Intelligence / Achievement Studies and Global Indians

[RoyG]

Indians heavily influence Chinese spirituality, mathematics, science, astronomy, etc. They were coming to Nalanda to translate important treatise, and importing mathematicians to run their astronomy centers. Our IQ must be higher than theirs.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=ca ... T7rwDBn-Ag

[Vayutuvan]

In my field, quantitative finance, all the heavy lifting is done by Chinese, Russian Jews, Ivy/OxBridge Caucasians and French dudes. The IIT Vikram Pandit-types may be able to play the politics and get ahead that way, but they simply can't do the real work.

I call BS. In Quant, the heavy lifting is done by super computers doing the majority of number crunching. Just doing some arithmetic on Excel spread sheets and placing orders according to what the computer says might look like heavy lifting for some.

By the way, even the average programmers whoa re programming these super computers are not doing the heavy lifting - they use Linear Algebra and optimization libraries from elsewhere and frankly the whole area is a lot of mumbo-jumbo and waste of computational cycles.

[Arjun]

Here's the flaw with your methodology and I'll quote one of Mr Karlin's commenters verbatim since he/she does such a nice job (and saves me the time):

[The notion that “India – A Country Of Gypsies And Jews” is very flawed. A lazy remark if i dare to say.

“Brahmins have average IQ in the US of 112 ” is the key here. Assuming (I have yet to look at detail from which generally recognised stats 112 comes from) this is a fact, it won’t automatically deduce that Brahmins as a tribe have average IQ of 112, for if test the most recent sub-sahara H1B1 arrivals to USA by idenifying one specific African tribe as we do to Brahmins, then one might get the same conclusion that ” Kenya(or whatever) is a Country Of Gypsies And Jews”; or if single out H1B1 Russians or Germans or Mongolians or Iranians, we’ll get Russia ( or Germany or Sweden or Mongolia or Iran) is nation of Country Of Gypsies And Super Super Super Jews, aren’t they? lol. It makes no sense anymore in such contex where basically you get top 3 or 4 sd.

If all brahmins in India are free to travel and work in USA by only showing their identity cards to the customs, will Brahmins in the US have the same or remotely close to “112 average IQ” (here again, assuming the stats behind is legit)? I guess we all know the answer here, don’t we?

Or look from another angle, actually the RIGHT question here that should be logically asked, and asked loudly, is that

“Why it is so so low of ONLY 112 average IQ”?
( logically assuming the stats behind don’t include some illegal Brahmins who work in cornershops, 7/11, motels and cashwash…at all, but only include those with official SS numbers who primarily in unis and basic code-writting IT firms of H1B1 type)

If not Brahmins, but say Lower Saxon Germans or Flemish Belgians or Alps Italians primarily on H1B1 instead, their average IQ in the US would probably shoot up to the roof towards 130 or more!]

Wong, the comment above from Karlin's blog is filled with wrong facts and faulty reasoning.

Its not Brahmins in the US that have average IQ of 112. That was average IQ for first-generation Indian-Americans as a whole derived from the cognitive tests administered to them.

Brahmins are likely to be a small minority among the 2 Mil+ Indian American population, though they would be highly over-represented in top Universities both as students and as faculty. The most common Indian American surnames are Patel and Singh - and neither of them are Brahmin surnames.

Your larger point seems to be that performance of the Indian diaspora cannot be generalized into competitive ability for Indians as a whole. This is not correct for the following reasons-

1. The Indian diaspora is the second largest diaspora in the world after the Chinese, therefore there are a large number of data-points about the performance of Indian diaspora in a multi-ethnic setting. While a very large percentage of the Chinese diaspora is in SE Asia - the Indian diaspora is more evenly spread out across the globe.

2. India is socially organized into very distinct ethnic groups, ie castes - which have always competed against one another. The educational and entrepreneurial tendencies of these various castes are widely known in India (the differences being less due to genetics and more due to social attitudes and values). Unlike the Chinese diaspora which is almost exclusively derived from the three South-Eastern China provinces - the Indian diaspora draws from Brahmins, other 'forward' castes, 'backward' castes, Muslims and even Dalits (supposedly the bottom of the pole in terms of castes). 'Forward' and 'backward' are formal adjectives used by the Government of India for the purpose of affirmative action within the country. The demographics of the Indian diaspora in each location based on these castes is known. Some diaspora areas like the US are likely to have a slight forward caste majority (though even this statistic is disputed), whereas others such as the UK & Canada and many other locations are dominated more by what are termed the 'backward' castes in India.

3. Both the UK and Canada are large diaspora areas that do not have 'forward'-caste majorities. And yet - they outperform the Whites in educational and income statistics. The background of a significant percentage of the diaspora in these nations is not even urban - its drawn from rural India.

4. The statistics derived from the diaspora - since they cut across castes, provide the basis for generalizing about competitive ability of Indians as a whole in a multi-ethnic setting.

5. The Indian and Chinese diasporas in the US should be directly comparable. It is true that the topmost layer in engineering and sciences over the last 4 decades from India has been drawn to US Univs. But that is true for China as well. In both these cases - the percentage of diaspora population comprised by this topmost layer is actually quite small.

[wong]

In my field, quantitative finance, all the heavy lifting is done by Chinese, Russian Jews, Ivy/OxBridge Caucasians and French dudes. The IIT Vikram Pandit-types may be able to play the politics and get ahead that way, but they simply can't do the real work.

I call BS. In Quant, the heavy lifting is done by super computers doing the majority of number crunching. Just doing some arithmetic on Excel spread sheets and placing orders according to what the computer says might look like heavy lifting for some.

By the way, even the average programmers whoa re programming these super computers are not doing the heavy lifting - they use Linear Algebra and optimization libraries from elsewhere and frankly the whole area is a lot of mumbo-jumbo and waste of computational cycles.

LOL. Why is it that you guys always talk like experts whenever you have a VERY Basic, surface understanding of something?? Why? Proof there must be a BS gene. If all it took was a supercomputers wouldn't Indians with your "super duper coding skills" dominate the field ?? After all, there's literally a billion reasons to do so. Here's some names for you to Google: James Simon (Ashkenazi), David E. Shaw (Ashkenazi), Andrew Lo (Han), and Peter Muller (Ivy Caucasian).

No insider trading conspiracy here. No Indian at Intel or McKinsey or Goldman passing insider info to another ethnic Indian. Just PURE IQ.

[wong]

@Arjun

The Indian Diaspora represents less than 2.5% of the Indian population. Of that 2.5%, 2% are in some pretty unimpressive situations like the 4 million in Nepal or the 1.6 million in the deserts of Dubai or another 1.5 million in Saudi Arabia or the 2.4 million in Malaysia. So really, we are only talking about 0.5% of the Indian population that you want to extrapolate to the other 99.5%.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-resi ... ian_origin

But still, I will play along. Let's say for the sake of argument the Indian diaspora's equals or exceeds the IQ of the Chinese diaspora. If that were true we should be seeing the type of dominance in these countries that the Chinese diaspora has exhibited. There should be an Indian Hong Kong, An Indian Singapore and an Indian Taiwan. Indians should be dominating the economies of these countries like the Chinese do in Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and now Africa. There should be more ethnically Indian-American billionaires than Chinese-American billionaires, but there isn't. And remember, this is despite conceding the false premise that a 0.5% selectively chosen sample can accurately represent the other 99.5%. See how this ultimately becomes a game of outlier math for you ??

And why don't we dominate in America you'll ask? We do well enough here, better than most. We did try, but then they passed laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act to stop us. Besides, the Ashkenazis got here first and they have a higher IQ.

[Arjun]

Wong, I'll get to the rest of your post later - but just how many Chinese American billionaires are there? Can you list them?

As per the 2012 Forbes list there are 5 Indian American ones, and one dropped off from '11 list so there are 6 that are in the range.

[Vayutuvan]

Why is it that you guys always talk like experts whenever you have a VERY Basic, surface understanding of something??... Just PURE IQ.

Just picking up some jargon like Ito integrals in a Finance MBA doesn't make one have some deep understanding of the subject. Just having PURE IQ (whatever that is) won't cut it.

So, forget about others, because to talk about others' intelligence, you need to show some yourself. Let us know what exactly is your expertise and how deep is your understanding.

... on second thought, don't bother. I have very intelligent Chinese friends (and teachers) from whom I can get far better information.

[Suraj]

wong: Considering the topic of the thread, I'm sure you know better than to paint a bulls eye on your own forehead. Be aware that you're back from a recent ban. Continued thread disruption and trolling will earn you an extra warning and a second, three month ban.

[Arjun]

Wong, since you brought up the billionaires comparison yourself - I would have expected you to have done some research upfront. The reality, as you've probably found out by now is that Chinese Americans despite being much bigger in population - actually throw up less number of billionaires than Indian-Americans. I counted only 4 in the latest Forbes 400 (John Tu, David Sun, Andrew Cherng & Jerry Yang).

Coming to the other points you've raised-

The Indian Diaspora represents less than 2.5% of the Indian population. Of that 2.5%, 2% are in some pretty unimpressive situations like the 4 million in Nepal or the 1.6 million in the deserts of Dubai or another 1.5 million in Saudi Arabia or the 2.4 million in Malaysia. So really, we are only talking about 0.5% of the Indian population that you want to extrapolate to the other 99.5%.

Ethnic Indians dominate the economy and business of Nepal. Indian entrepreneurs & businessmen dominate the expat rich list in the Gulf, and include 5 billionaires. In Singapre Indian household income is higher than the Chinese, while in Malaysia it is lower than the Chinese but higher than the Malays. So, the 'unimpressive situation' you talk about is far from the truth.

There is a case to remove the figures for migrant labourer population in the Gulf - since they don't get permanent residency. At best the diaspora percentage decreases to 2% from 2.5%. But even 2% is much, much higher than the sampling rate in PISA/TIMSS kinds of tests.

I also saw some site claiming uniformly 100+ IQ for all Chinese provinces based on averages of those who had volunteered to test themselves at an internet site. All those figures are based on samples which are much smaller than 2% and 'self selection' rate would be much higher than the methodology based on expat competitiveness. And I am not even including the likelihood of cheating / false representations of Chinese volunteers on some of these internet sites.

But still, I will play along. Let's say for the sake of argument the Indian diaspora's equals or exceeds the IQ of the Chinese diaspora. If that were true we should be seeing the type of dominance in these countries that the Chinese diaspora has exhibited. There should be an Indian Hong Kong, An Indian Singapore and an Indian Taiwan. Indians should be dominating the economies of these countries like the Chinese do in Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and now Africa. There should be more ethnically Indian-American billionaires than Chinese-American billionaires, but there isn't. And remember, this is despite conceding the false premise that a 0.5% selectively chosen sample can accurately represent the other 99.5%. See how this ultimately becomes a game of outlier math for you ??

It seems you are unaware of the extent to which ethnic Indian businessmen dominate different regions. You were clueless about the extent of Indian American billionaires. Indian Americans also far outstrip any other Asian ethnicity in CEO/senior level managerial positions at Fortune 500 firms.

Ethnic Indians dominated East Africa to such an extent that they were expelled by Idi Amin. Same story with Burma - Indians so totally controlled Burma that Burma asked all Indians to leave in the 60s.

Currently, ethnic Indian businessmen do much better than ethnic Chinese in the US, UK and the Gulf. Ethnic Chinese dominate only in SE Asia and a few other small economies.

The end result of business is wealth creation. The overseas Chinese (50 Mil+) are estimated to have total wealth between 1.5 - 2 Trillion $. Overseas Indians (25Mil+) are estimated to have total wealth over $ 1 Trillion. On a per capita basis, overseas Indians seem to be doing the same or better than overseas Chinese.

And why don't we dominate in America you'll ask? We do well enough here, better than most. We did try, but then they passed laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act to stop us. Besides, the Ashkenazis got here first and they have a higher IQ.

Again, Indian Americans seem to be doing better than Chinese Americans on many key measures.

[suryag]

Arjun ji arent the four you mentioned above from Taiwan?

[Arjun]

^ Yes, all of them seem to have Taiwan connections. If you remove those with Taiwan / HK connections - there don't seem to be many mainland Chinese-origin Americans who've made it big in business / management. Maybe some of our Chinese visitors could throw light on this.

[Vayutuvan]

Something to think about...

Genetic Studies of Genius

[The Genetic Studies of Genius, today known as the Terman Study of the Gifted, is a still-running longitudinal study begun in 1921 to examine the development and characteristics of gifted children into adulthood. The study was started by Lewis Terman at Stanford University and is now the oldest and longest running longitudinal study in the world.

He set out to disprove the following.

Early findings
Terman's goal was to disprove the then-current belief that gifted children were sickly, socially inept, and not well-rounded. Therefore, the first volume of the study reported data on the children's family, educational progress, special abilities, interests, play, and personality. He also examined the children's racial and ethnic heritage. Terman was a proponent of eugenics, although not as radical as many of his contemporary social Darwinists, and believed that intelligence testing could be used as a positive tool to shape society.
Based on data collected in 1921-22, Terman concluded that gifted children suffered no more health problems than normal for their age, save a little more myopia than average. He also found that the children were usually social, were well-adjusted, did better in school, and were even taller than average. A follow-up performed in 1923-1924 found that the children had maintained their high IQs and were still an overall blessed group.

But the following evidence pretty much destroys Arjun ji's hypothesis of highger IQs leading to higher incomes and/or higher eminence in a field of endeavor.

Some of Terman's subjects reached great eminence in their fields. ... Over fifty men became college and university faculty members.However, the majority of study participants' lives were more mundane. By the 4th volume of Genetic Studies of Genius, Terman had noted that as adults, his subjects pursued common occupations

as humble as those of policeman, seaman, typist and filing clerk

and concluded:

At any rate, we have seen that intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated

There were also problems with some his underhanded methods which are akin to crony capitalism peddled by S. Korea and Japan two decades back which is being increasingly seen in India as well.

Moreover, Terman meddled in his subject's lives, giving them letters of recommendation for jobs and college and pulling strings at Stanford to help them get admitted. This makes any life outcomes of the sample tainted and ungeneralizable.

The following criticism is of note also.

In his book Fads and foibles in modern sociology and related sciences (p. 70-76), sociologist Pitirim Sorokin criticized the research, showing that Terman's selected group of children with high IQs did about as well as a random group of children selected from similar family backgrounds would have done.

The study also has all the weaknesses of any longitudinal study: it is possible that the characteristics and behaviors of the sample are a partial result of the era they lived in. Indeed, many members of the sample couldn't attend college, due to the Great Depression and World War II. Almost half of women in the sample were homemakers for most of their lives. Despite these shortcomings, the data from the sample is often used for studies because there is no other group of people who have been followed for so long. {saving grace of the study}

[Arjun]

But the following evidence pretty much destroys Arjun ji's hypothesis of highger IQs leading to higher incomes and/or higher eminence in a field of endeavor.

I have not expressed any such hypothesis on this thread. What we have tracked so far is data on how various communities compare on income and educational achievement in a multi-ethnic setting. On both these parameters Indians and East Asians are seen to be outperforming other ethnicities.

'Intelligence' itself is a rather amorphous and poorly-defined term, even more so than IQ - so much better to work directly with achievement data (income/educational levels, crime index etc) that would better reflect underlying competitive abilities.

I wouldn't necessarily argue though, that IQ has nothing whatsoever to do with performance ability. Analytical IQ is probably a good proxy for logical reasoning skills, as is Verbal IQ for language skills. As economies develop further - the proportion of jobs that require higher logical reasoning ability are only likely to increase, though the base may be low. As for language skills - most higher management positions require strong language skills, one area where Indians score over the Chinese.

I wouldn't read too much into that old 1930s study - the economy of today is far, far different from the one even 50 years back.

[Vayutuvan]

Up

[Vayutuvan]

up (I am willing to do up it a few more times so that this beloved thread does not fall off the first page of the forum)

Hope Arjun ji takes it forward from here. If not, this would negate his 1000 page Modi vs. die-nasty thread.

[Arjun]

Hi Vayu Tuvan, happy to engage in a two-way dialogue in case there is genuine interest from any quarter. Last thing I am interested in is a monologue from my side, that is of no particular interest to others on the forum.

If there is anything in particular - any data or opinion related to the topic that you would want me to respond to, do let me know.

[A_Gupta]

There is an American obsession with IQ as a means of justifying institutional racism. The best recent example is Murray and Herrnstein's "The Bell Curve" which tried to "prove" that African-Americans are naturally less intelligent and so no government program could ever help them close the gap.

Now Indians get caught up in this nonsense? Believe me, the most damaging thing I have witnessed is people worrying about IQ and smartness and neglecting then being as good as they could possibly be, and devaluing effort compared to some narrative of "innate" ability.

We don't need IQ to know that malnourished children are not going to be able to accomplish a lot. It is hard to do well in school whey you are hungry.

[S.G.Dev]

In my field, quantitative finance, all the heavy lifting is done by Chinese, Russian Jews, Ivy/OxBridge Caucasians and French dudes. The IIT Vikram Pandit-types may be able to play the politics and get ahead that way, but they simply can't do the real work.

If this was somehow a consequence of IQ, this should carry over into the PhD programs that generate quants. I did my PhD at Stanford and knew plenty of CS/engineering/stats/physics PhD students. Among the Chinese there was significant interest in quant work. Among the Indians, none. Seems more like a cultural preference.

Chinese Americans are actually rather under-achieving in the grand scheme. Indians have run Citi, McKinsey, Google, Microsoft and there's a large pipeline of upper management on the way in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This despite being relatively recent entrants to the U.S. In contrast, Chinese are following the orders of others ("real work", as you euphemistically call it) even after multiple generations in the US. I suppose this might be one reason for the preference for quant finance, as it's one of the few fields where quiet, submissive men can achieve some level of success.

Sadly, no one is the real world cares that you spent your childhood inside studying for the math olympiad. You should perhaps look up to these "Vikram Pandit-types" -- they're on to something. After all, his type invariably have hordes of Chinese working obediently in exchange for a tiny slice.

[Vayutuvan]

... monologue from my side, that is of no particular interest to others on the forum.
If there is anything in particular - any data or opinion related to the topic that you would want me to respond to, do let me know.

Monologue is no fun, aint it? I do have a few [strong] opinions arising out of anecdotes. I will put them here in this thread for your and other interested BRFites' consideration. Let us see how far people in here can take the thread.

Just as an aside, let me say that I predicted that Secularism - Boon or Bane would not cross the 72. Now that a few people got (permanently?) banned that thread is never going to achieve that Islamist nirvana moksha.

I wonder whether poster wong is still around or has been banned.

[Arjun]

There is an American obsession with IQ as a means of justifying institutional racism. The best recent example is Murray and Herrnstein's "The Bell Curve" which tried to "prove" that African-Americans are naturally less intelligent and so no government program could ever help them close the gap.

Now Indians get caught up in this nonsense? Believe me, the most damaging thing I have witnessed is people worrying about IQ and smartness and neglecting then being as good as they could possibly be, and devaluing effort compared to some narrative of "innate" ability.

We don't need IQ to know that malnourished children are not going to be able to accomplish a lot. It is hard to do well in school whey you are hungry.

There is a distinct difference in White American and Indian approaches to the critical issue of ethnic equity.

White Americans (more prominently on the conservative side) typically follow the below sequence (I have no idea how to insert graphs here so presenting as a list):

• 1. Measure differences in education, income, wealth and other parameters across ethnicities
  2. Reduce these differences to a single number termed ‘average IQ’ for every ethnicity
  3. Difference in ‘average IQ’ explained as being innate or genetic
  4. Formulate action or opinion based on ‘average IQ’ figure

Indian governments since Independence have put their faith on the following sequence:

• 1. Measure differences in education, income, wealth and other parameters across ethnicities
  2. Difference in performance explained as being due to historical discrimination
  3. Formulate affirmative action programs based on classification of communities as forward / backward / most backward etc

I believe the second (Indian approach) is much better than the former - yet both are flawed. The best approach (and, as I understand it, one that the Modi government is in favor of) is the following:

• 1. Measure differences in education, income, wealth and other parameters across ethnicities
  2. Formulate both 'affirmative action' programs as well as 'empowerment' programs based on classification of communities as forward / backward / most backward etc. Empowerment to gradually take precedence over 'affirmative action' over a timeframe that would be determined by on-the-ground realities
  

Measuring differences in education and other parameters is the ONLY common factor across Western, Indian and Ideal approaches.

The focus of this thread happens to be on this first part alone. I am happy to address intra-India community differences - but on this forum THAT has been deemed to be too sensitive a topic. We will therefore focus solely on the increasingly visible success of the NRI diaspora and how that compares to Chinese, Jewish, European and other communities.

[A_Gupta]

The view from Sri Lanka:
http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/I ... 088156.ece

A Senior Professor at Colombo University whose books have been published by Routledge of London and Sage of New Delhi, Hettige points out that despite determined efforts to democratize a highly unequal traditional Indian society through affirmative action since independence, India has not abolished “elitism” as such.

“India has nurtured elitism, by which I mean excellence, through encouragement of talented persons even as it has striven for a social leveling through democratization,” he told Express on Monday.

In his latest book: “Towards a Sane Society”, Hettige quotes French sociologist Louis Dumont to say that hierarchies are entrenched in India. “Inequality is not alien to Indians in spite of continuous contestation of the fact over time,” Hettige added.

“India has struck a judicious balance between continuity and change,” he says.

Contrasting Sri Lanka with India, he said: “Sri Lanka has not been as tolerant of inequality as India is. In Lanka, the accent has solely been on populist measures to level the society. Everything has been brought down to the lowest common denominator.”

The Lankan bid for equalization has led to a fall in educational standards, he observed.

[RoyG]

In my field, quantitative finance, all the heavy lifting is done by Chinese, Russian Jews, Ivy/OxBridge Caucasians and French dudes. The IIT Vikram Pandit-types may be able to play the politics and get ahead that way, but they simply can't do the real work.

If this was somehow a consequence of IQ, this should carry over into the PhD programs that generate quants. I did my PhD at Stanford and knew plenty of CS/engineering/stats/physics PhD students. Among the Chinese there was significant interest in quant work. Among the Indians, none. Seems more like a cultural preference.

Chinese Americans are actually rather under-achieving in the grand scheme. Indians have run Citi, McKinsey, Google, Microsoft and there's a large pipeline of upper management on the way in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This despite being relatively recent entrants to the U.S. In contrast, Chinese are following the orders of others ("real work", as you euphemistically call it) even after multiple generations in the US. I suppose this might be one reason for the preference for quant finance, as it's one of the few fields where quiet, submissive men can achieve some level of success.

Sadly, no one is the real world cares that you spent your childhood inside studying for the math olympiad. You should perhaps look up to these "Vikram Pandit-types" -- they're on to something. After all, his type invariably have hordes of Chinese working obediently in exchange for a tiny slice.

I second this observation. I think its cultural. They generally get pushed around in the workplace and are very risk averse. It's even worse around women. Hard working lot though and are very proud of their heritage. I find this even with the second gen. 2nd gen Indians however, seem to be branching out quite a bit especially in the leadership capacity. It's easy to be a grunt and crunch the numbers and add to the data pool but innovation and leadership are a whole diff ball game.

I disagree with Wong. Vikram Pandit types had to battle it out in the trenches but were gutsy enough to take the fight elsewhere. Sounds more like jealousy to me.

[sanjaykumar]

“India has nurtured elitism, by which I mean excellence, through encouragement of talented persons even as it has striven for a social leveling through democratization,” he told Express on Monday.



Funny how the term Brahmanism is only used as a pejorative.

[Arjun]

If this was somehow a consequence of IQ, this should carry over into the PhD programs that generate quants. I did my PhD at Stanford and knew plenty of CS/engineering/stats/physics PhD students. Among the Chinese there was significant interest in quant work. Among the Indians, none. Seems more like a cultural preference.

Chinese Americans are actually rather under-achieving in the grand scheme. Indians have run Citi, McKinsey, Google, Microsoft and there's a large pipeline of upper management on the way in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This despite being relatively recent entrants to the U.S. In contrast, Chinese are following the orders of others ("real work", as you euphemistically call it) even after multiple generations in the US. I suppose this might be one reason for the preference for quant finance, as it's one of the few fields where quiet, submissive men can achieve some level of success.

Sadly, no one is the real world cares that you spent your childhood inside studying for the math olympiad. You should perhaps look up to these "Vikram Pandit-types" -- they're on to something. After all, his type invariably have hordes of Chinese working obediently in exchange for a tiny slice.

Lets not discount the Chinese dominance in Math-related competitions. Whether we are talking IMO Math, Putnam College competitions or Mathcounts (middle school) - Chinese over-representation relative to any other community is very real (though in the latter two, Indian Americans tend to be the distant second).

But here's the funny thing - inspite of the supposed advantage in quant and math, the Top 100 large hedge fund managers and Top 50 mid-sized hedge fund managers of 2012 doesn't show the same advantage: The world's richest Hedge Funds

The list includes 4 Chinese names based in the US/UK and 3 Indian Americans (Hari Hariharan, Deepak Narula, Feroz Dewan) - which is approximately equal level of performance discounting for population size.

[RoyG]

If this was somehow a consequence of IQ, this should carry over into the PhD programs that generate quants. I did my PhD at Stanford and knew plenty of CS/engineering/stats/physics PhD students. Among the Chinese there was significant interest in quant work. Among the Indians, none. Seems more like a cultural preference.

Chinese Americans are actually rather under-achieving in the grand scheme. Indians have run Citi, McKinsey, Google, Microsoft and there's a large pipeline of upper management on the way in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This despite being relatively recent entrants to the U.S. In contrast, Chinese are following the orders of others ("real work", as you euphemistically call it) even after multiple generations in the US. I suppose this might be one reason for the preference for quant finance, as it's one of the few fields where quiet, submissive men can achieve some level of success.

Sadly, no one is the real world cares that you spent your childhood inside studying for the math olympiad. You should perhaps look up to these "Vikram Pandit-types" -- they're on to something. After all, his type invariably have hordes of Chinese working obediently in exchange for a tiny slice.

Lets not discount the Chinese dominance in Math-related competitions. Whether we are talking IMO Math, Putnam College competitions or Mathcounts (middle school) - Chinese over-representation relative to any other community is very real (though in the latter two, Indian Americans tend to be the distant second).

But here's the funny thing - inspite of the supposed advantage in quant and math, the Top 100 large hedge fund managers and Top 50 mid-sized hedge fund managers of 2012 doesn't show the same advantage: The world's richest Hedge Funds

The list includes 4 Chinese names based in the US/UK and 3 Indian Americans (Hari Hariharan, Deepak Narula, Feroz Dewan) - which is approximately equal level of performance discounting for population size.

They just tend to work harder in HS and college. What is winning some math competition going to help you with in the long run? Indians tend to be slackers, dream big, and want the big bucks. 2 of the 4 Indian kids in the top 10 of my hs graduating class made 300-500k before 30 going into medicine. The other 2 teamed up and made 2 mil. starting a glass and water filter business before 30. They put in 1/10th the work and still managed to make it big in school and out in the grown up world. Our chinese valedictorian and the other 3 while finishing a bit a higher than the indian kids are all working some accounting job barely making 100k at the Big4 and biostats research. Laughable given the amount of tiger mom bs they had to put up with.

Their capacity for out of the box thinking IMO is still very much a problem altho things may be changing now. Japanese and Filipinos are relatively more fluid like us.

[RoyG]

If this was somehow a consequence of IQ, this should carry over into the PhD programs that generate quants. I did my PhD at Stanford and knew plenty of CS/engineering/stats/physics PhD students. Among the Chinese there was significant interest in quant work. Among the Indians, none. Seems more like a cultural preference.

Chinese Americans are actually rather under-achieving in the grand scheme. Indians have run Citi, McKinsey, Google, Microsoft and there's a large pipeline of upper management on the way in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This despite being relatively recent entrants to the U.S. In contrast, Chinese are following the orders of others ("real work", as you euphemistically call it) even after multiple generations in the US. I suppose this might be one reason for the preference for quant finance, as it's one of the few fields where quiet, submissive men can achieve some level of success.

Sadly, no one is the real world cares that you spent your childhood inside studying for the math olympiad. You should perhaps look up to these "Vikram Pandit-types" -- they're on to something. After all, his type invariably have hordes of Chinese working obediently in exchange for a tiny slice.

Lets not discount the Chinese dominance in Math-related competitions. Whether we are talking IMO Math, Putnam College competitions or Mathcounts (middle school) - Chinese over-representation relative to any other community is very real (though in the latter two, Indian Americans tend to be the distant second).

But here's the funny thing - inspite of the supposed advantage in quant and math, the Top 100 large hedge fund managers and Top 50 mid-sized hedge fund managers of 2012 doesn't show the same advantage: The world's richest Hedge Funds

The list includes 4 Chinese names based in the US/UK and 3 Indian Americans (Hari Hariharan, Deepak Narula, Feroz Dewan) - which is approximately equal level of performance discounting for population size.

They just tend to work harder in HS and college. What is winning some math competition going to help you with in the long run? Indians tend to be slackers, dream big, and want the big bucks. 2 of the 4 Indian kids in the top 10 of my hs graduating class made 300-500k before 30 going into medicine. The other 2 teamed up and made 2 mil. starting a glass and water filter business before 30. They put in 1/10th the work and still managed to make it big in school and out in the grown up world. Our chinese valedictorian and the other 3 while finishing a bit a higher than the indian kids are all working some accounting job barely making 100k at the Big4 and biostats research. Laughable given the amount of tiger mom bs they had to put up with.

Their capacity for out of the box thinking IMO is still very much a problem altho things may be changing now. Japanese and Filipinos are relatively more fluid like us.

[gakakkad]

^^ RoyG MATH olympiad etc are no ordinary math contests...they need to be taken very seriously if we are to have a bright future in STEM...India has AFAIK , never got anywhere near the top5 in math...

many olympiad winners have gone on to win nobels or fields medal....most have them have made it big ...real big...

[gakakkad]

Sanjay & Wong- This thread would go entirely off track if we start attributing country governance issues to IQ (and frankly I don't believe there is any relationship between the two).

This thread would focus ONLY on individual achievement or competitive ability statistics in various areas. Community achievement would only be discussed in the context of being the aggregate of individual achievements.

Please stay off any further discussion that links failure of governance in India, China or any other nation to competitive abilities of individuals in that country.

Again, this approach has been done to death. The most recent being Anatoly Karlin on Indian IQ.
http://akarlin.com/2012/08/18/rec1man-on-indian-iq/
http://akarlin.com/2012/08/14/the-puzzl ... -and-jews/

Inevitably this approach turns into a game of outlier math for Indians, as if that one Indian child with a 200+ IQ somehow makes up for the tens of millions that don't even come close

this is racist nonsense...

he quotes from this...

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/bobby- ... ority.html

When statistical adjustments are used to convert the backward digit span results to full-scale IQ scores, Indian Americans place at about 112 on a bell-shaped IQ distribution, with white Americans at 100. 112 is the 79th percentile of the white distribution. For more context, consider that Ashkenazi Jews are a famously intelligent ethnic group, and their mean IQ is somewhere around 110.

Indian emigrating to US are not genetically different from those staying back in India...Just like there is no signficant genetic predisposition to Chinese emigration...

racist nonsense...

[RoyG]

^^ RoyG MATH olympiad etc are no ordinary math contests...they need to be taken very seriously if we are to have a bright future in STEM...India has AFAIK , never got anywhere near the top5 in math...

many olympiad winners have gone on to win nobels or fields medal....most have them have made it big ...real big...

Perhaps. I think it has more to do with the secondary schooling and university architecture and how much the state is willing to identify and invest in students.

We probably have plenty of hidden Nobels. It's a matter of identifying, unlocking, and cultivating talent.

[Arjun]

Their capacity for out of the box thinking IMO is still very much a problem altho things may be changing now. Japanese and Filipinos are relatively more fluid like us.

Perhaps. But Filipinos are yet to achieve the kind of success at elite levels that Indians and East Asians have in the US...

One example - Filipino Americans are similar in population size to Indian and Chinese Americans, but whereas the latter two have generated between 6- 8 billionaires each, Filipino Americans recorded their first billionaire earlier this year: Snapchat co-founder, Bobby Murphy.

[Theo_Fidel]

I don't know what this thread is doing here.

Comments are heading south. Should be behind the burkha....

[Arjun]

I don't know what this thread is doing here.

Comments are heading south. Should be behind the burkha....

Which ones? Please specify.

[gakakkad]

I don't know what this thread is doing here.

Comments are heading south. Should be behind the burkha....

barring a veiled racist comment by our tallel/deepel guest ,no comment was particularly racist...but I do agree with you...discussions like these generally occur in places like stormfront and other neo nazi , aryan purity forums and not brf...

however I have seen a lot of nonsensical narrative in western MSM and is even believed by many people...that Indians emigrating are "genetically superior" ...upper caste yindians have very high iq while lower caste have low iq and other such racist nonsense...the main aim of such comments is to discount Indian achievement and continue dividing India on caste/religious lines..

if u look at the lectures of some of these "iq researchers" , they are mainly aimed at proving that blacks inferior and somehow want to justify white attrocities on them..other popular nonsense peddled by them is the "dichotomy" of Yindian iq... upree caste yindoo brahmin/baniyas are whites onleee...so they have high iq..rest of yindia is dumb onlee...so whatever is achieved by Yindians is white achievement onlee...none of them deserve to be taken any more seriously than BENIS...

I think a useful purpose of this thread would be to counter such a narrative...

[Arjun]

None of the posters posting on this thread believe in (I sincerely hope) IQ as a marker for any community nor in genetic basis for community ability.

Its precisely those who DO believe in those concepts who infest sites like Stormfront, mentioned above by GA Kakkad.

There have been some well-regarded books in the recent past ('The Triple Package' being just one example) that identify high-performing communities without recourse to racist / outdated beliefs. This thread tracks the same topic in discussion format. This is in addition to all of the valid points listed in the post above.