There has been some muted comment about the religious composition of the U.S. Supreme Court after a Kagan approval: 6 Catholics, 3 Jews.<\/p>\n
Is this enough Jews, though?\u00a0 Let’s crunch numbers.<\/p>\n
First permit me to switch from religion to self-identifying ethnicity, which is closer to how this stuff actually works.\u00a0 Less than two percent of non-Hispanic white Americans are religious Jews, but around five percent have Jewish ancestry and consider themselves to some degree Jewish.\u00a0 Let me just take, as round numbers, 220 million non-Hispanic white Americans, ten million of them self-identifying (to some degree) Jewish.\u00a0 You can of course rework the following with different numbers if you like.<\/p>\n
There are nine seats on the U.S. Supreme Court.\u00a0 By general agreement (it seems to me) there is one quota-seat for\u00a0an African American, one for a Hispanic.\u00a0 That leaves seven seats available for non-Hispanic white justices.\u00a0 How many of those seven would we expect to go to Jewish nominees?<\/p>\n
Leaving aside the obvious temptation to carry out a 5,000-word analysis on that word “expect,” let’s drastically<\/em> simplify: let’s pick ’em by IQ.\u00a0\u00a0 Supposing non-Hispanic white\u00a0Gentiles to have mean IQ 100 and Jews mean IQ 112 (the figure usually cited, though again you can re-crunch with a different number if you like), with standard deviation 15 in both cases, here’s what I get for various cutoff minimum IQs:<\/p>\n You get three Jewish seats round about cutoff IQ 153, which is pretty darn smart — only 43,000 non-Hispanic white Gentile Americans are that smart. \u00a0At cutoff 165 you’d expect four Jewish seats; at around 178 you’d expect five.<\/p>\n That’s all highly abstract, of course.\u00a0 It assumes up front that anyone actually wants<\/em> justices as smart as possible, when what presidents usually want is justices that (a) are on their side, lib-con-wise, and (b) are sufficiently bland & unimaginative never to have said or written anything that will raise an eyebrow from the drones on the confirmation committee.<\/p>\n It also assumes that a 180-IQ nominee would be better at judging cases than a 140-IQ-er.\u00a0 That’s not obvious to me.\u00a0 I favor the “sweet spot” notion of IQ, where cognitive ability+sense\/wisdom max out around 125-135, the sense\/wisdom component then dropping off\u00a0steeply in higher IQ numbers.\u00a0 If that’s right, we\u00a0may have one Jewish justice too many!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There has been some muted comment about the religious composition of the U.S. Supreme Court after a Kagan approval: 6 Catholics, 3 Jews. Is this enough Jews, though?\u00a0 Let’s crunch numbers. First permit me to switch from religion to self-identifying … Continue reading \n\n
\n Min IQ <\/th>\n Gentiles <\/th>\n Jews <\/th>\n Seats <\/th>\n<\/tr>\n \n 110<\/td>\n 53,023,433<\/td>\n 5,530,351<\/td>\n 0.66<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 115<\/td>\n 33,317,603<\/td>\n 4,207,403<\/td>\n 0.78<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 120<\/td>\n 19,154,356<\/td>\n 2,969,014<\/td>\n 0.94<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 125<\/td>\n 10,035,974<\/td>\n 1,930,623<\/td>\n 1.13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 130<\/td>\n 4,777,528<\/td>\n 1,150,697<\/td>\n 1.36<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 135<\/td>\n 2,061,219<\/td>\n 625,969<\/td>\n 1.63<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 140<\/td>\n 804,380<\/td>\n 309,741<\/td>\n 1.95<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 145<\/td>\n 283,479<\/td>\n 139,034<\/td>\n 2.30<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 150<\/td>\n 90,103<\/td>\n 56,492<\/td>\n 2.70<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 155<\/td>\n 25,802<\/td>\n 20,741<\/td>\n 3.12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 160<\/td>\n 6,651<\/td>\n 6,871<\/td>\n 3.56<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 165<\/td>\n 1,542<\/td>\n 2,052<\/td>\n 4.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 170<\/td>\n 321<\/td>\n 552<\/td>\n 4.42<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 175<\/td>\n 60<\/td>\n 133<\/td>\n 4.82<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 180<\/td>\n 10<\/td>\n 29<\/td>\n 5.19<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 185<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n 6<\/td>\n 5.51<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 190<\/td>\n 0<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n 5.80<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n