We have been debating a most delightful fellow from China who objects to our material. At first I thought that he was defending the notion that the Chinese were the smartest people on Earth, but he has said in a recent email that he is sceptical that intelligence differs between races, citing the falsification of the supposedly low genetic IQ scores of Hispanics when better environments are provided: see also Fred Reed’s critique of the racial realists on this point: http://takimag.com/article/race_realism_and_race_realists_fred_reed#axzz4fizFdR9t.
However Mr Li also believes that the Ashkenazi Jews are “smarter than my people, the East Asians.” He says that this is “Not because of genetics, but because of their culture, which emphasizes learning for the sake of knowledge, unlike ours, which merely emphasizes learning for the sake of getting a better life.”
Well, blow me over – so much for the Confucian ethic and the virtues of learning, all seemingly long gone: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius.