The Ashkenazi Jews

I just finished a book called The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution.  It was a fascinating read, and I recommend it if you're into learning about that sort of stuff.

One part I found particularly interesting was a section on the Ashkenazi Jews.  This is a group of Jews who lived in the Rhineland.  Ashkenazi is the Hebrew word for Germany.  To highlight the intellectual prominence of the Ashkenazim, authors Cochran and Harpending note the following:

"Jewish intellectual prominence is striking.  As we have said, Ashkenazi Jews are vastly overrepresented in science.  Their numbers among prominent scientists are roughly ten times greater than you'd expect from their share of the population in the United States and Europe.  Over the past two generations they have won more than a quarter of all Nobel science prizes, although they make up less than on-six-hundredth of the world's population.  Although they represent less than 3 percent of the U.S. population, they won 27 percent of the U.S. Nobel Prizes in science during that period and 25 percent of the A.M. Turing Awards (given annually by the Association for computing Machinery).  Ashkenazi Jews account for half of twentieth-century world chess champions.  American Jews are also overrepresented in other areas, such as business (where they account for about a fifth of CEOs) and academia (where they make up about 22 percent of Ivy League students)."

Picking out a few other pieces of data from the book, the average IQ of this ethnic group is 112-115, which is about 3/4 of a standard deviation above the European mean of 100.  This difference has a strong impact on the number of people with extremely high IQs.  The disparity has produced personalities like Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Murray Gell-Mann, Ed Witten, and Grigori Perelman.  (That last name is a fun one to Google.  The dude proved a 100-year old math problem and then decline both The Fields Medal as well as a one-million dollar reward.)

While they warn the idea is controversial, they contend the difference in this group is biological as a result of natural selection on intelligence.  There are several interesting pieces in place which make the situation unique.  Among them was the groups role in cognitively demanding occupations.  Their surroundings - like the Christians refusing to offer usury - threw them in these roles (specifically financing).  Another factor was the Ashkenazi's endogamy.  This practice kept the genetic mix inside their group.

Adding weight to this thesis is specific genetic diseases extremely prevalent among their numbers.  Tay-Sachs and Gaucher's disease are among these.  A few of these genetic mutations, including Tay-Sachs, are the only known disease alleles that increase neural connections.

Of course, their case is more involved than the pieces I've mentioned.  If you find it interesting, I'll let you experience the pleasure of reading the book yourself.  Other topics in the book include eye colors, lactose tolerance, affects of agriculture, how disease resistance and vulnerability shaped the way the world was conquered, and more.