Dude, it’s, what, $12.95 a year?!
Not if you got in at the ground floor, my child. You know me, always thinking, scheming, grasping, looking for a bargain. When I saw those charter memberships I thought, "This will save me several dollars a year, which I can then invest in diamonds and literacy programs, in turn creating a powerful, college-educated class of super-Jews who can bring down the World Trade Center and Lebanon. Better to ask, How many Jews are charter members, with the discount savings and the I-was-here-first panace, eh? Eh?
That’s “panache.” Saving money makes my literacy go right down the tubes.
But not your wit and common sense, though.
applauds
This sounds like you think I am a racist, or borderline racist.
So let me ask you this. Suppose Jews actually are more skilled in intellectual matters on average. That is not an impossible supposition, is it?
If that is the case, then it is necessary that it is a factor in explaining their succes in the mentioned areas. Since being skilled in something would help in being more succesful. And then my argument would be sound. Would I then still be (semi)-racist, even though I am right?
Yes, some have been mentioned. But I don’t think we have reasons that can fully explain Jews succes in intellectual areas yet. And if they don’t fully explain it, then some other factor is at work, which might be that they are more skilled in intellectual matters.
As for the arguments you give here, they do not explain it fully.
Selection Bias in nobel prize committee - Even if we just look at north european and north american populations, Jews are still overrepresented.
The possibility that Jewish culture places great emphasis on intellectual pursuit - This might be a factor. But it is also an argument for my side. If you practice more, you get better, right?
And I’m not cherry picking to support my hypothesis. The hypothesis is based solely on the data.
I will try to explain my position another way. Suppose you have an university professor. Now you also take a random person from the population, and give them both an intellectual task. You would say that there is a higher chance that the university professor does well, right? Now suppose we take a person from group A, which are all highly educated people. You would still expect them to perform better, right? Now suppose we have group B, in which the people are, on average, better paid and better educated, than people from group C. You then take a random person from each group. Isn’t it then still more probable that the random person from group B would do better?
This argument hangs on the premise that Jews as a population are more successful in intellectual areas, and you still haven’t established that to my satisfaction. You’ve said they’ve won more nobel prizes, have more chess champions, and are paid more (I think those were your evidence). These are not sufficient to establish your claim.
Phew, I have to be very careful in this discussion it seems. I was being imprecise. What I meant to say was “But I don’t think we have reasons that can fully explain Jews succes in those intellectual areas yet”
Meaning the areas of chess, nobel prizes, etc.
There are also other indicators that jews are more skilled intellectually. But instead of going into that, do you think that it is correct to say that the ones you mentioned above indicate that jews are more skilled intellectually, if you cannot find another way to explain the results fully?
And what do you say to this question:
“Now suppose we have group B, in which the people are, on average, better paid and better educated, than people from group C. You then take a random person from each group. Isn’t it then still more probable that the random person from group B would do better?”
No. I’ve said this a few times, but all it means is that on average Jews win more Nobel prizes and play chess better. Jews used to dominate professional basketball–did this mean that Jews were more skilled at physical activity as well? Or even that Jews as a population were more skilled at basketball?
Or does it instead mean that we’re observing a very small and nonrepresentative sample of the Jewish population when we examine Nobel laureates, chess grandmasters, and professional basketball players?
Sure. That’s simple probability. But in asking this question, you begin with the assumption that group B is smarter and wealthier than group C. Given that assumption, it’s an easy question. This question is more in line with what you’re arguing–
Suppose we have group B, from which approximately 170 of 13 million have won a very exclusive prize to people who have made major contributions in science, literature, and peace. We also have group C, which has fewer recipients of this prize. You then take a random person from each group and apply them to an intellectual task. Is it more probable that a person from group B does better?
The answer to this question is impossible to ascertain. All we know about group B is that some of its members (1.3 x 10^-3 % of them) have been selected for this award. Furthermore, acquisition of this award may have no bearing on how well the person performs on the intellectual task. Also, the conclusions of such a study might have no relevance whatsoever because the intellectual task might not actually measure anything pertaining to intelligence. Simple probability doesn’t take us very far with a question more complicated than “I pick a marble out of a bag–what color is it?”
Not at all. What it suggests is that your arguments are couched in terms that may make sense to you, but for which you have found no way to clearly delineate to us. If we line up your points regarding Jews side by side with discussions about racial superiority or inferiority, we see a direct parallel. Even you have noted that the issues appear to be the same.
I suspect that you actually believe there is some difference between the beliefs you hold and the arguments of race, but you have not found a way to express those differences. At this point, I would suggest that you need to examine what you actually do believe. Not because I believe you are a racist, but because I think you have not clearly identified what you actually believe, what that means, and how that works.
I have no idea what you distinguish between “intelligence” and “skill in intellectual pursuits.” To me, that appears to be a distinction without a difference made solely to avoid claiming greater intelligence.
As to the apparent dominance of Jews in other fields, most of them have already been explained in previous threads (although you would not have seen those discussions).
Finance: As the various Jewish communities sent emmissaries among themselves, scattered across the Middle East and Europe, they found that they could support those trips by becoming merchants and traders. Further, Jews and Christians each held to the biblical injunction against charging use for money on their own group. However, Jews could charge use on money loaned to Christians and Christians could charge use on money loaned to Jews. Given the relative sizes of the Christian and Jewish communities in Europe, which group was going to find the larger customer base on which to build an industry? Later, as the Church and civil governments imposed harsher and harsher restrictions on the Jewish community, prohibiting them from competing with Christians in occupations such as farming, the Jewish community was compelled to focus on the few trades still open to them, leading to a dominance in those industries in which they had the most experience, even after attitudes toward charges of use were modified under the concept of charging interest. By the time that Europe was making its way out of feudalism and taking a peak at what would become the modern world, a number of Jewish financial “houses” had already been established. (And given the ways in which Christians would often refuse to work for Jewish employers, such houses tended to remain “Jewish” long after the initial impetus had faded into history.)
Entertainment in the U.S.: In the 19th century and the turn of the 20th, entertainment was not considered a respectable trade, and thus had fewer barriers to Jews entering it. Burlesque and similar venues provided a means for Jews locked in the poverty of the inner cities to find a way out. When motion pictures got started, a number of Jewish actors and comedians invested in this new medium getting in on the ground floor. When radio came along, it was, again, an entertainment medium and the first networks were funded by money derived from motion picture studios (where there was, of course, a serious Jewish participation). Later, television was funded by the same movie and radio corporations. It did not take any sort of special powers or nefarious plotting to lead to the current presence of Jews in various media; it would have been more surprising if they had a smaller role, given the way that stage involvement (particularly in the light or humorous venues) led to movies led to radio led to TV.
Sciences: A tradition of education leads to involvement in theoretical sciences. (Note that there are no Nobel prizes for engineering or technical advances.) People who are drawn to education and theoretical sciences (and often barred entry to other fields) are going to show up prominently in the fields in which they are permitted to enter.
So, for each area of “Jewish dominance” there is a very specific history that led through concrete events to the current situation that does not require special abilities to explain.
Now, is it possible that “Jews” (or, possibly, Ashkenazim or Sephardim or Mizrahim) have higher “intelligence” than some or all other groups? I suppose it might be. But first we would have to discover what the word intelligence meant in any specific context. Then we would have to determine how to measure it and how to identify the statement. Do we only look at the outlier people to determine the “most” intelligent? Do we look at some sort of Venn diagram to see which goups have the most overlap?
I have been utterly unimpressed for all the claims about IQ or “g” or anything else that (conveniently) always tends to give favored groups a higher rank than less favored groups and the claims that some tests avoid cultural contamination have never been demonstrated to hold water.
Given that we have genuine history that explains current situations without resorting to any special voodoo, I will stick with the historical explanations and ignore claims of unproven theoreticals or disproven racial claims.
Given the murky nature of claims about “intelligence,” I will stick to looking for real explanations for events rather than making unsupportable (if popular) claims about the “intelligence” of any given group.
I didn’t say group B was smarter, I said it was more educated on average.
But I see that you agree with my logic. That if group B earns higher wages and is better paid on average, then it will be more skilled in intellectual matters.
You just forget that the nobel prize winners are not the only argument I used. In fact I used the argument that Jews earn higher wages. It was also mentioned upthread that Jews are better educated on average. So unless you contest those claims, then you agree with me that jews are more skilled in intellectual matters. Right?
Define “more skilled in intellectiual matters.”
hmm, that’s a tough task, I’ll probably make a mistake. Let me read your post first, I’ll come back to it.
I have another question first. Suppose we have a large bag with random tasks that require mental abilities. And we take out a number of tasks, and give them to two people, p1 and p2. In every one of those tasks p1 performs better. Now you take out another task from the bag. Would you then find it more likely that p1 performs better in this one too.
If so what would you call that property of p1 that causes this?
Whoa there, dude. You are completely ignoring my point.
If we assume that the task measures “intellectual ability,” if we assume the sample is representative, and if we assume that Group B is, on average, better at the specific intellectual task we are using to assess ability, Group B will perform better on average and we can conclude they have enhanced intellectual ability.
However, you’ve not presented evidence that is strong enough for me to accept any of those assumptions. “It was mentioned upthread” is not the same as “It has been established beyond an alpha level of 0.05 in several studies with reasonable methodology.” There are near-infinite ways to measure intellect, not a single one of which is universally accepted as a good metric of intelligence. You’d have to provide an operational definition for proficiency in “intellectual matters” before I could even begin to consider such an experiment valid. And good luck with that, because people have been trying to define intelligence for years with varied success.
Fine. Give me a cite showing that a randomly-selected sample of Jewish individuals performs better on a battery of universally-accepted tasks that “require mental abilities” than randomly-selected samples of other major ethnic groups. You should make sure this sample controls for household income and geographic location. Experimenters administering and scoring the tests should be kept blind to the ethnicity of the participants. Show me this study. You’ve managed to break down this very complex question into a facile probabalistic model, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
A racist is a guy who watches a 1930s film of Germans shouting deleriously in support of Hitler, and says “You see how cruel, cold and warlike those Germanic people are.”
Ten minutes later he sees footage of Italian fascists shouting deleriously in support of Mussolini and says “Boy, those Latin races sure are hot, emotional and passionate!”
Here I was just trying to get some help in order to answer tomndebb request that I Define “more skilled in intellectiual matters.”
I don’t think such a study examining this has been made, unfortunately.
I probably did ignore your point. That is because I thought you followed my random-person argument from before, and agreed with it. But it seems you didnt.
I didn’t say anything about a task that measures intellectual ability, and I don’t really know what you mean about a representative sample.
Anyway, I’ll make the argument again, and please stop me at the point where you disagree.
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Take a university professor, and a random person from the rest of the population, and give them both a task that requires intellectual abilities). It is probably that the professor does better.
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Look at two groups, A and B. People in group A are all better educated than people in group B. You don’t know anything else about the groups. You take a random person from each group and give them them a task that requires intellectual abilities. It is probable that the person from group A does better.
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The same as 2., except that group A is better educated than group B on average, instead of all of them being better educated.
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If 3. is fulfilled, then you can fairly say that group A is more skilled in intellectual matters.
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If we suppose that Jews are better educated on average, can we call group A jews and group B gentiles.
Oh, and sorry. I just cut and pasted, I didn’t mean to mock your typo…