But Asians far exceed their percentage. Too bad they never invent anything.

Godzilla Pimp,

You are quite ignorant of Chinese history.

You are quite ignorant of Chinese history.

well, i think he was just shitting around, but the chinese are also good at forgetting what they invet ;) (see needham)

What, this smacks of Affirmative Action for non-Asian American males in IT?!

As one who works in the field, IMO IT should be broken into its subcategories, "Tech Support", "Sys Admin" and "Coder" - I'm thinking here of the typical commercial organization.

1. Tech Support - many IT workers in this area, are barely technical at all, more like superusers - IQ 0sd to +1sd .

2. "Sys Admin" - dominated by workers who may not have a technical education, but are tech savvy, often ex-military jock types with little or no formal training - IQ +1sd to +1.5sd.

3. "Coder aka Hacker/Programmer", who is the media's idea of an IT worker. They are the minority who often make the headlines, as they are the uber-geeks, who mostly have a technical background, college degree and more - IQ +1.5sd to +4sd

In my experience this last group is dominated by Chinese, Southern Indians and Russian Jews - at least in New York - with scant to no participation of the usual Affirmative Action groups at all!

I thought that Asians, in general, had become extremely good at technological mimickry.

1% of 2+Billion is 20M. It's no wonder there are so many in the US!

well, i think he was just shitting around, but the chinese are also good at forgetting what they invent ;)

True, as far as Classical Chinese culture goes. I still envy it, though, to some extent :).

The Chinese invented almost every major invention (compass, big sailing ships, printing press, gun powder, etc.) that drove the West before the West did. The Chinese also discovered America before the modern Europeans did.

However, the Chinese also invented bureaucracy. It was the invention of bureaucracy that stiffled all of the other inventions such that they did essentially nothing with them.

It is clear from discussions that I have had with people there that the people from Taiwan "get it". I have not talked about this enough with people from the mainland to determine if they "get it" as well.

Most of the hackers and coders that I know as well are either Chinese, Southern Indian (mostly Tamil), or Jewish Russians. Most of the white people I have met in the U.S. IT field are mostly MBA managerial types and are, therefor, parasites. Especially anyone who works in HR.

"but the chinese are also good at forgetting what they invent"

Yeah. But to twist your meaning, it's the other way around too. The Chinese are good at remembering what they invent. Even though it gets discarded and never used, references are still there in Chinese archives for historians to muck up and find.

99% of all the that's ever happened has been forgotten by history. We'd have no clue that this ever existed if divers hadn't pulled it out of the sea.

As a side note, I'm skeptical of the history of the China's great ships. It's based on slim archeological evidence and some rather fantastical eyewitness accounts.

Kurt says:


The Chinese invented almost every major invention (compass, big sailing ships, printing press, gun powder, etc.) that drove the West before the West did. The Chinese also discovered America before the modern Europeans did.


As with all things, life is more complex that that. You also forgot to mention paper.

With respect to gunpowder, I disagree. They certainly knew about saltpetre and were using mixtures of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal, often adulterated with other substances, but it is not clear that they knew about gunpowder. Ie, the specific ratios like 4:1:1 for cannon, or 10:2:1 for muskets, etc. See, for example J R Partington's book on A History of Greek Fire and Gunpoweder, or James Calvert's excellent on-line article.

Kurt also says:


Most of the hackers and coders that I know as well are either Chinese, Southern Indian (mostly Tamil), or Jewish Russians. Most of the white people I have met in the U.S. IT field are mostly MBA managerial types and are, therefor, parasites. Especially anyone who works in HR.


We must inhabit different worlds then. Where I work, there are plenty of non-hispanic whites who are not MBAs, but there are also a goodly number of Indians and a few East Asians, but us non-Hispanic whites are in the majority.

FWIW, I am married to a Chinese woman and had an Indian (from India) step-mother for a while when I was 14, so any racial prejudice left these old bones a long time ago.

Now so much is about China. This BBC survey indicates only few countries including USA, Germany and Poland view China negatively. Most of world view China as positive as Britain. However, America along with Russia are viewed by other countries as negative, especially by Germany.

Check this out.

http://www.pipa.org./

http://bbs.people.com.cn/bbs/Rea...97294& typeid=15

German just does not like any one.

More
http://www.pipa.org./OnlineRepor...l/ bbcpoll3.html

Regarding ancient Chinese invention, much current scholarly thought has the flow of technology primarily west to east, over the Silk Road, from peoples like the Tocharians.

http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieva...s/ 06indoeu.html

"others point out that 1) Shang civilization arose late, the last of the Old World civilizations to develop, 2) it is distinguished by very advanced techniques of bronze-work for which no formative stage can be found, 3) some of the Shang pictographic characters are almost identical in shape and meaning to those of Babylonia. The Tocharians, just to the west of Shang China, were probably a branch of the chariot peoples and may have introduced civilization to the Yellow River Valley. The Chinese refuse to accept this idea and have generally blocked attempts to do archaeological work in the land of the Tocharians."

Something to chew on.

By far the largest group of Asians seem to be Indians. I read somewhere that the majority of H-1B visas given to software workers went to Indians. Mostly South Indians.

Does anybody familiar with South India know if it has a strong intellectual tradition? I believe the mathematical genius Ramunajan was from South India. So is India's leading missile scientist Abdul Kalam. That small region seems to produce a lot of smart people.

Just off hand I can't think of a major contribution to computer systems that was invented by an Asian. Names that come to mind recently are Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners Lee, Andreassen, Ritchee, Thompson, Backus, James Gosling, Bill Joy ...

Seems plausible that the tendency for Europeans to give up on computer programming due to price competition from Asians could result in a stultification of creativity.

The majority of the population of south Indians that excel in the US are south Indian Brahmins. This population has had relatively low gene flow with the majority south Indians (commonly called the Dravidians) are later northern immigrants to South India. They still bear ethnic names that are corruptions of the ethnonym "Aryan". They preserve the archaic Indo-European practices best amongst most Indians despite recently acquire aspect of Dravidian language and customs. I think their recent success in secular fields is an extension of their long tradition of scholastic pursuits.

The Chinese invented almost every major invention (compass, big sailing ships, printing press, gun powder, etc.) that drove the West before the West did. The Chinese also discovered America before the modern Europeans did.

However, the Chinese also invented bureaucracy.


this is all very debatable. for example, the romans "invented" bureaucracy at the same time as the han dynasty.

The majority of the population of south Indians that excel in the US are south Indian Brahmins. This population has had relatively low gene flow with the majority south Indians (commonly called the Dravidians) are later northern immigrants to South India.

1) i would like a cite for the assertion of "majority." if not a cite, can you point to an asian indian programming association and extract caste affiliation by name? i would do so, but i don't know enough about caste names. the problem i have with these assertions is that people tend to know others in their own social circles, so if you are a south indian brahmin, i suspect there is some ascertainment bias going on. i can accept that south indian brahmins are represented an order of magnitude greater in programming, but i would like some data on any assertions of majority status.

2) They preserve the archaic Indo-European practices best amongst most Indians despite recently acquire aspect of Dravidian language and customs. I think their recent success in secular fields is an extension of their long tradition of scholastic pursuits.

no offense, but this assertion is bizarre-if they preserved the "best" they should have preserved their indo-european language like the sourashtrans of tamil nadu. there has almost certainly been a fair amount of gene flow between brahmins and non-brahmins in south india, and the genetic data points in many directions. there is one particular study that clusters iyers with central asians, but it also clusters them with southeast asians (in relation to other tamils), and both anti-brahmin and brahmin activists point to this one study constantly. but there is a mountain of data that despite strong signature of population substructure hypergamy has resulted in a great deal of gene flow across caste barriers. in any case, the part about scholastic pursuits probably has something to it.

i would kindly ask that our asian (that is, chinese and south asian) readers be a little more skeptical of their own preconceptions and dig a little deeper. one aspect of the modern west that i find edifying is the self-examination, and the skepticism shown toward established truths, that has been fostered by the post-enlightenment zeitgeist. i do not mean this offensively, but i find that many peoples of asian heritage, though from intellectually rich cultures have not fully internalized this tendency. part of this is likely due to the fact that white guilt has resulted in a "pass" to many non-whites who make ludicruous assertions about their own historical traditions (afrocentrism, sinocentrism, indocentrism, etc.). there is no white guilt here, so be forewarned.

one more point, since i asked for data instead of assertion, let me do my part....

i am taking this from the supplemental data of a recent paper which argues for a great deal of recent introgression of Y chromosomal lineages into india, implicitly via the aryan migration movement. below are the frequencies of the M17 haplotype which ties south asians with central asians and many eastern europeans, the putative "indo-european" signature. i have reservations with this interpretation, but it is a good proxy for relating various south asian populations in terms of their "aryanness." below are various groups and their M17 frequency.

south indian brahmins
Vizag Brahmin/17.07%
Peruru Brahmin/6.82%
Kokanastha Brahmin/41.86%

south indian population historically attested to have migrated from gujarat within the last 1,000 years and preserving an indo-european linguistic tradition
Sourashtran/39.13%

south indian non-brahmin caste populations
Yadhava/13.18%
Kallar/3.57%

north and east indian caste populations
Punjab/46.97%
Gujarat/24.14%
West Bengal/38.71%

one study does not a conclusion make, and the frequencies above should be taken with a grain of salt because of sampling bias as well as size. but, as you can see here, the putative "aryan" marker shows a wide variance within brahmins,* but a very high frequency in the one south indian population with historically confirmed north indian origin. the sample sizes are small, and south indian brahmin gotras do surely have origns in northern india and overall likely exhibit a non-trivially higher frequency of M17 than surrounding non-brahmin populations, but my point is that admixture was also likely non-trivial, at least judging from the presence of M17 in non-brahmin populations and the existence of other markers (which i did not put here) which show an overlap between tribal peoples, non-brahmin castes and brahmins in southern india.

* my understanding is that the Kokanastha/Chitpavan Brahmins were not temple brahmins, but rather small holders on the konkan coast. in other words, relative to other south indian brahmin groups prior to their relationship with the bhonsle dynasty in maharashtra they were relatively low status. an acquaintance of mine who is a student of south asian history indicated to me that recent research does point to a documented origin of the Kokanasthas in northern india that goes beyond myth.

I don't know whether to attribute it to simple ignorance or some sort of provincialism but, over 40 years ago, I happened to hear several different East Asian males (each in an entirely different discussion having to do with Asian/Occidental differences) point to certain physical characteristics which proved the more perfect development of Asians. One was the obviously advantageous epicanthal fold. The other? Why the protective sheath shielding the penis from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! I even had one to whom I attempted to explain matters suggest that "circumcision" was just the sort of story likely to have been prepared to rationalize obvious inferiority.

Why the protective sheath shielding the penis from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! I even had one to whom I attempted to explain matters suggest that "circumcision" was just the sort of story likely to have been prepared to rationalize obvious inferiority.

europeans, who are not circumcised, say similar things (the english had a period where circumcision was common from the late 19th century on, but that stopped two generations ago i believe). also, note that most south koreans and filipinos are circumcised (imitation of american practice, though the practice is itself in decline somewhat in the united states).

I don't think looking at historical computing achievements is a good indicator of 'ethnic creativity'.

Electronic computing was invented by the British in world war two as a covert military project.

But America dominated everything after world war two, the British abandoned computing after the first project whereas the Americans embraced it.

As a result America gave rise to modern day computing.

Europe caught on a bit later, and the Asians weren't even a factor until the late early ninties.

In the early ninties (also today) asians were overcoming major barriers like the fact that all real-world high level programming languages were / are based on english and were designed to output single byte characters. (East asian languages require multi-byte characters)

Its not that whites are naturally unskilled in computing or anything.

Its just that for the smart asians technology has become one of the only viable means to their version of the good life.

The smart whites see the competition in tech and move on to greener pastures.

The Tocharians, just to the west of Shang China, were probably a branch of the chariot peoples and may have introduced civilization to the Yellow River Valley. The Chinese refuse to accept this idea and have generally blocked attempts to do archaeological work in the land of the Tocharians.

the words for the tien-shan and kunlun-shan are probably tocharian, but the "probability that they introduced civilization to the Yellow River Valley" is exaggerated. it is true that much of the material basis of chinese civilization was borrowed from the west, but the well-field system, for example, from what i gather has deep neolithic roots in the north china plain. also, there were more peoples than just tokharians in the tarim basin, the south edge oases were probably inhabited by indo-iranian peoples derived from the andronovo culture of central asia, and they are the most likely vector for borrowings from the middle east (because of the presence of indo-iranians there). for example, the chinese word for chariot seems to have indo-iranian antecedants, not tocharian ones (see page 202 of the mummies of urumchi).

to be pithy, the "western barbarians" were catalysts in the development of chinese civilization, but not necessary (it seems likely that the developments in the western eurasian cultural network would have come through the southern sea route if the land route was blocked). of course, the ideological barrier of the chinese in acknowledging the "helping hand" of the western peoples of the tarim results in a counter-reaction amongst others which ends up implying a lack of nativity to shang civilization.

"this is all very debatable. for example, the romans "invented" bureaucracy at the same time as the han dynasty..."
Yes. Inventions come from progressive steps built on earlier ones, and are probably just the result of logical progression, applied by an inspired high i.q. cadre, accepted, maintained and improved by a larger number of fairly high iq people. There is no reason why different high-level civilizations, i.e. China, renaissance Europe, maybe Persia and India at one time, could not have arrived at the same levels independently of each other.
China was self contained. It never drove the West, unless it was out. Whatever its past glories, it was barely driving itself by the time a few Presbyterian missionaries started wowing their classrooms with anatomy textbooks in the 1890s. [Chi-Tsai Feng, The three-inch golden lotus. 1995.] This is surprising actually. You'd think a people who had invented efficacious herbology, foot-binding and death by a thousand cuts (no, not origami) would have a grip on anatomy.

You'd think a people who had invented efficacious herbology, foot-binding and death by a thousand cuts (no, not origami) would have a grip on anatomy.

well, europeans were quite sketchy about anatomy too because of taboos against dissecting dead bodies. aristotle had to extrapolate to humans from animal dissections. i believe that the taboos relating to the body are still prevelant in east asia, one reason that organ donation is not common there. rodney stark has argued that christianity was a positive development for europeans in this area because of its banishment of the taboo against dissection, but note that this was a rather late development (starting with leonardo, and proceeding to british anatomists). i gather that some element of respect for the body remained because of a certain strain in christian thought that emphasized resurrection of the body.

Razib,

"probability that they introduced civilization to the Yellow River Valley" is exaggerated. it is true that much of the material basis of chinese civilization was borrowed from the west, but the well-field system, for example, from what i gather has deep neolithic roots in the north china plain."

Hmmm...exaggerated is subjective. We do know that the Chinese civilization was the last of the major early civ's to rise. Also that they almost certainly 'borrowed' bronze tech, chariots, and more from Westerners. They have a good claim on compasses and paper money, though.

"also, there were more peoples than just tokharians in the tarim basin,...(because of the presence of indo-iranians there).

I agree that evidence supports this, and the more Westerners in that area probably makes contact between pre-civilized China with more western Civ's via the Silk Road that much more likely

"to be pithy, the "western barbarians" were catalysts in the development of chinese civilization, but not necessary"

Perhaps, though a definitive test would need a parallel Chinese Civ successfully rising with no Western help.

"(it seems likely that the developments in the western eurasian cultural network would have come through the southern sea route if the land route was blocked)."

I think that's how they later got Buddism and martial arts from India. Aside from flimsy 3000 BC boats, this idea of a West-to-East culture flow supports the exogenisis of Chinese Civ.

"of course, the ideological barrier of the chinese in acknowledging the "helping hand" of the western peoples of the tarim results in a counter-reaction amongst others which ends up implying a lack of nativity to shang civilization."

Too true. Even Alan Alda had a PBS special years ago taking the Chinese to task for this.

PS: I like shorter posts, but hey...

Perhaps, though a definitive test would need a parallel Chinese Civ successfully rising with no Western help.


well, i think the development arc of the new world cultures in mesoamerica and peru are suggestive of strong pressures that make complex stratified polities inevitable once agriculture starts to allow for population growth. consider this, there is strong evidence that a lot of diffusion stimulated early egyptian civilization. for example, there is the tell-tale tradition of peculiar indentations in the corner of some early buildings which seems clearly modeled on mesopatamian motifs (and writing probably had some mesopatamian input), but the ~2500 year arc of ancient egyptian civilization was really its own thing after the first few borrowings. i think the same can be said for china.

I think that's how they later got Buddism and martial arts from India. Aside from flimsy 3000 BC boats, this idea of a West-to-East culture flow supports the exogenisis of Chinese Civ.

i think it is has been established that buddhism, for example, came to the pamir cultural-complex, that is, up through ghandara into bacteria and around the back through ferghana and the tarim. the archeological findings make that pretty clear. the trade that centered around the southeast coast of china i know less about, but the enormous port that developed at guanghzhou suggests there was a lot of it. there was also an overland trade through sichuan into northeast india which we know little about (wu-ti's legate to the west found products from china that ferghanans had picked up from northern india, so it was clear that there was some backdoor operation going on).

Regarding the controversial age of Chinese civ. (Shang? Xia? or...), one of the more recent findings:

http://english.epochtimes.com/ne...5-19/ 28880.html

It's still unknown if "modern East Asian" ever existed in Asia before +7000BP ( http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~...wn3/ brown99.pdf ). So having (settled down &) developed a civ. of that age by these people is not bad at all.

For 'Modern East Asian" I mean osteologically definable "Mongoloid".

celes, sure, but let us remember that the fossil record is sparse. though if you take native americans into account, the existent of ainus as the likely indigenous peoples of japan, you start to set a highbound for how far back in the past the "mongoloid" morph was dominant in east asia....

Razib,

"i think it is has been established that buddhism, for example, came to the pamir cultural-complex, that is, up through ghandara into bacteria and around the back through ferghana and the tarim. the archeological findings make that pretty clear. the trade that centered around the southeast coast of china i know less about"

I don't know the details of either route around the Himalaya from India to China. My hunch is that the southerly path thru Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar, etc is easier in that it is shorter, more populated, better watered, lower in elevation, and closer to the sea for maritime access. The names you used are new to me (ghandara, bacteria, ferghana), but the alternate route of the Khyber Pass thru the Hindu Kush and around the Silk Road thru Mongolia seems a rougher ride. Again, I'm speculating here.

My hunch is that the southerly path thru Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar, etc is easier in that it is shorter, more populated, better watered, lower in elevation, and closer to the sea for maritime access.

jungles. read the silk road, basically buddhism was part of the network of cultural exchanges centered around central asia after christ and before islam. some of the greco-bacterian kings, like menander are reputated to have been influenced by buddhism, and similarly some of the buddha statuary motifs of the early period in northern india, central asia and western china seen to have been influenced by a greek appollonian motif. many of the tocharians were buddhist too. also, buddhism was a far stronger presence in north china among the barbarians during the interregnum betweeh the han and the sui-tang, and was probably introduced via the dunhang-xian corridor.

Razib--


The fellows who thought their foreskins proved their superiority were, in fact, Koreans--but the occurrence was over 40 years ago.

More recently--only about twenty years ago, in conversation with two businessmen visiting from Korea, I was treated to a half-dozen "Pollack jokes," all of which I had heard before, of course. I tried to explain that similar jokes were to be found in different places, told about different butts, depending on place, and described speaking on the phone with someone from Canada who asked me if I'd heard any good "Newfie" jokes. They understood the matter except, they explained, "Pollacks" were a particularly stupid sort--who lived in the EXTREME SOUTH OF KOREA!!

Rajitha said: The majority of the population of south Indians that excel in the US are south Indian Brahmins. This population has had relatively low gene flow with the majority south Indians (commonly called the Dravidians) are later northern immigrants to South India.

Razib replied: i would like a cite for the assertion of "majority." ... i can accept that south indian brahmins are represented an order of magnitude greater in programming, but i would like some data on any assertions of majority status.

I really doubt that SI Brahmins are a majority in the present day US tech world amongst the South Indian component. It probably was in the pre-Y2K era, but I doubt it is the case today. Caste is mostly irrelevant in the US and also taboo to bring up. If someone is a TiE member, maybe they can look at the member directory and do some counting. However, the evidence to support the case is not entirely missing. Here is one paper I could google up: http://www.druid.dk/wp/pdf_files/04-10.pdf. The important quote is: "A survey among 10,000 members Indian and Chinese professional associations in SV finds that 36.5% of the respondents come from South India..."

The paper then says, "The other interesting characteristic is that many of the IT professionals, and probably the students too, apparently have a Brahmin background (Xiang 2002). A study on technical and scientific manpower in the four South Indian states indicates that lower castes are represented much belowtheir share in the population (Deshpande 2000). While it seems plausible that there is a high percentage of Brahmins in the industry workforce the industry leadership seems to be dominated by South Indian Brahmins too...To sum up, in contrast to earlier rather low-skilled Indian migrants those working in knowledge-intensive high-tech sectors generally, and particularly in software, are among the best educated inthe host economy. Their Indian background is most often to be found in a South Indian Brahmin family and upbringing." Of course, this claim is not authoritative ("seems") nor is it backed by numbers, which is why we should treat it with a grain of salt.

I do see anecdotal evidence that among South Indians in highly competitive, elite areas of the tech world, brahmins are a super majority. I am referring to orgs such as core dev groups in tech companies like Google, Sun and Microsoft etc. There is a reason Fred chose "Suresh Venkatasubramanian" as a representative name after all. This is not true of other areas of tech such as testing, support or consulting etc. presumably because they are not as intellectually challenging. I know from experience that brahmins were (still are?) a super majority among South Indians at IIT Madras. From the supply angle alone, I can say that SIB's are a majority among SIs where IIT or equivalent nerdiness is pretty much a requirement. I would say that brahmins were >75% among SIs from TN, Kerala and Karnataka at IIT-M. But the picture was different for Andhra. Khammas especially and Reddys to a lesser extent comprise a large number of admittees from AP, enough to maybe make AP brahmins a plurality and not a majority. But overall among SI IITians, brahmins still form a majority, perhaps a supermajority.

BTW, since brahmins are thought to be ~5% of the Indian population, though less in TN, an order of magnitude overrepresentation roughly gives majority status.

BTW, since brahmins are thought to be ~5% of the Indian population, though less in TN, an order of magnitude overrepresentation roughly gives majority status.

well, my recollection is most surveys (like the national caste census of 1931) give a number around ~2-3%. in some places it is lower (like kerala), some places higher (uttar pradesh) and some places around there (tamil nadu). additionally, not all brahmins are made the same, south indian brahmins have had to man civil servant posts in the north even though the national caste census shows brahmins form ~10 of uttar pradesh's population.

again, i would like to see a survey. i actually did a email survey years back where i noted the overrepresentation of tamil speakers at the IITs, but i did not inquire about caste. a survey is doable if someone is curious, i don't feel comfortable because i don't know much about caste on a personal level.

Regarding caste, this must prompt many lies among Indians back there and abroad.

If actual physical diff's between Indian caste members are minimal, and most distinctions are based on family ties, then I'm sure many talented lower-caste types have changed names, moved, gotten new cars/watches/wardrobes, and adopted the speech patterns of the higher castes to play the game.

Indians changing caste 'clothing' in a non-Indian nation is that much easier.

On a more scientific note, I would like to see IQ/SAT-type scores for Indian caste members. The now gone "God and Doctors" thread had a link to SAT/IQ scores for US religions. Puritan descendants (Unitarian, Anglican) and Quakers had the highest scores of all, Jews included. Since these folk comprised the early US elite (Boston Brahmins, William Penn), perhaps a similar IQ aristocracy pattern is present in India among the real Brahmins also.