As someone who has had a fair grounding in the principles of genetics, statistics, and mathematical modelling, I was intrigued to hear about a study with a novel hypothesis regarding the mechanism for both Jewish intellectual performance and Jewish hereditary / genetic diseases.

And I was equally irked when this study was recklessly quoted and reasoned about by people who didn't even bother to read even just the abstract of the scientific article, but just "secondary" reporting by the main stream press, such as with the popular Economist report. Most people who responded to this news failed to even address the main point of their study, which was the proposed mechanism for the correlation between Jewish intellectual performance and Jewish hereditary / genetic diseases. Instead they resorted to knee-jerk reactions, denouncing racism, eugenics, and racial stereotyping.

Read on to see my response to a posting regarding this so-called controversy over at Jewschool.