You are comparing doctoral degree stats from 2002 with census results from 2000.
I am also a little wary of the 75.1% statistic. It has been reported that some hispanics tend to classify themselves under the white race. To illustrate, 75.1+12.3 (blacks) + 3.6 (asian-origin) = 91%. Hispanics are reported to be slightly larger than the African-American population ~ 12.5%. The percentages don’t add up. I think ~70% would be a better number for the white population.
Here is the % of doctorates in Math awarded to white US citizens: 479/537 = 89.19% (Tinactin’s calc are wrong); To US citizens of Asian origin: 29/537 = 5.4%
89.19/75.1 ~ 1.19 and 5.4/3.6 ~ 1.5 which are actually pretty close. If you take whites as 70%, you get 89.19/70 ~ 1.27 which is a lot closer.
Anyhoo, I think you will agree that both races are over-represented and do not differ by that much. As dopers have noted, many Asian families here tend to emphasize education as they see that as the sole path to success. This stifles the range of professions that initial generations of US citizens of Asian origin perform. After we pass many generations, you will see a drop in the number of US citizens of Asian origin in the traditional education-driven professions like engineering, medicine and law. Just MH forecast.
Let’s be clear on what group of Asians we are talking about. The above addressed US citizens of Asian origin. Clearly, Asians who are here on temporary visas are amongst the very best in their respective home countries. That is an extremely biased sample and should not be considered, even for stereotyping purposes
you do realize that you are saying that 19% over-represented and 27% are “pretty close” to 50% over-represented?
And allow me to catch my own error: that was more than one third of all engineers in industry in 1997 were Asian (not one half, as stated in error, I was thinking about half as many whites). My apologies.
To various others: Your knee jerk reactions are fascinating. No one has said anything that is racist. But that doesn’t stop the dumbass sarcastic comments about penises and sideways vaginas. What? Your defensiveness against racism won’t allow you to accept that various subpopulation groups may actually have differences and to consider what various factors may play into it? You’ve read me in the various past “race” threads arguing against “race” as a useful biological construct; I stand by those statements. But that does not mean that one cannot consider subpopulation differences and consider their causes, cultural or otherwise.
I made the sarcastic comment because it is frankly impossible to eliminate the cultural influences on Asians and non-Asians to determine if there is a difference in math profeciency. It’s not like a sex based difference, which is one of the reasons why there are more male engineers than female. Many Asians are under enormous pressure from their parents to do well in school, and they spend large amounts of time studying. They also live with the stereotype that they are smart, which can lead to Asians getting picked over an equally qualified non-Asian for the same engineering slot under the assumption that the Asian will understand better. and the entire concept smacks of Bell Curve racism hidden beneath a positive stereotype, even if that isn’t the OPs intent.
The only way i can see to eliminate the cultural influences is to look solely at Asian children that are adopted by white parents, and even then those kids will still be living with many Asian stereotypes, but they would have lost the intense Parental Influence to do well in school that is less pervasive in white families (though still common in many)
When stated like that, yes, 25% over-representation doesn’t seem that close to 50% over-representation. But, it is not as alarming a gap as suggested by the stereotypes. In other words, 90% of Doctorates in Math are earned by whites compared to 5.6% by Asians and both groups are substantially over-represented. This is not what the stereotype suggests. As I said before, the over-representaion “gap” will narrow as future generations of Asians experiment more with life.
Let me slightly amend your sentence: One third of all doctorates employed in engineering are Asian. This amounts to ~27000 people of which a sizeable chunk are probably permanent residents (not US citizens) or people working on temporary visas. This group represents the cream of individuals from their native countries and should not be used in this debate. However, it is interesting to note that within the engineering disciplines, there isn’t much difference in the percentage of Asians employed as civil, materials, computer or mechanical engineers. One would expect a much higher percentage in “computer/electrical”? In fact, the percentage of Asians employed in “Computer/Math sciences” is in fact even lower ~ 20%.
The above is a link to site with information on the fields medal. As you are aware,
there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics, instead there is a fields medal. Of the
42 winners listed only four are of asian descent.
I am no francophile, but it appears that the french have done quite well for themselves here. The correct question should be,
Not quite. The Russians I was referring to are typically, well, Russian, not American. They did not receive their education or degrees here, so those numbers do not include them.
No, a few examples of sigma outliers chosen by a group of Westerners during a period included a large portion of time that China was cut off from the West doesn’t really count for “unambiguous statistics.” Sheesh.
Anyway, despite the poor wording of the op, the discussion seems to have clarified to be “why do Asian-Americans seem to do so well in math compared to other Americans?” If the op’s intent was to bait anyone into making some broad “racial” explanation that Asian brains are, in general, built differently than others, then no one has taken it. And despite the presumption made by Tars and others of racist implications, some reasoned speculations have been put forth.
Is the average Asian across the world better at math than the average American? Or have more natural aptitude? I very highly doubt either and there is no evidence to suggest either that I know of. Given the lasting effects of the Cultural Revolution on education in highly populous China, one suspects that the “average” Chinese is under-educated across the board, including in math, as a generation of intellectualism and educational opportunity was lost. But that is a seperate discussion.
Just the other day in one of my classes I asked my students what their worst subject was. “Math!” was the unanimous response.
I am an EFL teacher in Japan, and all of my students are Japanese.
Asian exchange students I knew in college thought it was hilarious when I told them that the American stereotype of Asians is that they’re good at math. They usually insisted that they were in fact terrible at math, and were glad that their chosen fields of study (English, literature, art, music) allowed them to avoid high-level math courses.
If Asians and Asian-Americans perform better on math tests than other ethnic groups, it’s probably partially because they try harder and partially because math instruction in some Asian countries is superior to that in some non-Asian countries. I don’t know much about math education, but I’ve heard (sorry, no cite) that some American schools are now using textbooks designed for math classes in Singapore because they’re better than what’s being produced for the US market.
But apparently Accounting, as I explained to my daughter, “doesn’t have any Math in it at all. It’s all Arithmetic.” In my Intro class there was a Russian woman who had earned her degree in Accounting in the old country but found everything we learned after double-entry bookeeping to be new. Granted, maybe Soviet accounting was different, (“Sergei, Comrade Stalin commanded that we build ten thousand tractors but the factory only built three. How can we cook the books and stay alive?”) but I don’t think so.
This more or less means there is no fact or statistic that I can provide to you in order to prove my case. If you look at that list no asian has won this prize in the last fourteen years, or do you consider this a period of isolation China?
Damn it, no one’s taken my bait. If they had, I would have asked they thought black people could naturally play basketball and have a rhythmic sense of music too.
Trapped in men’s bodies of course. We’ve been that route already.
Ah, a confession. Don’t eat me, my big brother will be along in five minutes and he’s much fatter and juicier than I am. trip-traps over bridge and down to pasture
I’ve read a few articles that point out language as a possible culprit: that Asian languages are structured in such a way that they encourage “mathematical” thinking, or that the English language isn’t suited at a basic level to describe math. I don’t have a cite for the first scenario (shame on me!) but here’s one for the 2nd:
That being said, most Asian people I meet on a day-to-day basis seem to hate math as much as I do. Maybe mathematics can unite the world: the enemy of my enemy is my friend…
Zero, of course. It’s imperative that they cross at intervals of a few minutes apart, otherwise the whole narrative falls apart, as my four-year-old might have said half an hour when I read him the story.
OTOH, mathematics also tells us that three billy goats of disparate sizes can be permuted in 3!/(3-3)! ways, and since 0! is defined as 1, this means that the odds of them crossing in ascending order of size would be only 1 in 6 if it happened at random. Ergo, the odds are five to one on that there was collusion, meaning the poor troll was set up. I call that reprehensible.
MAFA,
Please note the “if”. Some had presumed that was your intention with your over-general wording. I had read it differently myself. Maybe I was wrong.
Tinactin (the supposed math teacher),
I really do not know what your case is, honestly. But you clearly have no understanding of what is statistical evidence and what isn’t, let alone how to crritically evaluate such evidence. Or even how to do basic calculations. That you teach college students explains some about why we have such a generation of scientifically and mathematically illiterates.
Malacandra,
Is it good form, even in the Pit, to have your first post in a thread be an accusation of trolling, even in a cutesy way?
