Jews' average IQ score is seven to 15 points higher than gentiles and they are exceptionally accomplished, claims the British social theorist Dr Charles Murray.
"Jewish genius", Murray says, is a topic so sensitive that Jews rarely address it. Writing in Commentary, a neoconservative journal, Murray argues that anti-Semitism has succeeded in blurring the connection, but the Jews' accomplishments are scientifically based.
Murray said he regards himself as a Scotsman who came to Britain from Iowa and therefore is not afraid to broach and elaborate on the findings in his research.
Murray sparked outrage with his 1994 book The Bell Curve, which addressed what he saw as black under-achievement. He claims that some groups are genetically more accomplished than others. He mentions that from the birth of monotheism to the medieval philosopher Maimonides, the 17th-century rationalist Spinoza, and the scientists, artists and intellectuals of the modern world, Jews have shown a rare affinity with scholarship.
The Sunday Times, quoting the research, noted that since the second half of the 20th century, Jews received 29 Nobel prizes. Recipients included physicist Albert Einstein, writer Boris Pasternak and economist Milton Friedman.
These figures are significant particularly as Jews constitute about two-tenths of one per cent of the world's population. "You do the math." Murray says.