Reevaluating IQ Disparities: Privilege vs. Genetics

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they challenge the widely-held belief about Ashkenazi Jewish intellectual superiority. This eye-opening discussion explores:

* The misrepresentation and manipulation of IQ studies

* How cultural practices, not genetics, may explain Jewish success

* The dangers of racial IQ theories and their societal impact

* The role of nepotism and networking in different cultural groups

* The future of genetic selection and its implications for ethnic differences

* Surprising facts about Jewish involvement in historical movements

* How internet culture may be amplifying Jewish representation in certain fields

Whether you're interested in genetics, cultural studies, or the complexities of societal success, this video offers a nuanced perspective on a controversial topic. The Collinses provide a balanced, data-driven approach to understanding the true nature of Jewish achievement and its implications for our understanding of intelligence and success.

[00:00:00] remember the first study I, I mentioned where I said Jews were only 1 percent smarter, right? On average, when you considered all of the information. So what that meant. If you were going to get a like a standard deviation higher, that meant on some tests they had to be scoring unusually good.

Yeah. And on some tests they had to be scoring unusually poorly. Yeah. They were scoring unusually poorly on the nonverbal reasoning test. Yeah, so in other words, Jews appear to be word cells and not shape rotators in internet parlance yeah. So then this guy comes in and he's basically like, I can't believe that there are some areas where Jews do uniquely well and some areas where Jews do uniquely poorly.

So how about we just look at the areas where they do well? Yeah, let's do, redo the battery. But only include the test where I know from the previous data that they're doing well. Problem solved, Malcolm. Problem solved. I want to be clear, the core guy who did this research that was cherry picked using only verbal scores, , Richard Lynn, in [00:01:00] his words, the only representative study ever conducted other than his own.

was that other study that we were looking at. Okay. So it's not that we're cherry picking. We're using the studies that he is pointing to. the strongest data backed claim that a person can reasonably make about Jewish IQ differences is that Ashkenazi Jews have a marginally better verbal IQ and math skills, which is pretty amazing.

offset by marginally lower visual spatial intelligence and reasoning

Would you like to know more?

Hello, Simone. I am excited to be talking to you again today. Today we are going to go over another topic that is delved into heavily in one of our books, which means we'll be reading some parts of one of our books.

Whenever we get to a place where there's a citation, you can just go to the book and find whatever the citation was. It'll be some study or something. As I read, I'll just say citations. Yeah. I don't want to keep interjecting here, but this is one of our biggest surprises when we were writing the pragmatist guide to crafting religion.

Was that we sort of came to the realization that the [00:02:00] Jewish Ashkenazi Jewish population specifically does not actually seem to have the IQ advantage that all the gene bros would tell you that they have. And there has been some intentional misrepresentation of data in this area. And from a cultural perspective, that's really interesting.

Because it means that their cultural success has more to do with cultural practices and a natural advantage. But which is much more interesting to talk about because that's the culture is what we have control over. Yeah. All right. Jump into it. Simone when we started writing this book, we were fairly certain that Jews were smarter than other groups, either at a cultural or genetic level.

Anecdotally, we like to think we associate with disproportionately intelligent people, as gauged by notable professional achievement, and have no reason to mostly be friends with Jews. Yet a huge chunk of our friends are either Orthodox Jews or secular Jews. Objectively, Jews win Nobel [00:03:00] prizes at a rate 100 times higher than would be expected given their population levels.

Among the highest ranked chess players, 51 percent have at least one Jewish parent. This is not something that could be easily explained by nepotism. Jews are represented among the world's richest people at a rate 100, 000 percent higher than would be expected. They make up 19 percent of the Forbes 200 richest list and 0.

19 percent of the world population. Jew, oh, citation, Jews are overrepresented in Congress and the Senate at a rate of about. 400 percent higher than one would expect based on their population in the United States. Another citation there. , Jewish success is plain for anyone to see. Jews are dotted in positions of power throughout our society at a rate that would not be expected, given that they only make up 2 percent of the U.

S. population. Consider, for example, that as of this book's creation, 41. 61 of Joe Rogan's political [00:04:00] guests have been Jewish, and 20. 27 percent of his science guests have been Jewish. , we have a little game that we used to play when we would do parties in New York, where we'd be like, okay, how many people here at the party are Jewish?

Because we're not inviting people to be Jewish. Remember it was always like at least 50 percent of the people. Yeah. Sometimes there would only be like two people in the room who weren't Jewish. And we are not disproportionately like intentionally associating with Jewish individuals. Which to me indicates, for whatever reason, cultural affinity, anything like that, when we're trying to select individuals who we have judged because who goes to our parties.

Like, I'm not friends with people to talk to them. Because we don't like, Friends. Like, I don't want to waste time being friendly with someone, right? I would only invite somebody if I thought that they were either going to be useful to our career or useful to our mission of changing the world. And so we're looking for interesting.

Yeah, people who have power or people who are likely to have power in the future. That's what we were optimizing for and that ended up with a disproportionately Jewish [00:05:00] group. Well, I also wonder because at these parties too, especially because they're largely Gen X, Millennial and Gen Z attendees, they're insanely flaky.

And I wonder if Jews have a lower flake rate. Maybe Jews show up, but maybe that's why Jews have so many positions of power because they don't flake on life. That maybe it Anyway, continue reading. It comes as no surprise that many people have come to the conclusion that Jews must be smarter than other people on average.

That said, after going over the evidence, we have changed our minds on the subject drastically. This was such a jarring change of opinion. We had to make edits throughout the book after it happened. First, let's get the most common myth out of the way that, quote, Jews are smart because the Holocaust acted as a selection event, eliminating less intelligent Jewish population.

The types of evidence cited in this argument, Jews being overrepresented in educated professions and positions of power, can be seen in data before the Holocaust. [00:06:00] For example, in pre Holocaust Germany, Jews were overrepresented in the medical profession at a rate of of more than 1, 500 percent with 47 percent of pediatricians being Jewish, even though Jews accounted for only 0.

9 percent of the population at the time, citation. Stats like this can be found virtually anywhere you look in reference to pre Holocaust Jewish populations. It is similarly unlikely that, quote, pogroms made Jews smart, unquote. We say this for two reasons. The first being that other groups plagued by pogroms, like the Romani, a.

k. a. gypsies, are not also known for being disproportionately in jobs requiring higher education. Second, Jews objectively are not pa…

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe