I like how the writer mentions Microsoft and Google, but fails to realize that Silicon Valley is disproportionately Asian. This is perhaps the quintessential irony of white Americans reflexively holding up Silicon Valley as the paragon of creative risk-taking.
Here's what I think. As white Americans fall further behind their Asian American counterparts academically, we're going to increasingly hear these kinds of arguments. Now, the real thing we should be focused on, I believe, is this.
"Only 12 percent of Americans are foreign-born, the NFAP report says. Even so, children of immigrants took 70 percent of the finalist slots in the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search Competition, an original-research competition for high school seniors.
Of the 40 finalists, 28 had parents born in other countries: 16 from China, 10 from India, one from South Korea and one from Iran.
"In proportion to their presence in the U.S. population, one would expect only one child of an Indian (or Chinese) immigrant parent every two and a half years to be an Intel Science Search finalist, not 10 in a year," wrote the report's author, NFAP director Stuart Anderson."
This white American rather agrees with you. I was president of the Prometheus Society (IQ 164+) in the 1980's and made myself unpopular noting that the membership was male - northern European or Jewish. I wondered where Italy's Leonardo's had gone, and also whether we had false definitions of intelligence because there were so few asians. "Why aren't there a lot of Japanese, Chinese, and Indians?" Another member, a professor in the CA system said "Not Japanese. But the Chinese, definitely. They're coming. Their English isn't good enough to stomp the verbal parts of the tests yet, but they're coming. Probably India, too." So I've been waiting for this and have enjoyed the wonderful controversy it has driven. Jensen saw it years ago, of course.
I don't see the Tiger Mom phenomenon as adding that much - we've been through this discussion about Jews in America before, remember. I think intense parenting makes a difference at the margins, but it's that half-a-standard-deviation advantage that is the big ticket item.
I would pay attention to that white facility for bullshitting for more reasons than just watching your wallet, however. I think it is based on a real, though poorly measured ability that explains why we are good at advertising, and why our popular culture has appeal in other places. Interestingly, it is an ability that African-Americans seem to have a variant of as well. That off-the-cuff verbal creativity is probably not entirely a cultural thing. Blacks fall behind other races in many abilities, but intriguingly, only slightly behind in learning languages, suggesting there's a compensating ability they actually have more of. The presence of many persuasive, appealing, clever manipulators in a society would suggest a fractious population unable to sustain mass movements - which is what one sees in North America, Europe, and in a different way, Africa and the Middle East. A lack of that ability would suggest that the few persuasive ones would have enormous ability for control, leading to mass movements - which is more of an Asian phenomenon.
> I was president of the Prometheus Society (IQ 164+) in the 1980's <
Please tell us more about your experiences as a Promethean! Was Grady Towers one of your members? I've read a few of his essays on the web. Do you agree with his perspective in The Outsiders?
Steve, you may find this of interest: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/05/rebellion-of-the-innovation-mom/?hpt=hp_c1
ReplyDeleteI like how the writer mentions Microsoft and Google, but fails to realize that Silicon Valley is disproportionately Asian. This is perhaps the quintessential irony of white Americans reflexively holding up Silicon Valley as the paragon of creative risk-taking.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I think. As white Americans fall further behind their Asian American counterparts academically, we're going to increasingly hear these kinds of arguments. Now, the real thing we should be focused on, I believe, is this.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110529/sc_livescience/70ofscienceawardfinalistsarechildrenofimmigrants
"Only 12 percent of Americans are foreign-born, the NFAP report says.
Even so, children of immigrants took 70 percent of the finalist slots in
the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search Competition, an original-research
competition for high school seniors.
Of the 40 finalists, 28 had parents born in other countries: 16 from
China, 10 from India, one from South Korea and one from Iran.
"In proportion to their presence in the U.S. population, one would
expect only one child of an Indian (or Chinese) immigrant parent every
two and a half years to be an Intel Science Search finalist, not 10 in a
year," wrote the report's author, NFAP director Stuart Anderson."
This white American rather agrees with you. I was president of the Prometheus Society (IQ 164+) in the 1980's and made myself unpopular noting that the membership was male - northern European or Jewish. I wondered where Italy's Leonardo's had gone, and also whether we had false definitions of intelligence because there were so few asians. "Why aren't there a lot of Japanese, Chinese, and Indians?" Another member, a professor in the CA system said "Not Japanese. But the Chinese, definitely. They're coming. Their English isn't good enough to stomp the verbal parts of the tests yet, but they're coming. Probably India, too." So I've been waiting for this and have enjoyed the wonderful controversy it has driven. Jensen saw it years ago, of course.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the Tiger Mom phenomenon as adding that much - we've been through this discussion about Jews in America before, remember. I think intense parenting makes a difference at the margins, but it's that half-a-standard-deviation advantage that is the big ticket item.
I would pay attention to that white facility for bullshitting for more reasons than just watching your wallet, however. I think it is based on a real, though poorly measured ability that explains why we are good at advertising, and why our popular culture has appeal in other places. Interestingly, it is an ability that African-Americans seem to have a variant of as well. That off-the-cuff verbal creativity is probably not entirely a cultural thing. Blacks fall behind other races in many abilities, but intriguingly, only slightly behind in learning languages, suggesting there's a compensating ability they actually have more of. The presence of many persuasive, appealing, clever manipulators in a society would suggest a fractious population unable to sustain mass movements - which is what one sees in North America, Europe, and in a different way, Africa and the Middle East. A lack of that ability would suggest that the few persuasive ones would have enormous ability for control, leading to mass movements - which is more of an Asian phenomenon.
> I was president of the Prometheus Society (IQ 164+) in the 1980's <
ReplyDeletePlease tell us more about your experiences as a Promethean! Was Grady Towers one of your members? I've read a few of his essays on the web. Do you agree with his perspective in The Outsiders?