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Monday, November 05, 2007
The Genetics of Jewishness
Last week, the American Enterprise Institute sponsored a book forum on Jon Entine's Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People. William Saletan of Slate and Dana Milbank of the Washington Post both attended and offer thoughts.
The gist of it is that Jews are a distinct race with distinct DNA developed over 5768 years of culturally urged inbreeding. And that unique DNA is linked to Jewish intelligence--Entine cites statistics that the average IQ for Ashkenazi Jews is 107-115, and 122 for verbal IQ, while the human average is 100.
Both Saletan and Milbank suggest this made everyone at the AEI forum a little uneasy. The obvious concern is the arrogance of the idea that we are, essentially, genetically superior, at least with respect to intelligence. After all, the whole "Chosen People" thing did not go over well in the host countries of Middle Ages Europe; putting a scientific spin on it will not likely fare much better. And there is an inherent danger that genetic differences can be morphed by the majority into arguments about genetic inferiority, justifying all sorts of atrocities. On the other hand, Ashkenazi Jews unquestionably carry in common certain genetic differences that have negative implications, notably higher susceptibility to diseases such as breast cancer and Tay-Sachs (there is a specific group of seven tests for in-utero genetic defects labeled the "Ashkenazi Jewish Panel"). And recent studies suggest a possible common link--that the same genetic characteristics that make Jews smart also make them susceptible to particular diseases. And, of course, there is an underlying genetic element to the old joke that the shortest book ever written is "Great Jewish Sports Stars" (seriously: Jews apparently are deficient in "visio-spatial skills," which probably affects my ability to hit a curveball).
The AEI panel moderator insisted that Entine's arguments are good for the Jews. Is she right?
Posted by Howard Wasserman on November 5, 2007 at 04:33 PM | Permalink
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Guest-blogging over at PrawfsBlawg, Howard Wasserman asks for reactions to the AEI-sponsored book forum on Jon Entine's new book, Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People:The gist of it is that Jews are a distinct race [Read More]
Tracked on Nov 6, 2007 3:15:21 PM
Comments
A problem in this discussion is the application of stock terms to a particular case. Analysis of a defined population must first guard against any illogical misspecification of the ascertainable facts. This entails honing in on the specifics in bland, non-expansive, simple, unambiguous terms. "Race" is just one antithetical example of the needed discipline in language here. As for "in-breeding", degree of voluntary restriction of marital partners is a factual issue to be sure. Another issue, which seems utterly ignored in this discussion is the status of Jewish groups at recurrent times through history as outcasts, indeed as the victims of genocide. Consider the history of Jews in Poland, for one out of many chapters in Jewish, European, Asian, and Levant history. Hitler's Nazism was far from the first concerted effort to eliminate the Jews residing in geo-politically defined regions of the planet. In general it might behoove disciplinarily peregrinating scholars participating in this dialogue to read up on Jewish history, perhaps we may permit ourselves to say, history of the Jewish people, over, say, the last 1000 or 1500 years.
Posted by: A.Tierman | Nov 29, 2007 5:02:44 PM
Dan and Daniel, thanks of your comments. To be clearer: Abraham's Children in no way makes the scientifically absurd assertion that "Jews are a distinct race with distinct DNA developed over 5768 years of culturally urged inbreeding." I never suggest that Jews are/were a "distinct race" as the concept of "race" as its historically been used is malignant. I certainly don't believe that Israelite history stretches back much beyond 3500 years ago. And there is little evidence of "culturally urged inbreeding" until the Diaspora. I don't believe either of you would quibble much with the DISCUSSION of the implications of the genetic advances in unraveling the various threads of Jewish identity.
Jon Entine
Posted by: Jon Entine | Nov 8, 2007 10:52:57 PM
(cross-posted at MH Blog.
Jon,
First off, thanks for commenting. Second, I'd like to make clear that my post was not in any way, shape, or form a review of your book. My book reviews are all collected under the category of "Medical Humanities Bookworm." Rather, this post was a response to Howard Wasserman's characterization of the AEI forum on your book.
I would not review a book I had not read, and since I did not read yours, I am not offering any views on the book per se, but rather on the account of the discussion that went on at the AEI Forum.
Third, I disagree that we've moved beyond the "kum-ba-ya" stage of genetics. Every genetic linkage is breathlessly reported on by the media, and buried down 4 or 5 paragraphs is the almost grudging concession that the linkage is insufficient by itself to establish much of anything, and that therapeutic application -- as with most linkages genetic in nature -- are a long way away.
Fourth, I have no idea whether your book takes a reductionist tack or not. I do maintain that a great deal of the discourse on genes and gene science is premised on a badly confused and reductionist, linear notion of "what genes do," and/or genetic causation. I am hardly the only person to notice this, as social and cultural critics of scientific practice and scientists themselves (most notably Lewontin) have drawn similar conclusions.
Fifth, I have no idea if this is reflected in your book or not, but I absolutely believe that the idea of constructing Jewish identity on the basis of genes is, even if accurate -- which I doubt -- extremely perilous from an ethical and historical perspective.
Finally, I apologize if you felt this post was a "behind-the-back" put-down, though I respectfully disagree since it was not aimed at your book at all, but the perception of genetic causation reflected in Howard Wasserman's account.
Posted by: Daniel S. Goldberg | Nov 8, 2007 11:47:45 AM
Jon, for what it's worth, I didn't read Howard's post the same way you did. I read the post as referring to your book only for the narrow claims that "Jews are a distinct race with distinct DNA developed over 5768 years of culturally urged inbreeding. And that unique DNA is linked to Jewish intelligence--Entine cites statistics that the average IQ for Ashkenazi Jews is 107-115, and 122 for verbal IQ, while the human average is 100."
Does your book stand at odds with those two sentences? Because everything that else that followed in the next paragraph I read as being relevant to the discussion at AEI and elsewhere provoked by your book but not necessarily by the book itself. If it's the case that Howard's reliance on your book is more limited than you think, I think you're too quick to chastise Howard.
Posted by: Dan Markel | Nov 7, 2007 3:37:04 PM
I'm the author of the book that Mr. Wasserman and others comment upon. It's always startling to read the critique of people who have NOT read what they are critiquing!
For the record, the book is not about Jewish IQ and it makes no polemical claims of Jewish superiority or genetic distinctiveness, beyond the facts that Jews suffer certain disorders at a significantly higher rate than other populations because of their historical genetic insularity. Abraham's Children is not reductionist--it does not make a polemical argument for reducing identity to genes, Jewish or otherwise.
AC very carefully covers/discusses/debates the nuances of population genetics packaged in an entertaining narrative about the arc of Israelite and Jewish history. The main thrust of the book -- which does not come through from his post -- focuses on DNA as time machine, to help us understand how ancestry has played a role, along with faith and the concept of a homeland, in shaping the identity of the Israelites and subsequently Jews.
The subtext of the book -- a minor one although it has received outsized interest in some blogs because of the two articles mentioned--touch on human biodiversity. I make a clear point in the book: We've moved passed the 'kum-ba-ya' stage and into the era of the HapMap--the study of the chunks of DNA, which often vary from population to population, and help us identify diseases and behavioral differences.
This is not reductionist. I put this discussion in context, with no polemical claims, and full challenged but competing perspectives.
It would be helpful if we could constructively talk about human biodiversity, and its serious public policy and social consequences, without resorting to back of the hand put downs--especially by those who have no even read what they are commenting on.
Thanks,
Jon Entine
http://www.abrahamschildren.net
Posted by: Jon Entine | Nov 7, 2007 3:20:52 PM
Jews "deficient in 'visio-spatial skills'" -- of course I have to react on the part of all the Israeli fighter pilots and all the Israeli girls (and boys) who every dated them -- the best pilots in the world !
Funny. I made the same observation as Orly Lobel in a comment on my own blog.
While no one denies that we are enabled and disabled to some extent by our "innate" genetic make up, the vast majority of us, operating at the comfortable and unremarkable center of the bell curve, can rise to the occasion to perform tasks demanded of us. Our abilities and expertize adapt to the societal milieu that values one human achievement over another, given the priorities of a civilization at that particular time.
Genes do not change that much or that dramatically in a short span of time and when they do, we have little control over how they do. Social milieu does change by common consensus and ethical and moral choices and we have some say in which direction we want to evolve. Emancipation will do wonders for a "dumb" and heretofore oppressed population.
And those Israeli fighter pilots? Where did they come from? When a bookish, insular population chose to become a militarized one - a cultural choice not a miraculous genetic shift within a generation.
Posted by: Ruchira | Nov 6, 2007 8:18:33 PM
Erratum:
The phrase "genetic information itself doesn't really matter, because the expression of that information never ever proceeds in a linear, self-determining manner"
should read
"genetic information itself doesn't really matter, because the expression of that information virtually never (with rare monogenic conditions like Huntington's chorea being exceptions) proceeds in a linear, self-determining manner"
Posted by: Daniel S. Goldberg | Nov 6, 2007 3:18:49 PM
Thanks Daniel: that needed to be said (and was well said).
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | Nov 6, 2007 1:24:44 PM
In short: no.
Because eugenics is a dirty word, people often forget that Galton's usage of the term was entirely positive, such that the notion of a eugenic characteristic redounding to a race could be profoundly positive.
However, as many scholars have noted, the genetic and biological reification of race is deeply problematic. Even though "race" is a scientifically incoherent concept (because in-group variation is greater than between-group variation), much of the biomedical literature and discussion focuses on concepts of genetic linkage, which at least some scholars find troubling (see, e.g., Braun, 2002; Roberts, 2003; Kahn, 2005).
The minute we start Othering persons by virtue of their genes, we set the stage for significant mischief. The history of disability policy in the 20th century alone easily shows this, and the linkage of Jewish identity to genes should be enough to give any serious student of the history of science and research ethics the horribles, frankly. (Which doesn't mean per se that it is inaccurate -- though I absolutely think it is -- but does mean that one ought to think very, very carefully, in an ethically and historically informed manner, about the implications of constructing a notion of identity based on genes).
Not to mention which, the entire concept of "genetic causation" is deeply flawed in public discourse, by scientists and laymen alike, as scholars like Keller and Lewontin in particular have demonstrated time and again. Genes don't cause anything per se; rather, their expression is the product of the behavior of a nonlinear dynamical system, with an untold number of variables and causal factors all interacting in iterative, interrelated fashion. This is in part why the study of epigenetics is a much more interesting field of inquiry than the study of genetics -- the genetic information itself doesn't really matter, because the expression of that information never ever proceeds in a linear, self-determining manner. Kind of Wittgensteinian -- the rule never by itself determines correct applications.
Much more interesting, as Keller notes, is gene action -- how do genes act? And there are a great many social factors implicated in genetic causation that often go completely unmentioned in thinking about notions of genes and identity.
Moreover, what does it mean to be "genetically superior?" Surely not more intelligent, because Cosma Shalizi's excellent post of a few weeks back shows just how weak the argument for g is at this point. The notion that some heretofore mythical g, if found, could be used as a basis to differentiate a "race" is scientifically flawed, and ignores the important notion that race is a socially constructed yet nevertheless "real" category. If Jews were to be more intelligent, the notion of that being "caused" by genes simply does not make any sense, and relies on a linear, reductionist, deeply flawed model of genetic causation. A plethora of environmental and social determinants are a sine qua non for any kind of expressed intelligence.
The fact that Ashkenazi Jews "carry" genetic differences does not imply that we can identify Ashkenazi Jews by virtue of the Tay-Sachs or BRCA mutations, because plenty of Ashkenazi Jews carry neither, and plenty of non-Ashkenazi Jews carry either (the Japanese feature higher rates of Tay-Sachs carriers, for example).
My overarching feeling, then, is that the entire terms of the discussion relied on a notion of genetic causation that is likely to confuse, at the very least. In addition, I think stakeholders would be well advised to weigh carefully the ethical and historical implications of constructing group identity -- particularly Jewish identity -- on the basis of so-called "genetic" differences.
Posted by: Daniel S. Goldberg | Nov 6, 2007 1:13:25 PM
Jews "deficient in 'visio-spatial skills'" -- of course I have to react on the part of all the Israeli fighter pilots and all the Israeli girls (and boys) who every dated them -- the best pilots in the world !
Posted by: Orly Lobel | Nov 6, 2007 12:11:09 PM
FWIW, Joseph, that turned out to be a singular blessing; I think Israel's non-oil driven economy is far preferable along several dimensions than an oil-besotted one, especially those where, because oil wealth, locals prefer not to work hard and where education is valued much less, at least for women.
Posted by: Anon | Nov 6, 2007 10:22:59 AM
I'm thinking of the old joke along the lines of, "if you people were so smart, why did you pick the only place in the Mideast without oil?"
Posted by: Joseph Slater | Nov 6, 2007 10:16:22 AM
What my co-bloggers and I have been saying:
here, here and here.
Will look forward to what PB readers have to say.
Posted by: Ruchira | Nov 5, 2007 7:10:11 PM
Lord I hope not.
How does the fact that one may convert to Judaism affect this nonsense?
What do IQ studies measure? All the various kinds of intelligence? (I'm thinking of Howard Gardner's work on 'multiple intelligences')
You hit the mark here: "After all, the whole "Chosen People" thing did not go over well in the host countries of Middle Ages Europe; putting a scientific spin on it will not likely fare much better."
I admit to wishing people would just ignore such stuff....
When I inform my students that it seems Jews (religious or secular; I ask them to cite three thinkers in the modern period who we might describe as 'culturally' Jewish and that had [and continue to have] an enormous impact on the intellectual character of European civilization [Marx, Freud and Einstein]) make for brilliant academics I tend to argue that it stems from an appreciation of the written word and rabbinic traditions of textual scrutiny and hermeneutics that often have a philosophical character or are conducted with a philosophical temperament, etc., etc.
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | Nov 5, 2007 5:52:32 PM
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