Jewish Genius Charles Murray ince its first issue in 1945, Commentary has IQ as an explanation for that accomplishment; and S published hundreds of articles about Jews and current theories about how the Jews acquired their Judaism. As one would expect, they cover just elevated IQ. about every important aspect of the topic. But there is a lacuna, and not one involving some ob- rom 800 b.c.e. through the first millennium scure bit of Judaica. Commentary has never pub- F of the Common Era, we have just two exam- lished a systematic discussion of one of the most ples of great Jewish accomplishment, and neither obvious topics of all: the extravagant overrepresen- falls strictly within the realms of the arts or sci- tation of Jews, relative to their numbers, in the top ences. But what a pair they are. The first is the ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine, finance, fully realized conceptualization of monotheism, entrepreneurship, and the media. expressed through one of the literary treasures of I have personal experience with the reluctance of the world, the Hebrew Bible. It not only laid the Jews to talk about Jewish accomplishment—my co- foundation for three great religions but, as author, the late Richard Herrnstein, gently resist- Thomas Cahill describes in The Gifts of the Jews ed the paragraphs on Jewish IQ that I insisted on (1998), introduced a way of looking at the mean- putting in The Bell Curve (1994). Both history and ing of human life and the nature of history that the contemporary revival of anti-Semitism in Eu- defines core elements of the modern sensibility. rope make it easy to understand the reasons for The second achievement is not often treated as a that reluctance. But Jewish accomplishment con- Jewish one but clearly is: Christian theology ex- stitutes a fascinating and important story. Recent pressed through the New Testament, an accom- scholarship is expanding our understanding of its plishment that has spilled into every aspect of origins. Western civilization. And so this Scots-Irish Gentile from Iowa here- But religious literature is the exception. The by undertakes to tell the story. I cover three topics: Jews do not appear in the annals of philosophy, the timing and nature of Jewish accomplishment, drama, visual art, mathematics, or the natural sci- focusing on the arts and sciences; elevated Jewish ences during the eighteen centuries from the time Charles Murray is the W.H. Brady scholar at the Amer- of Homer through the first millennium c.e., when ican Enterprise Institute and the author most recently of In so much was happening in Greece, China, and Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State (2006). South Asia. It is unclear to what extent this reflects This article has been adapted from a presentation at the an- a lack of activity or the lack of a readily available nual Herzliya Conference in Israel in January. record. For example, only a handful of the scien- [29] Commentary April 2007 tists of the Middle Ages are mentioned in most his- contemporaneous devastation of European Jewry, tories of science, and none was a Jew. But when the number of significant figures almost triples, George Sarton put a high-powered lens to the to 114. Middle Ages in his monumental Introduction to the To get a sense of the density of accomplishment History of Science (1927-48), he found that 95 of the these numbers represent, I will focus on 1870 on- 626 known scientists working everywhere in the ward, after legal emancipation had been achieved world from 1150 to 1300 were Jews—15 percent of throughout Central and Western Europe. How the total, far out of proportion to the Jewish pop- does the actual number of significant figures com- ulation. pare to what would be expected given the Jewish As it happens, that same period overlaps with proportion of the European and North American the life of the most famous Jewish philosopher of population? From 1870 to 1950, Jewish represen- medieval times, Maimonides (1135–1204), and of tation in literature was four times the number one others less well known, not to mention the Jew- would expect. In music, five times. In the visual ish poets, grammarians, religious thinkers, schol- arts, five times. In biology, eight times. In chem- ars, physicians, and courtiers of Spain in the istry, six times. In physics, nine times. In mathe- “Golden Age,” or the brilliant exegetes and rab- matics, twelve times. In philosophy, fourteen binical legislators of northern France and Ger- times. many. But this only exemplifies the difficulty of Disproportionate Jewish accomplishment in the assessing Jewish intellectual activity in that peri- arts and sciences continues to this day. My inven- od. Aside from Maimonides and a few others, tories end with 1950, but many other measures are these thinkers and artists did not perceptibly in- available, of which the best known is the Nobel fluence history or culture outside the confines of Prize. In the first half of the 20th century, despite the Jewish world. pervasive and continuing social discrimination Generally speaking, this remained the case well against Jews throughout the Western world, de- into the Renaissance and beyond. When writing a spite the retraction of legal rights, and despite the book called Human Accomplishment (2003), I com- Holocaust, Jews won 14 percent of Nobel Prizes in piled inventories of “significant figures” in the arts literature, chemistry, physics, and medicine/physi- and sciences, defined as people who are mentioned ology. In the second half of the 20th century, when in at least half of the major histories of their re- Nobel Prizes began to be awarded to people from spective fields. From 1200 to 1800, only seven Jews all over the world, that figure rose to 29 percent. are among those significant figures, and only two So far, in the 21st century, it has been 32 percent. were important enough to have names that are still Jews constitute about two-tenths of one percent of widely recognized: Spinoza and Montaigne (whose the world’s population. You do the math. mother was Jewish). hat accounts for this remarkable record? he sparse representation of Jews during the W A full answer must call on many character- T flowering of the European arts and sciences is istics of Jewish culture, but intelligence has to be not hard to explain. They were systematically ex- at the center of the answer. Jews have been found cluded, both by legal restrictions on the occupa- to have an unusually high mean intelligence as tions they could enter and by savage social dis- measured by IQ tests since the first Jewish sam- crimination. Then came legal emancipation, be- ples were tested. (The widely repeated story that ginning in the late 1700’s in a few countries and Jewish immigrants to this country in the early completed in Western Europe by the 1870’s, and 20th century tested low on IQ is a canard.) Exact- with it one of the most extraordinary stories of any ly how high has been difficult to pin down, be- ethnic group at any point in human history. cause Jewish sub-samples in the available surveys As soon as Jewish children born under legal are seldom perfectly representative. But it is cur- emancipation had time to grow to adulthood, they rently accepted that the mean is somewhere in the started appearing in the first ranks of the arts and range of 107 to 115, with 110 being a plausible sciences. During the four decades from 1830 to compromise. 1870, when the first Jews to live under emancipa- The IQ mean for the American population is tion reached their forties, 16 significant Jewish “normed” to be 100, with a standard deviation of figures appear. In the next four decades, from 15. If the Jewish mean is 110, then the mathemat- 1870 to 1910, the number jumps to 40. During ics of the normal distribution says that the average the next four decades, 1910–1950, despite the Jew is at the 75th percentile. Underlying that [30] Jewish Genius mean in overall IQ is a consistent pattern on IQ means of data. And so we come to the great ques- subtests: Jews are only about average on the sub- tion: how and when did this elevated Jewish IQ tests measuring visuo-spatial skills, but extremely come about? Here, the discussion must become high on subtests that measure verbal and reason- speculative. Geneticists and historians are still as- ing skills. sembling the pieces of the explanation, and there is A group’s mean intelligence is important in ex- much room for disagreement. plaining outcomes such as mean educational at- I begin with the assumption that elevated Jewish tainment or mean income. The key indicator for intelligence is grounded in genetics. It is no longer predicting exceptional accomplishment (like win- seriously disputed that intelligence in Homo sapiens ning a Nobel Prize) is the incidence of exception- is substantially heritable. In the last two decades, it al intelligence. Consider an IQ score of 140 or has also been established that obvious environmen- higher, denoting the level of intelligence that can tal factors such as high income, books in the house, permit people to excel in fields like theoretical and parental reading to children are not as potent physics and pure mathematics. If the mean Jewish as one might expect. A “good enough” environ- IQ is 110 and the standard deviation is 15, then ment is important for the nurture of intellectual the proportion of Jews with IQ’s of 140 or higher potential, but the requirements for “good enough” is somewhere around six times the proportion of are not high.