More on Pinker: Goyishe Kopf

I somehow forgot this little anecdote that kicked off Steven Pinker's lecture the other night. I don't have the details down exactly, but basically Pinker was talking about his grandfather who owned a garment factory where they made neckties. One day Pinker's father went to visit him and was told he was in a backroom. There Pinker's father saw the grandfather working on fabric with a sewing machine. He asked him what he was doing. He was working on the cut-out remnants of fabric and "if I sew them a certain way I can get a few exta ties out of the lot." Ok, said his father, but why are you doing this rather than one of your workers. The grandfather looked at him, poked a finger to his head, and said "Goyishe Kopf" - Gentile brains!
The story gives a flavor of the kind of audience Pinker was addressing - it's telling that several of the older audience members around me laughed at the "Goyishe Kopf" - they didn't need to wait for the translation. I think part of Pinker's message with the story was to set the table for the audience that the idea of superior Ashkenazi intelligence should be nothing shocking - they all know it already even if they don't admit it.