I might be mistaken, however I think that Dr. Dawkins was trying to stipulate was the content of the talk by Dr. Tyson at the Beyond Belief conference (2006).
(It is quite long, but in my opinion worth the watch)
TLDW: He presents evidence of the rise of religion being a major if not the major contributing factor to the downfall of critical thinking, most significantly saying that people invoke a religious philosophy of ignorance at the end of their knowledge, and this is quite dangerous to scientific thinking.
His (Degrasse's) point was that when there was a spirit of critical thinking that was permitted, there were great advances in science, whereas when that was stifled (I do believe that the jews did not have such a rigid religiosity enforced upon them) they lost their ability to do good science.
That I think was also the point that Dawkins was trying to make.
It is very likely and probable that socio-economic status is a causal factor, however the point being made is not that that is untrue, it is that there is another one of (likely) equal importance.
Here is the link to that talk [video]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7rR8stuQfk
(It is quite long, but in my opinion worth the watch)
TLDW: He presents evidence of the rise of religion being a major if not the major contributing factor to the downfall of critical thinking, most significantly saying that people invoke a religious philosophy of ignorance at the end of their knowledge, and this is quite dangerous to scientific thinking.