The flip side of this belief -- one I've run into -- is a superiority complex that is difficult to disentangle from racism. Ashkenazi jews have high IQs. Guess which other kind of jews don't. Guess what many Ashkenazi jews would say about, for instance, Africans and intelligence. (Okay, not what they would say, but what they actually think.) I think this belief in high IQ is a form of cultural identification, but depends on a highly selective definition of intelligence.
 

There is speculation and then there is informed hypothesizing. Those are two different things. Not all informed people will float the same hypotheses, but when they do put forward their hypotheses, they can cite data, and there is a basis for other informed people to refute their reasoning, or to put one data set in context by providing other data, or to frame a research study that might provide new data to clarify how the existing data should be interpreted. That is the way knowledge advances.

Speculation is something else. Speculation is throwing out a hypothesis, maybe even a scientifically testable hypothesis, without having a clue whether it has already been investigated, or without having read more than a single popularized account of the issue. That is what is irresponsible, and people who do that should not get a free pass, even if their speculations turn out to be correct. Honoring speculators in this area is honoring people who play hunches based on their biases. They make speculations based on hearing something that they like hearing. We are all biased in one way or another, but we earn the right to make hypotheses by setting those biases aside and basing our hypotheses on solid information about the results of multiple, unbiased studies.

It's really important that we not lose sight of this distinction.
 

You talkin to me?
 

Believe it or not, I *didn't* write that 10:46 post. Glad to know there are other hectoring intellectuals besides me out there, in case I forget to look both ways crossing the street.

SE
 

I thought you could fly, Eagle. Don't turn into a chicken.
 

This Ashkenazi Jews thing is such old news. It was thoroughly covered in Wade's "Before the Dawn," and that book is a couple of years old now. The research it reports is older.
 

Yeah but "they" are still out there walking tall.
 

While the news might be old it wasn't widely reported then and is certainly relevant now, especially given the interests of this blog.
 

a "superiorit complex"? what the hell are you talking about moron?
 

you