Israel doesn't have long dark winters and yet they're the pioneers of innovation and start-up culture.
1. Israelis basically have no choice. If you want to make a good income, working hard in a technology startup(we have very few big tech companies) is one of the very few good options.
2. The army: at a very young age,a decent percentage of Israelis who join the army lead, in high value, high risk situations. That creates a sense of responsibility and strong ambition at a relatively early age.
The army is also a place where a lot of new tech is being developed , so people get exposure, and often in roles of major responsibility.
3. The Jewish people have lived among other people, in very hostile conditions, often forced to do banking(loans) and commerce at times when most people did agriculture. That forces a certain entrepreneurial spirit, and possibly higher intelligence(also witnessed by the higher rate of genetic illnesses in Ashkenazi Jews). That, plus a culture that always focused on learning(religiously).
Summed up in one word - discipline. The glamorous myth of startups is just that, a myth. Some outliers go from zero to hero overnight, but most require slogging away day in and day out. Motivation can only last so long, and after it's gone all you have left is discipline. Military writings both current and historic routinely speak of discipline being the single most important aspect of achieving a goal.
Interesting what would happen if this is said about any other country
Of course this does not mean Dutch Iranians are smarter than Dutch Moroccans, but it could mean there might be more smart/entrepreneurial Iranians than Moroccans in The Netherlands.
These statistics might die out very quickly though, for example Turks are often already second or third generation, so many have been born in the privilege of The Netherlands.
Perhaps similarly, the second world war cost us a huge percentage of Jewish people, being privileged has meant having a larger chance of survival through moving to less dangerous countries (like the U.S.).
It doesn't mean Jewish people are smarter, it might mean though that you could find a bit more smart Jews in their population. Of course the second world war has already been a long time, so the effect might already be gone.
I'm probably average intelligence, but I've had it expressed to me by people who hardly know me that they expect that I'm brilliant or something because I'm an Ashkanazi Jew. Its one of those stigmas that get attached to any race, such as Russians drinking Vodka or Argentinians eating meat. I'm sure that there are sober Russians, vegetarians in Argentina, and there's me!
Some people would say that this is cultural. I doubt it -- I think it's genetic. Intelligence is a physical attribute determined by genes, just like every other physical attribute. It's really no different from the observation that Kenyans and Ethiopians win most marathons.
In general, we should expect different traits to be exhibited at different frequencies by different populations that were reproductively isolated in the past. This doesn't mean prejudice is okay. Not all Jews are smart, and not all Kenyans are going to win marathons. We can acknowledge these correlations without behaving in a prejudiced way toward individuals.
Most people would rather not talk about this. And that's certainly my rule of thumb for in-person conversations. But, hey, we're on the internet.
You're assuming that intelligence is the determining factor in winning a Nobel prize, which seems spurious at best. Work ethic and training, particularly early in life seem, to me, like they'd be better predictors. I'd posit that Jewish culture is better at nurturing intelligence before I'd conclude that there's some ethnic superiority going on.
While there isn't a bullet-proof case, there is quite a bit of evidence for an ethnicity-intelligence correlation.
The only value judgement I was making is that higher intelligence is superior to lower intelligence and that Nobel prizes is an extremely poor proxy for intelligence.
But don't most Kenyan and Ethiopian marathon winners also grow up in Kenya or Ethiopia? I.e. how do we discount at very least environmental factors (including, for instance, diet), even if you doubt cultural ones?
No. There is a hugely disproportionate number of Americans and British of Somali, Kenyan, and Ethiopian origin who excel in world class distance running (Adbirahman, Farah, and many more, including a big new wave of Somali American after).
Fwiw I don't think you're necessarily wrong about intelligence but from what I remember The Gene (Siddhartha Mukherjee) does have a few passages contradicting this theory. Also by questioning the validity of IQ tests.
Could it also not be that jews are just more motivated to get in to STEM fields and perform well, for cultural reasons or otherwise?
Similarly, Malcolm Gladwell mentions a theory about why "Asians are smarter" which according to him may be related to hard and smart work leading to bigger rice harvests, and other factors (see here https://www.cs.unh.edu/~sbhatia/outliers/outliers.pdf).
While I have zero interest in the cultural implications and all the moral panics surrounding these issues, I don't think intelligence being mostly down to genetics is a proven fact. I find it gets extremely complicated very quickly.
Genes are hugely influenced by their environmental (cultural) triggers and those should not be ignored.
This is the main reason for the ancient historical stereotypes linking Judaism and money/wealth/power/etc. And why names like Goldstein (gold stone) are considered Jewish names.
I heard that a lot of times from mostly uneducated people. All nations have equal level of intelligence. The difference might be access to education, environment, common wealth, and social inequality.
Edit: I would argue to the contrary, that there is a appreciable difference in average IQ between some countries which expresses itself among other things in GDP and quality of life. Perhaps the nature of this difference is based on things like nutrition, environment quality, pre-natal screening and care, so improvements in all these things will decrease the gap. If it happens that after all of that there is still a certain gap , who cares? As long as the citizens live in peace and relative prosperity.
How do you know this?
This is also true for the U.S. itself; Silicon Valley is largely a creation of Pentagon investment (see: DARPA).
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2018/03/unders...
In my experience, it's been the opposite. They like to play office politics, focus on keeping work off their plate, and they're not really team players.
I may just have a bad sample of Israel tech workers, though.
Where I think Israeli tech startups get most of their mojo, is desperation. Their culture involves so much struggle and effort .. and I think the reaction to it at a personal level, results in the laziness, non-team-playing, political problems.