europe and Asia as soon as trade routes were established.  They
>> settled in Europe in the early middle ages.  It's how the Ashkenazim
>> (a branch of Judaism) as a genetic pool even exist.  A few traveling
>> traders/bankers married gentile/pagan women.  Supposedly, it's how
>> many Ashkenazim got red/blonde hair, green/blue eyes, etc.  Someone
>> should study haplogroups to see if it's true and not just parallel
>> mutation.
>>
>> 3) Beyond that early intermarriage, we're really inbred!
>>
>> 4) The smartest men in the community had the highest and most
>> prestigious job: Rabbi.  The first cut was dynastic (the
>> Cohen/Kohein/Kohanim and Levi families), but they chose the best
>> scholars from those families to become rabbis.  Scholars were a
>> prestigious job, too.  They married sought-after women in their
>> communities and were under biblical orders to be fruitful and
>> multiply...  ;-)  Otherwise, wealth, jobs and social class were
>> dynastic.  The top women (and intelligence was valued in women, too --
>> see #5) married the wealthiest men and had the most children who
>> survived.
>>
>> 5) I don't know if you've spent much time with Jewish women, but they
>> were raised to be more than competent -- they had to be dominant.
>> While the men in the old days were studying and arguing their Torah,
>> the women secretly ran the businesses, raised the families and kept
>> the home fires burning, while the men took the credit for a profitable
>> business, smart kids and well-run homes.  Girls needed intellectual
>> skills to pull this trick off, so they were taught mathematics,
>> languages, etc.  And if you had no sons to push into scholarship, you
>> raised your daughters secretly with advanced schooling.  My
>> great-grandmother was the youngest of six daughters to a
>> merchant-banker in Warsaw.  Like her sisters, she spoke 6 languages
>> fluently, was taught mathematics, economics, science and philosophy.
>> When her father tried to marry her off to a local aristocrat, she ran
>> away to the New World, married a poor, but adorable and loving tailor
>> and used her knowledge to create a real estate business and raise very
>> smart kids.  And this was not unusual!  So intelligence was valued in
>> women, not just men.
>>
>> 6) Judaism as a culture reveres learning and analysis in general.
>> Even regarding their religious writings, there is not a written word
>> in the culture that has not been argued, debated, analyzed,
>> reinterpreted, etc. continually for the last 2000 years.
>>
>> 7) Being a persecuted underdog for 2 millennia does wonders for
>> survival skills, which are linked to intelligence.  I firmly believe:
>> increased pattern recognition > intelligence > paranoia > survival.
>> Woody Allen was right: it's not whether you're paranoid.  It's whether
>> you're paranoid enough.
>>
>> 8) As the perpetual outsider, Jews have had to assimilate local
>> traditions while preserving their own cultural heritage.  It's this
>> cultural mishmash and the related practice of synthesizing large
>> amounts of divergent information that often brings fresh intellectual
>> and creative insights.  I really think this is a significant reason
>> why 0.2% of the world is Jewish, but 20% of the Nobel winners are
>> Jewish.
>>
>> 9) The IQ increase is predominantly found in Ashkenazim, which is
>> between 50% and 80% of the world's Jews, depending on the source.
>>
>> There's still enormous debate whether there is or isn't a genetic
>> component to all of the above and the arguments both pro and con are
>> sadly rife with political correctness, bigotry, bias, etc.  Pity...
>>
>> PJ
>>
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>
>
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