More on Ashkenazi intelligence

Amiram Barkat:

A team of scientists from the University of Utah suggests a link between genetic diseases found among Ashkenazi Jews and their higher-than-average intelligence.

According to the study, to appear in Cambridge University's Journal of Bioscocial Science, the pattern of such diseases among Jews whose families came from central and northern Europe is a product of natural selection for enhanced intellectual ability.

The hypothesis has drawn mixed reactions, with some scientists dismissing it as extremely implausible while others have criticized it as politically incorrect.

The Utah team concluded that the selection resulted from the restriction of Jews in medieval Europe to occupations that required more than usual mental agility, The New York Times reported last Friday.

Between 800 and 1700, Jews in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries were restricted to managerial and commercial occupations, including money lending and tax collection. The study argues that these occupations were intellectually demanding and that those who were successful had more offspring, enhancing the intelligence of the Ashkenazi population.

The researchers note, for example, that while Jews make up 3 percent of the United States population, 27 percent of American Nobel prize winners have been Ashkenazi Jews. They also say that the rate of genius among Ashkenazi Jews is much higher than among the general population in the north European countries they lived in. According to the study, 23 of 1,000 Ashkenazim have an I.Q. of 140 and higher compared to four of 1,000 north European non-Jews.

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