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Jewish Nobel Laureates
- hayksaakian 13y agoIs it "submit random wikipedia articles to reap karma on HN" day already?
- acadien 13y agoYou should submit a more interesting article in response, that's the best way to teach the poster a lesson.
- lobo_tuerto 13y agoWhere is the title editing when it is needed? Noble -> Nobel
- hapygallagher 13y agoIt could be a value judgment.
- linux_devil 13y ago.2% of world's population and 20% of Nobel prizes won. p.s: * Nobel
- jrs99 13y agoLook how many MEN have won, too! That is one intelligent gender.
- astrodust 13y ago0.1% of the world's population and 20% of the prizes won!
- linux_devil 13y agoAgree , and there are beautiful Jewish actresses too.
- jerrya 13y agoFamous Jewish Sports Legends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoACIIz33II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoACIIz33II
- acheron 13y agoThat is what I always think of when someone mentions the book "Javascript: The Good Parts".
- hrasyid 13y agoBy the way, has anyone come up with a possible explanation for the seemingly disproportionate number of Jewish laureates and smart people in general? Do Jews have some tradition or belief that's helpful in this?
- jprince 13y agoYeah, it's based on our tradition of studying Torah translating to studying other fields. The built in cultural requirement to always be a good study has made us wildly successful in academics.
- jaryd 13y agoIn traditional Jewish culture there is a large emphasis on education. In the most traditional sense, Rabbis are essentially scholars. They study the Torah. In ancient times they would sit around and do nothing but study the Torah and discuss its various interpretations--this was their primary purpose. You might consider them among the world's first pedants :) In traditional communities Rabbis are among the most respected members. Consequently, there is tremendous value placed on qualities of intelligence and conscientious study. Fast forward to current times and that still exists to a great degree in modern Jewish culture (in my experience).
- azinman2 13y agoI'd say the emphasis is more on professionalism. It's been a long time since Jews were primarily agricultural for many reasons (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2003/06/why_jews_dont_farm.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2003/0...). That combined with the fact that Christianity (for a long time) didn't allow loans with interest, so Jews filled in that role (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loans_and_interest_in_Judaism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loans_and_interest_in_Judaism). I don't know why this is on HN at all, however. When I was surprised at the supreme court ruling on gay marriage not well covered on HN (I thought the liberty angle made it appropriate), people seemed to think otherwise (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5949827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5949827).
- melling 13y ago
- alphakappa 13y agoWhile this is an interesting statistic, it can be interpreted in many ways, not all of which are meaningful. Statistically, more men have won Nobel prizes than women (by a large margin). Most Nobel laureates are Caucasian. Most are from the western hemisphere. Other than gender, it may be interpreted to mean that if a group which makes a small fraction of the total world population, they must be better/smarter. It's a fallacious argument of course, since there can be many other factors at play here. How much of it is because these groups have access to more funds, that most of them are based in the United States which has better and more well-funded universities? What about social factors that have nothing to do with race/religion? Along these lines, I could submit a link about how Indians who make up a tiny fraction of the American population are so much more successful than $POPULATION [1], but it's a meaningless statistic to have, other than for some misplaced pride. 1. http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/bobby-jindal-indian-americans-opinions-contributors_immigrants_minority.html http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/bobby-jindal-indian-america...
- benched 13y agoI can understand saying a statistic might be partly confounded by additional factors. I can't understand calling it meaningless. Just that it might not mean exactly what's implied. The stat itself is pretty hard to miss.
- graeme 13y agoAs another commenter noted, the smaller the group, the higher the variance. Extreme cases due to variance actually are quite meaningless. I am not claiming that this particular statistic is meaningless. Just that it isn't necessarily meaningful, either.
- bcoates 13y agoThe nature of variance means that you would expect to find the highest and lowest means in groups with the smallest populations.
- Luit2 13y ago> Statistically, more men have won Nobel prizes than women (by a large margin). Most Nobel laureates are Caucasian. Most are from the western hemisphere. Other than gender, it may be interpreted to mean that if a group which makes a small fraction of the total world population, they must be better/smarter. Consider your magnitudes though. For example, men win 0.961/0.5 = 1.9 times the Nobel Prizes you would expect based on representation alone, whereas Jews win 0.202/0.002 = 101 times the Nobel Prizes you would expect based on representation alone.
- tokenadult 13y agoThe article talk page[1] for this article points to some problems other Wikipedians have found with this article. It's easy to misclassify people without very careful checking of their biographies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laur...
- eibrahim 13y agoVery impressive
- batgaijin 13y agoInterestingly all Abrahamic religions begin with a warning about the tree of knowledge... I still can't believe what a fucked up parable that is.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- comicjk 13y agoThe knowledge of good and evil, if I recall correctly. That might apply to the peace prize but probably not to the prizes in physics or chemistry.
- unknownian 13y agoAll Abrahamic religions? Islam does not call it the tree "of knowledge" and pursuit of knowledge is encouraged (at least in Islam).
- batgaijin 13y agomy b
- gilgoomesh 13y agoI'm pretty certain the story of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the expulsion from paradise is a parable about choosing between: a) Happy but ignorant b) Unhappy but well informed and the fact that humans instinctively choose the second option. It's not a warning that knowledge is bad, it's just an acknowledgment that it's better to know the truth, even when the knowledge makes us feel worse.
- laureny 13y agoHow do you decide who's noble and who's not?
- acheron 13y agoFull electron shells?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- marze 13y agoThe Jewish culture has valued certain types of intelligence for centuries, and probably as a result their average IQ is measurably higher due to selection effects. If you assume it is outliers on the IQ spectrum that will win the prize, this isn't surprising at all. I'd guess that a big reason why people of the Jewish faith have been persecuted over the centuries is that because of their IQ advantage they gain more wealth than other peoples they may be around. It is fascinating.
- ekianjo 13y agoam i reading this on hn? what are your sources? and what does jewish culture mean anyway when jewish people live in all continents in very different environments and of various descents? the reason why jewish people have accumulated more wealth may as well have nothing to do with their intelligence but merely because they support each other when they are in position of power and therefore raise the status of their communities. please keep your blanket statements for some other place.
- cylinder 13y ago"Support each other" is the defining characteristic of the Jewish community. I am part of a different highly-educated minority, but its people seem to always be envious/jealous of each other and highly competitive, and so usually refuse to work with one another.
- ekianjo 13y agothere are oter communities supporting each other. Hungarians are well knwn in that regard too. But again I would be very careful not to attribute this to higher intelligence or something.
- marze 13y agoIt is simply speculation and was stated as such. However, the IQ question has been studied and you can find discussion of it elsewhere in this thread. The relatively hard data says that Jewish people are about 100 times more likely to win a Nobel prize than an average person. 100x is a big factor. Obviously, there must be some fairly powerful factor or factors involved, and it is interesting to speculate.
- alexvr 13y agoI came across this the other day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
- sitver 13y agoA related article was "Muslim nobel laureates". Total:10. I did some quick meaningless math, and found that there's 1 nobel prize winner for every 160 million muslims, and 1 for every 70,000 jews. I'm not going to try and interpret the data, but I do think that's interesting.
- frozenport 13y agoWhile it doesn't change the argument, its important to note that Jewish carries a greater genetic specificity then Muslim.
- ashray5 13y agoVery impressive indeed. There is a disproportionate ratio of Jewish people serving as CEOs of large corporations as well. I heard on Freakanomics radio that parenting and nurturing does not contribute much to the later success in life. Its the nature not nurture, they concluded. They used adoption data to come to that conclusion, although one can always find some argument against that study because its only an inductive argument in the end.
- marincounty 13y ago1. It's not genetic. 2. "Why isn't it genetic? Spend a day with an Isralie who just arrived in the U.S.. 3. If I say anything else, I'll never hear the end of it.
- SqMafia 13y agoWow. Whoever put the list of Muslim Nobel Laureates in the article is a bit of a prick. Let's pit one group of people vs. the other.
- clarkm 13y agoYeah, Richard Dawkins got in trouble for tweeting something very similar a couple months ago: https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/365473573768400896 https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/365473573768400896
- SqMafia 13y agoThis might shock the HN community but from my years of mentoring poor performing and under privileged high school students in the Bay Area (i.e. mostly from East Palo Alto), education is not valued by all cultures. I was shocked when I saw this. It was always so obvious to me. That said, it's only a shock because I was raised in a culture (Chinese) that had always valued education. If you never had the security of being sure of your future for more than a few months at a time, education might not seem the best choice. Education is an investment and one that only pays off if you are secure enough in your welfare to reap the benefits. Even for some middle class families, it is becoming a less obvious investment since the price of education has shot up while employment is harder to find. If the idea of education is not universally valued, is it so hard to believe that groups that do will do better in fields that require years of study? I read a while back an article on Slate or the Atlantic that sort of explores this very issue. The hypothesis was that Judaism was at one point defined by literacy. Basically, at some point, to be a Jew required you to be read and understand the Torah. It was enormously expensive and over time those who couldn't afford stopped being considered Jews and those who were left were the ones who could afford an education. Thus the culture became one that was placed a strong emphasis on education. Someone who've read the article or know history of the Jews better can correct me on this.
- thomaaas 13y agoJewish have a strong sense of community. Nothing wrong about that. So if there are lots of jewish who are choosing the laureates, it's "normal" to see a lot of jewish ending up nobel laureates.
- al1x 13y agoThese statistics make me curious about the religious breakdown of the various Nobel committee's.