Seems very rational to me. A person picked at random (especially with some bias by appearance) is unlikely to want to steal your computer. But there is much more likely to be someone else in the room who would like to steal it. So the person you select stops that person.

Chagall and Pissaro were Jewish and probably benefit from the enthusiasm of their very intellectual co-religionists.

It's interesting that Anglo Saxons are often perceived as wussy; but they tend to win the wars. And the big wars are against their close kin, Germans.

I'm surprised too at how small the share of Swedish and Germans are in the UK, given the Viking and Anglo-Saxon invasions. 
 
It seems to me that I've seen other studies showing that the share of "Celtic" genes is about the same in Ireland, England and Scotland; slightly higher in Ireland and Scotland, but not much. Don't know if that's relevent.

Personally I'd like to be as smart as the smartest physicists and mathematicians so that I could understand the world as well as it could be understood. Understanding implies consciousness, of course. 
 
I'd like to live as long as possible so that I could understand history, biology, archeology, physics, math. 
 
I assume that everyone would choose to be like me if they were as smart as me, so it seems plausible that the most intelligent, conscious, population would be the happiest. So that's the earth I would aim for. 
 
Also, of course, sensual happiness, however that is to be obtained.

"Related to this, whatever our group, abilities, or inferences about our abilities, we deserve the same social and civil rights, level of individual respect, and rights before the law and from others." 
 
I certainly agree with this as far as dealing with individuals. 
 
But if our immigrants as a group are less intelligent than the average citizen then the US should consider taking steps to correct that. For example we might require a HS or college degree, or the ability to speak English well. Or to get score above, say, 100 on an IQ test. 
 
On another line of thought, the myth of group equality has led to a focus on raising group average instead of ensuring each individual gets the best and most appropriate teaching. 
 
For example, I expect that tracking is taboo even in all-black schools. Almost all teaching is to the test. 
 
If it were otherwise, the 16% of black children who test above an IQ of 100 could be given relatively enriched programs in school.

Here's just a single data point for interpretation. Lt Audie Murphy was extremely mild-mannered and appeared boy-like but killed more Germans personally in WWII than any other soldier. He won the Medal of Honor. Here is his citation: 
 
http://www.audiemurphy.com/award1.htm 
 
Maybe women can see the craft and seriousness behind some handsome faces.

I guess the main "Inductivist" relevance today is with respect to Mexican-Americans and African-Americans being at the bottom of the lists. The rest is detail, I agree; someone else brought up the Irish first. 
 
If the Irish, Germans, et. al. had not arrived then I think the current ratio of English to African-Americans would be about 50-50. So the US would likely have been much worse without the additional European immigration. 
 
However, I would hazard that England is being held back by the civic and welfare burden of the large number of its Asian and Caribbean colonial heritage immigrants; and by the loss of political communication due to white flight dispersal from London. Ireland has no colonial burden and has had a fresh start with plenty of European Union investment.  
 
I think the Inductivist civic virtues of the English make them vulnerable in a multi-cultural world. It's good for themselves if isolated, and good for everyone else in a diverse society as long as they have some influence. Post-colonial Zimbabwe might be an example.

And also with the nettle of overcrowding. No more new beautiful country like California for the taking. It's a zero sum game when it comes to land. 
 
And of course IQ.  
 
The statistical work of "Inductivist", mining the General Social Survey data shows that those of English ancestry are the best citizens; and Mexicans the worst. Irish somewhere in the middle. So the future of the US is bleak. Chances are "we'd" have been even better off if the Irish had never come here. Go over his work at 
 
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/

four ... I'm very interested in arts, architecture, science ... but to a substantial degree from a philosophical and intellectual point of view.

It was the gays coming out of the closet, not the sexual revolution between men and women, that damaged close friendships between men in the US.  
 
I'm old enough to remember when it was expected that men traveling would share a room. When gays came out of the closet it became thinkable that you would be propositioned, and hence sharing a room became undesirable. 
 
It's very irritating that you have to think a bit carefully about going out to dinner with one other man while you are traveling. 
 
As a matter of fact, when I went to college I didn't even know that gays existed. Took me about a year to figure out what people were talking about. 
 
When I was in high school it was no problem for men to shower naked in the locker room. Now, everyone is very furtive. Why not when you fear that some guy is looking you over and you are not interested. Very similar to why men and women have different locker rooms. Women don't want to deal with men lusting after them when they are just trying to clean up. 
 
How does this play out in other species, I wonder? Is there any parallel at all?

Why did blacks do OK before? I think it was because there was discipline in the schools.  
 
Even a 15 point difference in average IQ can still enable a high percentage to be mediocre students if they apply themselves and there are good teachers. 
 
But whether it is because of a genetic difference in personality which takes over when there are few naturally disciplined students, or ...? the loss of schoolroom discipline makes learning impossible except for the most brilliant self-learning student. 
 
Was there discipline in the South? If so, I suspect it was because the parents and teachers cracked the whip, because they were so used to obeying the racist/paternalistic whites. And the children may have been afraid of the whites also. 
 
This could be tested at those black schools (are there any?) where discipline is good and where students do not transfer in and out so that they experience good discipline for their entire school experience.

This interesting interview just calls for comment. 
 
Much of science advances because of advances in tools; and Sir John is taking advantage of a new optical microscope. 
 
But what is so interesting is that he is an example of the great power of "simple" observation by a person dedicated to science and not to advancement or career. As Yogi said "You can see a lot by just looking." 
 
Speaking personally, I find the emphasis on personal advancement through a science career; such as when you read so often about why it is so terrible that women and minorities are not more active in science, rather distasteful. 
 
To me, you are either called to science or you are not; and I actually don't believe that anyone who is actually called will fail to have a satisfactory "career" in the sense that they will be able to make satisfying discoveries. They might fail to be department chairman or head of a university. They might fail to head a large company. "So what" would be my response. Why did they go into science anyway? Why not business? 
 
Well, I'm wandering ... There is another example with which I am familiar. In the early days of plate tectonics all the leaders were using very simple analysis tools. And basic (some very new) reconnaisance techniques. There were leading scientists at MIT and Caltech and UCLA who were very strong in mathematical geophysics. They were firmly of the belief that nothing was worth doing if it did not require advanced mathematics. As a result they totally missed the boat. All that was required was dedication and a clear vision of what the problem was. 
 
I could say a lot more, but if the number of comments reflects readership; I urge more readers to follow p-ter pointer. There are life and science lessons in there for all of us.

Gross asks Cohen if he thinks that he was able to play a character who wants to "throw Jews down the well" only because he is Jewish; in the same way that only Blacks can use the N word in referring to fellow Blacks. Cohen does not contradict her, although he stumbles in his answer. 
 
Here I think that Gross's general perspicacity goes astray. 
 
If Gross's suggestion were the case then Cohen would be impersonating a hip Jew who was making such remarks, instead of impersonating an ignorant non-Jew as he does. 
 
Going back to the "Black" case, the analogy to Cohen's act would be a liberal white comedian using the N word to entertain a conservative white audience and to get them to express their forbidden attitudes. I don't think such a comedian would receive favorable reviews. 
 
I think we have here the unfortunate phenomenon of Jewish people trying to find ways to disparage the culture of non-Jews. Which should be equally off-bounds as non-Jews disparaging the culture of Jews. 
 
In the interview Cohen is explicit that he is not religious, but that he celebrates his Jewish ethnicity in candle-lighting rituals every Friday evening.

I think that it is established that depressed people more accurately estimate the opinions that other people have of them; as measured by interviews of people who know the depressed person. 
 
The non-depressed person has an inaccurate, high estimate of how other people view him/her. This is an advantage in evolutionary terms, I suspect.

Well, if we are going to talk not about individuals but about technologies we must not forget the overwhelming superiority of the Belgians in beer. 
 
If memory serves Michael Jackson (the British beer writer) has the Belgians with hundreds of the highest quality beers. Next come the Germans and British, with tens. 
 
I was in Leuven recently. You walk down the street and pass restaurant after restaurant with hundreds of beers on offer, including tens from the town itself.

I suspect that this is totally obvious, but I write only because I don't think I've seen it elsewhere. 
 
In the West we should fight against the veil because if a number of women begin to wear it, that will give license to Muslim men to harass non-Muslim women... "Why are you not modest like our women? Your provocation seals your own doom. If you convert and dress correctly you will have no more troubles from us." 
 
Without some examples of veiled women to point to, these comments cannot be made. 
 
I think the instinctive understanding of this point underlies the negative reaction of Westerners to veils.

Pape emphasizes most his conclusion that individuals are not motivated enough to become *suicide* bombers unless they fear or experience occupation of their native lands. 
 
His idea is that this level of desperation is aroused only by the humiliation and existential threat of invasion and occupation. He buttresses his case with examples of suicide attacks in several non-Muslim cultures. 
 
While Osama et. al. may be committed, they won't be able to get large numbers of suicidal adherents if we get our military out of Muslim countries. He advocates an off-shore policy. 
 
So Muslims will wage non-suicide war (e.g. IEDs) against the US if they don't like us for various reasons; but they will use their most effective weapon, suicide attacks, only if we are occupying their lands. 
 
For Israelis the implication is that the settlements and occupation of the territories is what has provoked suicide bombing; and that if they got out of the settlements they could get a peace treaty which would substantially eliminate military occupation also; and all would be well. 
 
This is not quite the powerful result that Pape seems to claim, because Muslims are developing excellent non-suicide weapons as we keep provoking them. Still, the most recent, UK airline attacks, were to be suicide attacks. 
 
I've heard Pape speak. He is a technocrat, not an ideologue for any side. Do you agree with these points from your reading of his book?

I've read Pape and a lot of related Iraq-Middle East literature. I think Pape's work has many implications for our current (bad) policy. 
 
But do you want to get into this on gnxp, Razib?

I will speculate that jd goes to church partly to participate in the mystical and partly to socialize with his ethnic group. Those are my reasons.