Investigating Claims Of Superior Ashkenazi IQ

Sometimes on X, as in real life, a discussion arises about Ashkenazi Jewish IQ. Such discussions usually involve claims (such as the one made by Grok above) that Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is superior to that of whites, which explains their observed over-representation in positions of power such as academia and politics. These claims are hotly disputed. As a psychological scientist, I thought I’d investigate, so that you don’t have to.

The 2005 Cochran paper referenced by Grok can be found here. In the section titled ‘The Psychometric Evidence about Ashkenazi IQ’, it states: “Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average IQ of any ethnic group for which there are reliable data. They score 0.75 to 1.0 standard deviations above the general European average, corresponding to an IQ [of] 112-115. This has been seen in many studies (Backman, 1972; Levinson, 1959; Romanoff, 1976).”

However, these claims, as well as the other claims from this section, cannot be verified.

Backman’s study can be found here. The most important table from it is reproduced below.

This table suggests that Jewish intelligence is higher than that of whites in verbal knowledge (VKN) and mathematical ability (MAT). If intelligence was limited to these two submeasures (ignoring e.g. English language and visual reasoning abilities), and normalised to a white IQ of 100, Jews would score ((57.1/51.9)*100) = 110 for verbal knowledge and ((58.6/52.1)*100) = 113 for mathematical knowledge, around 112 overall.

This has been taken as hard evidence of superior Jewish IQ by Cochran and by Grok and others.

However, if we look at the ‘Sex’ group, we also see great differences between men and women. Normalised to a female IQ of 100, men score ((53.7/48.3)*100) = 112 in verbal knowledge and an incredible ((63.9/44.6)*100) = 144 for mathematical ability. Taken together, this suggests an IQ of 128 or so for men compared to 100 for women.

Such a suggestion is transparently ridiculous. Yet, it comes from the exact same dataset as the supposed hard evidence of superior Jewish intelligence.

If I would be an academic, and claim that men had superior IQs to women based on this dataset, and that this superior IQ explained male over-representation in academia and politics, I would be fired instantly. I would be cancelled, hounded to oblivion and destroyed. Yet, it’s acceptable to make the exact same claim about a superior Jewish IQ from the exact same dataset. Grok will even it repeat it unquestioningly.

Moreover, it’s apparent from reading the methodology of the study that the sampling is suspect. The initial study of 400,000 students might have been representative, but this particular study only looked at the 2,925 students who responded to a follow-up study five years after graduation. It’s not clear that this subsample is representative of the actual racial populations.

Levinson’s 1959 study from the Journal of Clinical Psychology is not available online and could only be found if I have access to a university library. Romanoff’s study is part of a thesis that can only be found on microfiche at the National University of Israel.

So of the three ancient references given by Cochran, two are unavailable, and the third contains massive methodological flaws.

A 2o04 paper by Richard Lynn is also referenced. It can be found here.

Lynn’s paper mostly examines verbal intelligence. He does not skirt around this point; it is stated openly in the table in the discussion section (reproduced below).

He notes, as per Backman, that Jews score differently on various submeasures of intelligence. Although they might score higher than whites on verbal intelligence, they are known to have significantly lower scores on some other measures. This can be seen in Table 2 from Backman’s study, where whites scored 51.8 on a measure of visual reasoning and Jews only 46.0.

Taking one submeasure on which Jews do well, and generalising it to assume that Jews do well on all submeasures, is a classic composition fallacy. If I would say that Jews have lower IQs than whites because they scored only ((46.0/51.8)*100) = 89 on a submeasure of visual reasoning, which I had generalised to Jewish IQ in general, I would get laughed out of academia, if not cancelled for life on anti-semitism accusations. Yet people who do make this exact same composition fallacy, only in favour of Jews, are quoted by Grok as world psychology experts.

Moreover, Lynn’s paper states “These figures are well below previous estimates of Jewish verbal ability.” This tells us that, even by the one of the few measures Jews do excel at, a normalised score of 107-115 is an exaggeration. He notes that this Backman study is the only one with a proper national representational sample, meaning that it has the highest quality data of all the studies on this subject. The other studies showing Jewish superiority do not have enough representation or a big enough sample size to be valid.

Lynn concludes that “Probably all that can be concluded with a fair degree of confidence at present is that Jews have high crystallized intelligence (verbal ability) of which the vocabulary test used in the present study is a good measure and that on this ability their IQ in relation to gentile whites is approximately 107.5.” Crystallised intelligence is another way of saying ‘learned intelligence’ and is primarily a matter of education, which Jews are well-known for taking seriously, and is something very different to natural intelligence.

The Cochran paper then goes on to cite The Jew In London, a study from 1900, as evidence for this supposed superior IQ (not accessible).

Also linked here is a 1928 paper from the Eugenics Review. This paper is also cited by Cochran as evidence of Jewish mental superiority. But the same paper states that Jews are between 100% and 300% more likely than whites to suffer mental disease. As with the Backman study, some extremely selective reporting of the results has taken place, such that pro-Jewish results are emphasised, and anti-Jewish results are de-emphasised. Moreover, this study was funded by the Jewish Health Organisation, an obvious conflict of interest.

The Eugenics Review study is methodologically flawed on a number of counts. For one, the intelligence test questions are obviously loaded in favour of learned intelligence and not natural intelligence. For another, we know from the Wilson Effect that the heritability of intelligence increases with age, from 0.2 at age five to 0.8 at age 20. It follows from this that intelligence tests given to younger children, such as the eight to thirteen-year olds in the Eugenics Review study, reflect the environment the child was raised in more than their natural, biological intelligence. Indeed, the paper alludes to this, stating “It is often alleged that, though Jewish children are precocious, they do not fulfil their early promise.”

Perhaps most damningly, the paper concludes that the evidence within is too flimsy to draw any conclusions outside of its sample of Jewish emigre children in London. A 21st Century observer would point out that immigrants to the West from e.g. India and Nigeria are known to be much smarter than the racial averages of their home nations, owing to a powerful selective process, and that the same process would likely have selected for higher intelligence among Jewish immigrants to London 100 years ago, making the Eugenics Review study unreliable.

That is all the evidence presented in the paper linked by Grok for supposedly superior Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence. It’s extremely weak.

There seems to have been a high degree of conflation, deliberate or otherwise, between verbal and mathematical intelligence on the one hand, and general intelligence on the other. This conflation is not made for visual reasoning intelligence, in which Jews do poorly. So high levels of Jewish success in literature and mathematics are taken as evidence of high Jewish IQ, but low levels of Jewish success in engineering and architecture are not taken as evidence of low Jewish IQ. This selective reasoning seems to reflect a massive pro-Jewish bias on the part of intelligence researchers. This bias appears to have influenced Grok.

Ashkenazi Jews have been selected over time for aptitude in specifically urban occupations, hence why (in comparison to whites) they are great at reading and talking, and poor at visual reasoning. They have not been selected for all-round intellectual superiority. Great Jewish engineers and architects are extremely rare: one would expect the exact opposite if Jews were all-round intellectually superior to whites.

Thus, Ashkenazi Jews cannot be said to be smarter than whites in general. Certain subfacets of Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence might be higher than those of whites, but certain other subfacets are lower, so claims of overall Ashkenazi Jewish IQs of 108-115 are complete rubbish.

The conclusion of this author is that Ashkenazi Jewish over-representation in positions of power is because of Christians. Christians believe that God blesses those who bless Israel (Genesis 12:3), where ‘Israel’ is taken to mean Jewish interests in general, and that “if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings” (Romans 15:27). As a result, they work to promote Jews into high positions of power in academia, politics, business and other areas, reasoning that by serving the Jews in this manner, God will bless them.

Support for this assertion comes from the words of Charles Murray, a Christian researcher, who claims that the reason for supposed higher Jewish IQ is “The Jews are God’s chosen people”. This statement summarises the pitiful state of research into the subject of race and IQ in 2025. James Watson can have his reputation destroyed for suggesting that whites are smarter than blacks for biological reasons, but researchers who make the exact same claim about Jews being smarter than whites, only on far, far, far weaker evidence than Watson has, are cited as authorities.

I argue that the perception of Jews as intellectually superior comes from their central role in the Abrahamic religions, and not from any actual advantage in biological intelligence. Because of this central religious role, they are worshipped by Christians looking to curry favour with the God of Abraham. This worship leads to them being promoted by Christians into positions of power, influence and wealth. This promotion by Christians, and not superior IQ, explains massive Jewish over-representation in such positions. The reason why the Ashkenazis are the prime beneficiaries of this process, and not other subpopulations of Jews, is because the Ashkenazis live around the most credulous and gullible Christians, i.e. American ones.

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The Fourth Acceptance Of Alternative Centrism

The Fourth Acceptance of alternative centrism is the acceptance that the Alternative Right is correct when they speak of the importance of truth.

It’s a broadly accepted truism that truth is the first casualty of war. This is because a propaganda campaign begins as soon as any war does; all sides in the war are forced to do propaganda to maintain morale, to attract allies, and to demoralise the enemy.

The process described in the previous six chapters of this book is war by any other name. The three positions of the Establishment jostle for relative control over the masses, fighting and killing each other to win that control. Eventually they realise that they have more in common with each other than with the masses. So the fulcrum of war shifts: from one of the Establishment against itself, to one of the Establishment against their own people. This is the beginning of totalitarianism.

The process described in the previous six chapters of this book also explains why there are so many lies in modern politics. If the Establishment is waging a war against the people it is ruling over, it follows logically that they are also lying to them. And it does.

The Establishment tells all kinds of lies in shoring up its position in opposition to those they rule over. Everything from the divine right of kings to the need for mass digital surveillance is a justification, however flimsy, of Establishment rule. But all of these narratives serve one singular purpose: to entrench the power of the Establishment at the expense of everyone else.

After a while, the people who have been shut out of the Establishment come together. In the same way that the different people within the Establishment realise they have more in common with each other, so too do the people shut out of the Establishment. Those initially shut out of the Establishment are usually motivated by anger at having been lied to. Hence the Fourth Acceptance of Alternative Centrism is the acceptance of the importance of truth.

For obvious reasons, the Establishment doesn’t admit that it’s waging a war against its own people. But the people figure it out anyway. Perhaps the best ever exposition of the war of the political establishment against its own people is 1984. Orwell’s magnum opus has variously been mistaken as a critique of Communism or Nazism in particular. In truth, it’s a critique of totalitarianism is general.

In 1984, the resistance against Big Brother is similar to the Alternative Right in reality. They are courageous, free-thinking desperadoes. In 1984, nothing happens: O’Brien helps break up any resistance before it can get anywhere. In reality, a variety of outcomes are possible (although it must be noted that most revolutions fail; the Establishment starts with the strongest position and usually wins).

In any case, 1984 describes how the Establishment lies to people about almost everything, reasoning that the more ignorant the people are, the stronger the position of the Establishment. ‘Ignorance Is Strength’ is one of the three mottos of Big Brother. The more lies the Establishment can tell the people, the more confused and off-balance those people are, and the less able to get the sure footing needed to mount a resistance.

The initial formation of the Alternative Right is a reaction against this cathedral of lies.

The Alternative Right is more masculine than the other positions for a variety of reasons. For one, the right itself is more masculine. Order is primarily a male concern. For another, it’s the masculine which is the revolutionary. The feminine tends to be passive and more accepting of tyranny (as has been noted as far back as Aristotle). Yet another reason is that those who stand up against the Establishment are hated, at least initially. So those who first rise up have to be willing to endure hate.

These reasons are why the Alternative Right today is characterised by active clubs. Those reacting to the failure of the Establishment to impose an acceptable order feel the duty to impose that order themselves. Thus they seek to recreate what the Establishment Right should ideally have been: masculine, in the sense of possessing both the ability and the will to impose order upon chaos. The paramilitary nature of active clubs shows they are alternative power structures in embryonic form.

This masculinity is also why the Alternative Right is obsessed with degeneracy, the concept of degeneracy and correcting popular moral philosophy. They aren’t merely looking to reimpose a lost physical order, but also a lost spiritual one. Thus they are metaphysically masculine as well as physically. This quality of masculinity, taken to excess, is why the Fourth Rejection arises.

The metaphysical masculinity is why the Alternative Right has a deep appreciation for occultists, wizards, prophets and knowledge-workers of all kinds. Anyone who seeks the truth with such fervour that they must pay a price is considered a hero. Socrates and Odin are two prime examples here. Getting killed by the Establishment for speaking the truth, as Socrates did, is ultimate.

If the First Acceptance is about the importance of order, the Alternative Right is the reaction to what they consider disorder. The Alternative Right considers that the Establishment is in dereliction of duty, in that they have failed to impose an acceptable level of order. In this sense, the Alternative Right is as much a reaction to the chaos of the Establishment Left as the Establishment Centre is.

Questions of order are why immigration is such a particular sticking point. The most elementary form of order, on the national level, is the national border. The globalist establishment of the West today is running a policy akin to open borders. This has convinced the Alternative Right (primarily) that the elementary order is now lost, which inspires much of their rage. The lies told to maintain open borders policies are particularly infuriating to the Alternative Right, hence why the Alternative Right prioritises truth so highly.

In the revolutionary sense, the Alternative Right has a lot in common with the Establishment Left. This reflects a paradox within both the Alternative Right and Alternative Left: they freely adopt parts of the opposite if they feel like it (a process that leads inexorably to Alternative Centrism). The reason for the shared commonalities is that both the Establishment Left and the Alternative Right are, in a sense, reactions to the Establishment Right. The difference is in the proposed solution: the Establishment Left proposes chaos, the Alternative Right proposes a new form of order.

The Alternative Right also targets many of the same supporters as the Establishment Left: the young revolutionary who wants action and excitement. The “Beefsteak Nazi” phenomenon is a classic example of this.

The Alternative Right doesn’t respect the Establishment Left though, seeing them as dishonest failures who sold out. They see the Establishment Left as claiming to represent the working class, but actually representing a degenerate middle class. The Alternative Right aspires not to wage class warfare, but to be a new aristocracy. They are not ashamed of this and are honest about it.

The uncompromising emphasis on truth, to the exclusion of other considerations, can seem cruel to those of the other positions. Thus, as with the other Acceptances, the Fourth Acceptance leads to the Fourth Rejection. The neo-masculinity of the Alternative Right is countered by the neo-femininity of the Alternative Left.

This chapter is from The Alternative Centrist Manifesto, the upcoming work of political philosophy that offers the answers to the political problems of the West.

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Understanding White People For Non-Whites

The vast majority of anthropological studies are written from the perspective of white people trying to understand the rest of the world. This article attempts the converse: explaining to the rest of the world why the white man behaves the way he does. There are four factors which, in combination, make him unlike any of the other races of the world.

Uncivilised

The first point to understand is that whites have not been civilised for very long. Human civilisation (as we would recognise it) began in the strip between Sumer and the Indus Valley some 6,000 years ago. From there, it gradually spread to other places. It took a long time to get to some parts of Europe.

The Greeks may have had high civilisation since Homer, but when their spiritual descendants in the Roman Empire first came to Britain, they found the Britons living in conditions resembling today’s Sentinel Islanders. When Julius Caesar was writing his memoirs about Britain, the inhabitants of Britain knew nothing of writing systems. Today’s Northern Europeans and their descendants (who represent the majority of what the rest of the world understands by “white people”) have only been civilised for a dozen centuries or so.

This has been enough to bring the gifts of civilisation to other peoples and places. As a New Zealander, I deeply appreciate what the white man did to civilise these lands, where mass cannibalism was practiced as recently as 200 years ago. The fact remains, however, that people of Anglo descent have only been civilised for 1,000 years, in comparison to the 5,000+ years of most of humanity.

As a result, the white man is still barbaric in several ways. In several other ways, he isn’t (e.g. attitudes to animal welfare), which complicates things. But the generally warlike nature of the uncivilised man is still present in white people. He can discharge it through watching combat sports or rugby, but, as with blacks, the general violence of whites is permanently simmering just beneath the surface.

Intelligent

Many people attribute intelligence to civilisation. This is completely false. Intelligence is not a conditioned phenomenon but a natural one. In fact, human beings in a state of Nature are at least as intelligent as civilised ones. Intelligence, in actuality, is almost as hereditary as height. Many highly educated and highly motivated people have made immense efforts to increase the intelligence of their offspring, only to fail.

Intelligence, in groups, is mostly a function of the climate in which that group’s ancestors evolved. The general rule is: the colder that climate, the more intelligent one will be. This is the basis of Richard Lynn’s Cold Winters Theory. The only other human populations to have evolved in such a cold climate are the Far East Asians in China, Korea and Japan, who are at least as intelligent as white people. The major difference here is that these populations have been civilised for 4,000 years or so, much longer than the 1,000 years of Northern Europe.

Thus, the white man is both uncivilised and intelligent. This is a rare combination that he shares with the Mongols and few others, as the vast majority of the world’s intelligent races were civilised long ago. So the white man possesses an unrivaled desire and capacity for war, which is why his wars have determined world history for several hundred years, and why he’s at war right now in Ukraine.

Creative

The creativity of the white man has built most of the modern world. His technology has shaped our everyday world. His music, cinema, literature, video games and Internet culture has shaped our minds likewise. It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that it’s a white man’s world, and everyone else is just living in it. This creative energy makes the white man not merely a cunning barbarian but also an extremely powerful one.

This creativity is a combination of the aforementioned two factors. His intelligence gives him the capacity for creativity, and his uncivilised nature gives him the will for it. Asians might share the white man’s capacity for creativity, but seem to be content not using it; once every few centuries, an Asian will build a temple that rivals anything a white could build, but only so often. Africans might share the white man’s will to be creative, but, lacking his intelligence, most African creations are childish and without value. Thus, the white man’s level of creativity is highly unique.

This creativity also makes the white man, from the perspective of others, a highly chaotic element. Non-whites (with some exceptions) are generally happy to run empires that don’t change much for hundreds of years. The white man is not. He is not even satisfied with creating the United States. Elon Musk, perhaps the world’s foremost current representative of the white race, dreams of going to Mars. Other races can’t predict what the white man will attempt next.

Spiritually lost

White people gradually lost their religion after Paul. The degeneracy of the Roman Empire led to multitudes of abandoned, neglected wretches. In their hate, these wretches turned to Paul’s slave religion, which promised their enemies in the Roman Establishment would be brought low. As the degeneracy spread, the Roman Empire gradually succumbed.

The death blow came with the treason of Theodosius in 380 CE. With the conversion of the Roman Empire to Jewish religion, the rest of Europe gradually followed over the next 1,000 years, a time known as the Dark Ages. European scientific and artistic culture returned with the Renaissance, but unfortunately the spiritual culture remained stymied by the Clown World Fork: only soulless atheism or mindless Christianity have been permitted. Neither has been close to fulfilling.

Absent a fulfilling religion, the white man possesses a hunger that he cannot satiate with material goods. But he tries. This lust for material goods inspired all of his colonial activities and inspires his colossal levels of consumption. Despite all this, he remains unhappy, like a hungry ghost.

Pharmaceuticals are now a USD40,000,000,000 global market annually, most of which are consumed by the white man in trying to escape his existential misery. But until such a time as the white man rediscovers his ancient spiritual traditions (or adopts a new one, such as Elementalism), he is lost and will suffer, and will cause those around him to suffer.

Conclusion

The white man is currently the main character of history, in the sense that he holds the initiative of history, the Spear of Destiny. Thus, the rest of humanity is reacting to him. However, the white man doesn’t know what he’s doing. Until he rediscovers a genuine spiritual tradition, he will remain a chaotic, powerful and dangerous element on the world stage.

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The Five Types Of Power

Traditionally, power theory divides power into hard and soft forms, as proposed by Joseph Nye in 1991. The hard form relates to the common use of the word power, which means capacity for force. The soft form relates to more subtle forms of power, which aren’t about force as commonly understood, but rather influence.

The distinction has come into prominence in geopolitical discourse, e.g. when the hard power of America is contrasted with the soft power of Britain. But many of those into alchemy would prefer a more sophisticated breakdown of the potential power spectum. So this essay attempts just that.

In this essay, the “potential power spectrum” consists of the five highest stages of the Mithraic Ladder: iron, copper, silver, mercury and gold. Tin and lead are not considered because they are too passive to count as powerful, and are better considered part of that which power acts upon.

“Hard power” in the sense proposed by Nye covers what an alchemist would describe as the realm of iron. This is, in actuality, the least subtle form of power. In a geopolitical sense it refers to military power. In an alchemical sense it refers to gross physical force and violence. The realm of iron is the realm of the hard edge of the blade. Everything people understand by martial arts or war falls under the realm of iron and hard power.

Nye’s conception of hard power also covers economic power. This includes actions such as trade sanctions or tariffs. Such a power is like a medium power inbetween hard and soft. It’s analogous, in an alchemical sense, to copper. As my friend Fro once said: “money makes people move”. Buying and selling people, whether permanently or by the hour, is the realm of copper magic.

Copper is the metal of basic currency, which is itself the power of arranging force. A trade sanction is to a country much like a strangehold is to an individual. The use of debt to trap people also falls under copper magic – usurers can be considered copper magicians, perhaps the most powerful and dangerous ones of all.

The essential aspect of hard power is that it can be used to force people to do what you want them to do. Soft power, by contrast, is used to make people want to do what you want them to do.

“Soft power” in Nye’s meaning relates to silver, mercury and gold magic in the alchemical sense. These are not about forcing people into doing things, but influencing them into doing things. Sometimes that involves trickery, deception, enchantment, persuasion, bedazzlement or charm. In every case, it’s more subtle than hard power.

Silver magic is how the ruling class maintains its position as the ruling class. To a major extent, this silver magic is just public relations: how one brings allies to the negotiating table. As such, there’s a lot of psychology to it. The art of oratory, in which a politician convinces people to follow them through speech, is silver magic in action. So is organising a propaganda campaign through the mainstream media.

Softer than soft power exists in the form of willpower. This is so subtle a power that it’s hard to measure. The closest mainstream psychology comes to it is the concept of ego depletion. This is the name given to the phenomenon where a person finds it harder to achieve certain tasks if they have already exerted self-control on a previous task.

There are various ways to keep one’s willpower high. The foremost is to keep morale high through positive self-talk and the avoidance of blackpills. Another way is to avoid distractions, whether somatic or sensory. The most important is practice: anyone with truly high levels of willpower will have built up those powers through many years of practice.

This mercury magic can be just as much a form of military power as iron magic. B. H. Liddell-Hart once wrote “In war, the chief incalculable is the human will,” explaining how a larger force can lose to a much smaller one if it loses the will to fight (see the capture of Belgrade in 1941). Many Americans claim that their guns keep them free from tyranny, but outsiders readily point out that the American Government has committed countless crimes against their own people over the past century, without anyone taking up arms against them. Absent the will to use them, all weapons are useless.

The softest power of all is spiritual power. This is represented by the realm of gold and is very similar to moral authority. This is the power of having one’s will aligned with the will of the divine. If a person or group of people have such a will, it is impossible to righteously oppose them. They have what the Confucianists call ‘The Mandate of Heaven’.

India possibly has the strongest levels of gold power of any country today, on account of that many consider the religions from there to be good ones. Then again, possibly it doesn’t, on account of that its people have a reputation for dishonesty in many circles. Who holds the most gold power can be very hard to determine. It’s also ethereal: America lost a great deal of gold power with their invasion of Iraq, and those who supported refugee resettlement to the West lost much in the wake of the Muslim child rape gangs.

Moral authority is the softest of all powers because anyone can claim to have it. But viewed from another perspective, it’s also the strongest because it can be used without rest. The big drawback with physical weapons is that you can’t actually use them the vast majority of the time. Spiritual weapons can be employed on a permanent basis.

These five types of power constitute an alchemical breakdown of the various ways that people can subjugate others to their will. In short, Joseph Nye’s concept of hard power covers the realms of iron and copper, and his concept of soft power covers the realms of silver, mercury and gold.

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