Discussion:
The results contain five principal points of interest. First, on the vocabulary test adopted as a measure of intelligence, Jews obtained an average score equivalent to 9.25 IQ points higher than non-Jewish whites. This is closely similar to the Jewish IQ advantage of approximately 10 IQ points found in a number of other studies noted in the introduction.
An IQ advantage of this magnitude is sufficient to explain most and perhaps all of the high Jewish achievement. A population of gentiles with an average IQ of 100 has approximately 2% of individuals with an IQ of 130 and above. Jews with an average of IQ 110 should have about 9% of individuals with IQs at this level. At IQs above 145, Jews should have approximately seven times the proportion of gentiles (approximately 0.14% of the population of gentiles and approximately 0.98% of Jews). These differences go a considerable way to explaining the high achievements of Jews. Second, the results do not provide any evidence for the theory that Jews attach more importance to success or to studiousness than non-Jews. In fact Jews attach less importance to success and to studiousness than non-Jews in the results set out in both Tables 1 and 2, although the differences between Jews and non-Jewish are not statistically significant. Third, Jews do attach more importance to four values than non-Jews. These are considerateness, interest in how and why things happen, judgment, and responsibility,
but it is not easy to see how these would contribute to the success of Jews in virtually all walks of life. The results that Jewish parents are more likely to foster interest in how and why things happen suggest that this might contribute to the high Jewish achievement in science, but Jews have been equally successful in law, the humanities and business, for which an interest in how and why things happen would not seem to confer any obvious advantage.Fourth, Jews do not differ much from others in the values they would most like their children to have. Jews and non-Jews attach most importance to their children having good judgement, being considerate, honest and responsible, and Jews and non-Jews attach least importance to their children valuing cleanliness and appropriate sex role behaviour.Fifth, the results clearly support the high intelligence theory of Jewish achievement while at the same time provide no support for the cultural values theory as an explanation for Jewish success. Although the high Jewish IQ has been known for many decades, it has typically been ignored by historians, sociologists, and economists who have written on the high achievements of the Jews. For instance, the sociologists Lieberson and Carter (1979) who documented the remarkable over-representation of Jews in Who’s Who in America make no mention of the high Jewish IQ as a likely explanation. There is no mention of the high IQ of the Jews in discussions of Jewish achievements by the historians Thernstrom and Thernstrom (2003), or by the economist Chiswick (1985, 1999), or by the British sociologist Tropp (1991), whose book documents the over-representation of Jews in the professions in Britain. Nor is there any mention of the high IQ of the Jews in textbooks of sociology (e.g. Giddens, 1997) or of psychology (too numerous to cite), or even in textbooks on intelligence, such as Brody’s (1992) Intelligence and Sternberg’s (2000) Handbook of Intelligence.
Yet it would appear that high intelligence is the most promising explanation of Jewish achievement.Full report:
personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/PAID2008.pdf
Topic: Study proves that Jews are genetically superior (Read 780 times)