Title: A chosen calling : Jews in science in the twentieth century /
Authors: Efron, Noah J.,
Year: 2014
Subjects: Science Social aspects; Judaism and science.; Jews United States Intellectual life; Jews Russia Intellectual life; Jews Palestine Intellectual life; Jewish scientists Social aspects United States History; Jewish scientists Social aspects Russia History; Jewish scientists Social aspects Israel History; United States Civilization Jewish influences.; Russia Civilization Jewish influences.; Palestine Civilization Jewish influences.
Abstract: Scholars have struggled for decades to explain why Jews have succeeded extravagantly in modern science. A variety of controversial theories from such intellects as C. P. Snow, Norbert Wiener, and Nathaniel Weyl have been promoted. Snow hypothesized an evolved genetic predisposition to scientific success. Wiener suggested that the breeding habits of Jews sustained hereditary qualities conducive for learning. Economist and eugenicist Weyl attributed Jewish intellectual eminence to "seventeen centuries of breeding for scholars." Rejecting the idea that Jews have done well in science because of uniquely Jewish traits, Jewish brains, and Jewish habits of mind, historian of science Noah J. Efron approaches the Jewish affinity for science through the geographic and cultural circumstances of Jews who were compelled to settle in new worlds in the early twentieth century.^
Contents: Preface : a vanload of rabbis in the culture wars of Kentucky -- Introduction : "Ridiculously disproportionate"? -- "Holding high the torch of civilization" : American Jews and twentieth-century science -- "Second only to Communism" : making Soviet Jews and Soviet science -- "Making a land of experiments" : science and technology in Zionist imagination and enterprise -- Conclusion : when all worlds were new worlds.