Look, you have to measure math capabilities of the middle of the distribution. Arguably middle of the distribution is more important for most of the practical purposes and colleges are for educating this middle, not Grisha Perelman and Ed Witten. Unlike running or weight lifting where measurements happens just on the tails, here we have measurements on all of the distribution. You cannot just neglect that much data. There seems also to be a lot of correlation between things like IMO and Putnam with Fields, which is for original work. Smirnov, Perelman, Drinfeld won full score gold in IMO, Kontsevich was high in All Union. Tao obviously was also gold at IMO,Lafforgue was high in IMO, some other French Fields won full gold, i seem to remember. I suppose other Fields could be former IMO or Putnam winners, i just don't know. I agree that Asians haven't done as much as Europeans in math, but it could be changing, that's the point.

QuoteOriginally posted by: zerdna not Grisha PerelmanGrisha is certainly asian! haha

QuoteOriginally posted by: zerdnaLook, you have to measure math capabilities of the middle of the distribution. Arguably middle of the distribution is more important for most of the practical purposes and colleges are for educating this middle, not Grisha Perelman and Ed Witten. Unlike running or weight lifting where measurements happens just on the tails, here we have measurements on all of the distribution. You cannot just neglect that much data. There seems also to be a lot of correlation between things like IMO and Putnam with Fields, which is for original work. Smirnov, Perelman, Drinfeld won full score gold in IMO, Kontsevich was high in All Union. Tao obviously was also gold at IMO,Lafforgue was high in IMO, some other French Fields won full gold, i seem to remember. I suppose other Fields could be former IMO or Putnam winners, i just don't know. I agree that Asians haven't done as much as Europeans in math, but it could be changing, that's the point.Agreed, there's a correlation no denying that all I'm saying is IMO is not a complete measure of ability. If you saw the practice regimen of CMO contestants their results are really not that surprising. I guess it all depends on how you define good and at what stage, the middle 50% is more useful for most purposes but many mathematicians don't subscribe to that view. There are less asians going into math and physics in academia nowadays compared to 30 years ago if anything where again your "ability" in math just begins to take on a more definitive shape. I just find the statement asians better at math erroneous in a statistical and categorical sense, no denying we are representing very well in the US overall.

VA report card - VA's report card. you can lookup the state wide stats or by school.what you'll see there is that asians are beating everyone on every test including humanities, except whites in chemistry. there must be something un-asian in chemistry that's why you're going to see fewer asians in math, they're going everywhere else these days.

QuoteOriginally posted by: quantmehVA report card - VA's report card. you can lookup the state wide stats or by school.what you'll see there is that asians are beating everyone on every test including humanities, except whites in chemistry. there must be something un-asian in chemistry that's why you're going to see fewer asians in math, they're going everywhere else these days.that link is down. we'll leave something for the whites to excel at.

QuoteOriginally posted by: CactusManOh, it occurred to me that there is a difference between the way "Asian" is used in the UK and the way it is used in American English. I am talking about American English usage.ppauper, I am talking about cultural groups, not geography.ah, that was what you meant when you said that "Turkey is the most Eastern of all European countries"