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Jewish Nobel Laureates

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Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#51

Post by graeme »

benched wrote: post #14
alphakappa wrote: post #10

While 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…

I 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.

As 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.

Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#52

Post by azinman2 »

jaryd wrote: post #12
hrasyid wrote: post #9

By 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?

In 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 respe…

I'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/2003/0...). 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).

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).

Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#53

Post by brymaster »

downandout wrote: post #42
alphakappa wrote: post #10

While 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…

Agreed. I'm not sure why this belongs on HN. It seems very divisive and out of place in the context of the HN community. This list is very short in comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_Nobel_Laureates . Should we be promoting all of the negative connotations associated with that when compared to the Jewish list?

Thanks. I had submitted that link to the "Black Nobel Laureates" earlier and let it sit for 30 minutes after no upvotes, then deleted it. Made it appear as if this thread was pride-based upvoting that de-evolved into "Jews have super human intelligence" with no discussion on socioeconomics.

Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#55

Post by clarkm »

ekianjo wrote: post #38
marze wrote: post #29

The 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 w…

am 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 co…

> am i reading this on hn? what are your sources?

This type of incredulous response is one of the most annoying thing about HN. It's pretty obvious that you've never put any serious thought into the issue; yet, instead of investigating for yourself, you make up some just-so story that puts you at ease.

A simple Google Scholar search would provide you will all types of answers, but since I doubt you'll be bothered to actually read an academic paper, just listen to Steven Pinker on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GexZF5VIMU

Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#56

Post by SqMafia »

hrasyid wrote: post #9

By 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?

Unless they can control for all other factors or at least most of them, any explanation is going to look pretty silly.

Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#57

Post by SqMafia »

pedalpete wrote: post #45
wisty wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For centuries, Jews in Europe were effectively barred from a great many professions. The big exception tended to be finance (money lending - which Christians were often barred from). So Jewish kids had to learn a lot of math, and some Jewish families had a lot of money. There's actually a big boost second-generation immigrants get. They understand the culture they are in, but they feel they need to work hard to keep…

I've read that because they often learn both Hebrew and English as young children, and therefore learn to read and write both left-to-right and right-to-left, this has an effect on the number of neural connections across both sides of the brain which results in an increase in creativity. Unfortunately, I can't find a link which even references this. If this is the case, we may see a similar increase in Muslims in the…

I would be very skeptical since the same would apply to Chinese Americans too among others.

Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#58

Post by clarkm »

ekm2 wrote: post #41
mynameishere wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average IQ of 115 among the Ashkenazim. That's why. It's not really that interesting, but it enrages almost everyone who hears it. 115 isn't that smart, but it works out that they have a huge disproportion of members in the more important 145+ IQ range. Anyway, you'll find that Jews have similar numbers in such things as Fields medals, Senate seats, the Forbes 400, etc, all at about 15-25 percent of the total.

East asians have a higher average IQ,so it is not necessarily a straight iQ thing.

No they don't.

Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#59

Post by clarkm »

SqMafia wrote: post #54

Wow. 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.

Yeah, Richard Dawkins got in trouble for tweeting something very similar a couple months ago:

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/365473573768400896

Re: Jewish Nobel Laureates

#60

Post by batgaijin »

unknownian wrote: post #34
batgaijin wrote: post #25

Interestingly all Abrahamic religions begin with a warning about the tree of knowledge... I still can't believe what a fucked up parable that is.

All Abrahamic religions? Islam does not call it the tree "of knowledge" and pursuit of knowledge is encouraged (at least in Islam).

my b
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