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Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory

MacDonald argues that a suite of genetic and cultural adaptations among Jews constitutes a “group evolutionary strategy.” Their supposed genetic adaptations include, most notably, high intelligence, conscientiousness, and ethnocentrism. According to this thesis, several major intellectual and politi...

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Autor principal: Cofnas, Nathan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5942340/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29526014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12110-018-9310-x
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author Cofnas, Nathan
author_facet Cofnas, Nathan
author_sort Cofnas, Nathan
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description MacDonald argues that a suite of genetic and cultural adaptations among Jews constitutes a “group evolutionary strategy.” Their supposed genetic adaptations include, most notably, high intelligence, conscientiousness, and ethnocentrism. According to this thesis, several major intellectual and political movements, such as Boasian anthropology, Freudian psychoanalysis, and multiculturalism, were consciously or unconsciously designed by Jews to (a) promote collectivism and group continuity among themselves in Israel and the diaspora and (b) undermine the cohesion of gentile populations, thus increasing the competitive advantage of Jews and weakening organized gentile resistance (i.e., anti-Semitism). By developing and promoting these movements, Jews supposedly played a necessary role in the ascendancy of liberalism and multiculturalism in the West. While not achieving widespread acceptance among evolutionary scientists, this theory has been enormously influential in the burgeoning political movement known as the “alt-right.” Examination of MacDonald’s argument suggests that he relies on systematically misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts. It is argued here that the evidence favors what is termed the “default hypothesis”: Because of their above-average intelligence and concentration in influential urban areas, Jews in recent history have been overrepresented in all major intellectual and political movements, including conservative movements, that were not overtly anti-Semitic.
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spelling pubmed-59423402018-05-14 Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory Cofnas, Nathan Hum Nat Article MacDonald argues that a suite of genetic and cultural adaptations among Jews constitutes a “group evolutionary strategy.” Their supposed genetic adaptations include, most notably, high intelligence, conscientiousness, and ethnocentrism. According to this thesis, several major intellectual and political movements, such as Boasian anthropology, Freudian psychoanalysis, and multiculturalism, were consciously or unconsciously designed by Jews to (a) promote collectivism and group continuity among themselves in Israel and the diaspora and (b) undermine the cohesion of gentile populations, thus increasing the competitive advantage of Jews and weakening organized gentile resistance (i.e., anti-Semitism). By developing and promoting these movements, Jews supposedly played a necessary role in the ascendancy of liberalism and multiculturalism in the West. While not achieving widespread acceptance among evolutionary scientists, this theory has been enormously influential in the burgeoning political movement known as the “alt-right.” Examination of MacDonald’s argument suggests that he relies on systematically misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts. It is argued here that the evidence favors what is termed the “default hypothesis”: Because of their above-average intelligence and concentration in influential urban areas, Jews in recent history have been overrepresented in all major intellectual and political movements, including conservative movements, that were not overtly anti-Semitic. Springer US 2018-03-10 2018 /pmc/articles/PMC5942340/ /pubmed/29526014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12110-018-9310-x Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Article
Cofnas, Nathan
Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory
title Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory
title_full Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory
title_fullStr Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory
title_full_unstemmed Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory
title_short Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory
title_sort judaism as a group evolutionary strategy: a critical analysis of kevin macdonald’s theory
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5942340/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29526014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12110-018-9310-x
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