Horizon Shifters

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/jewish-genius/ An excellent piece on what strikes me as a fascinating mystery: why has a small Semitic tribe had such vast influence over mankind's intellectual development? Note particularly the statistical oddity that, for a normal distribution (like IQ), a modest advantage in averages translates into a great advantage at the far ends of the distribution. For example, assuming the Ashkenazim possess average IQs of 110 and gentiles run at 100--this means that a member of the former group is 13 times as likely as a member of the latter group to manifest a 160 IQ (which is 1 of 30,000 gentiles and 1 of 2,300 Ashkenazi). The ratio would be 7:1 at 145 IQ and 4:1 at 130 IQ. You see the pattern. This may largely explain the huge disproportion in Jewish Nobel prizes and Fields Medals relative to any other group. Also, these numbers match what I recently found in looking at gentile vs. Jewish acceptance rates at the top 10 American universities. Supposedly, half of such students are accepted on academic merit. This means the top tenth of a percent of gentiles are accepted--their average IQs exceed 146. At that level, statistics would lead to the expectation of a 7.5:1 acceptance ratio. Jews have a 14 fold greater acceptance rate, meaning the top 1.4% make it in. This would instead imply a 13 point gap in average Jewish-gentile IQs, assuming meritocratic standards are applied equally to Jews and gentiles. But, it's likely that the Jews work harder and have more admissions through legacies and university employee preferences--so the gap probably is closer to 10 points after all. I may post some of the stats I gathered later.