The Chosen People

Lynn wrote a comprehensive analysis on Jewish intelligence  and just to save you time, I'll go to the conclusion, which is that persecution was the main factor in developing the IQ differential between the Jew and other peoples. Where it was cruel and persistent, like Germany, there Jews are most intelligent, and where there was none, like Ethiopia, Jews are exactly like the surrounding population.

Lynn analyses European Jewry as it was before the Holocaust, that is, he is studying a people that no longer exists. In the same way, he could study the IQ of the late Beothuks of Newfoundland. He makes some mistakes in identifying prominent persons as Jews or non-Jews, but those errors do not change the conclusions. He also deals with Mizrahi Jews as a coherent group, which is not. Baghdadi Jews (pic) were (they have all moved to Israel) and are different from Moroccan Jews and so on. Lynn   is superficial and probably wrong when writes that Mizrahi Jews never excelled. How much do we know about Baghdad before the Mongol invasion and destruction?

In spite of the deficiencies, the work is worthy and contains interesting observations. For example, the marriage permits like in Frankfort and Prague, did limit the number while enhance the quality of the city's Jews. So they had fewer Jews but they were even smarter.

Since the explosive advance of genetics in the last decade, we have a much more precise instrument for population analysis. Lynn's methodology is obsolete, based on hypothetical "Who is a Jew?" lists, totally unscientific. In my opinion we should leave Lynn and even the Intelligence Quotient concept behind and move on to genetics, and analysis based on genes.