Shrunk wrote:

tribalypredisposed wrote:
2)"...there is no evidence that they exhibit higher intelligence scores than other groups." "Entine laid out the data. The average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 107 to 115, well above the human average of 100. " "...the average Ashkenazi Jewish score of 122 on verbal IQ tests" - http://www.slate.com/id/2177228/

% Jewish
20-30% Westinghouse Science Prize
30% Faculty at elite colleges
30% Supreme Court Law Clerks
27% Ivy Leaguers
25% ACM Turing Award
27% Nobel Prizes won by Americans

- http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/dialogue.htm

And of course all the other data I provided in an earlier post...47% of world chess champions for one. Even if the average of Jewish intelligence is not higher than 100, as some sources claim, we do produce more outliers on the far right of the bell curve than other groups. Far more. That is highly unlikely to be purely cultural.

Interesting line of argument. I see you are also Canadian, so perhaps you'll find this chart interesting:

http://www.thephysicsofhockey.com/documents/country.pdf

As you can see Canadian, making up only 0.5% of the world's population, make up over 50% of elite professional hockey players.

I guess the only conclusion we can draw from that is that Canadians are genetically predisposed to excelling at hockey, and even if the Canadian climate was the same as that of Brazil those statistics would be the same.

I was so impressed with that post that I forgot what I wanted to say.

Oh yes, on IQs, you need an IQ of at least 108 in order to finish high school. I'm not going to look that up, I remember learning it in psychology about 300 years ago. Anyway the point is that anyone who completes high school, already has an above average IQ, so big deal about 107 IQs. I'm not impressed.

BTW, I realize this is late in the game, but can anyone explain why including the word "the" in the title of this thread seems vaguely offensive (to me, at least)?

Shrunk wrote:

tribalypredisposed wrote:
2)"...there is no evidence that they exhibit higher intelligence scores than other groups." "Entine laid out the data. The average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 107 to 115, well above the human average of 100. " "...the average Ashkenazi Jewish score of 122 on verbal IQ tests" - http://www.slate.com/id/2177228/

% Jewish
20-30% Westinghouse Science Prize
30% Faculty at elite colleges
30% Supreme Court Law Clerks
27% Ivy Leaguers
25% ACM Turing Award
27% Nobel Prizes won by Americans

- http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/dialogue.htm

And of course all the other data I provided in an earlier post...47% of world chess champions for one. Even if the average of Jewish intelligence is not higher than 100, as some sources claim, we do produce more outliers on the far right of the bell curve than other groups. Far more. That is highly unlikely to be purely cultural.

Interesting line of argument. I see you are also Canadian, so perhaps you'll find this chart interesting:

http://www.thephysicsofhockey.com/documents/country.pdf

As you can see Canadian, making up only 0.5% of the world's population, make up over 50% of elite professional hockey players.

I guess the only conclusion we can draw from that is that Canadians are genetically predisposed to excelling at hockey, and even if the Canadian climate was the same as that of Brazil those statistics would be the same.

Yeah, as a short Jewish person growing up in Tucson I was genetically and culturally not very likely to become a pro hockey player. On the other hand, my nephew who is 4 years old, 46" tall, strong as hell, incredibly well coordinated, basically impervious to pain...and whose father played hockey and grandparents coached hockey and who has been skating several years and started practicing with a hockey stick three years ago.... Even though there are some players in minor leagues my size or so it is very rare, and even more rare to see them in the NHL.

I have never said culture played no role. I said nature via nurture. If you do not have the gifts to develop, it does not matter what else happens. If you are born to be huge and fast and strong and agile it sure does help you to make it to the NHL. That is all genetics. If you can count to 100 by tens and fives and twenties when you are 21 months old, not likely that is purely cultural.

I know we have a cultural norm that it is wrong to believe human groups can differ from each other genetically. Unfortunately, pure science says this is very possible. Like it or not, a large part of being an elite athlete is inborn genetics. The top American male distance runner moved to the US as an overweight teenager who had never run a mile. From a certain part of Kenya....Most humans alive could never begin to compete at the world level in chess, no matter what their environment. I know grown men who teach chess and dedicate their lives to it, former state champions, who have been dominated by a seven year old (Tal Shaked who went on to become a Grand Master at a younger age than Bobby Fischer). Tal is Jewish....

tribalypredisposed wrote:

Shrunk wrote:Interesting line of argument. I see you are also Canadian, so perhaps you'll find this chart interesting:

http://www.thephysicsofhockey.com/documents/country.pdf

As you can see Canadian, making up only 0.5% of the world's population, make up over 50% of elite professional hockey players.

I guess the only conclusion we can draw from that is that Canadians are genetically predisposed to excelling at hockey, and even if the Canadian climate was the same as that of Brazil those statistics would be the same.

Yeah, as a short Jewish person growing up in Tucson I was genetically and culturally not very likely to become a pro hockey player. On the other hand, my nephew who is 4 years old, 46" tall, strong as hell, incredibly well coordinated, basically impervious to pain...and whose father played hockey and grandparents coached hockey and who has been skating several years and started practicing with a hockey stick three years ago.... Even though there are some players in minor leagues my size or so it is very rare, and even more rare to see them in the NHL.

I have never said culture played no role. I said nature via nurture. If you do not have the gifts to develop, it does not matter what else happens. If you are born to be huge and fast and strong and agile it sure does help you to make it to the NHL. That is all genetics. If you can count to 100 by tens and fives and twenties when you are 21 months old, not likely that is purely cultural.

But whether you those mathematical gifts are nurtured and exploited to the point that one receives the training and education to become a chess master or Nobel Prize winning physicist is almost purely cultural. If we start from the assumption that there is no genetic basis to intelligence, would we not still expect certain cultural groups to produce more individuals of such achievement? Absolutely. Just as if every individual person was exactly the same in terms of size, strength, etc. we would still see Canadians dominating the NHL. So your continuing to point out the number of Jews who had succeeded in intellectual pursuits is pointless to the argument you're trying to present.

Federico wrote:As you well know, I have contributed to the discussions in the thread 'You Only Use 10pc of Your Brain' Claim mainly elaborating about the heritability and substratum for Intelligence.
Now, I don't intend to reproduce here all my writings but only a few paragraphs:

"Although the relative importance of each is still matter for debate, it is now well demonstrated that Nature and Nurture both play an important role.
...data obtained mainly using imaging techniques have allowed to formulate the idea that high intelligence stems from faster information processing by the brain, and that underlying such speed is an unusually efficient neural circuitry.
...Are the brains of geniuses such as Einstein structurally different from those of "normal people?
Studies performed in various laboratories have demonstrated that Einstein's brain lacked the parietal operculum region in the inferior frontal gyrus and the lateral sulcus, while -- as if to compensate -- the inferior parietal lobe ( which is responsible for mathematical thought) was wider than normal.
....These data suggest that genius level performances in memory tasks and/or mathematics which is accompanied by enlargement of some brain areas, as if to compensate , is associated with poor social and/or language skills together with a decrease in volume of the corresponding brain areas."

Indeed, I do remember your posts there. I also disagreed with nearly all of them.

Federico wrote:There is something more I wish to add to this post.

First of all (and I'm repeating myself)), it was not my intention to get into a discussion about race-linked intelligence dispute; but I was afraid it would come to that.

As for the Nature/Nurture respective roles in the transmission of some cognitive capacity, I will be enough daring to cite the opinion of two geniuses, Paganini and Goethe.

Paganini used to say that to become a great violin player it takes both Talent and Discipline. And that applied also to himself since if he stopped only one day from practicing he was the only one to notice , but if he stopped two days or more even the others would notice.

Goethe used to say that genius is half talent and half transpiration.

I don't care what Paganini and Goethe used to say, they were artists not scientists, and they based their beliefs on subjective anecdotal experience.

tribalypredisposed wrote:
1)"No scientist assumes that larger brain = intelligence." Really? So all of those textbooks and peer reviewed papers and so on that discuss the relative sizes of our ancestors and relatives (we do not know which are which in many cases) brains and speculate about their intelligence and assume it was not equal to ours BECAUSE THEIR BRAINS WERE SMALLER are written by non-scientists? Weird.

Not non-scientists, no, but I imagine you've misunderstood what the studies said. As I mentioned, the encephalisation quotient gives us a very weak correlation with intelligence, so what you're trying to discuss is research that uses the brain-to-body-mass ratio to compare differences in intelligence between extant and extinct species, not relative size. But no scientist thinks that a larger brain = intelligence; it can sometimes be used as a rough indicator, but it's not evidence in itself as there are numerous other factors that affect intelligence. As a direct example of this, if larger brain = intelligence, then the shrew is by far the most intelligent species on the planet.

tribalypredisposed wrote:It is true that there has not been a correlation shown in modern humans between brain size and intelligence. On the other hand, it would seem logically to be purely maladaptive to have a larger brain that serves no useful purpose and consumes huge amounts of calories, enacting an unavoidable fitness cost. If our brains evolved as some sort of paperweight, then they are pretty costly paperweights. Seems fairly unlikely that we would evolve to have brains three times as large as would be expected for a primate our size if there was not some sort of payoff, something like, I dunno, maybe intelligence?

Maybe intelligence, maybe something else. Sexual selection is one explanation, in that having a costly resource is similar to peacock feathers. The other explanation is that our discovery of fire made it possible to feed a higher resource hungry brain, etc etc. We also have to keep in mind that neanderthals had far larger brains than we do, yet they were (according to research) far less intelligent than us. So having a large energy-hungry brain does not necessarily mean that we will be intelligent, nor does it mean that it isn't disadvantageous.

tribalypredisposed wrote:2)"...there is no evidence that they exhibit higher intelligence scores than other groups." "Entine laid out the data. The average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 107 to 115, well above the human average of 100. " "...the average Ashkenazi Jewish score of 122 on verbal IQ tests" - http://www.slate.com/id/2177228/

Do you have a link to the actual research? Given that the claims are supported by Charles Murray, who made numerous incorrect claims in the Bell Curve, I'm naturally skeptical. Especially considering that other studies showed a below average-to-average representation of Jewish people in verbal tests.

tribalypredisposed wrote:% Jewish
20-30% Westinghouse Science Prize
30% Faculty at elite colleges
30% Supreme Court Law Clerks
27% Ivy Leaguers
25% ACM Turing Award
27% Nobel Prizes won by Americans

- http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/dialogue.htm

And of course all the other data I provided in an earlier post...47% of world chess champions for one. Even if the average of Jewish intelligence is not higher than 100, as some sources claim, we do produce more outliers on the far right of the bell curve than other groups. Far more. That is highly unlikely to be purely cultural.

Why is it highly unlikely to be cultural? You have absolutely no evidence to make that claim.

tribalypredisposed wrote:3)I have read your "paper" attacking Evolutionary Psychology. It is in a thread that is closed so I could not comment on the many large errors you made there. In general I would recommend that you seek to understand disciplines before you attack them or dismiss them. As Evo Psych is a new field, none of the "established" scientists within it have degrees in Evo Psych. They all come from other disciplines and claim to be doing Evo Psych. In some cases their work is world class; for example, E.O. Wilson and David Sloan Wilson both do very thorough, logically precise, and careful work. Leblanc is also very good, and there are others. Then there are those who claim Evo Psych as a way to legitimize their pre-existing bias, like Harpending who is not using Evo Psych at all, really. And there are those like Buss who are just incredibly sloppy thinkers and scholars who are literally not up to the mental challenges of Evo Psych.

But please keep in mind that Evolutionary Psychology is really a new discipline with a new tool kit and is not defined by either the scientists currently attempting to use it or by the hypothesis they generate. The stuff about the EEA is sillyness (since we clearly must have adaptations from before this period and are empirically known to have some from after it as well), and the ideas about the "modular mind" are likely to require some refinement at best, and lord knows the obsession with answering the question "why cant I, the researcher, get laid" is very annoying. But the concept that we can usefully apply the Theory of Evolution, knowledge of primates and other group social species, Game Theory, Cultural and Physical Anthropology, and Neuroscience to come up with new hypothesis about human psychology and evolved behavioral predispositions is sound. If we can find evidence to support our hypothesis from all of those fields (well, maybe we do not have to have support from primatology all the time), including that X is found universaly in cultures around the world (and it can have a given range of expression and not be found in all individuals and still qualify), then we have a legitimate Evo Psych hypothesis. This takes a huge amount of work and most are just not up to it, do not have the mastery of the various fields needed or are not willing to work hard enough, and the demands of academia to publish frequently also make it more difficult.

At this point any professor in Psychology or Anthropology or even Philosophy can claim to be doing Evolutionary Psychology. Whether they are really applying the toolkit of Evo Psych or not is an entirely different question, as is their ability to do so with any competence.

You say that I made a number of huge errors in my essay, yet your ensuing critique is basically a summary of what I wrote. My essay was an attack on a particular breed of evo psych, namely the school of thought supported by Buss. The main problems being the EEA and modular mind assumptions, as well as the fact that many of the researchers in that area are woefully uneducated in basic evolutionary biology. This is all what I said.

I also then went on to clarify, in both the introduction and conclusion, that it was not an attack on evolutionary psychology as a field. The fact that there are great researchers in the area, and the fact that there is some amazing research coming out of it, is indisputable. I know the field very well, as well as a number of figures in the field, so I'd never suggest that the entire area is useless. However, this still does not change the fact that you have applied the same broad brush stroke attack against sociology, whilst supporting a more controversial field.

Your comment on universality, whilst understandably only a passing comment, is slightly incomplete. Whilst it's true that finding a universal behavior is evidence for something being evolved, and this isn't affected by some variation, we have to keep in mind that this is incredibly weak evidence by itself since we know that universal behaviors can come about without an evolutionary component. As I discussed in my essay, this is a common misconception in a lot of the poorer evolutionary psychologists who fail to recognise that species-specific environmental constraints also produce universal behaviors; for example, all cultures across the world eat soup from a bowl. This is because we are all subject to gravity, and not because we have a "soup from a bowl" behavior.

Mr.Samsa wrote:
Indeed, I do remember your posts there. I also disagreed with nearly all of them.

Well, I'm not surprised. Because of your penchant for debunkung, I'm sure you would disagree with Einstein and his Theory of Relativity!
Actually, in a sense I should thank you for egging me on to find evidences you wouldn't disagree with. And indeed I'm ready to submit to your criticism two examples which I believe illustrate quite nicely the interaction of Nature and Nurture in the development of Intelligence.
The first one concerns Italy and the transition from the Dark Ages to the Age of Light also called The Renaissance.
The famous Renaissance historian Jacob Burkhardt in his essay, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, writes that the Renaissance was, as an historical event, the transition from medieval times, during which the focus of all life had been religion, to modern times, in which that focus expanded to include learning, rationality, and realism.
This transition occurred between 1300 and 1400, and the works of art and literature produced in Italy between 1350 and 1550 had a profound impact on the development of Europe during the next centuries.
.... the talent and splendor with which the artists and writers, funded by generous leaders, created their masterpieces is astounding. And, in particular, we see that, after a long period during which very few geniuses where found, to an enormous flowering of talents such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello, Michelangelo, Macchiavelli, Galileo etc.
Where did they come from? Certainly not a mutation which would activate the genes of Intelligence. Those genes must have been present in the genetic pool of Italians (Nature) but to have them expressed, favorable conditions were needed (Nurture).

The other example concerns Japanese and theirrecently developped passion for music and particularly violin music.
The Suzuki method has brought forth the high standard musician hidden in many japanese children who indeed became greatly esteemed professional violin players, but, as far as I know, not a single Paganini, yet. This, IMO, is due to the fact that they (probably) lack the gene necessary to become a musical genius.

Now, just to illustrate the fact I have nothing against the Jews, I will bring forward a recent discovery making also the Irish different.
Sequencing Of First Irish Genome

"Everybody knows the Irish are different but, for the first time, a research team from UCD Conway Institute led by Professor Brendan Loftus , identified specific markers.
Indeed, the Irish population is of interest to biomedical researchers because of its isolated geography, ancestral impact on further populations and the high prevalence of a number of diseases.
The researchers used HapMap and previous gene association studies to identify new DNA variants such as insertions/deletions (indels) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).
Nearly 200,000 indels and over 3 million SNPs were identified in the Irish genome sequence. Of the SNPs, 13% were novel, potentially including markers specific to Irish ancestry or indicators of disease. In particular, one of the new SNPs interferes with the production of a macrophage-stimulating protein, thought to be associated with inflammatory bowel disease and chronic liver disease.

These findings are a further example of the dramatic importance of mapping the entire genome of as many individuals as possible in view of identifying markers not so much of racial differences but of potentially preventable diseases.

Federico wrote:
Well, I'm not surprised. Because of your penchant for debunkung, I'm sure you would disagree with Einstein and his Theory of Relativity!

This penchant for debunking is quite common in science, and it's also the reason why the theory of relativity is one of the most tested theories *ever*. (QM apparently is better tested.) But I guess you knew that, and are trying to get some kind of get-out-of-scrutiny free card by referring to theories that are right.

I haven't followed this thread closely since I posted about Nobel Prize winners in page 2. But in the OP, Federico quoted:

Federico wrote: .....Sarrazin explained the question to which he was responding was about ‘genetic identity’. In response to the question, Sarrazin said, ‘All Jews share a certain gene. Basques (Spanish separatists) have particular genes that distinguishes them from others.’

As if to confirm Mr.Sarrazin's assertion about the presence of unique genetic differences in the Jewish population, results published online in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that analysis of Ashkenazi Jewish Genomes indicate the presence of diversity.

... and after skimming through the thread I still couldn't find a valid statement that counters it. Many genes are indeed common in the Ashkenazi genome.

When studying non-Jewish whites and Ashkenazi Jews by ancestry (4 Jewish to one Jewish grandparent(s)), the genome analysis does reveal clustering for Jews:

PC1 scores for Jewish and non-Jewish subjects. The score on PC1 plotted against the score on PC2 for Jewish (blue) and non-Jewish (red) subjects. - Need et al. Genome Biology 2009 10:R7 doi:10.1186/gb-2009-10-1-r7

Federico wrote: The other example concerns Japanese and theirrecently developped passion for music and particularly violin music. The Suzuki method has brought forth the high standard musician hidden in many japanese children who indeed became greatly esteemed professional violin players, but, as far as I know, not a single Paganini, yet. This, IMO, is due to the fact that they (probably) lack the gene necessary to become a musical genius.

Honestly, where do you keep coming up with this shit? Just one example, the first that came off the top of my head:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkp8YSuePPM[/youtube]

Shrunk wrote:

Federico wrote: The other example concerns Japanese and their recently developed passion for music and particularly violin music. The Suzuki method has brought forth the high standard musician hidden in many Japanese children who indeed became greatly esteemed professional violin players, but, as far as I know, not a single Paganini, yet. This, IMO, is due to the fact that they (probably) lack the gene necessary to become a musical genius.

Honestly, where do you keep coming up with this shit? Just one example, the first that came off the top of my head

:

Crap for you, molten gold for me.
Mind you, it's only a theory like that on evolution, but I LIKE IT.
Try to understand what I'm saying, and if you think I'm wrong explain to me why instead of using scatological words as you are wont to do.
Some ethnic groups (e.g., Italians, Jewish) probably have, for some evolutionary reason, acquired the genes for geniality in some fields, like music but only when the conditions are favorable (peace, rich patrons, etc) they can produce the works for which they are forever recognized. Other ethnic groups have not acquired such genes for music geniality, therefore even if they practice for generations they will never become a Verdi, or a Mendelssohn, or a Strauss, or a Yitzhak Pearlman, or a Paganini.
It takes both to be a genius: Genes and the right conditions.

Federico wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:
Indeed, I do remember your posts there. I also disagreed with nearly all of them.

Well, I'm not surprised. Because of your penchant for debunkung, I'm sure you would disagree with Einstein and his Theory of Relativity!

Not at all, Einstein presented logical arguments to support his ideas and these were backed up with evidence.

Federico wrote:Actually, in a sense I should thank you for egging me on to find evidences you wouldn't disagree with. And indeed I'm ready to submit to your criticism two examples which I believe illustrate quite nicely the interaction of Nature and Nurture in the development of Intelligence.
The first one concerns Italy and the transition from the Dark Ages to the Age of Light also called The Renaissance.
The famous Renaissance historian Jacob Burkhardt in his essay, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, writes that the Renaissance was, as an historical event, the transition from medieval times, during which the focus of all life had been religion, to modern times, in which that focus expanded to include learning, rationality, and realism.
This transition occurred between 1300 and 1400, and the works of art and literature produced in Italy between 1350 and 1550 had a profound impact on the development of Europe during the next centuries.
.... the talent and splendor with which the artists and writers, funded by generous leaders, created their masterpieces is astounding. And, in particular, we see that, after a long period during which very few geniuses where found, to an enormous flowering of talents such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello, Michelangelo, Macchiavelli, Galileo etc.
Where did they come from? Certainly not a mutation which would activate the genes of Intelligence. Those genes must have been present in the genetic pool of Italians (Nature) but to have them expressed, favorable conditions were needed (Nurture).

This doesn't tell us anything. It tells us that a uniquely different environmental shift produced uniquely different outputs - how much we can attribute, if anything, to nature and nurture is unknown. To do this we'd need a control group. This is just anecdotal speculation. Not to mention that the renaissance marked the beginning of a systematic form of apprenticeship-style relationships, which meant that secrets, knowledge and information was passed on in full to the student so that they can expand on it - so the "geniuses" you're discussing, are essentially just standing on the shoulders of giants. In addition, Michelangelo was a shit painter and he had no concept of the human form (da Vinci described his human figures as looking like sacks of nuts, so his position as "genius" is debatable).

Federico wrote:The other example concerns Japanese and theirrecently developped passion for music and particularly violin music.
The Suzuki method has brought forth the high standard musician hidden in many japanese children who indeed became greatly esteemed professional violin players, but, as far as I know, not a single Paganini, yet. This, IMO, is due to the fact that they (probably) lack the gene necessary to become a musical genius.

I think this has already been disproven, but you seem to be conflating "teaching" with "nurture". Most of the influential factors that go into the "nurture" side of the equation are already well set before a child even goes to school. So if a child has no interest in music, or learning, or being the best, or any other conflicting interests with becoming a musical star, then they won't become a famous musician. It's not enough to say "Look, all of these kids were taught to play the violin but only some became famous".

There was an interesting study concerning navigation skills of London taxi drivers.

http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/4398.full

"Hippocampal volume correlated with the amount of time spent as a taxi driver (positively in the posterior and negatively in the anterior hippocampus). These data are in accordance with the idea that the posterior hippocampus stores a spatial representation of the environment and can expand regionally to accommodate elaboration of this representation in people with a high dependence on navigational skills. It seems that there is a capacity for local plastic change in the structure of the healthy adult human brain in response to environmental demands."

If someone's, known to have good navigational skills, brains were analyzed and an unusually large posterior hippocampus detected, wouldn't it be most popular first assumption that it is genetic? It's been found a real physical difference, almost like gender or skin colour.

BTW, IMO Einstein's ingeniousness was mostly due to his work in a patent office, studying and evaluating all kinds of propellerhats' and perpetuum-mobilists' most original technical inventions. After three years employment he left the patent office to finish his Theory of Special Relativity. Naturally, I see the taxi-driver study to confirm my opinion of the Einstein case.

Federico wrote: Crap for you, molten gold for me.
Mind you, it's only a theory like that on evolution, but I LIKE IT.

There's a difference between a "theory" and a half-baked, ridiculous idea not supported by a whiff of evidence.

Federico wrote: Try to understand what I'm saying, and if you think I'm wrong explain to me why instead of using scatological words as you are wont to do.
Some ethnic groups (e.g., Italians, Jewish) probably have, for some evolutionary reason, acquired the genes for geniality in some fields, like music but only when the conditions are favorable (peace, rich patrons, etc) they can produce the works for which they are forever recognized. Other ethnic groups have not acquired such genes for music geniality, therefore even if they practice for generations they will never become a Verdi, or a Mendelssohn, or a Strauss, or a Yitzhak Pearlman, or a Paganini.

Or Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel (France) or Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky Stravinsky (Russia), Mitsoku Uchida, Toru Takemitsu (Japan), Tan Dun, Yundi Li (China), Sibelius, Magnus Lindberg (Finland) Edvard Grieg (Norway), Albeniz, Granados, Pablo Casals (Spain), Byrd, Purcell, Britten (UK) Villa-Lobos (Brazil), Osvaldo Golijov (Argentina), Arvo Part (Estonia). Any cultures I left out? Let me know, I'm sure I can find someone from there, too.

And that's just classical music. The Indian subcontinent produces the likes of Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan. Africans produced music of rhythmic intricacy unknown to other cultures, and once they were removed from Africa and allowed access to the European musical tradition, the result was geniuses like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

Federico wrote: It takes both to be a genius: Genes and the right conditions.

I'm not disputing that. The meager results I have achieved from decades of practice is enough to convince me that is the case. What I am disputing is your claim that musical talent is genetically tied to any particular ethnic group. Any evidence for that claim, besides outright laughable falsehoods like "there are no great Japanese musicians"?

Shrunk wrote:
I'm not disputing that. The meager results I have achieved from decades of practice is enough to convince me that is the case. What I am disputing is your claim that musical talent is genetically tied to any particular ethnic group. Any evidence for that claim, besides outright laughable falsehoods like "there are no great Japanese musicians"?

There's the further thing that music *isn't* an universal language. A normal, musically talented European listener would probably not be able to distinguish a genius composer of gamelan music or thai music, a genius gamelan musician may not understand western classic. I bet indigenous Japanese music still holds quite some prestige in Japan - try looking for geniuses there first, it's quite likely the venue into which families would be most happy to see musically talented children go. Then again, it's quite possible we wouldn't recognize a Japanese Mozart, as the musical language he'd be using would evade us - we wouldn't get what about it is interesting - possibly we'd be quite bored, or disoriented or whatever.

Of course, you could make this into some kind of idea that whites are superior, in that they came up with white music which obviously is superior to other kinds of music - but you know just as well as we do that that's quite subjective, and misses out on a lot of beautiful music if you open your mind just a bit. (Tiny addendum to that: there's research on the timbres of gamelan ensembles that suggest the tuning - which does sound very out there by western standards - in fact captures several local maxima (in fact, there's no local maximum greater than any of those that are caught) for consonance given the timbres used in that music. So it's not just arbitrary random banging on out-of-tune steelpans, which is the opinion even some western musicians utter when hearing it.)

It seems to me you have great difficulties in accepting the principle that everything in man is under genetic control, through protein-coding genes which, in turn, are regulated by epigenetic mechanisms.

According to the rules of genetics, evolution of man from monkey occurred through genes' mutations, within a period of mllions of years, probably under the influence of changing conditions for survival.
But epigenetic-linked changes in man cognitive skills -- resulting in particular in the learning of painting, music-making, pottery making etc -- appeared much more recently, not in all sub-groups of primitive men, and under the pressure of unidentified environmental conditions.
Neanderthal man and homo sapiens sapiens lived almost simultaneously, however, Neanderthals are not linked to any artistic achievement, while HSS is e.g. responsible for cave paintings such as at Lascaux about 17,000 years ago. Same environment but different gene pool.

I believe such a dichotomy in the development of cognitive skills is at work still in the present times, and may give rise, within the same ethnic group, to many talented artists and some geniuses, while explaining at the same time the appearance of significantly more geniuses in one ethnic subgroup than in a different one, although living in close proximity one of the other.

Example of the first is the story of Salieri and of Mozart, who lived and made music in Vienna in the 1700-1800. The first a very talented musician, the other a genius. Why? The environmental conditions were the same for both, but the genes were different.

What about the Ashkenazi Jews living in Central and Western Europe, in close proximity with Gentiles?
According to Charles Murray analysis entitled "Jewish Genius" :

"..... How does the actual number of significant figures compare to what would be expected given the Jewish proportion of the European and North American population? From 1870 to 1950, Jewish representation in literature was four times the number one would expect. In music, five times. In the visual arts, five times. In biology, eight times. In chemistry, six times. In physics, nine times. In mathematics, twelve times. In philosophy, fourteen times.

"....the assumption that elevated Jewish intelligence is grounded in genetics. It is no longer seriously disputed that intelligence in Homo sapiens is substantially heritable. In the last two decades, it has also been established that obvious environmental factors such as high income, books in the house, and parental reading to children are not as potent as one might expect. A “good enough” environment is important for the nurture of intellectual potential, but the requirements for “good enough” are not high. Even the very best home environments add only a few points,

Shrunk wrote:

Federico wrote:
It takes both to be a genius: Genes and the right conditions.

I'm not disputing that. The meager results I have achieved from decades of practice is enough to convince me that is the case. What I am disputing is your claim that musical talent is genetically tied to any particular ethnic group. Any evidence for that claim, besides outright laughable falsehoods like "there are no great Japanese musicians"?

In my answer to Mr.Samsa's post, I repeat my opinion -- which apparently is not disputed -- that to become a music genius i.e., not a mere talented artist -- a good environment is not sufficient and you need the right genes.
For some reasons, some ethnic groups such as the Ashkenazi Jews have a percentage of music geniuses much greater than non Jews who live in close proximity.
The example I gave of Japanese musicians -- probably not a very good one -- was meant to illustrate the fact practice without the right genes is not enough to give rise to music geniuses.

In addition to continuing to mistate facts (the artistic achievement of Neanderthals is no less then that of other hominids contemporary to them; the Lascaux cave paintings were created some 15,000 years after the extinction of Neanderthals), Federico, you continue to evade the main point: What evidence is there that musical ability is genetically linked to any particular ethnoracial group? While you're at it, maybe you could demonstrate that "race" as a concept has any validity at the genetic level in the first place.

I've already conceded that, at an individual level, musical talent likely has a genetic component, though I think it's overstating things to say Mozart and Salieri arose from the same environment. (Did Salieri have a father as driven as Mozart's, and who brought him all over Europe to perform for and hear the greatest musicians of the day before he was ten years old?). The issue is whether these differences are discernible at the "racial" level.

Federico wrote: For some reasons, some ethnic groups such as the Ashkenazi Jews have a percentage of music geniuses much greater than non Jews who live in close proximity.

And that's your problem. You seem to think physical proximity = "same culture." If one kid grows up in a stable, affluent family, and the kid next door is raised by a negligent unemployed crack addict, are they growing up in the same environment? By the same token, are Askenazi Jews of the same culture as their neighbours just because they are in the same geographic location?

Shrunk wrote:

tribalypredisposed wrote:

Shrunk wrote:Interesting line of argument. I see you are also Canadian, so perhaps you'll find this chart interesting:

http://www.thephysicsofhockey.com/documents/country.pdf

As you can see Canadian, making up only 0.5% of the world's population, make up over 50% of elite professional hockey players.

I guess the only conclusion we can draw from that is that Canadians are genetically predisposed to excelling at hockey, and even if the Canadian climate was the same as that of Brazil those statistics would be the same.

Yeah, as a short Jewish person growing up in Tucson I was genetically and culturally not very likely to become a pro hockey player. On the other hand, my nephew who is 4 years old, 46" tall, strong as hell, incredibly well coordinated, basically impervious to pain...and whose father played hockey and grandparents coached hockey and who has been skating several years and started practicing with a hockey stick three years ago.... Even though there are some players in minor leagues my size or so it is very rare, and even more rare to see them in the NHL.

I have never said culture played no role. I said nature via nurture. If you do not have the gifts to develop, it does not matter what else happens. If you are born to be huge and fast and strong and agile it sure does help you to make it to the NHL. That is all genetics. If you can count to 100 by tens and fives and twenties when you are 21 months old, not likely that is purely cultural.

But whether you those mathematical gifts are nurtured and exploited to the point that one receives the training and education to become a chess master or Nobel Prize winning physicist is almost purely cultural. If we start from the assumption that there is no genetic basis to intelligence, would we not still expect certain cultural groups to produce more individuals of such achievement? Absolutely. Just as if every individual person was exactly the same in terms of size, strength, etc. we would still see Canadians dominating the NHL. So your continuing to point out the number of Jews who had succeeded in intellectual pursuits is pointless to the argument you're trying to present.

This is an evidence-free and ahistorical assertion you are making. Jewish achievement over the last century was despite persecution, despite poverty, despite being kept out of universities by racist policies, despite being denied the training and education. Einstein was working a lofty job at the patent office when he had his papers published that changed Physics. My grandfather was a journalism student washing test-tubes for a student job when he came up with the Watson-Schwartz test (a method to seperate hemoglobin from the blood). I had literally no math instruction for five years before being admitted to the high school for gifted students based on my math talents. After two years of chess instruction, Tal Shaked had no one who could teach him anything living within five hundred miles of him.

See, the problem is that there are other groups that had the money, and the access to the best educations possible, and far more members, and achieved far less. Your "work ethic" Protestants, for one, who had positive bias for getting into the Ivy schools and at least theoretically were given more and better educations. So your hypothesis is that really these folks were just not willing to work as hard, culturally. In my experience most people who set out to be X want to be the best at X; they seek to excell. That Jews dominate on a per-capita basis in competitive and lucrative fields one after another seems odd in a Capitalist system. The culture of Capitalism should provide plenty of motivation, and as I have stated already other groups had more money and more access to education than Jews did, and far larger populations. Yet despite arriving uniformly poor, 25% of the 400 wealthiest Americans are Jews today.

I think it is highly dubious that all of these disproportionate achievements are purely cultural. Jews are, as another poster also mentioned, outperforming expectations by 15-1 in many highly competitive and financially rewarding fields. Is it really possible that this is purely cultural? Can culture really make that huge of an advantage even when faced with many other disadvantages? Is it not inconvenient for the culture theory that Jews are not a mono-culture and were quite prone to becoming hippies and raising their kids in very different ways, and yet those kids still excell in academics? Is it coincidence that my brother raised in Brazil had the highest math scores of any student recieving their Bachelors (all graduates take a test upon graduation) in Brazil, while I was raised by hippies in Arizona and went to a school where I could literally draw on my desk all day long if I wanted (and many did) and still was in the top 1% of the population at math? Yeah, to excell at the level of a Nobel mostly does require the education, but lots of other people had access to that education. Fifteen to one is not a slight advantage. And many many Jews during the last century were denied the chance to achieve what they could have by poverty, racism, being murdered in the Holocaust, and just plain bad luck. So if one is asserting that this is all cultural, then one is asserting that at least 99% of those with the talents to excell who are from non-Jewish cultures have been wasting their talents. While having the financial and educational opportunities to not waste them. And while living in a culture which would reward them financially, and with greater status, if they excelled. I personally find that assertion not credible at all.

So we have a choice. We can say that Jews have some still to be found genetic advantage which leads to their out-performing other groups by 15-1 in America. Or we can say that all the other groups are lazy folks with inferior cultures that do not "value" education who spend their university years drinking and fornicating and waste their talents. Or we can say that it is likely a mix of the two. None of those answers seem especially likely to be recieved well by the non-Jewish populations.

Federico wrote:

Shrunk wrote:

Federico wrote:
It takes both to be a genius: Genes and the right conditions.

I'm not disputing that. The meager results I have achieved from decades of practice is enough to convince me that is the case. What I am disputing is your claim that musical talent is genetically tied to any particular ethnic group. Any evidence for that claim, besides outright laughable falsehoods like "there are no great Japanese musicians"?

In my answer to Mr.Samsa's post, I repeat my opinion -- which apparently is not disputed -- that to become a music genius i.e., not a mere talented artist -- a good environment is not sufficient and you need the right genes.
For some reasons, some ethnic groups such as the Ashkenazi Jews have a percentage of music geniuses much greater than non Jews who live in close proximity.
The example I gave of Japanese musicians -- probably not a very good one -- was meant to illustrate the fact practice without the right genes is not enough to give rise to music geniuses.

Math skills and a talent for classical music seem to be highly correlated. My cousin who is now a Physics prof turned down her opportunities to attend music conservatories for violin. My father was a classical pianist who won competitions before deciding to become a rabbi. My brother got his PhD in Economics after dropping out of a Masters program, getting two papers published in prestigious journals, and being talked into going back for a formality one semester as a PhD student so the university could claim him as "theirs." Another cousin does mathematics at Princeton, for the defense department in the same position familiar to those who watched "A Beautiful Mind." I have sung on a CD that a NY Times critic picked as #4 for classical releases for 2000.