
Jewish Nobel Laureates - pathikrit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates
======
alphakappa
While this is an interesting statistic, it can be interpreted in many ways,
not all of which are meaningful.

Statistically, more men have won Nobel prizes than women (by a large margin).
Most Nobel laureates are Caucasian. Most are from the western hemisphere.
Other than gender, it may be interpreted to mean that if a group which makes a
small fraction of the total world population, they must be better/smarter.

It's a fallacious argument of course, since there can be many other factors at
play here. How much of it is because these groups have access to more funds,
that most of them are based in the United States which has better and more
well-funded universities? What about social factors that have nothing to do
with race/religion?

Along these lines, I could submit a link about how Indians who make up a tiny
fraction of the American population are so much more successful than
$POPULATION [1], but it's a meaningless statistic to have, other than for some
misplaced pride.

1\. [http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/bobby-jindal-indian-
america...](http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/bobby-jindal-indian-americans-
opinions-contributors_immigrants_minority.html)

~~~
Luit2
> Statistically, more men have won Nobel prizes than women (by a large
> margin). Most Nobel laureates are Caucasian. Most are from the western
> hemisphere. Other than gender, it may be interpreted to mean that if a group
> which makes a small fraction of the total world population, they must be
> better/smarter.

Consider your magnitudes though.

For example, men win

0.961/0.5 = 1.9

times the Nobel Prizes you would expect based on representation alone, whereas
Jews win

0.202/0.002 = 101

times the Nobel Prizes you would expect based on representation alone.

~~~
tedunangst
Wouldn't percentage of Jews in the Western world be a better stat, given
that's more or less the population from which Nobel prize winners are
selected?

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SqMafia
This might shock the HN community but from my years of mentoring poor
performing and under privileged high school students in the Bay Area (i.e.
mostly from East Palo Alto), education is not valued by all cultures. I was
shocked when I saw this. It was always so obvious to me. That said, it's only
a shock because I was raised in a culture (Chinese) that had always valued
education. If you never had the security of being sure of your future for more
than a few months at a time, education might not seem the best choice.
Education is an investment and one that only pays off if you are secure enough
in your welfare to reap the benefits. Even for some middle class families, it
is becoming a less obvious investment since the price of education has shot up
while employment is harder to find.

If the idea of education is not universally valued, is it so hard to believe
that groups that do will do better in fields that require years of study?

I read a while back an article on Slate or the Atlantic that sort of explores
this very issue. The hypothesis was that Judaism was at one point defined by
literacy. Basically, at some point, to be a Jew required you to be read and
understand the Torah. It was enormously expensive and over time those who
couldn't afford stopped being considered Jews and those who were left were the
ones who could afford an education. Thus the culture became one that was
placed a strong emphasis on education. Someone who've read the article or know
history of the Jews better can correct me on this.

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hrasyid
By the way, has anyone come up with a possible explanation for the seemingly
disproportionate number of Jewish laureates and smart people in general? Do
Jews have some tradition or belief that's helpful in this?

~~~
mynameishere
Average IQ of 115 among the Ashkenazim. That's why. It's not really that
interesting, but it enrages almost everyone who hears it. 115 isn't that
smart, but it works out that they have a huge disproportion of members in the
more important 145+ IQ range.

Anyway, you'll find that Jews have similar numbers in such things as Fields
medals, Senate seats, the Forbes 400, etc, all at about 15-25 percent of the
total.

~~~
ekm2
East asians have a higher average IQ,so it is not necessarily a straight iQ
thing.

~~~
clarkm
No they don't.

~~~
4hthth4
Way to contribute.

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hayksaakian
Is it "submit random wikipedia articles to reap karma on HN" day already?

~~~
acadien
You should submit a more interesting article in response, that's the best way
to teach the poster a lesson.

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tokenadult
The article talk page[1] for this article points to some problems other
Wikipedians have found with this article. It's easy to misclassify people
without very careful checking of their biographies.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates)

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marze
The Jewish culture has valued certain types of intelligence for centuries, and
probably as a result their average IQ is measurably higher due to selection
effects. If you assume it is outliers on the IQ spectrum that will win the
prize, this isn't surprising at all.

I'd guess that a big reason why people of the Jewish faith have been
persecuted over the centuries is that because of their IQ advantage they gain
more wealth than other peoples they may be around. It is fascinating.

~~~
ekianjo
am i reading this on hn? what are your sources? and what does jewish culture
mean anyway when jewish people live in all continents in very different
environments and of various descents? the reason why jewish people have
accumulated more wealth may as well have nothing to do with their intelligence
but merely because they support each other when they are in position of power
and therefore raise the status of their communities.

please keep your blanket statements for some other place.

~~~
cylinder
"Support each other" is the defining characteristic of the Jewish community. I
am part of a different highly-educated minority, but its people seem to always
be envious/jealous of each other and highly competitive, and so usually refuse
to work with one another.

~~~
ekianjo
there are oter communities supporting each other. Hungarians are well knwn in
that regard too. But again I would be very careful not to attribute this to
higher intelligence or something.

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jerrya
Famous Jewish Sports Legends:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoACIIz33II](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoACIIz33II)

~~~
acheron
That is what I always think of when someone mentions the book "Javascript: The
Good Parts".

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lobo_tuerto
Where is the title editing when it is needed? Noble -> Nobel

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hapygallagher
It could be a value judgment.

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batgaijin
Interestingly all Abrahamic religions begin with a warning about the tree of
knowledge...

I still can't believe what a fucked up parable that is.

~~~
unknownian
All Abrahamic religions? Islam does not call it the tree "of knowledge" and
pursuit of knowledge is encouraged (at least in Islam).

~~~
batgaijin
my b

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ashray5
Very impressive indeed. There is a disproportionate ratio of Jewish people
serving as CEOs of large corporations as well. I heard on Freakanomics radio
that parenting and nurturing does not contribute much to the later success in
life. Its the nature not nurture, they concluded. They used adoption data to
come to that conclusion, although one can always find some argument against
that study because its only an inductive argument in the end.

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alexvr
I came across this the other day:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence)

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sitver
A related article was "Muslim nobel laureates". Total:10. I did some quick
meaningless math, and found that there's 1 nobel prize winner for every 160
million muslims, and 1 for every 70,000 jews.

I'm not going to try and interpret the data, but I do think that's
interesting.

~~~
frozenport
While it doesn't change the argument, its important to note that Jewish
carries a greater genetic specificity then Muslim.

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linux_devil
.2% of world's population and 20% of Nobel prizes won. p.s: * Nobel _

~~~
jrs99
Look how many MEN have won, too! That is one intelligent gender.

~~~
astrodust
0.1% of the world's population and 20% of the prizes won!

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thomaaas
Jewish have a strong sense of community. Nothing wrong about that.

So if there are lots of jewish who are choosing the laureates, it's "normal"
to see a lot of jewish ending up nobel laureates.

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marincounty
1\. It's not genetic. 2\. "Why isn't it genetic? Spend a day with an Isralie
who just arrived in the U.S.. 3\. If I say anything else, I'll never hear the
end of it.

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SqMafia
Wow. Whoever put the list of Muslim Nobel Laureates in the article is a bit of
a prick. Let's pit one group of people vs. the other.

~~~
clarkm
Yeah, Richard Dawkins got in trouble for tweeting something very similar a
couple months ago:

[https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/365473573768400896](https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/365473573768400896)

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al1x
These statistics make me curious about the religious breakdown of the various
Nobel committee's.

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eibrahim
Very impressive

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laureny
How do you decide who's noble and who's not?

~~~
acheron
Full electron shells?

