It is widely reported that Ashkenazi Jews have, as a group, extraordinarily high intelligence. The Ashkenazi are one of two major groups of Jewish people; their ancestors lived in France and Central and Eastern Europe, including Germany, Poland, and Russia. (The other group, the Sephardic Jews, are from ancestral groups that lived in Spain, Portugal, North Africa, and the Middle East). Almost of the Jews living in the United States are of Ashkenazi descent.
While the average intelligence for descendants of Western Europeans is 104, the average intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews are said to be 107 to 115, with most people citing the high end of the range. But is that true? I occasionally have come across statements that the study from which this figure was derived was flawed. The video below delves into not only the main studies used to support a high IQ for Ashkenazi Jews to explain why the studies are flawed, but also uses other IQ studies to show that Ashkenazi Jews have an IQ basically the same as the Western European average: just a fraction of a decimal point below 104. In other words--surprise, surprise--their IQs are bascially the same as the group to which they are most closely genetically tied.
Although the video raises the question of why, if the IQ is the same, Jews are overrepresented in the Ivy Leagues, government, and certain professions, but doesn't attempt to answer the question. There are probably several reasons, but one that is often cited is tribal loyalty resulting in a form of tribal nepotism when it comes to helping other Jews in admissions and hiring.
On the other hand, there appears to have been a suppression of white students getting into those universities that feed into the high level government and finance jobs. I recently came across a reference to the U.S. having programs in place in the 1950's and '60s across the United States where teachers would identify promising students and get them into a pipeline to top schools, but that this program completely broke down in the 1970s. In fact, I've read several news pieces over the years which makes it clear that the Ivy League discriminates against rural white Americans by, for instance, making sure applications that emphasize 4-H experience or background go into the round file.
In-group preference. They can do that, you can't.
ReplyDeleteAnd by playing the victim card, they also get a lot of preference from those outside their group.
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