happydays said:
Once and for all, here's why Asians are over-represented in the US:
1. These are ones weeded out over millions of competitors from their countries to make it to the US. They teach their kids the same values, so most of them will work hard to achieve the most from themselves.
this is not necessarily true. i personally know enough asians whose parents came over as political refugees and 4 other 'non-competitive' reasons. just look at hines ward (the superbowl MVP), his mother is korean and i wouldn't include her in ur group of "competitive" immigrants. plus, all asians r not unlike in their immigration situations so i'd b careful about generalizing esp if u r not part of that group (dunno if u r or not) and don't know their immigration/personal histories (again i don't know what ur background on this is)
happydays said:
2. If you were to go to China or India, you'll find the same percentage of people hating school, dropping out, or doesn't want to be a doctor/lawyer.
and from what source/evidence r u making this conclusion? could b true or false but once again, b careful about stereotyping esp if u don' t have 1st hand knowledge...and having some asian friends who say these sort of things does
not count as quantitative evidence. and if i had 2 guess, i would say that the drop out rate is probably still less than in the states. i'm also pretty sure that the literacy rates in those countries are probably higher than here in the states.
happydays said:
3. Statistically speaking, if 1% of all population is deemed "genius," then in a population with 1000 people, there will be 10 of these. In a population of 1,000,000,000, there will be 10,000,000 of these smart people. That's why it seems that more Asians are smart. It's a percentage game.
ur knowledge of the analysis of statistics needs some work. once again, r u assuming that all asian populations r large (eg - china) cuz i can tell u the names of some asian countries that have smaller populations than the US.
and being labelled a genius is just that, a label. my IQ falls in that range and i don't consider myself more than above average and i have friends who r in mensa and don't think they're geniuses either. a genius is someone who is rare in our generation, otherwise the word gets thrown around alot and loses it meaning. i wouldn't even consider the 12 yr old korean-japanese boy who is doing md-phd (mstp) at the university of chicago as a genius, just someone who is very smart who's mother tutored him at home. i had a russian roommate who once told me that in america, we learn math at such a slow pace, she already had done calculus when she came here 4 boarding school. she was pointing out 2 me how americans always fair the worst globally in math and the russians r usually pretty high up. i skipped a year of high school math and still only ended up taking calculus during high school. its not that our brains couldn't handle learning it earlier, just that maybe our education system needs 2 b revised a little.
happydays said:
DO NOT buy that stupid book about "why Asian parents make smarter babies," or something along that title. Asians are not any smarter than Black, Hispanic, American, European, Native American, or any other people. The Asians that most of us encounter in the USA are the most competitive ones from their countries; that's what it takes to get here. If you don't believe me, go to India or China and see for yourselves.
i agree that asians or any ethnic group are not necessarily smarter than any other. come on, when i was growing up i heard alot of "pollack" jokes about how the polish r stupid, but really they as a ethnic group (i can't remember when) had one of the highest IQ scores (not that IQ scores = smartness either). i suggest maybe u visit india or china (if u haven't) and maybe rethink ur comments; maybe one of the reasons that asians seem 2 do better academically is the work-ethic that has been ingrained in them since childhood. plus the percentages are skewed when u compare asians in subgroups: historically, south asians (like the indians) and east asians (like the chinese) that u seem 2 focus on have done better than their southeast asian counterparts (vietnamese, cambodian, hmong, etc) - but not b/c they r any smarter. those "successful" groups have 1) been in the US longer as an ethnic group and 2) there may be other unknown internal factors that other non-asians may not know about or c. i mean the southeast asians now r also doing well.
part of the reason, at least that east asians do well (and i'm only talking from my personal experience, exposure, knowledge of asian history - since i am east asian) is as i mentioned b4, b/c of the confucian work ethic (and this doesn't mean that other ethnicities don't work hard either or have a similar work ethic, just that the confucian work ethic was a COMMON influence on the east asian countries). china, korea and japan were heavily influenced by the teachings of confucius which include a reverence for education, hard work, and life long learning. so education is highly respected in these countries (not saying they rn't in others). i mean look who korea picked 2 light the olympic torch when they had the 88 olympics, a freaking teacher! alot of the reasons asians do well is b/c of how their parents raise them and the values they instill.
even if u visited china or india, and if u're not asian, u might not still understand the whole picture - u'd b 'lost in translation' and c and feel different things than an asian would. if u r asian, then it depends on how immersed u get in the chinese/indian culture, cuz just a cursory visit also wouldn't give u much understanding unless u were either there 4 a while or a had background in that country's history.
let me give u some advice if u wanna b a doctor - don't generalize or stereotype about ppl, at least w/o quantitative or personal evidence. i understand c'ing things from a group attribute standpoint (i totally understand the arguments on both sides about affirmative action) but don't forget that ppl r individuals
