http://www.arthurhu.com/99/09/indiq.txt
--
Note the anguish of these people when they find that darker skinned hindus perform better
--
Indian children currently outperform white children in the GCSE
examinations in England and Wales, though I don't think much of this has
anything to do with IQ, let alone genes for IQ. You may remember that we
discussed the original Times report in March:
---
From: "John Derbyshire" <olimu@li.net>
To: "Gregory M. Cochran" <74771.3230@compuserve.com>,
"Arthur Hu" <arthurhu@halcyon.com>
Copies to: "[unknown]" <cai1@is.nyu.edu>, "[unknown]" <h-bd@egroups.com>
Date sent: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 14:44:02 -0400
Subject: [h-bd] Re: Asian query follow-up
I wonder how appropriate-- from the ethnometric point of view-- the words
"Hindu" and "Caucasian" are in this context. The greatest mathematician
India has yet produced was Srinivasa Ramanujan, who came from Kumbakonam
in southern India. Though certainly Hindu by religion, his native tongue
was Tamil, which is a Dravidian language, not at all related to the
Indo-European language family of which Hindi is a member. He was also, as
can be seen from his photographs (there is a good biography by Robert
Kanigel, "The Man Who Knew Infinity") very dark and not at all
"Caucasian"-looking like so many north Indians. In fact the
Indo-European-speaking inhabitants of India descend from invaders of the
2nd millenium B.C., who overwhelmed an older, darker, Dravidian-language
stock and appropriated their religion (it is plain from the most ancient
texts, for example, that the invaders were enthusiastic eaters of beef...
a habit that died out as they became Hindicized).
I have for some years been involved in the hiring of technical
specialists-- mostly computer programmers-- in New York City. The pool of
applicants for programming jobs here is about equal parts (a) Chinese (b)
Indian © Russian-Jewish and (d) all other. I have hired several
Indians, and it seems to me that there is a (positive) correlation between
how dark (i.e. "Dravidian") they are and how mathematically adept they
are. This is impressionistic, but, together with the eminence in his
field of S. Ramanujan, it suggests the following very loose & vague
hypothesis:
Whatever neurological structures are involved in abstract mathematical
skills are more likely to be found in a highly developed state among East
Asians, Ashkenazi Jews and Indians of Dravidian-speaking stock.
---
As an afterthought, it may not be
irrelevant that the ancient civilizations of India seem to have been
obsessed to an unusual degree-- I can't think of any comparisons, either
ancient or modern-- with very big numbers. Sanskrit has words for 10^31
(vyavaithanaprajnapti), 10^37 (samaptalambha), 10^47 (visandjnagati) and
10^53 (tallakchana). In a math competition to win the hand of a lady (!)
the Buddha-- according to one of the ancient biographies ("Lalitavistara")
computed the number of atoms in a yojana (= 3 miles). He got the answer
3,840,000,000,000. The ancient book "Surya Siddhanta" claims it was given
(by the Sun) to a fellow named Maya Asura in 2,163,102 BC. Archbishop
Ussher's computation of the age of the world (4004 BC) looks very
pedestrian by comparison. The ninth level of time cycles (though I am not
altogether sure I understand this bit) lasts for 10^421 years. Cf current
estimates of the age of the cosmos-- around 10^10 years.
I do not guarantee any of the above spellings. Any Sanskritists in the
group?
John Derbyshire
----
Steve Sailer here:
1. I'm reading "India: A Million Mutinies Now" by V.S. Naipaul. It's a
surprisingly dull book from such a celebrated author, but Naipaul refers
several times to the same phenomenon: the South Indian talent for science
and math, especially among Dravidian brahmins. "In the South, science had
grown over two or three generations out of the brahminical tradition of
abstract learning." This suggests that Ed Miller's on to something in his
view that the traditional intellectual duties of the brahmins, dealing
with the extraordinary degree of complexity and abstraction found in
Indian religion and philosophy (which I tended to unfairly underrate
because it always make my eyes glaze over), would have artificially
selected for brahmins with the brainpower to handle them. Indeed, Indian
immigrants to the U.S. are highly over-represented in the most brahminical
(i.e., abstract) of modern American jobs: e.g., statistical modeling,
information systems architecting, strategic consulting, etc.). Much of the
immigration of brahmins to America seems to be encouraged by Indian
affirmative action laws greatly restricting the opportunities of brahmins
in India.
---
From: "Ian Pitchford" <Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com>
To: <h-bd@egroups.com>
Date sent: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 00:16:32 +0100
Organization:
http://www.human-nature.com/
Subject: [h-bd] Re: More on India
Steve Sailer wrote:
1. I'm reading "India: A Million Mutinies Now" by V.S. Naipaul. It's a
surprisingly dull book from such a celebrated author, but Naipaul refers
several times to the same phenomenon: the South Indian talent for science
and math, especially among Dravidian brahmins. "In the South, science had
grown over two or three generations out of the brahminical tradition of
abstract learning." ______ REPLY: Perhaps the real explanation for
Dravidian talents is a cultural tradition stretching back to Aryabhata
(476-499), the great Indian mathematician, still listed in most
encyclopaedias (including the latest edition of Encarta) as a native of
Patna, who was in fact from Kerala, where his school is still in vogue.
It's probably also more than slightly significant that:
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