But why do religious minorities overachieve? Is this just because there's a smaller population size so they have a higher deviation from the overall population mean? (are there just as many underachieving religious minorities?) Or do religious minorities tend to overachieve for some reason? Because that reason would be very interesting.
I think it's often been supposed that being part of religous minority makes you VERY self-concious of being different, that you see the world in a different way--and that can lead to a burst of creativity. It was also true of Christian minorities in England, such as Milton or Pope and Elgar (both Catholics). Also that being part of a religous minority often comes with tight social support/patronage networks.
Education (along with urbanization) may have something to do with it. At the start of the Industrial Revolution and when Britain was expanding its empire, Scotland had 4 ancient unis from the medieval period, a couple in its biggest cities while much more populous England had only 2 and they were in college towns, not London where the action is/was.
Noah’s style is to say something superficial and move on. I remember his tweets about women leaders being superior to men when it came to COVID control (a plausible hypothesis, but the evidence was crap). Only a D grade thinker promotes such thinking.
I have a theory. The major religions, excluding Jewry, place a human being (Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha) between themselves and the Creator. Jews don't do that.
As a result, what Jews believe in is infinite, unknowable and without limit. Pretty good traits to have back on Earth when trying to figure out things.
Perhaps Ashkenazi Jewish achievement has something to do with the Flynn effect. Because of European restrictions on where Jews could live and what they could do in Europe, Jewish people were confined to a few professions, mostly in cities and mostly involving symbolic manipulation. Therefore, Jewish communities in Europe developed as WEIRD people before others, and also saw their IQ's raised before other groups that were not living in cities dealing with abstraction and symbolic manipulation.
The other really convincing argument from above is that the first one: Ashkenazi Jewish emigration to the US, and also to Israel, was selective, sadly.
"I can easily see the same happening to Jews, especially given ultra-low Jewish fertility rates"
Pew did a study on american jews and they found a fertility rate of 1.9 children per woman aged 40-49, compared to 2.2 for US adults. https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2013/10/jewish-american-full-report-for-web.pdf I would not describe that as "ultralow", probably similar to most of the OECD and well higher than east asia or southern europe, if you control for education/race its probably the same as americans as a whole. Israel has very high fertility rates, easily the highest in the world among advanced economies.
And it should be noted that Jews with Jewish spouses have a fertility rate of 2.8, the second highest of the religious/ethnic groups measured by PEW. In fact, Tacitus was complaining about high Jewish birthrates when he wrote.
I would also say that in America, among other high-skilled immigrant groups, Jews could pass most easily for White. In Europe, where culture wasn't defined as White vs. Black, that meant that Jews were looked on as "chameleons" who deceptively blended in. But in America, where culture IS defined primarily as White vs. Black, being a Jew in many ways was like being "Class 1b", instead of second-class.
I suspect selective immigration is a major driver. It seems that ethnicities that were the most selected have done the best. Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos are caught in one of the quirks of the US immigration law, and unlike most nationalities recent cohorts have been restricted to the best-educated occupations. (I note that before 1965, before the current law, Chinese immigrants weren't seen as particularly intelligent.) Conversely, Native Americans didn't immigrate and weren't selected at all. American Blacks weren't voluntary immigrants, and given that they were actively captured and sold by African polities, chances are that they were negatively selected from the source populations. Jews are likely a more complicated case; most American Jews come from Ashkenazi populations, and Sephardim and Mizrahim are underrepresented. But Ashkenazim seem to have unusually benefited from the mosaic of which occupations they were and weren't allowed to practice in Medieval Europe.
A common idea is that a group concept of the group's innate superiority combined with a sense of group vulnerability tends to focus members' efforts on doing well.
My instinct is that significantly lower rates of alcohol use and abuse is a chunk of dark matter explaining the above-average outcomes. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095014
Certainly there's a wide variation among cultures and subcultures, even within the US, in the degree to which alcohol consumption per se is seen as a major recreational activity. That's going to have a major effect on how successful a group is at intellectual and intellectual-adjacent pursuits. Then again, only since 1950 or so has "intellectual and intellectual-adjacent pursuits" been key to prosperity in the US; before that people could get paid well for unskilled labor.
Another example of the sheer genius of the Jews lies in the Hebrew Bible !
The Israeli gobbling of Palestine – as Israel is the name of Jacob,the son of Isaac ! It is NOT deft diplomacy and geopolitics - it is the divine destiny of the Jews (as per the Jews)
“Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel since you have striven with god and men and have prevailed” (Genesis – 32:29).
Israel Gobbling Palestine by deception and treachery,is all a part of the lineage of Jacob,who cheated Esau and His father Isaac ! This is Isaac the son of ABRAHAM the PROPHET ! But as per Maimonides,this was NOT a Cheating – as Yaweh had PROMISED Jacob’s mother that he would be the successor,and Isaac TRIED TO BREAK THAT COVENANT
Hence,the THEFT of Jacob (and the cheating of his father Isaac) was justified,and so is the Israeli occupation as – BENJY IS FULFILING THE PROPHECY MADE BY YAWEH to REBECCA (the mother of Jacob !)
The Israelis do NOT CARE for what the world THINKS – as they view the opinions of the world,as that of ESAU (the twin of Jacob)
Mr Esau said that JACOB was RIGHTLY named JACOB,as he was a CHEAT ! (God Bless !)
Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing” (Genesis 27:36).
THIS IS THE GENIUS OF THE JEWS AND JACOB ! HE CHEATED ESAU TWICE - AND ESAU DID NOTHING !
Y Israelis care a CAHOOT for the world – is that ,as per Genesis – Yaweh also came to JACOB, and promised him success and glory (AFTER HE CHEATED HIS FATHER AND BROTHER),and that the whole world will bow to his lineage (which is the state of the Jews today – so the Jews of Israel AND THE USA ,see it as fulfiling that prophecy !)
ALMOST THE ENTIRE WORLD IS KOW TOWING TO THE LINEAGE OF JACOB ! dindooohindoo
Wondering if you ever read or reacted to Scott Alexander’s piece on this? https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/
I kind of think everyone in Hungary actually has Jewish ancestry.
Soooo... no?
No, but I skimmed it and it was all stuff I knew and had thought about.
Noah’s ideas are a strict superset of Scott’s 😂
A more sensible world would have rewarded Scott much more than a D grade thinker like Noah.
It was a four-part series and you skimmed part 1?
But why do religious minorities overachieve? Is this just because there's a smaller population size so they have a higher deviation from the overall population mean? (are there just as many underachieving religious minorities?) Or do religious minorities tend to overachieve for some reason? Because that reason would be very interesting.
I think it's often been supposed that being part of religous minority makes you VERY self-concious of being different, that you see the world in a different way--and that can lead to a burst of creativity. It was also true of Christian minorities in England, such as Milton or Pope and Elgar (both Catholics). Also that being part of a religous minority often comes with tight social support/patronage networks.
These are the kind of posts I subscribe to you for (even if I initially thought I was subscribing to a Late Nite Noah substack). 😓😓😓
Education (along with urbanization) may have something to do with it. At the start of the Industrial Revolution and when Britain was expanding its empire, Scotland had 4 ancient unis from the medieval period, a couple in its biggest cities while much more populous England had only 2 and they were in college towns, not London where the action is/was.
Makes you think.
Did you see this direct rebuttal to your post from Scott Alexander? "Contra Smith on Jewish Selective Immigration": https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-smith-on-jewish-selective
Noah’s style is to say something superficial and move on. I remember his tweets about women leaders being superior to men when it came to COVID control (a plausible hypothesis, but the evidence was crap). Only a D grade thinker promotes such thinking.
I have a theory. The major religions, excluding Jewry, place a human being (Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha) between themselves and the Creator. Jews don't do that.
As a result, what Jews believe in is infinite, unknowable and without limit. Pretty good traits to have back on Earth when trying to figure out things.
Perhaps Ashkenazi Jewish achievement has something to do with the Flynn effect. Because of European restrictions on where Jews could live and what they could do in Europe, Jewish people were confined to a few professions, mostly in cities and mostly involving symbolic manipulation. Therefore, Jewish communities in Europe developed as WEIRD people before others, and also saw their IQ's raised before other groups that were not living in cities dealing with abstraction and symbolic manipulation.
The other really convincing argument from above is that the first one: Ashkenazi Jewish emigration to the US, and also to Israel, was selective, sadly.
"I can easily see the same happening to Jews, especially given ultra-low Jewish fertility rates"
Pew did a study on american jews and they found a fertility rate of 1.9 children per woman aged 40-49, compared to 2.2 for US adults. https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2013/10/jewish-american-full-report-for-web.pdf I would not describe that as "ultralow", probably similar to most of the OECD and well higher than east asia or southern europe, if you control for education/race its probably the same as americans as a whole. Israel has very high fertility rates, easily the highest in the world among advanced economies.
And it should be noted that Jews with Jewish spouses have a fertility rate of 2.8, the second highest of the religious/ethnic groups measured by PEW. In fact, Tacitus was complaining about high Jewish birthrates when he wrote.
I would also say that in America, among other high-skilled immigrant groups, Jews could pass most easily for White. In Europe, where culture wasn't defined as White vs. Black, that meant that Jews were looked on as "chameleons" who deceptively blended in. But in America, where culture IS defined primarily as White vs. Black, being a Jew in many ways was like being "Class 1b", instead of second-class.
This might be more accurate at this time in America, but Jews stuck out like a sore thumb and were excluded throughout history- for sake of ease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism_in_the_United_States
You’re right; I imagine it’s one of those things that progressively buoys their fortunes relative to other minorities as time goes on.
Posting this is like saying "beetlejuice" three times, but for Steve Sailer.
Oh no
I suspect selective immigration is a major driver. It seems that ethnicities that were the most selected have done the best. Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos are caught in one of the quirks of the US immigration law, and unlike most nationalities recent cohorts have been restricted to the best-educated occupations. (I note that before 1965, before the current law, Chinese immigrants weren't seen as particularly intelligent.) Conversely, Native Americans didn't immigrate and weren't selected at all. American Blacks weren't voluntary immigrants, and given that they were actively captured and sold by African polities, chances are that they were negatively selected from the source populations. Jews are likely a more complicated case; most American Jews come from Ashkenazi populations, and Sephardim and Mizrahim are underrepresented. But Ashkenazim seem to have unusually benefited from the mosaic of which occupations they were and weren't allowed to practice in Medieval Europe.
A common idea is that a group concept of the group's innate superiority combined with a sense of group vulnerability tends to focus members' efforts on doing well.
https://twitter.com/jonathan_amit/status/1507432714072375299
My instinct is that significantly lower rates of alcohol use and abuse is a chunk of dark matter explaining the above-average outcomes. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095014
Certainly there's a wide variation among cultures and subcultures, even within the US, in the degree to which alcohol consumption per se is seen as a major recreational activity. That's going to have a major effect on how successful a group is at intellectual and intellectual-adjacent pursuits. Then again, only since 1950 or so has "intellectual and intellectual-adjacent pursuits" been key to prosperity in the US; before that people could get paid well for unskilled labor.
Another example of the sheer genius of the Jews lies in the Hebrew Bible !
The Israeli gobbling of Palestine – as Israel is the name of Jacob,the son of Isaac ! It is NOT deft diplomacy and geopolitics - it is the divine destiny of the Jews (as per the Jews)
“Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel since you have striven with god and men and have prevailed” (Genesis – 32:29).
Israel Gobbling Palestine by deception and treachery,is all a part of the lineage of Jacob,who cheated Esau and His father Isaac ! This is Isaac the son of ABRAHAM the PROPHET ! But as per Maimonides,this was NOT a Cheating – as Yaweh had PROMISED Jacob’s mother that he would be the successor,and Isaac TRIED TO BREAK THAT COVENANT
Hence,the THEFT of Jacob (and the cheating of his father Isaac) was justified,and so is the Israeli occupation as – BENJY IS FULFILING THE PROPHECY MADE BY YAWEH to REBECCA (the mother of Jacob !)
The Israelis do NOT CARE for what the world THINKS – as they view the opinions of the world,as that of ESAU (the twin of Jacob)
Mr Esau said that JACOB was RIGHTLY named JACOB,as he was a CHEAT ! (God Bless !)
Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing” (Genesis 27:36).
THIS IS THE GENIUS OF THE JEWS AND JACOB ! HE CHEATED ESAU TWICE - AND ESAU DID NOTHING !
Y Israelis care a CAHOOT for the world – is that ,as per Genesis – Yaweh also came to JACOB, and promised him success and glory (AFTER HE CHEATED HIS FATHER AND BROTHER),and that the whole world will bow to his lineage (which is the state of the Jews today – so the Jews of Israel AND THE USA ,see it as fulfiling that prophecy !)
ALMOST THE ENTIRE WORLD IS KOW TOWING TO THE LINEAGE OF JACOB ! dindooohindoo