Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High?

By Hank Pellissier

Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High? Scientific Factors that Influence Intelligence is efficiently organized and valuable to everyone, of any age, anywhere. The author's goal is to elevate the average IQ of humans everywhere on Earth because he believes this advance would benefit global peace and increase economic prosperity, secularism, liberalism, health, and technological advances. (This assertion has been fortified recently by Steven Pinker in his publication, The Better Angels of Our Nature.)

The first two chapters of Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High? explore Ashkenazi Jewish IQ and East Asian "Confucian Nations" IQ, with numerous proposed explanations of their successes. The author's intention is to locate and pass along guidance gleaned from the Ashkenazi and East Asian cultures. He believes every nationality in the world would be proud to earn an equal proportional number of Nobel Prizes as the Ashkenazi Jews, for example, so he suggests that high-IQ societies be scrutinized for tips, clues, and secrets that propel them toward their accomplishments.

The third chapter details challenges faced in the Sub-Sahara, the world's poorest region in economics, human lifespan, and average IQ. Multiple factors are listed, especially in Nigeria, that are detrimental to human-brain potential. The author expresses his fervent hope that mentally-destructive conditions can be eliminated so Sub-Saharan citizens can enjoy equality in every category with the world's highest-ranked nations.

Chapters 4-8 of the book deliver the nuts 'n' bolts, axons 'n' dendrites aspect of the book's research. Listed here is information gleamed from combing through PubMed.gov studies. The data, notes the author, can help readers from a multiplicity of backgrounds; it can guide you if:

* You are an expectant parent who wants to optimize prenatal and infancy cognitive conditions for your offspring
* You want to assist your school-age children in academic success
* You are an adult who wants to boost your intellectual strength
* You are 55+ years old and you don't want your brainpower to dwindle, via Alzheimer's, dementia, etc.
* You belong to an educational or governmental organization that provides mental-health guidance to a community. The ideas in the book can serve as an outline for policy.

The author's intention is to provide knowledge about what smartens and stupefies humanity, so that everyone can adopt a "high-IQ lifestyle" that enhances our brains and the brains of our children and the greater society. He hopes for a global 130-point IQ by 2045, where the "average" person is as discerning, knowledgeable, and inventive as today's Ivy League graduates. He notes that if this occurred, with the bell curve leaping up by two standard deviations, the number of the world's geniuses (IQ 145+) would skyrocket to 1.05 billion. There would be a Chronic Intelligence Explosion, an Organic Singularity.

The author believes this enormous IQ jump is attainable, because 50% of our IQ is based on "environmental" factors. He believes humanity already has the ability to create mentally-enriching habitats that can substantially enlarge our IQs. Additionally, he asserts that our advancing strides in genetic engineering will further enable us to boost our cognitive abilities.

Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High? contains references to hundreds of PubMed.gov studies on factors that make us stupid or smart. This is a copious amount of solid scientifically-proven data that everyone can use in homes, schools, on the Internet, and in the marketplace, to biggie-up our brains, our friends' and families' noggins, and especially, the next generation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilcox Publishing
• Release date: Dec 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452448695

Hank Pellissier

Hank Pellissier is the Managing Director of the Institute for Ethics in Emerging Technology, a techno-progressive think tank (http://IEET.org). He's the author of "Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High? - scientific factors that influence intelligence" and "Invent Utopia Now: Transhumanist Suggestions for the Pre-Singularity Era" both available on this page or at http://wilcoxpublishing.com/published Hank has written dozens of often-controversial futurist articles for IEET, H+ Magazine, the World Future Society, and other publications, occasionally under his nom de plume, “Hank Hyena.” He lectured at the H+ Summit in Harvard on “Global Transhumanism,” and co-authored the “Extropist Manifesto.” A journalist, Hank is a frequent contributor to http://GreatSchools.org where he writes about brain functionality and education. He's also a blogger for the world Future Society. Past work includes a weekly column entitled "Local Intelligence" for the New York Times / Bay Citizen, a daily column for Salon.com (“Naked World”), two weekly columns for http://SfGate.com (“Urban Animal” and “Odd Barkings”), and a monthly column for SF Metropolitan (“Frisco Utopia”), plus numerous features. Hank is the founder/director of two non-profit organizations, the Hyena Comedy Institute - where he trained stand-ups and produced 80+ shows - and The Kids’ Co-op Inc., a non-profit that launched two SF preschools and donated funds, food, and school supplies to ten foreign locales, primarily the Philippines, where seven hectares of agricultural land were purchased to enable a Mangyan tribal village to self-subsist. In the 1990's he was an edgy comic monologuist; the SF Chronicle labeled him, “San Francisco’s performance-art bad boy.” His poetry is anthologized in "The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry," he’s been a SF Poetry Slam co-champion, and his performance pieces have toured eleven states and six international countries. As an events producer, he instigated the SF DADA Festival, the SF Buddhist Festival, the Bay Area Muslim Performance Festival, the world’s first Atheist Film Festival, and North Beach Street Utopia. Hank has a BA in History and an MA in Humanities/Religious Studies. He enjoys forecasting trends, illustrating scenarios, and propounding solutions. His hobbies include traveling and exercising with his triathlete wife and two hyperactive daughters, but mostly, he prefers to just research, write, and argue online with readers who dispute his essay’s contentions. Hank is available for writing assignments and speaking engagements. ----- Some comments he's received: "perversely charming, delightfully outrageous" - San Francisco Chronicle "witty, quirky, with a knack for the provocative twist" - San Francisco Examiner "trenchant, witty, with a cogent political analysis" - Bay Area Reporter "written with brains and balls" - Factsheet Five

Book preview

Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High?

Scientific Factors that Influence Intelligence

~

Hank Pellissier

Smashwords Edition, Published by Wilcox Publishing

Copyright 2012, Hank Pellissier

Cover Design: Alan D. Wilcox

Brain image ({{Information| |Description='''Human brain - left and right hemispheres - superior-lateral view''' |Source=http://www.healcentral.org/healapp/showMetadata?metadataId=40566 |Date=2005-11-30 |Author=John A Beal, PhD Dep't. of Cellular Biology & Anatomy, )

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Invent Utopia Now, Transhumanist Suggestions for the Pre-Singularity Era

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Table Of Contents

Foreword

Preface

IQ in Societies

1. Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High?

2. Why are Confucian Nations so Wildly Successful?

3. Five Scourges that Cripple Sub-Saharan IQ

IQ in a Lifespan

4. Prenatal and Natal IQ Factors

5. Early Years

6. School Years

7. Adults

8. Genetic and Futuristic

Summary

Index

Author’s Biography

Foreword

It is possible to describe the existence of mankind in terms of parallel universes, anthropomorphic views of space-time, or the continuing evolution of intelligence. Each of these three points of view requires man to look at himself: as he exists now, as he was in the past, and where he is headed. Hank Pellissier has taken a bold and commendable step by cataloging what we already know about the development of human intelligence. His goal, to answer the question of why Ashkenazi Jews rank so high in selected IQ measurements, tells us more about the population of the world, than it does any selected group.

To be sure, as an Ashkenazi Jew myself, certifiable by the blood dysgrasia gene I carry, I was eager to tout the accomplishments of my people. Although Ashkenazi came from the Rhineland or Alsace, my forefathers were Ashkenazim from Central and Eastern Europe. The author has done his readers a service by explaining how the customs, mores, rituals, and group ethics have created a culture rich in scientific inquiry, mathematics, music, and language skills.

Hank Pellissier comments about the reader's own life style, and how to improve the reader's IQ scores, or that of his family. For me, I found the section involving futurism—new and proposed ways to manipulate and, hopefully, improve our species—fascinating and thought-provoking. Other readers, especially teachers, social workers, and doctors, will gain insight into the human mind and how they might improve their services. Still other readers of this book will gain the background to improve the way human beings live.

I like to think that Hank Pellissier's insights are more valid than most of what is written about climate change these days. Of the latter, there is much noise and wind, but very little we can do about them. Of Hank Pellissier's thoughts, however, we can incorporate them into our lives right away.

David C. Heyman, M.D.

Author; Anesthesiologist, Retired

Williamsport, Pennsylvania

Preface

Every writer wants his or her words to be well-timed and I've been exceptionally lucky that a trio of events in the last twenty-seven days has established the value and urgency of this book.

October 19, 2011 - The IQ of the Teen Brain is highly flexible, claims a University College London study¹ published in Nature on this date. About a third of the teenagers had meaningful changes in IQ, and a handful showed dizzying climbs or plunges², by as much 21 points in four years. The IQ movement was validated by MRI brain scans that showed density of teen gray matter increasing or decreasing in specific brain regions. This potential IQ leap—is it important? Extremely. Twenty-one points can elevate a boy or girl from average intelligence to gifted, or from mentally retarded to near average.

This dramatic evidence of brain plasticity is the only the most recent of multiple studies that have lately redefined the brain's potential. Alfred Binet (co-creator of the first IQ test in 1905) believed our thinking organ fully matures at 16 years of age, and dwindles after that. His opinion was the unanimous viewpoint for generations, with humanity stoically regarding intelligence as set-in-stone and destined to start decaying, neuron by neuron, in early adulthood. But today that rigid paradigm has been wholly upended. Neurogenesis can blossom at any age and hundreds of new studies are constantly examining factors that induce IQ to prosper or wither.

I first presented this illuminating info in my article Let's Elevate Global IQ, on August 22, 2011, on the website of the Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technology, (ieet.org). Not surprisingly, my enthusiasm was scorned by several commentators who basically stated, So What?! Humans don't need higher IQ for a happier future—we need better ethical behavior!

October 4, 2011 - The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, was published on this date, gaining instant critical attention and acclaim.³ The Better Angels presents statistics and arguments that lucidly demonstrate the dwindling of human brutality in human history, especially since the Enlightenment. Why? One reason Pinker provides also answers the skeptical So What?! question I noted above. Pinker observes that the Flynn effect—the phenomenal international rise of IQ in the last century, by as much as 30 points in the USA—correlates with the subsequent drop in violence. One of his interpretations for this congruence is that, … modern societies have been getting smarter, and all things being equal, a smarter world is a less violent one.⁴ Further explaining, he states that people with greater reasoning abilities commit fewer crimes…⁵ Pinker's assertion that analytical improvement registered in IQ gain leads to increasing peace justifies my book's central proposal: Let's examine the factors that elevate and diminish IQ so we can uplift ourselves to an improved future.

October 5, 2011 - The Royal Swedish Academy of Science awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Daniel Shechtman, Professor of Materials Science at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, for his discovery of quasicrystals.⁶ His award is the sixth in 10 years presented to a citizen of Israel (7.8 million population), a total that matches the sum of prizes to France (66 million), but exceeds the five awards given to Germany (82 million) and Russia (143 million) and far surpasses the two prizes given to Canada (34.5 million) or the one received by India (1.21 billion).⁷ My point? Jews, internationally, are awarded an astounding amount of Nobel Prizes: in the 21st century they've received 32% of the total, even though they number only 0.25% of the global population. How do they do it? Consider this: in every survey in any nation it's revealed that Ashkenazi Jews are the top demographic in IQ.

*****

My book is simply organized, and designed to be of value to everyone, of any age, anywhere.

My opening two chapters explore Ashkenazi Jewish IQ and East Asian Confucian Nations IQ, with several proposed explanations of their success. My intention here is to locate and pass on whatever guidance can be gleaned from the Ashkenazi and East Asian cultures. Any ethnicity in the world would be proud to earn an equal number of Nobel Prizes as the Ashkenazi, for example, so I suggest that we carefully scrutinize these high IQ societies for tips, clues and secrets that propel them towards their accomplishments.

The third chapter details the challenges faced in the Sub-Saharan of Africa, the world's poorest region in economics, in human lifespan, and in average IQ. Here I list multiple factors, especially in Nigeria, that are detrimental to human brain potential. It is my fervent hope that mentally-destructive conditions in the area can be eliminated so Sub-Saharan citizens can enjoy equality—in IQ and every other category—with the world's highest-ranked nations.

Chapters 4-8 deliver the nuts ‘n’ bolts, meat ‘n’ potatoes, axons ‘n’ dendrites aspect of my research. Listed here is information I gleaned

Reviews for Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High?

[Nero · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best and beneficial books I have read

[Andre Lefebvre · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Already a failed attempt to posture a group of people as superior, many of whom have designed an apartheid racist regime in Palestine for over 100 years, and committing crimes against humanity reminiscent of all the former settler colonialist project we today universally regard with deep shame. High IQ? Not of the most important intelligence, that of the heart and self-awareness. This kind of book should not be written or even sold.

When I read their "sacred" texts and consider what the Ashkenazim proudly do against Arabs, Ethiopian Jews, Palestinians, and how they support the crimes of settler criminals doing pogroms even TODAY (Google it), I am amazed at the recurrent theme of their stiff-necked rebellion and continued crimes and disobedience against their God. It reveals the utter darkness of those put in position of power, their inhumanity, cruelty, stupidity and blindness. How they get away with it: deception. That is where their "intelligence" shines.