1. It's not ALL Jews but rather Ashkenazi Jews who are so over-represented 2. Ashkenazi Jews come from Europe (they are basically descendents of Jewish men & I

1. It's not ALL Jews but rather Ashkenazi Jews who are so over-represented 2. Ashkenazi Jews come from Europe (they are basically descendents of Jewish men & Italian women) - this was just was just proven a few days ago [1]. 3. Europe in the middle ages heavily discriminated against the Jews (mostly due to the Church). It manifested itself in a number of prohibitions on what Jews could and could not do. 4. These prohibitions put a large premium on intelligence. Then evolution took over - smart Jews were more successful and had more kids [1]. 5. Until the late 20 century Jews had a very strong culture of marrying other Jews. So the smart Jews who had kids would only marry other Jews - thus raising intelligence with every generation (since it was not diluted by the larger gene pool of host countries) 6. This process went on for about a thousand years. As a result, Ashkenazi population has the highest average IQ of any group (about 115 as mentioned in another comment). That in itself would not be a big deal - but that means that they have a DISPROPORTIONATELY large percent of people with really high IQ (2SD above the mean). What I described is not controversial - it's pretty much current state of scientific thought on the issue. [0] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131008112539.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131008112539.ht... [1] http://www.economist.com/node/4032638 http://www.economist.com/node/4032638