Johnny Can't Add But Suresh Venktasubramanian Can

[Parashuram]

Johnny Can't Add But Suresh Venktasubramanian Can
by Fred Reed
July 28, 2003

The other day I went to the Web site of Bell Labs, one of the country's premier
research outfits. I clicked at random on a research project, Programmable
Networks for Tomorrow. The scientists working on the project were Gisli
Hjalmstysson, Nikos Anerousis, Pawan Goyal, K. K. Ramakrishnan, Jennifer
Rexford, Kobus Van der Merwe, and Sneha Kumar Kasera.

Clicking again at random, this time on the Information Visualization Research
Group, the research team turned out to be John Ellson, Emden Gansner, John
Mocenigo, Stephen North, Jeffery Korn, Eleftherios Koutsofios, Bin Wei, Shankar
Krishnan, and Suresh Venktasubramanian.

Here is a pattern I've noticed in countless organizations at the high end of
the research spectrum. In the personnel lists, certain groups are phenomenally
over-represented with respect to their appearance in the general American
population: Chinese, Koreans, Indians, and, though it doesn't show in the above
lists, Jews. What the precise statistical breakdown across the world of
American research might be, I don't know. An awful lot of personnel lists look
like the foregoing.

Think about this: Asians make up a small percent of the population, yet there
are company directories in Silicon Valley that read like a New Delhi phone
book. Many of our premier universities have become heavily Asian, with many of
these students going into the sciences. If Chinese citizens and Americans of
Chinese descent left tomorrow for Beijing, American research, and graduate
schools in the sciences and engineering, would be crippled.

Jews are two or three percent of the population. On the rough-cut assumption
that Goldstein is probably Jewish, and Ferguson probably isn't, it is evident
that Jews are doing lots more than their share of research - and, given that
people named Miller may well be Jewish, the name-recognition approach probably
produces a substantial undercount. I asked a friend, researching a book on
Harvard, the percentage of Asian and Jewish students. Answer: "Asians close to
20%. Jews close to 25% - unofficial, because you are allowed to list by gender,
ethnicity, geography, but not religion. Our last taboo."

None of this is original with me. In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences
released a study noting that over half of U.S. engineering doctorates are
awarded to foreign students. Where are Smith and Jones?

Why are members of these very small groups doing so much of the important
research for the United States? That's easy. They're smart, they go into the
sciences, and they work hard. Potatoes are more mysterious. It's not
affirmative action. They produce. The qualifications of these students can
easily be checked. They have them. The question is not whether these groups
perform, or why, but why the rest of us no longer do. What has happened?

It is not an easy question, but a lot of it, I think, is the deliberate
enstupidation of American education. Again, the idea is not original with me.
Said the American Educational Research Association of the NAS report, "Serious
deficiencies in American pre-college education, along with wavering support for
basic research, were cited by the panel as major contributors to this problem."

Consider mathematics. In the mid-Sixties I took freshman chemistry at Hampden-
Sydney College, a solid school in Virginia but not nearly MIT. It was assumed
- assumed without thought - that students knew algebra cold. They had to. You
can't do heavy loads of highly mathematical homework, or wrestle with ideas
like integrating probability densities over three-space, or do endless gas-law
and reaction-rate calculations, if you aren't sure how exponents work.

Remedial mathematics at the college level was unheard of. The assumption was
that people who weren't ready for college work should be somewhere else. No one
thought about it. Today, remedial classes in both reading and math are common
at universities. We seem to be dumbing ourselves to death.

I recently had children go through the high schools of Arlington, Va., a
suburb of Washington. I watched them come home with badly misspelled chemistry
handouts from half-educated teachers, watched them do stupid, make-work science
projects that taught them nothing about the sciences but used lots of pretty
paper.

The extent of scholastic decline is sometimes astonishing. So help me, I once
saw, in a middle school in Arlington, a student's project on a bulletin board
celebrating Enrico Fermi's contributions to "Nucler Physicts" (Scripps-Howard
National Spelling Bee champions: 2003, Sai Guntuyri; 2002, Pratyush Buddiga;
2001, Sean Conley; 2000, George Thampy; 1999, Nupur Lala).

It appears that a few groups are keeping their standards up and the rest of
us are drowning our children in self-indulgent social engineering, political
correctness, and feel-good substitutes for learning.

Some of our growing dependency is hidden. We do not merely rely on small
industrious groups in America and on foreigners working here. Increasingly the
United States contracts out its technical thinking to Asia.

If you read technically aware publications like Wired magazine (and how many
people do?), you find that major American corporations have more and more of
their computer programming done by people in, for example, India. In cities
like Bombay, large colonies of Indians work for U.S. companies by Internet.
This again means that counting names at American institutions underestimates
the growth of intellectual dependence.

The Indians, and others, have discovered the suddenly important principle that
intellectual capital is separable from physical capital. To program for Boeing,
you don't have to be anywhere near Seattle. Nor do you need an aircraft plant.
All you need is a $700 computer, a book called something like How to Program
in C++, and a fast Internet connection. Crucial work like circuit-design can
now be done abroad by bright people who don't need chip factories. They need
workstations, the Internet, and engineering degrees.

This too we would be wise to ponder. Americans often think of India chiefly
as a land of ghastly poverty. Well, yes. It is also a country with about three
times our population and a lot of very bright people who want to get ahead.
They're professionally hungry. We no longer are.

People speak of globalization. This is it, and it's just beginning. Where will
it take us? How long can we maintain a technologically dominant economy if we
are, as a country, no longer willing to do our own thinking? If we rely heavily
on less than 10 percent of our own population while employing more and more
foreigners abroad?

It's not them. It's us. I've heard the phrase, "the Asian challenge to the West."
I don't think so. When Sally Chen gets a doctorate in biochemistry, she's not
challenging America. She's getting a doctorate in biochemistry. Those who study
have no reason to apologize to those who don't.

The Mathematical Association of America runs a contest for the extremely bright
and prepared among high-school students. It is called the United States of
America Mathematics Olympiad, and it "provides a means of identifying and
encouraging the most creative secondary mathematics students in the country."

An unedited section of a list of those recently chosen: Sharat Bhat, Tongke
Xue, Matthew Peairs, Wen Li, Jongmin Baek, Aaron Kleinman, David Stolp, Andrew
Schwartz, Rishi Gupta, Jennifer Laaser, Inna Zakharevich, Neil Chua, Jonathan
Lowd, Simon Rubinsteinsalze, Joshua Batson, Jimmy Jia, Jichao Qian, Dmitry
Taubinsky, David Kaplan, Erica Wilson, Kai Dai, Julian Kolev, Jonathan Xiong,
Stephen Guo.

Q.E.D.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed6.html

[echarcha]

When we are in India busting our balls studying for Standard 10tha nd 12th public board exams, our counterparts here are busy having a Spring Break in Cancun. Nothing against having fun, but here the focus is more on fun and frolic and courses like antrhopology and arts which are of no practical use when it comes to innovating new things and enhancing what we already have.

Here they have what I never heard of in India - Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and ADHD and what not. :eeks: Also there is a drug called Ritalin for kids with this ADD problem.

When we did not study well or disturbed the class constantly, our teacher had a very effective treatment - A foot long wooden ruler on our knuckles did wonders for ADD.

Here people routinely use calculators and back home we were allowed a Log Table or a Slide Rule only in 12th grade. Till 10th we never saw a calculator.


And when times get tough and jobs go overseas, all they can shout about is - Abolish H1

[Ramit]

Nice article but I also would like to add somehow family background also responsible, why only Jews, Indian, chinese or koreans doing good , I think all of these ethanic group give quite a serious concern to their kids study

I am sure this pattern will last till 1st generation of Indians, like you come on H-1b, become a GC holder, your kids are 1st generations, they r doing good, becoz you are working hard with them, once the second mix breed american indian generation out, I am sure they'll follow the same path as others......

I wonder why Jews are different

[Parashuram]

Originally posted by Ramit
Nice article but I also would like to add somehow family background also responsible, why only Jews, Indian, chinese or koreans doing good , I think all of these ethanic group give quite a serious concern to their kids study

I am sure this pattern will last till 1st generation of Indians, like you come on H-1b, become a GC holder, your kids are 1st generations, they r doing good, becoz you are working hard with them, once the second mix breed american indian generation out, I am sure they'll follow the same path as others......

I wonder why Jews are different

Hayn ......mix breed american indian ..........yeh kya hota hai bhai

[Ramit]

Originally posted by Parashuram
Hayn ......mix breed american indian ..........yeh kya hota hai bhai

Bhai Parshu, Kitney ABCD dekhey he desiyon ke sath shaadi kartey hue, I know 4 abcd, 3 of them married with other then Indian, like 2 of them with white and one of them with french, ab yaar mix white aur indian ka mix product kaisa hoga soch ke dekh.

[GpeL]

Originally posted by Ramit
once the second mix breed american indian generation out, I am sure they'll follow the same path as others......

I wonder why Jews are different

I doubt if the advantage will ever vanish. See when you are comparing Ameircans, you are comparing the whole american populace.. The rich, the poor, the ones with very high education, the ones hardly finished high schools etc.

But when you are comparing other ethinicities, they (atleast the majority) came from abroad, with a good education (perhaps masters or more) and they imparted that importance of eduction to their children.

Now the next generation, would not be a bunch of school dropouts (again majority of them if not all) and would have decent education and the tradition continues cos they will teach their kids like we taught them.. (well that is what they learned from us right.. you teach your kids)..

[Zen]

There is an explaination for why people from a certain gographic location are better at certain things than others - the reason is - WATER of the region!

I learnt this from a polic commissioner of Guna region about 17-18 years back when I was watching the only TV channel called Doordarshan on our old b&w TV!

Police commissioner was being interviewed about the decoit problem of North MP - Chambal valley region!

Interviewer - "Why there are so many dakoos based in the chambal velley?"

PC - "It is due to the water of chambal river!" - "it makes people angry - whoever drinks it become enraged!... this is the characteristic of the water here! 75% of body mass is water - hence the theory proved"

So now you know - if you want to make sure that your kids keep on doing good in studies don't forget to take them India and make them drink a lot of tap water! --- its all in the water baby!

[GpeL]

Originally posted by Zen

So now you know - if you want to make sure that your kids keep on doing good in studies don't forget them to take india and make them drink a lot of tap water! --- its all in the water baby!

zendoo love-day.. apne ghar me india se pipline lagwaa riyaa hai kyaa?

[Zen]

Originally posted by GpeL
zendoo love-day.. apne ghar me india se pipline lagwaa riyaa hai kyaa?

Select one kid who is good at math -Make him drink mississippi river water - Yeda will send you it bottled! Now select another kid average at math and make him drink only tap water from any good engg. college from India! effect would be so obvious - you'd be shocked! - secret - the police-walla's theory!!

[GpeL]

Plus gene pool ka bhi to kuch contribution hoinga.. afterall sperm and egg are also 75% water?

I think they (asian) kids got the gene pool advantage also..

[Ravi]

Originally posted by Parashuram
Johnny Can't Add But Suresh Venktasubramanian Can
Jews...

You can probably find Jews in WallStreet.com and not IBM.

Originally posted by GPel
Plus gene pool ka bhi to kuch contribution hoinga

Genes certiainly make a difference. But for our everyday math (including research), how much brain power do we really need?
Israelis certainly have a very good edge on US and on India in terms of research, but I guess it emanates more from their attitude to work, than by just genes.

[Zen]

Originally posted by Ravi
You can probably find Jews in WallStreet.com and not IBM.

Genes certiainly make a difference. But for our everyday math (including research), how much brain power do we really need?
Israelis certainly have a very good edge on US and on India in terms of research, but I guess it emanates more from their attitude to work, than by just genes.

This discussion may take an interesting turn. - The age old query - what is more influential - gene or training / blood or up bringing / khandaan or parwarish / ... you got the idea... I think both have their effect - the ratio may differ from case to case!

[GpeL]

Originally posted by Zen
This discussion may take an interesting turn. - The age old query - what is more influential - gene or training / blood or up bringing / khandaan or parwarish / ... you got the idea... I think both have their effect - the ratio may differ from case to case!

Yaa but water tops the list

Upbringing and Genes together make a ton of difference.

[tantric_yogi]

Why does Johny have to when he can hire people from third world countries to do counting for him? He has more important things to learn ... like running the world!

[Parashuram]

Originally posted by tantric_yogi
Why does Johny have to when he can hire people from third world countries to do counting for him? He has more important things to learn ... like running the world!