tribalypredisposed wrote: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.

Whereas I find it perfectly plausible. Again, look at the data for NHL hockey players:

Canada: 15.9 players per million population.

USA: 0.60.

That's far more than your 15:1 ratio. Are the genetic differences between the US and Canadian populations so great that it can account for that?

If you don't like talking about hockey, then maybe look at gun murder statistics.

I'm not saying genetics is not a possible explanation for the observed level of achievement of Jewish people in certain disciplines . I'm just saying you're not going to support that hypothesis thru the type of "evidence" you are citing.

To try explain my position more clearly:

I'm not saying that genetics have no role in things like intelligence and musical talent. Nor am I saying that it might not even have the most important role. I'm also not saying that these genetic factors may not be linked to particular ethnoracial groups. I'm just saying that the sort of evidence that has been put forth in this thread does not support a conclusion one way or the other.

An analogy: Suppose I wanted to demonstrate that hypertension is a more important risk factor for cardiovascular disease than smoking. To demonstrate this, I take a group of people who have poorly controlled hypertension and who are also heavy smokers. To absolutely no one's surprise this group has a much higher than average prevalence of cardiac disease. What have I proven WRT to my original hypothesis? Precisely sweet bugger all. If I were to try and say, "Well, it must be due to hypertension, because I don't find it credible that smoking alone could cause that large an effect," exactly how far do you think that will fly?

Well, that is exactly the kind of argument being made here. A group of people (Jews) who are similar both culturally and genetically are being used as an example, and the claim is being made the accomplishments of this group is primarily genetic, rather than cultural. It could be true, for all we know, but it in no way follows from the evidence being presented.

In my earlier example, of course, it is possible to take people who are smokers and not hypertensive and use them as a control group. But how is it possible to get a sample of people who are Jewish in a genetic, but not cultural sense, or vice versa? You have to solve that problem before you make any claims for the effects of one over the other.

tribalypredisposed wrote: Sociology is as close to science as Astrology is.

Ri-ha-ight..

tribalypredisposed wrote:If someone wants to dispute the empirical evidence, I am all ears.

Uhm.. What? I thought you told us that empirical evidence was like astrology etc.. It was like two lines ago..
Unless our goal here is not to make sense at all..

Federico wrote: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.

I assume this is aimed at me?

If so, then of course I have difficulties accepting such a statement because it's either: a) so broadly true that it's meaningless (i.e. if we didn't have the genes that created our body, we couldn't perform any behaviors at all), or b) if taken in a narrower sense, so obviously wrong.

Genetics are necessary for us to have bodies, this is true. But this does not mean that a number of talents or behaviors we exhibit are necessary the function of genetics - that's just an absurd statement. Undeniably everything we do is a combination of nature and nurture (i.e. biology and environment) but it doesn't mean that they are always equal, or that both are relevant to an issue we are discussing.

As a very simple example, say you put someone in a choice situation where they can choose to press button A or button B. Now obviously there are certain genetic and biological requirements necessary for someone to be able to choose, and they need arms and fingers to press the buttons, etc, but there are no genetic or epigenetic factors which produce the difference in choice between A and B. This is practically the product of entirely environmental factors.

The ideas of genetic determinism that you seem to be promoting in the quote above have long since been rejected.

Federico wrote: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.

That seems unlikely to me. Evidence?

Federico wrote: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.

Uh no, they didn't experience the same environment at all. They might have lived in the same physical location, but since they were different biological forms they would be subjected to entirely different environments. In other words, siblings share the same physical environment but undergo vastly different learning environments.

Federico wrote: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.

Any evidence that certain ethnicities are advanced in any kind of way like you're suggesting? Would you agree that Shrunk has provided evidence that Canadians are genetically built to be hockey players?

Federico wrote: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?! The environmental conditions would have been different since they are different people. No two people have the same experiences, so no two people have the same environment.

Federico wrote: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,

You do realise who Charles Murray is, right? The idiot political scientist who is known for making up facts to suit whatever agenda he is trying to demonstrate..

How the fuck does a religion change your genetics?

I retract my previous post. YES Jews are genetically different...from each other.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

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.

Tribalypredisposed response: A few issues to cover. First, about your "shrew" remark. The assumption larger brain = more intelligent is not about relative size but overall size, generally, although the assumption magically vanishes when considering elephants and whales. You can find various remarks in the literature, for example, about how the "hobbits" have upset some common assumptions as they had chimp sized brains and still had some sophisticated tool use and manufacturing evident.

I have tried to find some sources for Entine's claims, and have not found them. He seems to have a book out in 2008 but none of the articles I have found mention what his sources are for the various claims he makes. I have found an article stating he claimed further recently that "among those in the “genius” category — people with IQs of 130 or higher — Jews outnumber members of other ethnic groups 45 to one" -http://njjewishnews.com/article/middlesex/author-asserts-genetic-roots-of-jews-peculiar-genius

Avoiding Murray for obvious reasons, this source seems likely to be credible but I have no access to the whole paper. -http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4JYTRWC-2&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1626301092&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=61dce6bf684a93b3734e64a5b56e67e6&searchtype=a
"it is proposed that the best reading of the IQ of Jews in Britain is 110. It is proposed that the best reading of the IQ of Jews in the United States is 109.5."

As to the culture issue; I could accept small variations in achievement based on culture amongst those living in the same society with the same educational institutions, but I think we would have to have very compelling evidence indeed to claim that a 15-1 overrepresentation could be purely cultural. That is a huge dominance of one culture over another. There are no peer reviewed sources I am aware of that claim anything more than a 50% contribution for nurture in IQ or intelligence. Which would not account for the differences we see.

You mention sexual selection for greater intelligence. I know that professor Geoffrey Miller, at U of New Mexico I think, has made this claim, as well as Dorion Sagan and John Skoyles in their book "Up From Dragons." It is not a viable hypothesis. Intelligence is not an "honest signal" of fitness. One might assert that larger brains were selected for, but you yourself argue here in several posts that no such connection exists. So demonstrating greater intelligence is not at all straightforward. Further, if intelligence is related to brain size, then the gender doing the sexual selection is also paying a large fitness cost for their preference in the form of death during childbirth. If there was no real fitness advantage to greater intelligence then those women who picked men with larger brains in sexual selection would have been selected out of the population. Finally, the human brain is not simply a chimp brain grown three times as large. Various parts are significantly larger than three times the size they are in chimps, for one thing. There would seem to be very few ways that women might know the relative sizes of the prefrontal lobes of their potential mates.

As for the "fire" hypothesis, one still needs a reason why intelligence evolves. It is not enough to suggest what may have allowed it to be possible. It is really odd to me that so many have difficulty accepting the most straighforward explanation; that intelligence was adaptive and increased fitness, and therefore was selected for by evolution. Fire certainly changed our relative fitness as predators and prey and opened up many new food resources to us, but humans were still subject to the whims of nature and her droughts and so on. Food scarcity would then limit calories available....unless the smarter individual managed to get more calories then the individual with a smaller brain, the smaller brain would have the advantage. But again, it is not just about calories. Larger brains often kill women giving birth, larger brains mean far longer periods of dependance on adults and longer vulnerability to predators. These are large fitness costs, and fire or sexual selection both fail catastrophically to have any answers for these costs. The only viable answer is real evolutionary selection of the more intelligent and therefore more fit.

WTF????

tribalypredisposed 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/

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.

Is it just me, or is it strange that this poster is questioning his own assertions????

"Curiouser and curiouser! "

Actually apart from the quote by Mr S at the top, the whole long diatribe above seems to be him arguing with himself???

CdesignProponentsist wrote:I retract my previous post. YES Jews are genetically different...from each other.

Well said! You forgot to add in a blonde

Agrippina wrote:WTF????

tribalypredisposed 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/

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.

Is it just me, or is it strange that this poster is questioning his own assertions????

"Curiouser and curiouser! "

Actually apart from the quote by Mr S at the top, the whole long diatribe above seems to be him arguing with himself???

He's messed up the quote tags, the top half of his post are my responses.

Agrippina wrote:

CdesignProponentsist wrote:I retract my previous post. YES Jews are genetically different...from each other.

Well said! You forgot to add in a blonde

Wow, I guess someone never took any classes in genetics. Make that two of you. Yeah, Jews have different skin colors from each other! Gasp! Now please explain to us how this means Jews cannot have passed genetic variations for greater intelligence to all of the people in those photos. Or better yet, just finally admit to yourselves that you have not the first clue what we are even talking about and go away.

Tribalypredisposed: I've edited your post above to fix your quote tags, I hope you don't mind. The formatting you had was just confusing to read through.

tribalypredisposed wrote:
Tribalypredisposed response: A few issues to cover. First, about your "shrew" remark. The assumption larger brain = more intelligent is not about relative size but overall size, generally, although the assumption magically vanishes when considering elephants and whales. You can find various remarks in the literature, for example, about how the "hobbits" have upset some common assumptions as they had chimp sized brains and still had some sophisticated tool use and manufacturing evident.

No, that's certainly untrue then. Talking about relative brain size is incorrect, but it's more correct than absolute brain size. No scientist with a first year education in psychology or neuroscience would suggest that absolute brain size is an indicator of intelligence.

That's why they came up with the encephalisation quotient, as bigger organisms require bigger brains just to perform basic functions.

tribalypredisposed wrote:I have tried to find some sources for Entine's claims, and have not found them. He seems to have a book out in 2008 but none of the articles I have found mention what his sources are for the various claims he makes. I have found an article stating he claimed further recently that "among those in the “genius” category — people with IQs of 130 or higher — Jews outnumber members of other ethnic groups 45 to one" -http://njjewishnews.com/article/middlesex/author-asserts-genetic-roots-of-jews-peculiar-genius

Unfortunately, without a source we don't know what conclusions we should draw from those conclusions. We don't know whether the methodology is sound, or which IQ test they were using, etc.

tribalypredisposed wrote:Avoiding Murray for obvious reasons, this source seems likely to be credible but I have no access to the whole paper. -http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4JYTRWC-2&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1626301092&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=61dce6bf684a93b3734e64a5b56e67e6&searchtype=a
"it is proposed that the best reading of the IQ of Jews in Britain is 110. It is proposed that the best reading of the IQ of Jews in the United States is 109.5."

Hmm.. well even before we dissect the claims made here, we need to look at some other factors that might affect the validity of the claims: firstly, the paper is by Richard Lynn who is well known for misrepresenting results, data mining, biasing results, etc, secondly, the paper was published in a journal that has a pretty low impact factor, and thirdly, Lynn is on the editorial board of that journal, which calls into question whether it received adequate peer review.

But assuming that it's a valid paper, the main problem is that for some reason he's using data from 1946 and 1958, where he's calculated the IQ scores himself without stating how he's done this or what IQ system he's using.. Lynn is also known for inflating his scores by adding on his own weightings for the Flynn Effect, with the assumption that this is equal across all groups, countries, ages, etc, when this simply isn't true.

Effectively, given the problems with his methodology, it's surprising that he could only blow out the scores to 110. It's a poor study though.

tribalypredisposed wrote:As to the culture issue; I could accept small variations in achievement based on culture amongst those living in the same society with the same educational institutions, but I think we would have to have very compelling evidence indeed to claim that a 15-1 overrepresentation could be purely cultural. That is a huge dominance of one culture over another. There are no peer reviewed sources I am aware of that claim anything more than a 50% contribution for nurture in IQ or intelligence. Which would not account for the differences we see.

I don't understand why you're surprised about the effect of cultural influences. The American Psychological Association's review of the literature on the genetic and environmental factors found that the effects on genetics on intelligence varies throughout the lifetime of a person - through most of our childhood and teenage years, genetics only accounts for about 20% of our intelligence, whereas near the end of our life it accounts for around 80%. Overall, across our lifetimes there is a near equal split between nature and nurture.

tribalypredisposed wrote:You mention sexual selection for greater intelligence. I know that professor Geoffrey Miller, at U of New Mexico I think, has made this claim, as well as Dorion Sagan and John Skoyles in their book "Up From Dragons." It is not a viable hypothesis. Intelligence is not an "honest signal" of fitness. One might assert that larger brains were selected for, but you yourself argue here in several posts that no such connection exists. So demonstrating greater intelligence is not at all straightforward.

I'm not sure why you think the theory is disproved. I don't personally subscribe to it, but it still appears to be popular in the literature. You don't need external signals like brain size for intelligence to be selected for, females could simply pick whichever male brings the most food back and, on average, the male who brings the most food back is the smartest, and so on.

tribalypredisposed wrote:Further, if intelligence is related to brain size, then the gender doing the sexual selection is also paying a large fitness cost for their preference in the form of death during childbirth. If there was no real fitness advantage to greater intelligence then those women who picked men with larger brains in sexual selection would have been selected out of the population. Finally, the human brain is not simply a chimp brain grown three times as large. Various parts are significantly larger than three times the size they are in chimps, for one thing. There would seem to be very few ways that women might know the relative sizes of the prefrontal lobes of their potential mates.

I'm not sure why you keep repeating this. Even if we assume that there is no advantage to intelligence (which I don't understand why you want to do this? No evolutionary advantage does not equal no advantage), and that an increase in intelligence leads to greater rates of death during child birth, this doesn't mean that the trait will be removed from the population.

This is basic evolutionary theory: sometimes deleterious genes spread throughout the population, and sometimes advantageous genes get removed. Natural selection is a rule of thumb, not an absolute rule.

tribalypredisposed wrote:As for the "fire" hypothesis, one still needs a reason why intelligence evolves. It is not enough to suggest what may have allowed it to be possible.

The point of the fire example is that intelligence doesn't evolve - the base rate of genetic intelligence could have stayed the same, whilst the access to nutrition increased intelligence.

tribalypredisposed wrote:It is really odd to me that so many have difficulty accepting the most straighforward explanation; that intelligence was adaptive and increased fitness, and therefore was selected for by evolution.

Nobody is arguing against the idea that it could have evolved, there is just no reason to currently think that it has evolved since the evidence is weak at the moment - and the evidence for difference between populations of humans is nonexistent.

tribalypredisposed wrote:Fire certainly changed our relative fitness as predators and prey and opened up many new food resources to us, but humans were still subject to the whims of nature and her droughts and so on. Food scarcity would then limit calories available....unless the smarter individual managed to get more calories then the individual with a smaller brain, the smaller brain would have the advantage. But again, it is not just about calories. Larger brains often kill women giving birth, larger brains mean far longer periods of dependance on adults and longer vulnerability to predators. These are large fitness costs, and fire or sexual selection both fail catastrophically to have any answers for these costs. The only viable answer is real evolutionary selection of the more intelligent and therefore more fit.

But the "fittest" organisms, on paper, don't always survive.

tribalypredisposed wrote:snipped to remove the picitures.

Wow, I guess someone never took any classes in genetics. Make that two of you. Yeah, Jews have different skin colors from each other! Gasp! Now please explain to us how this means Jews cannot have passed genetic variations for greater intelligence to all of the people in those photos. Or better yet, just finally admit to yourselves that you have not the first clue what we are even talking about and go away.

That's me, clueless, maybe it's my Swiss genes mixed in with the Jewish ones that made me both mathematically stupid, and musically challenged. Or, it could simply be that my father thought music was a frivolous pursuit and that girls didn't need to study maths? Hmmm! does that mean that I might have farming genes that I haven't explored yet?

tribalypredisposed wrote:

Agrippina wrote:

CdesignProponentsist wrote:I retract my previous post. YES Jews are genetically different...from each other.

Well said! You forgot to add in a blonde

Wow, I guess someone never took any classes in genetics. Make that two of you. Yeah, Jews have different skin colors from each other! Gasp! Now please explain to us how this means Jews cannot have passed genetic variations for greater intelligence to all of the people in those photos. Or better yet, just finally admit to yourselves that you have not the first clue what we are even talking about and go away.

Hmm. I think it may be you that needs genetic classes.

Do you realize that anyone can become a Jew. My point with the photos was to demonstrate that there are Arab Jews, Asian Jews, African Jews, Germanic Jews, Anglo Saxon Jews, Native American Jews. There is no such thing as Jewish genes.

Religion does not determine your genetics. So admit YOU don't know what YOU are talking about, and go away.

CdesignProponentsist wrote: Hmm. I think it may be you that needs genetic classes.

Do you realize that anyone can become a Jew. My point with the photos was to demonstrate that there are Arab Jews, Asian Jews, African Jews, Germanic Jews, Anglo Saxon Jews, Native American Jews. There is no such thing as Jewish genes.

Religion does not determine your genetics. So admit YOU don't know what YOU are talking about, and go away.

Which points out the chief problem that makes this question difficult to discuss: There is no clear cut way to define a "Jew" in either a genetic or cultural sense, making it next to impossible at this point to address the question in any rigorous sense. That's why most of the "evidence" in this thread has been along the lines of "My friend Murray finished third in the state math contest and he doesn't keep kosher, so it must be because of his Jewish genes."

Shrunk wrote:

CdesignProponentsist wrote: Hmm. I think it may be you that needs genetic classes.

Do you realize that anyone can become a Jew. My point with the photos was to demonstrate that there are Arab Jews, Asian Jews, African Jews, Germanic Jews, Anglo Saxon Jews, Native American Jews. There is no such thing as Jewish genes.

Religion does not determine your genetics. So admit YOU don't know what YOU are talking about, and go away.

Which points out the chief problem that makes this question difficult to discuss: There is no clear cut way to define a "Jew" in either a genetic or cultural sense, making it next to impossible at this point to address the question in any rigorous sense. That's why most of the "evidence" in this thread has been along the lines of "My friend Murray finished third in the state math contest and he doesn't keep kosher, so it must be because of his Jewish genes."

It also smacks of the other side of the argument: Arians (who are more likely to be related to the star sign than an actual genetic group -- ah astrology again) tend to think that they are "pure" and "superior" based on the idea that they have blond hair and blue eyes. At the risk of being accused of having a religious bias, I have to ask the question, would "the Jews" whoever they might be, be superior mathematicians without the religious instruction to not marry shiksas and goys?

I'm reminded of Omar Sharif who is an Egyptian, when he was asked in the late 1960s whether he felt strange about kissing a Jew (Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl) and whether the religious difference wouldn't prevent him from doing that, said "I don't ask a girl about her religion before I kiss her!"

Shrunk wrote:

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.

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"?

Obviously you need to be told things a few times before you catch the meaning, so lets try again.
First of all, lets limit our discussion to musical proficiency amongst the various human cognitive capacities.
My opinion -- which you seem to agree with -- is that it takes good genes but also the right environment to become a very good musician. Furthermore, IMO, to become a musical Genius you would also need the right environment but, in addition, exceptional genes. (BTW, the difference between a Genius in music or mathematics or whatever, and a very good performer is that the first has also the capacity to create and innovate and be universally recognized as such).

For some still unclear reasons, musical geniuses are more prevalent in some ethnic groups (e.g., Ashkenazi Jews) than Gentiles living at the same times in the same geographic area (i.e., Central and Eastern Europe).
Of course, one should not compare apples and oranges: Japanese music and musical instruments are different from European's.
The oldest forms of traditional Japanese music are shōmyō , Buddhist chanting, and gagaku . It is quite possible that
Japanese players of traditional music are considered geniuses by their compatriots. But I can only say that playing a "European" instrument like a violin even for 50 years has not resulted in many Paganinis or Yehudi Menuhins.
(I don't know how many Chinese play the cello, but I know only one Chinese Genius cello player: Yo-Yo Mah.)

Now, the best examples I could find for the absolute necessity for both genes and environment to interact in order to enhance human cognitive capacities to higher levels and even to genius level are the Neanderthal-Homo sapiens sapiens, and Salieri- Mozart comparisons.
The Neanderthal man appeared first about 250,000 years ago and co-existed with HSS in Southern France for thousand of years until he was probably driven to extinction by HSS.
As I have already written, Neanderthals are not linked to any artistic artefacts, while, e.g., the Lascaux cave paintings, dated at about 17,000 years ago, are a stunning proof of HSS geniality (Obviously, the two primitive men' ancestors had different gene pools).
Saliery-Mozart story is so obvious I don't feel like going over it again. The objections to this comparison are Straw man tactics and not worth a reply. Naturally, then only almost definitive proof for you and Mr. Salsa could have been a complete sequencing
of both musicians' genome, trying to find whether they differ at the level of DNA controlling musical genius.
Naturally, that would be also useful in the case of Ashkenazy Jews, where definite proof of differences in markers have already been found. So, what about a special marker for music proficiency?

Sorry: Double posting.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

Any evidence that certain ethnicities are advanced in any kind of way like you're suggesting? Would you agree that Shrunk has provided evidence that Canadians are genetically built to be hockey players?

But of course. I'm surprised you didn't know that, but it is quite recent news.
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal, led by Professor Harry Bard, chief of the Genetics Department, and funded by the MRC Fund for Excellence, have discovered, after sequencing the genomes of ten Canadian and ten American Hockey players, startling differences in repeated non-coding DNA sequences. This, of course, explains why Canadian players are so much better than Amaricans.

The search is on now to try and find genomic differences between Olimpic Gold medal Afro-America winners and Bronze medal winners of the same ethnic origin.

I'll keep you posted.

Federico wrote:Obviously you need to be told things a few times before you catch the meaning, so lets try again.

First of all, lets limit our discussion to musical proficiency amongst the various human cognitive capacities.
My opinion -- which you seem to agree with -- is that it takes good genes but also the right environment to become a very good musician. Furthermore, IMO, to become a musical Genius you would also need the right environment but, in addition, exceptional genes. (BTW, the difference between a Genius in music or mathematics or whatever, and a very good performer is that the first has also the capacity to create and innovate and be universally recognized as such).

For some still unclear reasons, musical geniuses are more prevalent in some ethnic groups (e.g., Ashkenazi Jews) than Gentiles living at the same times in the same geographic area (i.e., Central and Eastern Europe).

Actually, I don't know of any evidence for this. Who were the great Jewish contemporaries of Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Stravinsky, etc. For that matter, were there no Jews that were contemporary to Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven? If so, why don't you give us a list of the Jewish musical geniuses who were of comparable stature to them and lived at the same time?

Of course, one should not compare apples and oranges: Japanese music and musical instruments are different from European's.
The oldest forms of traditional Japanese music are shōmyō , Buddhist chanting, and gagaku . It is quite possible that
Japanese players of traditional music are considered geniuses by their compatriots.

Yeah, it is "quite possible." Do I need to explain to you how this weakens your argument?

But I can only say that playing a "European" instrument like a violin even for 50 years has not resulted in many Paganinis or Yehudi Menuhins.
(I don't know how many Chinese play the cello, but I know only one Chinese Genius cello player: Yo-Yo Mah.)

Quick history quiz: What was the attitude towards Western classical music of the Maoist regime that controlled China for most of the 20th century? Did you know that, when composer Tan Dun was auditioning for the Beijing Conservatory and was asked to play some Mozart, he replied "Who's that?" Do you think, maybe, this type of cultural attitude might, just might, have some part to play in the number of geniuses in Western classical music produced, regardless of their genetic endowment.

Another interesting fact: Now that Mao's Cultural Revolution is truly over and done with, there has been an explosion of interest in classical music, to the point that there are currently 30 million piano students and 10 million violin students in the nation. 200,000 students a year are admitted to the most prestigious conservatories. I predict within the next five years we're going to be inundated with Lang Lang's and Yundi Li's, and you're going to be looking pretty silly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/arts/ ... class1.htm

Anyway, I can't believe you are seriously arguing that Asians aren't good at classical music. Are you even vaguely aware of the reality that exists outside your head? Go to any music competition and see if you notice any Asian kids picking up prizes.

Now, the best examples I could find for the absolute necessity for both genes and environment to interact in order to enhance human cognitive capacities to higher levels and even to genius level are the Neanderthal-Homo sapiens sapiens, and Salieri- Mozart comparisons.
The Neanderthal man appeared first about 250,000 years ago and co-existed with HSS in Southern France for thousand of years until he was probably driven to extinction by HSS.
As I have already written, Neanderthals are not linked to any artistic artefacts,

And you would be wrong. Again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3256228.stm

Besides the fact that you continue to make a fundamental error: Just because Neanderthals and other early hominids were genetically distinct does not mean that all differences between them are genetically determined. There could easily be cultural explanations for difference in the artefacts produced. It could be a simple as that Neanderthals preferred to work in animal skins and other perishable material that leave no archeological evidence behind.

while, e.g., the Lascaux cave paintings, dated at about 17,000 years ago, are a stunning proof of HSS geniality (Obviously, the two primitive men' ancestors had different gene pools).

And I guess I need to remind you that the Neanderthals were already extinct for 15 000 years by that time, so that really means nothing, does it? Do I need to explain why?

Saliery-Mozart story is so obvious I don't feel like going over it again. The objections to this comparison are Straw man tactics and not worth a reply.

So exactly what does the Salieri/Mozart comparison demonstrate, in your opinion? That Austro-Germans are genetically more musical than Italians? Or that Mozart, as an individual, was more genetically gifted than Salieri? If the latter, there's no way of determining that. Maybe if Salieri had a father as pushy as Mozart's, he would be the revered genius today. But, more to the point: What does that have to do with what we are discussing here?

I need to say it again: The discussion here is not whether intelligence, musical aptitude, etc has a genetic basis. The question is whether that genetic basis can be tied to specific ethnoracial groups. And all the verbiage you have spewed here is completely irrelevant to that question.

Naturally, then only almost definitive proof for you and Mr. Salsa could have been a complete sequencing
of both musicians' genome, trying to find whether they differ at the level of DNA controlling musical genius.
Naturally, that would be also useful in the case of Ashkenazy Jews, where definite proof of differences in markers have already been found. So, what about a special marker for music proficiency?

Yeah, that would be helpful. Why, do you know of any?