The CODOH Revisionist Forum

I've been in a few different threads here where the concept of Ashkenazis as "fake jews" has been repeatedly invoked. I want to preface this post, by saying I am open to having my mind changed, and I wish to see the proponents of this theory give their best arguments. However, to keep this thread lean, I want to center the arguments against the backdrop of MacDonald's theory of Judaism-as-group-evolutionary-strategy, a theory that I already am very familiar with, and fully support. I plan on making a wider thread about that theory, so I'll just give two brief snippets here to get us started:

Cultures from the Middle Old World culture area are not only
highly collectivist and ethnocentric, marriage tends to be en-
dogamous (i.e., marriage occurs within the kinship group) and
consanguineous (i.e., marriage with blood relatives, including the
uncle-niece marriage sanctioned in the Old Testament, is com-
mon). This suggests that groups from this area should tend to
retain their genetic integrity even if they become diaspora peo-
ples dispersed in other lands. Recent genetic studies have con-
firmed the genetic integrity of Jewish groups discussed in
Chapter 2 of PTSDA.. These studies confirm the Middle Eastern
origins of Jews and show that Jewish groups remained geneti-
cally separate from the peoples they lived among over the last
2000 years.

Dr Kevin MacDonald - Diaspora Peoples: Preface to the Paperback Edition of A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy

Beginning in the ancient world, Jewish populations have repeatedly attained a position of
power and influence within Western societies. I will discuss Jewish background traits
conducive to influence: ethnocentrism, intelligence and wealth, psychological intensity,
aggressiveness, with most of the focus on ethnocentrism. I discuss Jewish ethnocentrism in its
historical, anthropological, and evolutionary context and in its relation to three critical
psychological processes: moral particularism, self-deception, and the powerful Jewish
tendency to coalesce into exclusionary, authoritarian groups under conditions of perceived
threat.

Dr Kevin MacDonald - Understanding Jewish Influence A Study in Ethnic Activism

How does the theory of "fake jews" square off against Dr MacDonald's fully developed theory of Jewish identity and behaviour as being derived from evolutionary pressures enforced by ethnocentrism?

For long the belief was that ALL humans share a common ancestor from Africa.
But who would argue that Europeans are therefore not Europeans because they have some ancient African DNA?
So…
Are Europeans genetically ‘africans’, in your view, Hans Hill?

To be more specific, if you have an irrational, racial prejudice against ALL or most Europeans, is it scientifically accurate in your view to call you an anti-Ethiopeanist?
And… If not, why not?

…the famous fossil ‘Lucy’ was discovered at Hadar in Ethiopia in 1979…
https://www.science.org/content/article ... ton-rivals

The surprising origins of Europeans

Alvin Powell
December 3, 2014

…recent research indicates that ancient European history was more complex than previously had been thought. Researchers had believed that Middle Eastern farmers pushed into Europe 8,500 years ago, after the advent of agriculture, displacing and blending with hunter-gatherer populations there over several thousand years.
…the genetic data clarifies that people migrated into the region, bringing farming with them, rather than agricultural practices spreading alone as they were learned, adopted, and passed along by different societies coming into contact with the cultures practicing them.
As expected, the genetic data showed that modern Europeans hold a mix of genes from Middle Eastern farmers and the European hunter-gatherers who preceded them into Europe. But it also shows that modern Europeans have genetic contributions from a third group, originating in ancient north Eurasia, that was unknown before research from Reich and collaborators was published in September. It appears that this group eventually spread not just into Europe, but also to North America, since their genes are represented in Native Americans.
That ancient north Eurasian population was apparently replaced in the lands between, however, because there’s no trace of their DNA in modern Siberians.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/ ... europeans/

Wahrheitssucher wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 1:25 pm For long the belief was that ALL humans share a common ancestor from Africa.
But who would argue that Europeans are therefore not Europeans because they have some ancient African DNA?
So…
Are Europeans genetically ‘africans’, in your view, Hans Hill?

To be more specific, if you have an irrational, racial prejudice against ALL or most Europeans, is it scientifically accurate in your view to call you an anti-Ethiopeanist?
And… If not, why not?

…the famous fossil ‘Lucy’ was discovered at Hadar in Ethiopia in 1979…
https://www.science.org/content/article ... ton-rivals

The surprising origins of Europeans

Alvin Powell
December 3, 2014

…recent research indicates that ancient European history was more complex than previously had been thought. Researchers had believed that Middle Eastern farmers pushed into Europe 8,500 years ago, after the advent of agriculture, displacing and blending with hunter-gatherer populations there over several thousand years.
…the genetic data clarifies that people migrated into the region, bringing farming with them, rather than agricultural practices spreading alone as they were learned, adopted, and passed along by different societies coming into contact with the cultures practicing them.
As expected, the genetic data showed that modern Europeans hold a mix of genes from Middle Eastern farmers and the European hunter-gatherers who preceded them into Europe. But it also shows that modern Europeans have genetic contributions from a third group, originating in ancient north Eurasia, that was unknown before research from Reich and collaborators was published in September. It appears that this group eventually spread not just into Europe, but also to North America, since their genes are represented in Native Americans.
That ancient north Eurasian population was apparently replaced in the lands between, however, because there’s no trace of their DNA in modern Siberians.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/ ... europeans/

1 - "Are Europeans genetically ‘africans’, in your view, Hans Hill?"

No.

2 - " if you have an irrational, racial prejudice against ALL or most Europeans, is it scientifically accurate in your view to call you an anti-Ethiopeanist?"

No.

I'm really not sure where you are going with this. We know the broad category of "European" is genetically distinct from "Non-European" by various genetic markers.

HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 2:50 pm

Wahrheitssucher wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 1:25 pm For long the belief was that ALL humans share a common ancestor from Africa.
But who would argue that Europeans are therefore not Europeans because they have some ancient African DNA?
So…
Are Europeans genetically ‘africans’, in your view, Hans Hill?

To be more specific, if you have an irrational, racial prejudice against ALL or most Europeans, is it scientifically accurate in your view to call you an anti-Ethiopeanist?
And… If not, why not?

…the famous fossil ‘Lucy’ was discovered at Hadar in Ethiopia in 1979…
https://www.science.org/content/article ... ton-rivals

The surprising origins of Europeans

Alvin Powell
December 3, 2014

…recent research indicates that ancient European history was more complex than previously had been thought. Researchers had believed that Middle Eastern farmers pushed into Europe 8,500 years ago, after the advent of agriculture, displacing and blending with hunter-gatherer populations there over several thousand years.
…the genetic data clarifies that people migrated into the region, bringing farming with them, rather than agricultural practices spreading alone as they were learned, adopted, and passed along by different societies coming into contact with the cultures practicing them.
As expected, the genetic data showed that modern Europeans hold a mix of genes from Middle Eastern farmers and the European hunter-gatherers who preceded them into Europe. But it also shows that modern Europeans have genetic contributions from a third group, originating in ancient north Eurasia, that was unknown before research from Reich and collaborators was published in September. It appears that this group eventually spread not just into Europe, but also to North America, since their genes are represented in Native Americans.
That ancient north Eurasian population was apparently replaced in the lands between, however, because there’s no trace of their DNA in modern Siberians.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/ ... europeans/

1 - "Are Europeans genetically ‘africans’, in your view, Hans Hill?"

No.

2 - " if you have an irrational, racial prejudice against ALL or most Europeans, is it scientifically accurate in your view to call you an anti-Ethiopeanist?"

No.

I'm really not sure where you are going with this. We know the broad category of "European" is genetically distinct from "Non-European" by various genetic markers.

As I understand your position, you believe that because it is claimed by interested parties that European Ashkenazi ‘jews’ have allegedly some small percentage of ancient, middle-eastern ‘semitic’ DNA, therefore they should not be classified as Europeans but semites.

I am suggesting that if we apply the same logic, then because all Europeans have some small percentage of ancient, African, ‘ethiopian’ DNA, therefore they should not be classified as Europeans but Ethiopians.

BOTTOM LINE: Look at them!! do ashkenazis ‘look’ European or Middle-eastern?

Wahrheitssucher wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 6:10 pm
As I understand your position, you believe that because it is claimed by interested parties that European Ashkenazi ‘jews’ have allegedly some small percentage of ancient, middle-eastern ‘semitic’ DNA, therefore they should not be classified as Europeans but semites.

No this is actually a strawman. Were I to believe people's genetic identities solely on them asserting it, and an appeal to an ancient common ancestor, there would be nothing to stop me believing the Vikings & Celts were black, like we often see in modern discourse. Rather, I'm basing my belief that Ashkenazi Jews are "semitic" from doing my best to read and digest MacDonald's (and others) theories on Jewish identity - from the work cited above:

.....The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10801975/

Hammer et al, Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes

I am suggesting that if we apply the same logic, then because all Europeans have some small percentage of ancient, African, ‘ethiopian’ DNA, therefore they should not be classified as Europeans but Ethiopians.

This is too simple, you are not distinguishing between time frames. Population movements across timespans of >1000 generations cannot be compared to that of <5 generations. Your line of reasoning is not dissimilar to modern progressives who will look at an African born in France and call him "French" because he was born there, or his parents emigrated there. Scale matters, and its that scale that allowed for populations to separate into discrete ethnic identities.

BOTTOM LINE: Look at them!! do ashkenazis ‘look’ European or Middle-eastern?

This bottom line is also too simplistic - yes some modern Ashkenazi Jews can pass for White, some examples would be Scarlett Johansen who is half Jewish on her mother's side. However 1) she is clearly not representative of the genepool and 2) I already stated in my OP I wanted to center this discussion on group evolutionary strategy (ie behaviour) rather than physical appearance.

The real bottom line should be, do Jews behave and think differently than Europeans, not "look like"

HansHill wrote: ↑Sun Jun 15, 2025 12:53 pm The real bottom line should be, do Jews behave and think differently than Europeans, not "look like"

Jews, especially Ashkenazi Jews, have a unique culture that has been forged over thousands of years across many generations. Unless you are a true free thinker, and extremely few humans are, the culture into which you are born or even exposed will determine how you think and feel and behave.

But that's the case for anybody raised in a given culture.

You can try to separate out nature vs. nurture, and to some extent that is possible, but it's very hard to do. You could look at a collection of non-Jews who were adopted into Jewish families or a collection of Jewish children who were given up for adoption and see how they are after being raised by a non-Jewish family and culture.

No two humans are identical, even if they are identical twins, but no two humans are completely different either.

I am not familiar with MacDonald's work but I would guess that he's a third rate evolutionary psychology. Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to explain social behavior in terms of evolution and draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. This is a better lens to look to how gene pools and cultures have evolved over very long periods of time.

Very few people can agree on who should be considered a Jew and there are many ways to answer that question. At the end of the day, we're all just matter that emanates from some quantum energy field and the human experience perceives us to be distinct and separate from one another.

ConfusedJew wrote: ↑Sun Jun 15, 2025 6:18 pm
Very few people can agree on who should be considered a Jew and there are many ways to answer that question. At the end of the day, we're all just matter that emanates from some quantum energy field and the human experience perceives us to be distinct and separate from one another.

Lets test this: Are Palestinians Jews?

HansHill wrote: ↑Mon Jun 16, 2025 8:06 am

ConfusedJew wrote: ↑Sun Jun 15, 2025 6:18 pm
Very few people can agree on who should be considered a Jew and there are many ways to answer that question. At the end of the day, we're all just matter that emanates from some quantum energy field and the human experience perceives us to be distinct and separate from one another.

Lets test this: Are Palestinians Jews?

Good question to which I would add, is Confused Jew an ashkenazi?

I am genetically overwhelmingly Ashkenazi, however you define that. I am culturally Ashkenazi as well, but I am not religious and every day I am less culturally attached to the identity and culture into which I was born.

Many "Palestinians" today have strong genetic ties to other groups in the Levantine area including Jews and Canaanites. Some of them are perhaps direct descendants of Israelites who converted to Islam.

These identities are all social constructs to some degree, more or less.

One's religious identity is very powerful in addition to one's cultural identity, to a lesser extent. Some cultures, like Jewish culture, are very strong because it has been tempered through thousands of years of stress, adversity, persecution which make it strong like a sword.

Other cultural identities are like fleeting fads.

ConfusedJew wrote: ↑Mon Jun 16, 2025 4:24 pm
One's religious identity is very powerful in addition to one's cultural identity, to a lesser extent. Some cultures, like Jewish culture, are very strong because it has been tempered through thousands of years of stress, adversity, persecution which make it strong like a sword.

Strange for you to rate MacDonald as a third rate scientist then practically agree with his theory. His idea is that Judaism is an evolved group identity, enforced via an enormous array of cultural practices to build societal (and therefore genetic) distance from other outgroups.

So anyway back to the Palestinians, where do they fit into this identity of the persecuted Jew? I assume they are a distinct identity, yes?

HansHill wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 8:51 am
Strange for you to rate MacDonald as a third rate scientist then practically agree with his theory. His idea is that Judaism is an evolved group identity, enforced via an enormous array of cultural practices to build societal (and therefore genetic) distance from other outgroups.

So anyway back to the Palestinians, where do they fit into this identity of the persecuted Jew? I assume they are a distinct identity, yes?

Any religion or ethnicity or culture or subculture is inherently an evolved group identity. There will be genetic and social factors (both internal and external) that act at one another. I just think he oversimplifies things and is overly obsessed with Jews for some reason.

Diaspora Jews developed strong communal norms to endure exclusion and persecution. These norms fostered cohesion, literacy, and economic niches, not necessarily as a biological “genetic strategy” but as a cultural and historical survival mechanism.

Many other minorities show the same like Overseas Chinese, Armenians, Mormons. So, parts of what MacDonald describes are basic sociology and diaspora survival history — but his racial-evolution angle is not standard science.

This might be off so correct me if its wrong but ChatGPT says that MacDonald argues Judaism is not just a religion or culture, but an evolved biological strategy shaped by natural selection to maximize survival and dominance in competition with host populations. He frames Jewish traits (high intelligence, endogamy, in-group charity, preference for intellectual occupations) as genetically selected traits, not just cultural. He further claims this creates conflict because Jews, as a high-IQ group with collective interests, naturally subvert or outcompete the non-Jewish majority in host societies.

Mainstream science rejects this as bad evolutionary theory for several reasons:


1. MacDonald overgeneralizes population genetics. Modern evolutionary biology accepts population-level genetic variation, but it does not support the idea of neat, large-scale racial “strategies” acting like a conscious group organism. Human behavioral traits like group loyalty, learning, religious identity, and economic habits are overwhelmingly cultural and plastic — not coded in a simple genetic blueprint. Diaspora survival strategies (education, in-group charity, discouraging out-marriage) are well explained by cultural adaptation, not evidence of a biological group strategy that persists in DNA.

2. There's poor genetic evidence for his claims. Jewish populations are genetically diverse: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi communities have mixed ancestry. While some genetic diseases and higher average IQ in Ashkenazi samples have been studied, these do not map neatly to a coordinated genetic “strategy.” Traits like high literacy, scholarly traditions, and communal charity are classic cultural transmission effects — no credible geneticist claims Jews are evolutionarily selected as a conspiratorial race.

3. He selectively analyzes history and cherry-picks examples that fit the “group conflict” model while ignoring huge variations. There are secular Jews who intermarry, political disagreements, and periods when Jewish communities assimilated almost entirely.

4. Evolutionary group selection is itself controversial. The idea that natural selection strongly favors complex traits at the group level (rather than the individual gene level) is disputed in evolutionary biology. MacDonald’s idea assumes “Jewish genes” benefit the collective rather than the individual — a mechanism without robust genetic demonstration.

5. Many diaspora minorities show identical patterns like the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, Lebanese merchants in West Africa, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Ismaili Indian merchants in East Africa. None require a “racial strategy” — just repeated cultural norms under similar pressures.

I'm not sure what you are asking about with respect to the Palestinians.

For centuries under the Ottoman Empire (1516–1917), the region called Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria) included what we now call Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. During this period, people identified themselves religion, local town or clan (e.g., Jerusalemite, Nablus merchant), or broader Arab or Syrian affiliation, not a distinct “Palestinian nation.” Identity was mostly local and regional — not a separate “Palestinian nation-state” consciousness.

In the late Ottoman period (late 1800s), a more distinct sense of local Filastini (Palestinian) identity began to appear, partly due to Ottoman modernization (schools, newspapers, better roads), Arab nationalism growing across the region in reaction to Turkish nationalism, and local notables (families like the Husseinis and Nashashibis in Jerusalem) managing towns and religious sites. Still, the idea of “Palestine” was a geographic region within Greater Syria, not yet a fully separate national project.

The crucial turning point came in 1917 after Britain committed to create a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine with the Balfour Declaration. Massive Jewish immigration under the British Mandate and growing Zionist institutions create a rival political project in the same land. During the Arab Revolt (1936–39), Palestinian Arabs launch an uprising against both British colonial rule and increasing Jewish settlement. This period crystalized a distinct Palestinian political identity in opposition to Zionism and separate from broader Arab nationalist movements. They became a defined community seeking self-rule.

I don't know if I would call that some kind of racial or genetic evolutionary strategy but more of a sociological process. An episode of ethnogenesis in a sense.

ConfusedJew wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 4:53 pm
This might be off so correct me if its wrong but ChatGPT says....

No, this is quite decent to get a discussion going, I have disagreements but nothing so flagrantly "off" that can't be discussed. I will review and respond when I have the time. I wanted to comment in the meanwhile that ChatGPT's treatment of MacDonald's work seems more fair, involves less hallucinations, and i have not detected any significant guardrails. This gives me an actual platform to respond in good faith. Compare this to the output from ChatGPT on the chemistry topics, which i noted to you contained many hallucinations, hit guardrails on seemingly every point, and offered up categorically incorrect statements.

This should underscore what I had been saying all along, and this is a neat demonstration of it.

Regarding the MacDonald thesis, I see you commented in the "Criticism of Jews" thread, where MacDonald's theory makes an appearance, and Archie commented:

Archie wrote: ↑Sat Dec 21, 2024 8:13 pm The most sophisticated response to MacDonald is from Nathan Cofnas, a Jewish "race realist," who offers Bell Curve style arguments to explain Jewish overrepresentation.

I agree with Archie on this, and similar to the Rudolf / Green exchanges, the MacDonald / Cofnas exchanges represents two PhDs duking it out and is probably your best jumping off point for a newcomer to the theory.

In his 2018 paper “Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory” (Human Nature), Cofnas argues that MacDonald systematically misrepresents sources and selectively highlights facts that support his theory, while ignoring evidence to the contrary.

Cofnas proposes a “default hypothesis” that Jews’ overrepresentation in major intellectual and political movements is better explained by their higher average IQ (~112), personality traits like conscientiousness, and concentration in urban centers—not by an evolutionary group strategy targeting gentiles.

He points out that if MacDonald’s theory held, Jews would be overrepresented in only those movements benefiting Jewish group interests. Yet historically, Jews have also been prominent in conservative, non-anti-Semitic movements—contradicting the strategy thesis.

Cofnas’s critique and follow-up papers (including “Still No Evidence for a Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy,” 2022) saw peer-reviewed publication, while MacDonald’s responses have been criticized, rejected by some journals (e.g., Human Nature), or published only in less mainstream outlets.

Any thoughts on this? For the record, I do think for myself, I just use AI to surface the relevant facts and it sometimes gets it wrong but it would take me 1,000x more time to dig through other sources.

ConfusedJew wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 3:52 pm Any thoughts on this? For the record, I do think for myself, I just use AI to surface the relevant facts and it sometimes gets it wrong but it would take me 1,000x more time to dig through other sources.

Yes this is a fair representation of Cofnas' position. My thoughts are primarily about your approach, though. You will be doing yourself a massive disservice if you limit yourself to ChatGPT. I highly encourage you to engage with the material directly, as ChatGPT will sleepwalk you into many precarious positions. I already see one, that is the appeal to authority & consensus. You may be surprised to learn that Cofnas has been relieved of his duties at Cambridge university for "racism" ie discussing racial differences between groups.

While I would never personally feel there's any issue with the phrase "Jews have a high-IQ on average" and wouldn't want the man to lose his livelihood, this is exactly what turbo-woke Cambridge did, and were I arguing in bad faith I would weaponise that in my counter-arguments the way ChatGPT is against MacDonald.

Net-result, Cofnas does'nt actually have the consensus that ChatGPT is telling you he does, because Cambridge fired him for it, calling him pseudo-scientific.

https://thecritic.co.uk/my-debunked-views/

I don't blindly defer to authority or consensus but if an authority or consensus is wrong, then it's fair to debate where they are wrong and why you think that. I have no problem with that.

In February 2024 he published a blog titled “A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution,” arguing for so-called “race realism.” This sparked significant backlash – student protests, petitions, and public criticism, including from Emmanuel College fellows. In April 2024, Emmanuel College terminated its affiliation with Cofnas, citing conflicts with their Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policies. While Emmanuel College cut ties, Cofnas retained his Faculty of Philosophy fellowship at Cambridge and wasn’t dismissed by the university entirely.

Cambridge launched an internal inquiry, and the Leverhulme Trust also reviewed the situation. Prominent defenses from Peter Singer, Steven Pinker, and the Free Speech Union emphasized academic freedom, arguing that controversial scholarship alone shouldn’t warrant disciplinary action.

Cofnas’s case illustrates the tensions at elite universities between academic freedom (supported by some senior academics) and institutional commitments to DEI. It does not indicate that Cambridge censored or formally censured him across the board. The core of his position on IQ/genetics remains upheld by many academic psychometric studies—even if it is controversial, it’s not discredited by mainstream scholars.

in media, open letters, and student petitions, some critics and groups of students did informally describe his ideas as “pseudo-science,” “scientific racism,” or “racist pseudoscience.” For example, the open letter by Emmanuel College students (which was widely circulated) characterized his hereditarian claims about race and IQ as “pseudoscientific” and harmful. Various news outlets and activist commentators repeated that phrasing. Many mainstream researchers find race–IQ hereditarianism a fringe position, but Cofnas’s technical critiques of Kevin MacDonald are not generally called pseudoscience — they are peer-reviewed philosophy-of-biology arguments.

“Race science” refers to 19th–early 20th century theories that humanity could be neatly divided into biological races with innate, ranked differences in intelligence, morality, and worth. This was used to justify slavery, segregation, colonialism, and eugenics.

Modern population genetics rejects “race” as a precise biological category for humans. Humans are remarkably genetically similar. Genetic variation exists, but clusters do not map neatly to old racial categories. Traits like intelligence are influenced by thousands of genes, plus environment, and do not break down cleanly by “race.” Studies of ancestry, migration, allele frequency differences (e.g., disease risk, lactose tolerance, some physical traits) are valid, mainstream science but this is not called “race science” today — it’s population genetics or human genetic diversity research.

It's probably worth going into that more deeply if you want.