One thing I’ve noticed about this board is that there seems to more activity from Jewish folks than their share of the population would indicate. I’m not Jewish myself (although this comes as a shock to a lot of people because of my surname). In fact, of all the real-life people I know well enough to be aware of their religious affiliation, none of them are Jewish. This is probably due largely to the fact that my past and present places of residence have been areas with a noticeable lack of synagogues. But it’s my lack of exposure in daily life to Jewish culture and customs that causes me to notice when board members are missing on Saturdays, or make an effort to say Og or G-d. So in real life, I know not a single Jew…but in SDMB-world, there is no shortage of people ready to answer quesitons about whether it’s okay to wipe your butt on the Sabbath
Just running the numbers: Wikipedia says that less than 2% of the US population is Jewish. But if you use the active membership of the SDMB as a statistical sample, you’d think the number was much higher…maybe 10 or 20 percent. Moreover, the Orthodox population of the US seems to hover around 0.2%, but my unscientific assessment of the SDMB’s active participants would seem to indicate that more than one in every 500 posters is an Orthodox Jew. I realize that the SDMB isn’t made up only of Americans, but the global statistics aren’t different enough to radically alter this observation.
So what might explain a disporportionately high level of activity from members of the Jewish community? I’m not aware of any other segments of humanity that this board represents at a rate higher than the population at large…except maybe for liberals, but that’s a whole other topic.
samclem, fair enough. I couldn’t really decide where to put it. It probably doesn’t have quite the potential for a factual answer that I figured on when I started writing. It’s easily GD material, with a hint of ATMB and IMHO thrown in.
I grew up in an area which is 30% Jewish. Half my childhood friends were Jewish. And yet, when I read the boards, it seems no more than one out of ten posters are Jewish. If that. Can somebody please explain why there are so few Jews on the SDMB???
But uglybeech, you should recognize that you grew up in an area that has a distinct concentration of Jews. It’s not a sound reference point.
I made sure to discount my own personal experience, as it’s obviously a worthless bit of anecdote. Sure, I mentioned it, but only to place my perspective. It was not an indication that I think my immediate environment is representative of everyone and everywhere. Instead, I chose to rely on numbers averaged over a somewhat large sample…about 300 million people.
I don’t know how you can conclude that 10-20% of the membership is Jewish. Perhaps you’re basing this on the number of people who respond to specifically Jewish questions, like the one about Sabbath bathroom habits. It’s not like everyone has reported their religious affiliation nor is there any sort of scientific survey.
My completely unscientific opinion is that the membership here is more likely to be agnostic or atheistic than the population at large.
This board is also way overrepresented by atheists and agnostics and probably has a much higher ratio (when compard to the general population) of pagans.
My own WAG would be simply that a place that focuses on factual knowledge and intellectual curiosity, and requires a high degree of literacy to participate, is going to attract groups who are known for their literacy and their willingness to engage in rational inquiry.
Among the groups (defined by religious opinions) that are probably similarly attracted out of proportion to the general public would be
Atheists,
Jews,
Catholics (current and “recovering”),
and Episcopalians.
A group who is probably underrepresented (as a ratio to the general populace) would be Evangelical Christians.
This is not a statement about intelligence or knowledge, but an observation about populations who do or do not encourage intellectual inquiry. There are many posters, here, who are not among the groups I first listed, (and we do have members who are Evangelical Christians), but I suspect that they appear in proportions equal to or slightly less than the general populace. (Smart, inquisitive persons may appear in any group–some groups will encourage such inquisitiveness more than others.)
And what about people like me, who self-identify as Jewish Agnostic-Atheists? Oy vey! :eek:
Anyways, I’m not necessarily sure that the board is chock full of Jews. It might be, but I’d prefer to see something definitive.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that we here in greater numbers than in the general population, I’d say it’s probably because of the prevalence of traditions within the Jewish culture(s) which value learning. Orthodox Jews, in specific, often engage in Talmudic study. Talmudic study, in turn, (as I’ve been told by more than a few lawyers), prepares people exquisitely well for factual/ideological debates.
And, of course, a lot of us Jews are a cantankerous lot, and we like a good discussion.
All that brought together would make something like the Dope a good place in which one might hang out and nosh on some good debates.
It’s probably also the reason so many people who self-identify as “freethinkers” or the like end up here. Folks dedicated to learning and bein’ ornery tend to wind up here, I’d think.
First of all, how do you define Jewish - religous, cultural or genetic? I’d never have answered a question about Sabbath bathroom habits even before I became an atheist because my temple wasn’t very concerned about such things.
Most of my JHS and HS classes were 90% Jewish or more. The areas I work in seem to be Chinese, Indian or Jewish - with a few random Christians scattered in. So I agree with others that Jews are not over-represented here as compared to participation in this kind of thing.
I doubt there is much reason to think that Jews are over-represented here. Quite simply, threads self-filter for people with a special interest. You could have only a tiny handful of crebidologist Dopers, but if there’s a thread on crebidology, they will leap forth and take the opportunity to add their two cents. This gives an impression there are more of them than there are.
If we have about 5000 active posters, and even if only 1% are Jewish (ie less than you’d expect), that’s still 50 Jewish posters. Any thread which Jews are going to be best qualified to answer is going to have plenty of responses from Jews.
Yeah but I couldn’t help mocking it anyway. The point is that there’s no reason to think that any area OR any message board will be a representative cross section of the U.S. population.
I don’t know here you’re getting the 20% Jews assumption. By my own wild ass guesstimating I don’t think any more than 5% population of the SDMB is Jewish. Jews will tend to participate in threads that address their Jewishness or related interests in some fashion, and there area fair number of these threads asked by non-Jews (including myself) which may give a disproportionate impression of their overall numbers. I thik the same is true for gay participation.
Re “liberal” I don’t really think I’d characterize the general attitudes this way. I really think the board is generally MOR leaning progressives, and there are equal numbers of hard skewing lefties and righties, though the lefties (IMO) do tend to be more sneeringly immature and impolite (overall) than the conservatives (and granted that some of the conservatives can be quite impolite as well).
And why has noone still stated the obvious? Jews are way smarter than other ppl on average, so you would expect them to be overrepresented on an intellectual board.
Arguments that jews are smarter:
-22% of nobel prize winners are jews. This is a crazy overrepresentation compared to the population.
-The Bell curve states that jews might have up to a full deviation above the mean in IQ.
