Jews and forced Natural selection

Seriously? that is all you got from my post? I couldn't convince you not to Jew bash? No volitional control?

so you wanted me to possibly speak against them......what if i am jewish

Well what about the Chinese? Haven't they been around the longest? At least in recorded history? Are they not a tough, resilient group? Excuse my naivete but I believe they warrant some attention, as I believe they were here long before the Jews.

The race/religion question fascinates me as I am Jewish and I have these arguments with my family around the dinner table all the time.

For people who consider themselves Jews, it’s not really all about religion. For example, a "Zionist" is not a religious Jew, it’s a Jew who believes that Jews need to have a country of their own (disclaimer, I do not want to talk about Israel being good, bad, or otherwise).

Conversely, when you describe someone belonging to a different faith, it is because they are at least some what religious. I don't think you can be an atheist catholic, by you can be an atheist Jew.

Another example, in the former Soviet Union, if you were from Ukraine, your passport stated your nationality as Ukrainian. If you were from Chechnya - chechnyain, Russia - Russian, but if you were a Jew, no matter where you were from you were identified as Jewish.

This is the same in most parts of the world outside the USA.

So is Jewish a nationality? I don't know. I think it is a cultural identity, or an ethnicity.

That being said, Jews do tend to marry other Jews; therefore, it is reasonable to say that the gene pool is more narrow.

In the Hassidic population, you do tend to see a high concentration of down syndrome and other birth defects ordinarily attributed to people of too close in blood relation procreating. I would just note that Hasidics are not really a good example of Judaism. They are more like a cult who froze their culture around the late 1800's in Poland and are much more extreme in their religious views.

In terms of the societal argument, I tend to agree that the culture has a lot to do with why so many Jews become successful in one field or another. The religion does foster the type of thinking that one finds in a court room and encourages analytical thinking. There are more than 10 commandments. There are hundreds; therefore, devout Jews spend an immense amount of time debating ways around the rules in order to what they want without being in violation of said rule.

It really does foster juridical thinking. The difference in relation to other religions I think is that in the past, and to some degree even now, if you question the religion, or try to find a work around to a precept, you could have been identified as a heretic and punished severely. Perhaps all those years of analysis of biblical passages in order to find answers and solutions that sometimes went counter to the black letter law created new pathways in the brain which have now been encoded genetically and are passed down from generation to generation through evolution.

In terms of 2000 years of persecution assisting this, I think there could be some validity to this point as I believe that Jews would have probably assimilated and disappeared by now from history if not for the persecution. In the 1930's, German Jews thought that they were German, and were assimilated into the community and intermarrying with non-Jews. The Joke is that by identifying and persecuting European Jews, Hitler actually helped Jews to continue as a distinct and separate group to this day.

The Science

Originally posted by secretagent woooman
Serious genetically linked diseases such as Tay-Sachs are found in very high numbers in the Jewish population, especially in those descended from the smaller Eastern European ethnic enclaves. Most of them I have known have significant problems with depression and mania.

There's your evidence for forced selection, right there.

Res ipsa, here is the science you were asking for: Cochran, Hardy, Harpending, Natural History Of Ashkenazi Intelligence, 2006, Cambridge Journal of Biosocial Science, Cambridge University Press.

It has caused a degree of controversy, not because it is bad science but because it is thought by those who concern themselves with such things to be politically incorrect.

But this is not about anyone being genetically superior to someone else. If this theory is correct, the inherited predisposition towards certain diseases among Ashkenazi Jews is a result of the same selective process that gives them an inherited predisposition towards high intelligence.

Genetics is all swings and roundabouts.

Here's a report about the research from that hotbed of Jewish intellectualism, the New York Times.

[edit on 10-2-2009 by Astyanax]

reply to post by Res Ipsa

Observation: If Jew is a race, they could arguably be viewed as the most gifted. Previous theory: "God's chosen" Present theory: (not discarding the first, just adding a possible one) the result of man made natural selection.

The problem that I have with your hypothesis is the conclusion that "they could arguably be viewed as the most gifted". You see, that implies that there are a certain set of traits that qualify the category of "most gifted". You allude to financial prowess, and other such factors. However, I don't think that is a widely accepted definition of "most gifted". Furthermore, even if one were to accept that definition, natural selection would imply a sharp increase of such a group, and in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Jews in Roman Empire: 25% of Roman population in Eastern Mediterranean 10% of entire Roman Empire 48 C.E. Roman census: 7 million Jews (mostly in Judea, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Babylon, Iran, Yemen and Ethiopia) for an estimated total of 8 million world wide.

www.sephardicgen.com...

The worldwide Jewish population is 13.3 million Jews. Jewish population growth worldwide is close to zero percent. From 2000 to 2001 it rose 0.3%, compared to worldwide population growth of 1.4%.

www.simpletoremember.com...

Here is the definition of Natural Selection:

The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated.

www.answers.com...

By this commonly accepted definition, your hypothesis is false. It fails the test of increasing numbers, and fails the test of less "adapted" to decrease.
Thus, looking at it scientifically, the hypothesis is false. QED.

I think the validity of the OP's idea is obvious.

Hell, read fineman's post. He is obviously smarter than the other posters.

Haven't Sephardic Jews been the main victims of forced natural selection?
Judaism 101
If so, this would hardly prove the OPs hypothesis!
Why then, in Israel is there disdain and racism against Sephardic jews? NYT

[edit on 10-2-2009 by Clearskies]

reply to post by Desolate Cancer


I agree. I have many Jewish friends and family friends that are Jewish. I grew up in a primarily Jewish area.

[edit on 10-2-2009 by NativeAmerican]

reply to post by Grumble


In your opinion.....

Originally posted by Shawn B.

Oh, that's crap.

Contrary to you, I wouldnt have any problem with any person or people being smarter or more talented or more able than me.

Are Jews "superior"? I dont know. I subscribe to the idea that every race has a an area in which it is uniquely superior to others.

Its a forbidden subject though.

[edit on 10-2-2009 by Skyfloating]

\there anyway I can convince you to stick to the science theory?\

First of all, which science you mean that came to the conclusions you give us? what is the source of this science, the results of the researches, the teams of scientists involved? Lets look at them, study them and then we can stick to the science theory...

The arguments you have given are just your conclusions. No science involved in this particular conclusions of yours. The same about people who comment here, they comment your comments!


\Did our 2000 year persecution of the Jews result in man made Darwinism. \

What do you mean by "our" persecution? You start the thread, calling all to stick to "science" and not give any "anti-semitic" statements and at the same time you program all of us to feel guilty of "persections" and anti-semitic... and start commenting with this program in mind...

\Most of them I have known have significant problems with depression and mania but that may be as much from growing up as Holocaust survivors or their descendants as it does genetics. \

It does deal with genetics... the nation has the highest percentage of mental deviations...


\I think we would be hard pressed to say that for 2000 years the Jewish culture wasn't shaped by the conditions of their existence among those that constantly were trying to get rid of them. \

Not true! The pattern of behaviour of this unique nation never changed since the times known. The means developed and progressed.

\the Nobel Prize and the jews... No additional comment needed. \

no comment needed really! the Nobel Prize nowdays is a political token, has nothing to do with any great achievements that benefit mankind.

\What is the proportion of Jews in the arts compared to any other single race? Movies, Comedians, etc.? \

Now tell me what these arts etc. support and promote?
you can also include here porn industry\arts and make research of the proportion involved...


\do you understand that Jews are infirmed like any other race with their ideologies, politics, racism, etc....? They are every bit as human as the rest of us? Hate them for being human if you must\

We are speaking about proportions or the nation in general?
the smaller proportion of the sane jews are victims of the larger proportion of their sick but radical brethren. It leads only to degradation and this degradation has been goiing on for centuries. The better way to avoid it is to mix genes with other nations... and they do it... with no good to the genepool of the nations involved in the process.

\Just because they have been forced through a natural selection process doesn't mean that they have been made God's. Do you even understand natural selection? Darwinism?\

we do... but the people who offer such topics dont or the purpose here is to stun the brain.
We are all, people of the Earth are forced through the natural selection process... and this process involves homeostasis, i.e Life is Norm, Pathology is Death. If you want to survive, get rid of pathology... it concerns human opganisms and it concerns societies which consist of people. normal society will live but pathological society will die by slow degradation...






























[edit on 10-2-2009 by Russi]

[edit on 10-2-2009 by Russi]

reply to post by Russi

The arguments you have given are just your conclusions. No science involved in this particular conclusions of yours. The same about people who comment here, they comment your comments!

Did you look at my earlier post, Russi?

It contains a link to a peer-reviewed paper which concludes that the high frequency of unusually high intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews, as well as their predisposition to certain genetic diseases, is indeed the result of natural selection. That is hard science, not a comment about a comment.

Take a look at the links in my post and tell us what you think.

\It contains a link to a peer-reviewed paper which concludes that the high frequency of unusually high intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews, as well as their predisposition to certain genetic diseases, is indeed the result of natural selection. That is hard science, not a comment about a comment\

Look! First of all who are ashkenazi jews?))
hard science doesnt have the answer and the genetic results oppose each other... as the history of their appearance on our territory (i mean the slavic coutries) suggests they are of asian origin, we called them khazars and they had their kingdom on the territory and were converted to judaism by their king... Svyatoslav defeated them and they spread around...
these jews who are not jews...

the same is about this paper - if you gogle you will find plenty of representatives of hard science who critisize this research...
the last i read from Cohran is about his research on homosexuality disease caused by a virus or bacterium... after that "revolutionary" trash he is now in my category of good sci-fi researchers...



[edit on 10-2-2009 by Russi]

I agree with the assessment that Ashkenazi Jews may not really be Jews that can trace their origins to Israel or Judea.

There is a lot of competing evidence that points to the theory espoused above about an Asian group that adopted Judaism as their religion. However, there is also a lot of empirical and historical evidence that Ashkenazi Jews came to Europe from the middle east during medieval times, and settled in Germany.

I personally think that this theory has more validity as the primary language for Ashkenazi Jews has always been Yiddish, which in turn, is more of a dialect of German with some Russian and Polish mixed in. The Russian and Polish may have mixed into Yiddish as the Ashkenazi moved east from Germany, sometimes voluntarily and usually involuntarily.
Back to the point of the post:

Example of what I was saying above with relation to juridical thinking:

As many of you may be aware, for religious Jews, there is a rule that says that you are not permitted to carry anything on the Sabbath (e.g. keys, money, etc…) or work on the Sabbath. There are two work arounds to this rule that I can think of off the top of my head.

1) The Eruv. This is a fictional location that a rabbinical council thought up that essentially says, that if you are inside this “eruv” you can carry stuff. An eruv is created by running a string around a location like a park, a couple of city blocks, etc… While you are in the Eruv you can carry your keys and money. Some Jews think this is a fraud, others believe in this nonsense. Either way, its an example of how religious Jews think.

2) If someone is sick on the Sabbath, a doctor or paramedic is obligated to render that person assistance even though it breaks the rule of not working. A rabbinical council came up with the logic that “God” could not have intended for sick people to be denied treatment on the Sabbath.

I think that since Jews have been thinking this way to get around the rules that they are supposed to live by, it may have fostered an evolution in thought, so to speak. Maybe, this type of reasoning started to cause the brain to be wired differently, and may be this different type of wiring has been passed down through DNA.

So I don’t think that it is the persecution per se that may have caused many great Jewish thinkers to come to evolve, but the fact that the religion has so many rules that to live a normal life you have to engage in this sort of horse trading that may have caused Jews to have many great thinkers.

I also think that there were many non-Jewish great thinkers like Nicolaus Copernicus; however, that the time of his discoveries, it was dangerous to say things that the Church could deem heretical. I don’t think that in Judaism there was ever much discouragement to take a new approach or to find a new discovery for fear of being labeled a heretic. But of course this is not to say that at that time in history Jews were smarter or better in anyway, just that the non-Jewish establishment treated any threat to their power very harshly. If your power to govern is given to you through divine right, anyone questioning your religious views could be seen as a threat.

Jews never really had rulers that claimed a divine right. Jewish culture was always more similar to Plato’s Republic in that it was religious scholars who were charged with interpreting the law (bible), in resolving everyday situations. However, since Solomon, Jews haven’t had a “king” who could discourage new ideas in science, law, or humanities.

The persecution may have kept Jews from assimilating, thereby keeping their choices for a mate more limited, thus not diluting the gene pool; however, as noted above, this also has negative health related side effects.

Just my two cents.

Knowing how to cut and paste sure would be useful now.

I'm not making a conclusion...I'm making an observation and have come up with a theory for it....I had assumed I wasn't the first but no one as of yet has produced any research on it.

some of you responding to me either didn't bother to read carefully or I didn't communicate it good enough.

Natural selection is not the issue...NOT the issue.....we all know what natural selection is and it explains why, in theory, why we have become smarter and stronger (generally) than our ancestors. Every culture..."the Chinese" (for that poster) the "Africans" (to the other poster)
....Natural selection is not the issue.....

"FORCED" natural selection....OK LETS STRIKE NATURAL all together....
"forced selection" is the issue.

JEWS.....whether a "race" a "religion" a "nationality" are a "distinct" group of people. They have been chased out of almost everywhere or killed.

To the one poster that said something like "Jews haven't grown in numbers" or something like that to refute my theory....of course they haven't!!! That is my point. Should I dare use the term "endangered species"? over hunted?

To point out other races talents is a non issue too. That CAN be argued to be a result of NATURAL selection.

I don't care about a subjective ranking of "what is a talent"? or "gift"
If you don't value intelligence in your culture then thats just dandy....if you think an intelligent person can't be ignorant....well then that is ignorant.

...Someone also STILL decided that they were going to point out that
"all races are created equal" showing either an unwillingness to read the first post or ...I don't have a good explanation.

The science? It is an observation and then you look for an explanation for its occurance. I'm sorry if you don't find Jewish Comedy funny or like the blockbuster movies they direct, write the music for, and probably act in.
I'm sorry you don't like American t.v. shows or going to plays.
Their contributions to the law and education. Probably not alot of Jews in the NBA so you score one there.

the point is....and still remains. Did forced selection give the Jews an evolutionary boost? or perhaps you think it is just their culture....what if like I said, that their culture has been "shaped" by their forced experiences......No one theory should be expected to explain it all but for those that "accept" natural selection....could "forced" selection also be vallidated?

....I have no problem debating a point, clarifying a position, or even being called a Zionist. (learned what that was yesterday, I thought it might be yiddish for terrorist or something or a son of a motherless goat)
but please at least take the time to read or comprehend the issue and not post again about how "we were all created equal" Yes and Obama is the President and there are 7 days in the week....

I think this is a brilliant theory.
Very very interesting.

reply to post by finemanm


So naturally sticking within the same gene/race/nationality - pool would strengthen the strain? This makes sense as the more "brown" the gene pool is, it seems the dimmer the society of people.

So wouldn't a lot of it have to do with conditioning?

Look at society in different parts of any country. If a tribe (so to speak) is conditioned to maintain low levels of performance and conformity on a less educated level, regardless of a person's capabilities, individuals of this tribe will tend to not rock the boat. Most don't want to exceed beyond their peers, and "look" different! It is too shaming (for others and especially family), and requires a very healthy dose of high self-esteem to break out of a societal family.

If you then have a group that is conditioned within its tribe to excel, and make the most of their gray cells, as they can, and are not shamed over it, this group or individual would be encouraged to excel. Brain cells need exercise, after all!

Although there may be natural selection involved, couldn't it be just societal conditioning? I believe so, but then again, I study and work in human behavior.

this is all part of an old study

www.nytimes.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

news.nationalgeographic.com...

enjoy your reading

Originally posted by Russi
Look! First of all who are ashkenazi jews?

))

In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is one whose ancestry can be traced to the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. For roughly a thousand years, the Ashkenazim were a reproductively isolated population in Europe, despite living in many countries, with little inflow or outflow from migration, conversion, or intermarriage with other groups, including other Jews. Human geneticists have identified genetic variations that have high frequencies among Ashkenazi Jews, but not in the general European population. This is true for patrilineal markers (Y-chromosome haplotypes) as well as for matrilineal markers (mitochondrial haplotypes).

Ashkenazi Jews, Wikipedia

Pretty straightforward, really.

hard science doesnt have the answer and the genetic results oppose each other... as the history of their appearance on our territory (i mean the slavic coutries) suggests they are of asian origin, we called them khazars and they had their kingdom on the territory and were converted to judaism by their king... Svyatoslav defeated them and they spread around...

I think haplotypes are better identifiers, don't you? The question of where the Ashkenazim came from is not relevant to the topic under discussion here.

the same is about this paper - if you gogle you will find plenty of representatives of hard science who critisize this research...

Here's a

Here's a Google Scholar search for papers citing the one I mentioned, 'Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence' by Cochran et al. There are 52 in all. True, the Cochran paper is controversial, but can you show me the ones that cast doubt on the science in it?

I found one that tries. It's by an anthropologist, not a geneticist, and it's only available in PDF form because it was rejected for publication by peer-reviewed journals. Actually, much of the opposition to the Cochran study came from anthropologists - representatives of a dodgy soft science that is currently under serious threat from genetics and evolutionary biology. For them, it's like finding scorpion in your bed. Hardly surprising they'd try to kill it.

[edit on 10-2-2009 by Astyanax]

reply to post by Res Ipsa


My small opinion is two fold...

Gentiles have created a forced "Apartheid" between Jews and the world. Combine that with the facts that Judisim is a religion that stresses oral tradition and memorization.

Force a group to rely on its identity as a lifeline and have them read and memorize. Sounds like a recipe for maturity and success.