Ashkenazi VS Sephardic IQ gap

[Cristiano viejo]

There is a big Sephardic Jewish community in France (400 000). It's not rare to meet Sephardic Jews who are 100% and married to people from the same ethnic group.

Do they look MENA or just South Euro?

[mieret]

Spanish contributions to science/technology: 0

You have more than twice the ammount of dislikes received than likes(and it's not that the sample is small)

I don't think it's the culture. Averages are irelevant for "achievements", the 110/120 while very useful won't revolutionize anything, having a high average makes good functionning societies but it's the top 10/20/30 percentile that matters, although you can argue maybe in a way a high average enables the top percentile to function better in a safer, stable environement. Most of the economy is driven and controlled by top percentiles, while the 1/2% brings home nobels and generally fundamental advancements. East Asians only have higher averages but peak lower.

But I dont think it is 180+IQs that Asians are lacking(in fact I think the will potentially top the list soon), I think its more a matter of other qualities(culture, creativity, risk taking, dominance, etc.)

[mieret]

IQ is a myth study says :

http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/...273(12)00584-3

The idea that intelligence can be measured by a single number — your IQ — is wrong, according to a recent study led by researchers at the University of Western Ontario (abstract). The study, published in the journal Neuron on Wednesday, involved 100,000 participants around the world taking 12 cognitive tests, with a smaller sample of the group undergoing simultaneous brain-scan testing. 'When we looked at the data, the bottom line is the whole concept of IQ — or of you having a higher IQ than me — is a myth,' said Dr. Adrian Owen, the study’s senior investigator... 'There is no such thing as a single measure of IQ or a measure of general intelligence'.

Now, this study by itself might not prove anything but when we take into consideration books like Michio Kaku's "Future of the Mind" and other studies like this we start to see IQ is at worst a myth and at best obsolete :

Goodbye, IQ Tests: Brain Imaging Predicts Intelligence Levels :

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/26/8988


Research from Washington University in St. Louis has identified variations in brain scans that they believe identify portions of the brain that are responsible for intelligence. As suspected (and as explained by cartoons) brain size does play a small role; they said that brain size accounts for 6.7 percent of variance in intelligence. Recent research has placed the brain's prefrontal cortex, a region just behind the forehead, as providing for 5 percent of the variation in intelligence between people. The research from Washington University targets the left prefrontal cortex, and the strength of neural connections that it has to the rest of the brain. They think these differences account for 10 percent of differences in intelligence among people. The study is the first to connect those differences to intelligence in people.

wow, I see a very small impact of brain size(maybe as they are able to pinpoint better the areas the effect is bigger)

[Paris-Brest]

Do they look MENA or just South Euro?

The Sephardic Jews i've seen come from North Africa and Turkey..In general North African Jews don't look like North African Muslims..They have lighter skin and different facial features..Sometimes they have light eyes..The Turkish Jews in general look like other Turkish people but i think Turkey has more diversity than N.A..

[Sp_loa]

I live in Israel so I see Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews in my school everyday.
I know school isn't the best indication for intelligence or IQ but i have to say, that at least in my class the Sephardi jews(Bulgarian and North African) doing much better in school and tests than the Ashkenazi jews.

Just remember that until the expulsion from spain(and even later in Amsterdam) the sephardi jews were the smarter group.

I think the IQ Differences are mainly due to environmental reasons and less due to a genetical reason.

If you are talking about nobel prizes- don't forget that most of the Sephardic jews lived in North Africa and the blakans while the Ashkenazi jews lived in the USA and Northern Europe- where they had more opportunities and tools to succeed.

[Selurong]

Sephardic Jews have a more ancient and cultured history about them compared to the later Ashkenazim.

[Selurong]

@Cristiano viejo

I think grand Inquisitor Torquemada really had Jewish descent. It's just being downplayed though.

Being of Jewish descent is no obstacle to being a good Christian.
One of the best theologians of the Church, Teresa de Avila, a saint of Spain, also had Jewish ancestors, his grandfather was a Sephardic.

[Selurong]

As for the higher Ashkenazim IQ, part of it may be due to environmental pressures and part of it maybe due to hybrid vigor. Like in plants and animals, when two different strains or races breed together, they turn out stronger or smarter than their purer parents. Seeing that Ashkenazis are half European and half Semitic, then they might be a result of hybrid vigor.

[SkyBurn]

Sephardic Jews have a more ancient and cultured history about them compared to the later Ashkenazim.

This is a very silly statement. They're as old as each other, as they stem from the same population group.

As for the higher Ashkenazim IQ, part of it may be due to environmental pressures and part of it maybe due to hybrid vigor. Like in plants and animals, when two different strains or races breed together, they turn out stronger or smarter than their purer parents. Seeing that Ashkenazis are half European and half Semitic, then they might be a result of hybrid vigor.

Sephardic peoples are not that much more semitic than Ashkenazis genetically.

[Insuperable]

IQ is not the best measure of intelligence possible. Chinese superiority how ? Superiority on a test ? France, Britain, Germany and Italy all have more human accomplishments in the arts and sciences than the Chinese and the population of China (average 'IQ' 106) dwarfs that of these populations. Obviously, the culture is important too and Western culture is superior to Eastern culture that is perhaps an explanation. However, the scientist Michio Kaku in his book "The Future of the Mind" does a pretty good job of eviscerating the concept of IQ as a valid measure of intelligence. Just like genetics went through a Golden age in in the 90s, with the human genome project, neuroscience is now in a golden age with the BRAIN project etc... and in the future we are likely to have better measures of intelligence than the flawed concept of IQ.


You rest too much on your laurels based on your IQ score. Rest instead on real world accomplishments then I might start to listen to you. Your IQ score gives you no authority with me. It might with other fools, though.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of IQ tests. They are not a bad indicator. The problem is that there are several dimensions of spatial, numerical or verbal intelligence. Very, very few tests manage to cover all of those dimensions. Plus they have to test both divergent and convergent thinking. Accomplished scientists (especially those in physical science) excel in every dimension of intelligence.