Comment by fsckboy
3 days ago
>You don't need genetic inheritance to explain Jewish over-performance, cultural inheritance is enough.
but it is known, independently of Jewish population studies, that genetic inheritance is a strong factor in IQ performance, and such data also demands explanation; there is no point in leaving it out of population studies.
It is much more frustrating to perform tasks that are more difficult for you than things that are easy. So if a task requires intellect, you are more likely to engage in that task if you are intelligent, and more likely to progress in that field if other people note and reward your performance. Such a process carried out on a particular gene pool might reinforce tendencies that lead to part of what we call culture.
>Looking at national IQ averages currently Hong Kong seems to score highest with an average of 107.73 while Israel is below average at 98.57, below most European countries as well as below the USA.
Ashkenazi Jews as a population average scores above 107. The IQ mean of 100 has a standard deviation of about 15. Also, Ashkenazi Jews are less than half of Israel.
Yes, there does seem to be a genetic component to IQ but as I stated you don't need to include it here to explain why cultures which place emphasis on education and discipline score higher than those which don't. Even if intelligence were not heritable those cultures would on average still perform better than those which don't value education and discipline. Adding a heritable component makes the effect stronger, especially in cultures where intracultural marriages are common or the norm.