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One partial explanation which intrigues me, from the "what you can't say" files: Historically (e.g. medieval times) the priesthood drew many of most intelligen
by Icterus 17y ago
One partial explanation which intrigues me, from the "what you can't say" files:
Historically (e.g. medieval times) the priesthood drew many of most intelligent/academic segment the population, as a compelling alternative to manual labor.
Beginning in the 4th century, Christian priesthood adopted celibacy, which later was made mandatory by the Roman Catholic Church, which sought to prevent inheritance from draining its coffers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibate#Christianity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibate#Christianity
Meanwhile, Jewish Rabbis have been encouraged to marry and bring up children throughout this history.
Over centuries, you get a selective drift which results in a different distribution of intelligence among the populations. This explains in part the statistical incidence of academic achievement in the jewish population: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Achievements http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Achievements
Note that I'm speaking here of statistical measures. There are plenty of dumb jews, just as non-jews. But thousands of years of policy from the Catholic church has led to a population shift which has excluded many of the historically most academic in nature from procreating over 25 - 50 generations.
An explanation I first came across in Nozick's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia
- andreshb 17y agoNever thought about it like that, it's a rather interesting explanation, but there is one assumption there: That the most intelligent of the population would continue to choose priesthood event after celibacy was made mandatory by the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps the most intelligent of the population did not continue to choose the path of celibacy over and over again for 25-50 generations.
- lallysingh 17y agoHmm, I think that guys with bigger brains aren't as driven by their libidos.
- endtime 17y agoWhy? That hasn't been my experience at all.
- philwelch 17y agoAs much as I like the "Ashkenazi Jews are a genetically smarter population" hypothesis, it's not sufficient to explain what's going on. It's probably necessary that some level of intelligence exists within a population for startups to happen, but it's probably a vanishingly small part of the equation.
- Zarathu 17y agoNot only does it not explain why there are so many Israeli startups, but it's a false hypothesis altogether. Aside from the fact that IQ is more a representation of adaptation to modernity than intelligence, there are many environmental factors that come into play. There would probably be more startups in the Arab population if they weren't so discriminated against in the country.
- Fljotavik 17y agoThat is possible. On the other hand, you don't really see too many start ups in nations where the Arab population makes up the majority either, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, etc.
- Zarathu 17y agoIn Lebanon, there are tons of startups. That's because the Arab population isn't oppressed by their own government the way they are in Saudi Arabia (women being executed for witchcraft and so forth). I can't believe someone down-voted my previous comment. Is it now anti-Semitic to say that the Jews aren't genetically superior to everyone else?
- Zarathu 17y ago(Oh, I should let you know that Iranians are NOT Arab, contrary to popular belief. They're Persians.)
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- rkts 17y ago
- rkts 17y agoA related theory (PDF): http://homepage.mac.com/harpend/.Public/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf http://homepage.mac.com/harpend/.Public/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocs...
- joe_the_user 17y agoSigh ... let's think a bit about how speculative, ad-hoc genetic explanations for cultural achievements get traction if they spin the right way... Can there really be evidence that the genetically similar brothers and relatives of Christian priests weren't helped by their siblings status? Can we show that priests had a disproportionate amount of the intelligence genes of the Christian population to begin with? Can we show that converted Jews (like my ancestors) didn't skew the results? Can we show, even, that priest didn't actually reproduce quite freely through the behind-the-scenes-hanky-panky they were famous for? The list could go on and on. Jeesh!