57 Replies to “Math Is Hard”

  1. The reasons why Asians are good at math (largely, anyway) and other things is because their parents light a fire under them at an early age and expect them to succeed at life instead of coast by and get stickers because they aced the 57 “genders” quiz.

      1. Both. And yes … my daughter in law grew up with a Tiger Mom. She is half-Asian … and has a PhD in microbiology. The Author forgot … Asians are good at the hard sciences too! Mom gave her excellent study skills … no slacking off.

        Oh. And Silicon Valley is crammed full of Asians. High Tech is sooooooo “racist”.

        1. Getting the most out of gene expression requires shaping at critical developmental times. Epigenetics works in both dog socialization and training and kids. I remember mid 20th century men in STEM. They were formidably trained. Some were naturally gifted while others recognized that through extreme hard work and persistence you could compete with lazy gifted. We expected more depth and better classical rounding from students. Our schools have been vastly dumbed down. Tiger moms just know not to leave it to the system. Same for Stem communities. Kids are pushed, highschools are top tier. The 10 gene relationship for math saddens me. Having lived in a STEM bubble most of my life, you expect it to come easy and things to be second nature for everyone. You expect that everyone can and should get it and those that don’t just didn’t try hard enough. When you do start to interact with them and observe that they really don’t get it, it’s like something is missing. This could explain some things, including the old saying that mathematicians are past peak after age 35.

        1. You got the causality reversed, I am afraid. High IQ people tend to understand better how the world works, tend to position themselves better for success, accept delayed gratification, look critically at themselves when they fail. Low IQ people do the opposite, low IQ is correlated with propensity for violent behavior, inability to analyze one’s failure or inability to be objective.

          1. With natural talent, an individual is more likely to persist because there efforts are more rapidly rewarded than the less able who become discouraged. The same applies to musical talent: I have had the opportunity to observe substantial numbers of musicians as children and adults. The reward has to come early. No one is going to do the ten thousand hours bit necessary to reach top tier without it.

    2. “get stickers because they aced the 57 “genders” quiz.”

      Maybe, but they truly owe their success (or lack thereof) to participant trophies.

    3. Asian parents don’t use fire. They use the dreaded:
      雞毛掃.

      This one simple device appears to raise IQ by minimum 10 points.
      Every Canadian Chinese born before year 2000 will confirm this! And probably most after 2000.

      1. 雞毛掃.
        [gai mou sou]

        First time I saw one in a Chinese friend’s house, I thought what a quaint cultural relic. But why use a feather duster to clean when they had a vacuum cleaner? Asked my friend about it, she went a little pale.
        And now you all understand the hidden meaning in Yip Man 1, where he beat up the bad guy with a feather duster. The good Yip Man was treating the bad guy like a child.
        Further reading:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ3eyyHpySM

    4. Osumashi – Mostly agree, but as is obvious with top weight lifters, boxers, and basketball players, the parents genes make a lot of difference and some races appear to have more of those outliers than others, e.g. 13% of Americans are black but in 2020 81.1% of players in the NBA are black (if mixed are also counted as black) . But, as Les Brown proved, anyone can be a success.

      Speaking of critical race theory, O’toole said he would defund the CBC, but instead he should make it more balanced. To maintain funding CBC would have to produce a TV series such as “The Amazing Race Canada”, which highlights achievements, discoveries, benefits to Canadian society enabled by White people, and Asians, blacks, Indians, indigenous, etc. Kind of “How it’s made” but meant to stimulate discussion amongst progressive academics. 😉

      1. Hearing stuff like that just makes me more determined to NOT vote Conservative and instead vote Wexit or just stay home.

      2. There are cultures that give a lot of respect to a strong man for just being strong, and that strength is exemplified by weight lifting. That is most prevalent in eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia.) More and more that strength has been translated into boxing as well. In Asia it is most traditional with Mongolians. Good weight lifters tend to be shorter and stockier. There may be a correlation in those countries.
        There is no question the black man excels at running. West Africa (and from there to the U.S. and noticeably Jamaica) for short sprints, and east Africa for long distance. Running and jumping (basically the same muscles) and height and reflex are requisites for basketball. Liberalization of rules concerning carryovers and double dribbles have accentuated raw physical ability over skill even more. Most likely Bob Cousy would only be a run of the mill guard today. But I believe he would still be one of the best if the NBA reverted to the rules under which he played. (Cousy has so little regard now his very name has been flagged for spelling.) Ditto Jerry West.

      3. Compare those figures with the black Americans who AREN’T athletes.

        I am not suggesting that genes never play a part in one’s outcome. I just don’t believe that is the only or chief deciding thing.

    5. British “Asians” don’t seem to be good at math. They are good at stabby stabby boom boom though

  2. The writer in the first link is either obtuse or stupid. Of course not all “Asians” are good at math. Asia is the most populous continent. But when people say “Asians” in this context, they usually mean Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, plus Asian Indians. Look at the result of any international standardized math test.
    And of course not all Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, or Asian Indians are good at math. There is a Gaussian (bell shaped) curve. But the Math test of the SAT shows that the top 4% of blacks (two standard deviations) achieve what the average Asian achieves. That is a fact. And conversely, the bottom 4% of Asians achieve what the average black achieves.
    If you say Asians are only good at math, then perhaps you can equate them to robots. But the writer himself acknowledged that Asians are also good at the Verbal test. And Asians are also good at STEM. And computer programming. And classical music. And bridge. And video games. And Las Vegas poker tournaments. And diving, gymnastics, and figure skating. Those are sports that require exquisite body control.

    2. OB, but many are piss poor drivers:-))))Which brings us to why they are good at math, and several reasons have already been listed above, IQ, besire to achieve, and how people process thoughts. I used to win math competitions, I did so and still use a certain method, my friend , who has a grade 7 education, is also good at mental math, and his grandmother taught his to de mental math the same way I taught myself to do so!

      1. I know Asians have good hand-eye coordination. Table Tennis and Badminton are mostly hand-eye coordination. I’d say reticence and lack of situation awareness.
        There is a section of freeway in the LA area near Diamond Bar. Going eastward on the 60, it ends and merge into the 57 going north south. You take the 57 north bound, and must cross three lanes to reach the first exit for Diamond Bar. I know a lot of women who have never made that exit, or even tried. They just take the next exit and double back. And it is probably just as well that they do.
        There are some Asian women who are skilled at driving. The trouble is many of them are out to prove that, and become too aggressive.
        I know some tricks of mental calculation, but not a comprehensive “method.” I am told that there are still abacus competitions in Japan, but it mostly just helps in the visualization. In many cases, they just stare at the abacus, imagine the strokes, and come up with the answer without ever touching it beforehand.
        Speaking of visualization, many people can accurately count off fractions of a second, up to many minutes, but not do anything else while they are doing that. Richard Feynman, in one of his books, claimed that instead of counting off, he visualized pages flipping. Since he did not do it verbally (even if it’s just in the head), he could carry on a conversation while doing it. I have never been able to do his visualization, even concentrating all my efforts, let alone be distracted by something else. But then, of course, he was Richard Feynman, and I am just li’l ole OB.

    3. Re: “And diving, gymnastics, and figure skating. Those are sports that require exquisite body control.”

      Body type has more to do with it. All those sports give a preference to a slight figure. Likely the same in gymnastics where the young female teens dominate the sport.

      1. Men’s gymnastics give a preference to a slight figure? Surely you jest.
        Try to do an inverted iron cross with a “slight figure.” Most of the men’s apparatus are strength events. Even the women’s uneven bars, and to some degree, floor exercise.

  3. We couldn’t have evolved to be so smart if intelligence weren’t a heritable trait. The left will browbeat the religious right with evolution, which evidently happens all throughout nature and human history but doesn’t apply to modern man because that would be racist.

    1. Supposedly a bottleneck happened with the development of agriculture where only one in seventeen men actually produced any offspring. I often wonder why.

      Why do I feel when I do the captcha that I am calling on some other part of my brain that doesn’t really enjoy being asked to identify parking meters or whatever and would rather be left alone? It’s like I grab that part of my brain by the scruff of the neck every time I need to do one.

      1. Interesting, Any recommended readings? Seems odd that growing food via ag would correlate with fewer offspring unless the farmers out bread the starving stressed hunter gatherers? Or waves of death due to diseases from living with pigs and goats? Read something interesting about teeth and farming. It was apparently the cause of changes that resulted in teeth crowding the mouth. Also according to a linguist, hunter gatherers with all their great teeth couldn’t make a V sound. I joked but perhaps the women of the day preferred the farmers because they could say the “L” word?

      1. But, but, but … she’s “Asian” (when she’s not posing as a black “Jamaican” woman… or WOC) . So she has to be good at math, right? Remember that little half-Asian girl who was bussed … from married graduate student housing … on the Berkeley flatlands … up the hills to the white kingdom of Berkeley liberal land? Yeah … it must be really tough growing up a poor little “black” child in Berkeley. Racist … Berkeley … in 1972. Puhleeze!

    2. Within the allowable expression of the times you could say that she’s being pointed at there

    3. The first linked article claimed Andrew Yang was good at Math, however he’s also a proponent of UBI which would cost trillions, so he either understands the debt it would cause or really has no clue with numbers at all.

  5. I do wonder how the Chinese will come up with their own technological innovations when they at last succeed in taking over the world and hauling the hated blue-eyed barbarians off to “re-training camps” to be turned into spare parts and cheap pork dumplings.

    Maybe they’ll keep a few tame Europeans on a small reservation in New Zealand, just so there will still be someone around who can think of something new.

    Adding machines with a pulse? Sounds about right. Computers only do what they’re told. They believe everything you tell them. And they have all the empathy of a snake.

    2. Seems to me that NAZI female leader of NZ is way ahead of ya on that…INTERNMENT Kampfs being built as we speak.

  6. Unless you’re motivated externally, or fortunate enough to “motivate” yourself, math is/can be hard. At any math level. You see it on TV and on mean street, every day. Sex, race and where you’re from, or who your parents are has nothing to do with it, except maybe on the “motivation” level. The prof who “taught” a form of math (the more conceptually difficult stuff) has a lot to do with it, also. Speaking from personal experience.
    I sucked at geometry, but trigonometry and analytical geometry I could do in my sleep. I could “see” in 3D. I flunked calculus the first go round and taught myself with a calculus text propped above the dish washing machine in a summer course. I got “motivated” on that one.

    1. Not really. My wife finds math hard and she is brilliant in anything to do with 3D thinking. She claims I speak math. Math and music are closely intertwined using the same parts of the brain. Given a choice between expressing myself mathematically or in English I would always prefer to use math because it is always far more concise and precise. I love classical music, she’s a Country girl.

      1. Your wife should approach some oil companies in their drilling departments, with that ability. I hear Texas/Oklahoma calling.

    1. Re the Caucasian: Luc Robitaille, didn’t he play on the Triple Crown line on the Kings with Marcel Dionne? Sorry, I see it’s Luke Robitaille. And of course Luke is American.
      But sorry, they all look like nerds, including Luke.

    1. Yes, and that applies to many things John. There are days when I realize that I have forgotten more than most politicians know.

  9. Don’t tell the Ministry of Truth.
    This idea is clearly racist and subversive. It will not be allowed to be viewed by the public much longer. These scientists will be disappearing/cancelled soon. Maybe sent off to a re-education camp somewhere (western China? northern California?)

  10. We are nothing but the products of our genetics and our environment.

    Race has nothing to do with it.

    You cannot genetically cluster people by race. Only by the preponderance of one group of genes over another group of genes.

    The genes that dictate race as a portion of the entire genome are so small as to be irrelevant.

    As soon as you see someone talking about race, you can automatically assume them to be a complete idiot.

    I am part of the genetic community that could be called First Nation. That means within my population I have a genetically higher probability for diabetes, I am less likely to freeze to death, I have a very high pain tolerance and I have limited ability to process alcohol as a whole compared to a population of Europeans or Africans.

    We all began as blacks anyway. Even Europeans cro-magnons were more than likely to have been black as coal until they met the Neanderthals and maybe the Denisovans.

    1. My ancestors were Scandahoovians, northern latitudes, tall genes, I’m pale to transparent skin, red haired, burn like a Vampire in sunlight, non-diabetic, a high pain tolerance, immune to cold, we got our Vitamin D from the fish we ate, but can process alcohol like it was food, at least for the first hour or so. The latter might have an effect on that cold issue in our part of the world. We met at L’Ance Aux Meadows, Newfy Land, similar Latitudes before that darker skinned bunch did, with his disease vectored Mediterranean confreres, 400 years earlier. You guys got the better of that earlier deal back then, despite some minor technological advantages on our side. No hard feelings today, though.
      Cheers.

      1. The skraelings. Eastern Indians have a number of genes that are unique to Roman and Egyptian populations. Probably accidental landings. Or they could have been the people that mined out Isle Royale. Still not known who did that. The copper did not stay in North America and Europe was always short of it.

        BTW I’ve got some Norwegian on my dads side which explains my blue eyed daughter since I carry the recessive gene as does her dad therefore a 25 percent chance.

  11. In an unrelated story … have they found the “gay gene” yet? For crying out loud! If they’ve found a gene for zipper-headed Asians being good at math … you’d think they would have discovered a gene that causes men to talk with a lisp, cut their hair short and wear inappropriate leather garments. Right?

    1. And imagine the screams of terror when it becomes part of the standard genetic testing for future parents, after access to abortion has been locked in for any or no reason.

      The captcha is getting dumber. It insisted that a semi is a car, that street lights are traffic lights, and two or three other “what were you thinking?” items. Pictures are getting fuzzier, I now need to reload about every tenth image because I can’t make them out on a laptop.

    2. It’s not just genes. It us environmental factors that interfere with the ability for the genes to “fire” and express themselves. You will never find a “gay” gene. But what you may find are the environmental triggers ie mom’ diet, child’s diet, Air quality etc.

  14. Maybe people are over thinking this. I was in the Robarts Library study room at University of Toronto back around 1980. Of the maybe two dozen students present, I remember the majority (as in 80 or 90%) being Asian (likely Chinese). Kind of says it all.

    I knew a good high school teacher as an aquaintance in Toronto back in the 1970’s. He remarked once that a student’s mother had told him the Chinese had an unfair advantage. Curious, he asked what this advantage was. He was told they worked too hard.

  15. Caucasian European = Cro-magnon + Neanderthal
    East Asian Mongoloid = Cro-magnon + Neanderthal + Denisovan
    African Negroid = Cro-magnon + Archaic hominoid (ghost species)

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-ghost-idUSKBN2072X9

    There is plenty of genetic evidence to show that the Human “races” vary widy due to interbreeding with various other hominoid species – NOT environmental genetic mutations of a single homo species, although some later environmental adaptations occurred.

    https://sapientiaexanimo.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/russian-geneticists-disprove-out-of-africa-claim/

  17. A friend is half-Korean. All the way through K-12, everyone wanted to sit next to him in math class to copy off his paper. He was not particularly good at math. Prejudice can have its costs.

    1. A stand-up comedian had a good joke I heard years ago.

      A Korean burglar broke into his house and stole some valuables. How did he know the perp was Korean – easy, he finished his son’s math homework before fleeing.

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