JUST SO SO

Researchers Say Intelligence and Diseases May Be Linked in Ashkenazic Genes (Nicholas Wade, NY Times, 6/3/05)

A team of scientists at the University of Utah has proposed that the unusual pattern of genetic diseases seen among Jews of central or northern European origin, or Ashkenazim, is the result of natural selection for enhanced intellectual ability.

The selective force was the restriction of Ashkenazim in medieval Europe to occupations that required more than usual mental agility, the researchers say in a paper that has been accepted by the Journal of Biosocial Science, published by Cambridge University Press in England.

The hypothesis advanced by the Utah researchers has drawn a mixed reaction among scientists, some of whom dismissed it as extremely implausible, while others said they had made an interesting case, although one liable to raise many hackles.

"It would be hard to overstate how politically incorrect this paper is," said Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard, noting that it argues for an inherited difference in intelligence between groups. Still, he said, "it's certainly a thorough and well-argued paper, not one that can easily be dismissed outright."

"Absolutely anything in human biology that is interesting is going to be controversial," said one of the report's authors, Dr. Henry Harpending, an anthropologist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

He and two colleagues at the University of Utah, Gregory Cochran and Jason Hardy, see the pattern of genetic disease among the Ashkenazi Jewish population as reminiscent of blood disorders like sickle cell anemia that occur in populations exposed to malaria, a disease that is only 5,000 years old.

In both cases, the Utah researchers argue, evolution has had to counter a sudden threat by favoring any mutation that protected against it, whatever the side effects. Ashkenazic diseases like Tay-Sachs, they say, are a side effect of genes that promote intelligence. [Emphasis added]

Smart guy, that evolution.

My wife brought this to my attention, and is up in arms. Somehow, a scientific study suggesting that Jews are crafty, in-bred, money-lending genetic freaks doesn't thrill her. I'll simply note that this whole paper is teleological: these genetic diseases must have a purpose, we've got to figure out what it is. Ironically, those of you who believe in natural selection now have no choice but to defer to me when I tell you that it's all bunk. My intellect was naturally selected, after all.

Posted by David Cohen at June 3, 2005 6:58 PM