Ok, this has been bothering me for a long time, so i figured i should state my beliefs and or suspicions and get some feedback about it.
What do you think about The whole notion certain nationalities are smarter than others because they excel in the academic world, and have more prominant figures within society.
To give you an example the Jewish people. WHen you look at the total population of AMerica or for that sake the world, they are relatively a small percentage yet they are central in the world of medicine, law, and finally business. I mean how many doctors, lawyers, architects, business tycoons are jewish so many! You watch you CNN, and they have DR. Goldstein, or Dr. Goldberg commentating on something, then when they have analyists talking about the most prominant court trials. THey have lawyers commenting Rosen, Schessler, Medoff, Rosenberg, Stein and so on constantly jewish. Its never ending…
I go to Penn State and our president is infact is Jewish.
Now my question is do you think jewish people excel in academics and become prominent figures because they are genetically smarter, they have certain capabilities others do not and this allows them to enable things many can only dream. OR is this all environment, the reason they do better is because they are brought up in strict households where everything is school. They simply try harder and want it more than everybody else and that’s the reason for their sucess.
To add some other nationalities that seem to do well are Armenians, Iranians any other middle eastern countries and of course asia, and india. Note that Armenian Keyorkian, that armenian billionare who bought 800million dollars worth of shares of General Motors last week.
<p>Saying that it is genetic and inherently natural for Jews (or Asians/Indians or some other high-performing group) is racist. It is just as racist to say that Jews are "better" because of their genetics as it is to say that blacks are "dumb" because of their genes.</p>
<p>Anyone who bases academic performance on GENES is obviously not too academic and might have spent too much time drooling over outdated and racist eugenics textbooks of some sort.</p>
<p>It's all cultural and environment based. What people said about the Jews decades ago-- about how they were so successful and smart and were going to "take over" businesses and college campuses etc-- are now being said about Asians. Asians are the "new Jews." Often many Asian families, like many Jewish families, place high standards in terms of academic success. Many are often encouraged if not forced to enter pre-med/pre-law type professions. Hence, there are a lot of Jewish or Asian or Indian doctors, or lawyers-- which is why those groups are often considered "successful" or even "disproportionately" successful.</p>
<p>It is NOT genetic. It is the way we were raised. NOTHING is genetic except physical makeup. Asians and Jews aren't naturally smarter than anyone else. Blacks aren't naturally better at sports than anyone else. It was just the way culture and society has shaped people, what different people have grown up being exposed to, or how their values and identity have been shaped. Because of self-isolation within different ethnic/cultural/religious groups, self-identity and value systems even with the American population are often largely based upon the beliefs and values of those ethnic/cultural/religous groups. </p>
<p>That's why it might SEEM that Jews and Asians and Indians tend to be lawyers or doctors. Often times some facets of their culture expects if not demands that sort of professional success of them.</p>
<p>i tend to agree with you that its environment. But one thing i disagree with you is the notion blacks are better at athletics because of environment, quite frankly that is BS.</p>
<p>Its fact blacks have higher vertical jump when compared to whites, they run faster than whites and so on. Dont give me the occasional white runner in the olympics, thats an exception for the most part the runners are blacks.</p>
<p>Why do you think the winners of the Boston Marathon are always from Kenya, south africa and so on.</p>
<p>YOu make good points but to assume blacks are not genetically composed better in terms of bone structure to excel in athletics is foolish</p>
<p>clearly if armenian and iranians were genetically "better" and wired for "success" then their own countries (i.e iran and armenia) should have been economic superpowers by today.</p>
<p>the case is ofcourse, otherwise.</p>
<p>they realize their potential in america because of the opportunity's that are presented to them. it is the environment, not the genes that determine the success of a particular race...</p>
<p>Iraq was once the center of learning for the "western" world. It had libraries and scholars, and it brought us our modern concept of mathematics. Then came Alexander and it was the Greeks. Millions of factors were in play to make Europe what it was, which in turn made the U.S what it was. Iran becoming what it is now is a result of exploitation from other nations and from within. It just got unlucky in terms of socioeconomic/geopolitical factors.</p>
<p>To switch poles here, you can't leave genes out of the picture. When groups of people become separated for millions of years, their gene pools shift to accomodate differing environments. Their gene pool also shifts randomly to some degree. This can have an inadvertant effect on intelligence. Intelligence relies on so many factors that nobody can say it has no base in genetics. Of course, we can't live in an objective world. A scientist can't do a statistical study of IQ based on descent without being called a racist. Whether or not this is a just label for such an act is hard to say when we consider what racist groups might do when they get their hands on this data, and what history has told us about the brutality of racism. Considering this, I'm convinced people should just leave the question alone. For the rest of the time our species survives. It's not worth it. If we can eliminate prejudice based on race, we'll solve 75% of the worlds problems right there. We have to do everything we can to reach that goal.</p>