I believe the correct term is Oterorist.

According to that website, whites are indeed in the minority, with 2641 of 6491 undergrads. They are indeed the plurality on campus, but Peter's point is that if you take white versus non-white, the whites are a minority.
2,641/6491

"but it does make me very much doubt that Stanford's white population is in the minority."
The real question is whether that makes you doubt the tolerance of Stanford's white population. (As if stating a statistic defines the group most likely to be racist.) It's always curious that intolerance seems to be a code word for caucasian.

My main point was that white's emphasis of "unfairness" on affirmative action is unwarranted, and the superiority of Asian students in high school, whether in America, Europe, Oceania, or Asia and their lack of proportionally fair representation in top schools (Stanford caps undergraduate admission of Asian students at about 25% every year) and their general lack of complaining or whining about "unfairness" of affirmative action means whites are still practicing bigotry - that is, if you are on the so-called "conservative" camp.

As for your claim about the lack of creativity in Asia, you should look at who invented gun powder (China), paper (China), iron-clad ships (Korea), printing presses (Korea), let alone mobile MP 3 players (Korea - yap, it's not Apple), walkman (Japan), and video arcades (Japan).

A few weeks ago, Jack Welch came to Korea and accused the South Koreans of not being "creative," citing Apple's IPod as a hip example of creativity. Well-informed Koreans responded to Jack's comment later - "you should have looked into who invented the world's first MP3 mobile player."

Yap, it was the Koreans. =)

Actually, there is nothing contradictory about being pro-affirmative action while recognizing that certain ethnic groups are at a disadvantage due to the affirmative action. While affirmative action may decrease the acceptance rates of Asians or Caucasians because more black and Hispanic applicants are encouraged to apply, the diverse experience you receive at major schools like Stanford because you are studying and playing with people of different ancestries enrich and benefit the entire student body. This benefit, in my opinion, totally outweighs the sentiment of "unfairness" by promoting increased applications of underrepresented minorities. This is especially true in US and Western college admissions system, where donations, parental alumni status, and parental employment relationship with universities result in grossly unfair admissions procedures with little benefit to the student body.

Having said that, sometimes we have to recognize inconvenient truth even though that may seem unpalatable. Growing evidence suggests that one's intelligence is not as culturally based as one would like to think, compared to genetically-derived factors. I am not saying this to be a "racist" or to suggest that some people are better than others just because they belong to certain ethnic groups. However, objective evidence suggests that people of same ethnic origin tend to perform quite consistently relative to other ethnic groups regardless of which continent they live in.

If you think cultural and regional educational emphasis are the predominant factors in determining one's intelligence capability, then how do you explain the fact that East Asians who were born in America or Oceania under the influence of so-called "creative" education perform very consistently to their peers in East Asia under the emphasis of rote memorization, while also performing better than people of other ethnic groups? This directly contradicts your opinion in your last post.

I should also note that all ethnic groups generally perform consistently regardless of which continents they live in. In other words, ethnic sub-group test scores of the people of British origin in Britain is very comparable to those living in the United States or elsewhere. Clearly, the emphasis in European education is different from that of US education, but the objective test results for ethnic sub-groups are quite consistent across different regions.

Logically, this means ethnically-derived genetic factors is significant in one's intelligence. To say the least, nature is fairly significant factor in one's academic performance and it is also ethnically related. I understand that this may not be the most convenient truth, but attributing higher objective intellectual performance of East Asians (namely, IQ) to Asia's emphasis on rote memorization does not explain worldwide consistencies of higher East Asian IQ scores across different continents.

When it comes to sociological analysis, I think anecdotal evidence (e.g. personal experiences) that either of us experiences cannot be used as a benchmark for an opinion because it is not statistically significant.

I think both "Bell Curve" and "Race Differences in Intelligence" and many other studies that show differences of average IQ by ethnic groups are very valid. This is especially true if you consider the fact that the former two works are written by European researchers who collected numerous suveys per country for statistical robustness, and their results do not seem to be biased toward their own ethnic groups.

I think it is clear that the reason why East Asian countries are able to achieve tremendous economic growths despite their relatively late start to industrial revolution and scarce natural resources (compared to Africa or Latin America) is due to their superior group intelligence. However, if a society supresses freedom of intellectual thinking, innovation, and truthful learning, examplified by North Korea or China during Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution, the superior group intelligence does not render fruitful socioeconomic development.

Differences in group IQ scores are significant because IQ score is designed to test a person's cognitive reasoning independent of cultural or linguistic differences. While it is by no means an absolutely-perfect objective measure, it is considered a significant objective score for such comparisons.

It is important to note that we use some common sense that these studies only show differnces in the level of macroscopic or "group" intelligence. Countless underrepresented minorities are true intellectual geniuses in their respective professions and contribute to human society worldwide. It is illogical to conclude that a particular person is smarter than another particular person just because they belong to certain ethinic groups. Everyone has different talents regardless of ethnic or racial ancetries. These differences and one's relative merit to society cannot possibly be measured by standardized cognitive reasoning tests such as IQ tests.

Nevertheless, these individual, case-by-case differences do not nullify numerous studies showing differences in racial and ethinic intelligence that give a tremendous insight why certain societies and their respective economies accelerate forward due to higher group intelligence.

Not many people will doubt that the growth in China is fueled by domestic economic growth, and foreign investment is coming in primarily to reap benefits in China's growth. Furthermore, China's growth is significantly more technologically-oriented than you think, as opposed to just "manual labor".

As for your claim on Venezuela, you should have looked at GDP growth of not just one or two years but over a decade or two of solid, consistent growth, which Venezuela clearly lacks. More importantly, although China is still significantly behind Japan and Korea in terms of technical know-how and sophistication, its growth is still fueled by technological development. In Venezuela, it is clearly not the case, which makes consistent, high-quality, and lasting economic growth difficult.

As for your argument that IQ is a moot point, I clearly disagree because higher group intelligence (based on objective measures such as IQ) of a nation's constituents accelerates technological innovation and development, as evidenced by East Asian countries today.

There is no Sony or Samsung from Africa or Latin America today, and it is no coincidence. Some may simply blame on political instability for relative lack of technical innovation from these regions. However, I think this is simply a lame excuse.

South Korea serves as a good example. In 1953, South Korea was one of the most impoverished countries in the world suffering from the pains of the Korean War. It was ranked well below many African nations. Seasonal starvation was a national issue and its people did not have technical know-how or industrial capability to build a modern economy. South Korea also went through tumultuous political coups and takeovers, some of which were filled with bloodshed.

Fifty-three years later, that same country is now world's top ten economies, with the most number of Ph.D's per capita in the world. Lacking natural resources for exports, it is no coincidence that Korea's largest economic asset was its highly-educated workforce driven by superior intelligence of its people.

Today, South Korea is the only non-World War II power in the world that can self-design and export automobiles and electronics with its own brands with significant brand values. Using Samsung's NAND flash technology as an example, they drive world's nanotechnology and continue to push the boundaries of physics for semiconductor lithography, beating other cutting-edge companies like Intel. Korean companies like LG Electronics and Samsung also push the world's limits of LCD and Plasma TV screen sizes - ahead of Japan (Check CES 2007). Much of these innovations take place domestically by Korean engineers in South Korea.

It is interesting to note that Korea's growth is not mainly due to foreign investment. South Korea continues to be one of the most unfriendly places for foreign capital for capitalistic economies. Recent "Lone Star Fund" scandal serves as a good example.

The example of South Korea shows how difficult it is to achieve this level of industrial sophistication unless you are one of the old powers.

Logically, it is extremely hard to argue that such achievement is possible without superior group intelligence, which is confirmed by its national IQ rankings.

Sometimes truth is inconvenient, but it does not change what it is.

An initial proof of concept known as "invention" and useful inventive commercialization is entirely different. The latter is actually harder, as experienced by success of IPod as opposed to earlier MP3 players. I am fully aware that one of the reasons why US engineers garner higher premium is because they continue to innovate. As for LCD and plasma screen sizes which are designed for commercial manufacturing, when the screen sizes are approaching 102 diagonal inches or greater, it is extremely difficult to manufacture with high yield, let alone keeping it flat. You also need special panel drivers and circuitry with minimum lag time, which is also very difficult. Power efficiency is always an issue. Generating high contrast and viewing angle at larger panels pose tremendous challenge to designers. I do not think you understand the level of technical diifculty in producing commercial-yield LCD panels of sizes that can only be loaded on large size trucks.

As for memory technologies, advanced material sciences and device structures hold key for innovation in nanotechnology. Who invented them 22 years ago is irrelevant because the original player, known as Toshiba, is now me-too followers behind Samsung and Hynix, both of which are Korean. Samsung is clearly world's first to push the limits of physics below 60 nm in lithography. Any device physicist will tell you that this is a hack of an achievement. Once again, you simply do not understand the level of difficulty and innovation required to achieve these things. Ask any semiconductor process engineers for further reference.

As for your blame on "Confucian" countries accounting for East Asia's economic growth, I entirely disagree because certain cultural background does not make people smarter or excel in education without inherent superior intelligence.

For your criticism of Korea not having domestic innovation for flash memory and LCD technologies, this is simply laughable. Initial proof of concept is always dwarfed by continued design, device structure, and material innovations which are inherent in current 7th generation LCD technologies or sub-60 nm Flash technology. These innnovations are largely driven by Korean engineers inside of Korea. Samsung alone consistently ranks top 5 in number of patent filings in the United States. A majority of key innovations originates from South Korea for these patents. LG Electronics also file thousands of patent applications in the United States alone.

As for the IQ scores of "Ashkenazi" Jews claimed in one short article in what seems to be a defense of Jewish supremacy, I can assure you that this is mainly groundless. First of all, the national IQ of Israel is well below 100. More importantly, even Jewish Americans clearly understand that the definition of "Ashkenazi" Jews is extremely vague, and it is very easy to data-mine and hand-pick smarter Jews for such IQ test analysis to inflate IQ scores artificially. Average IQ at MIT, for example, is over 130.

I am sure there are many smart Jews out there, as evidenced by their contributions in science and technology. However, the term "Ashkenazi" invites data-picking as a political proof of Jews as God's chosen people. Many Jews agree with the vagueness of the term "Ashkenazi" regardless of their religious stance.

It would be more academically acceptable data if they took a sample of "any" people of Jewish faith, which they intentionally avoided.

Trivial things first:

1. NEC, like any other semiconductor companies around the world, is still following Samsung. Samsung recently invented "charge-trap flash" technology and also released world's first 40nm process in mid-2006. Samsung has been setting the world record for about five years now. Not surprisingly, Hynix, another Korean company, released world's first 60nm process for DDR2 RAM's in 2006Q4, ahead of even Samsung. Japan's major semiconductor manufacturers are currently about one to two generations behind in density and design rules for Flash and DDR DRAM's, a trend set by Samsung after its invention of 256MB DRAM in the early 1990's ahead of Toshiba. I have personally worked in the semiconductor industry for several years. The decrese of line widths for semiconductor processes is not trivial. It is the present and the future of nanotechnology, which is very advanced. Most semiconductor companies still tinker with 90 nm rule as "advanced" processes.

For example, do you understand the significance of reduced thickness of gate oxide for CMOS transistors as design rules for semiconductors shrink? Do you know the correlation between reduced gated oxide thickness and increased charge store failure rates? When you deal with nanotechnology in semiconductors, these are some of the many questions you have to deal with, and it is a very difficult problem to solve. When a semiconductor powerhouse releases a next process design using smaller geometry, it means they have resolved these issues even in more microscopic designs. This is the cutting edge of device physics today, and Korea is ahead of the game.

2. I do not believe you understand the complexity of making LCD's or Plasma panels in sizes larger than 102 inches. Japanese companies are still significantly late in producing fast-reacting large screen LCD's or LCD driver circuitry compared to LG and Samsung electronics. For example, Sony's largest demo (and not commercial) LCD TV is measured at 82 inches (CES 2006), and they have not released a 100 inch or 102 inch versions yet because they are technologically late. LG and Samsung both achieved 100+ status for LCD TV's. Furthermore, Sony does not even have its own LCD manufacturing capability so Sony's Bravia TV line is produced entirely within S-LCD joint venture with Samsung. Plasma panels are a bit easier to increase in size, compared to the liquid crystal display, so 102 inch diagonal length was achieved two years ago, once again, world's first by Samsung and LG.

Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are also currently deadlocked in the battle of organic LED's, known as OLED's. This is a superfine resolution display alternative to conventional LED's with more brightness and favorable energy consumption, initially for small screens. You'll see OLED's installed on high-end cell phones in two to three years. Who wins this battle remains to be seen, but it is happening among East Asian countries.

Now, to your claim about Ashkenazi Jews. Here's an excerpt directly about that particular claim, footnote 4 in Wikipedia which is also referenced in Malloy, J. (2006): "A World of Difference: Richard Lynn Maps World Intelligence. Gene Expression. Retrieved on February 22, 2006.":

"(Richard) Lynn's data is somewhat weak on Ashkenazi Jews (Malloy 2006), and only allows an indirect, weighted estimate in Israel (103), compared with (similarly indirect) estimates of 91 for Israeli Oriental Jews, and 86 for Israeli Arabs. Israeli Ashkenazi's scores may average lower than U.S. and British Ashkenazi, Lynn suggests, due to selective migration effects in relation to those countries, and to immigrants from the former Soviet Block countries having posed as Ashkenazim. The data isn't necessarily strong enough, however, to rule out identical scores for Ashkenazi across these nations (Malloy 2006)."

IQ and the Wealth of Nations, a book written by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, listed Israel's national IQ as 94.

Equally important, the term Ashkenazi is just too vague for a clear definition. When you take a sample of Japanese people for intelligence tests, there is not much vagueness in who you define as "Japanese". Whether you classify a person of Jewish faith who is blonde, green-eyed, with one grandparent from the Middle East as "Ashkenazi" or not is too subjective.

As for the answers to your two questions:

1. Nobody is "Master Race" and no ethnic or religious group should dictate or confine other people's freedom based on their beliefs. That is the basis of free society which we strive for. The last time I checked, people who called themselves the "Master Race" were the Nazis and they were from Germany. Ironically, many sociological studies indicate that they were anything but superior to many other ethinic groups around the world.

2. I do not know whether there is a conspiracy or not. I do know it is based on weak data, vague definition of the term "Ashkenazi", and contradicts Israel's national IQ from a robust compilation of IQ surveys. However, I am aware of the fact that some segments of Jewish people want to prove scientifically that they are superior because they are supposedly chosen by God, and there is some religous motivation. I believe that there are many intelligent people of Jewish faith in the world and I wish them well.

You should note that there are differences among averages, medians, and exceptions (eg. geniuses) and I would not be surprised that certain ethnic groups have unproportionally high number of geniuses regardless of group IQ averages.

the iq's of ashkenazim were actually found to be in the 108-110 range; not as high as certain studies estimate but it is high.

i think anon isn't familiar with how economies have evolved. throughout history, when a population has low per capita gdp innovation is hampered.

ashkenazim in america have the highest personal incomes iirc. the cost of innovation is quite high relative to the economic returns; especially with all the risk involved. it takes considerable personal wealth to recover from entrepreneurial failures.

in today's global economy, it would be suicidal for east asia (outside of Japan) to abandon their current economic plans. all east asian countries have moved from mass producing cheap goods, improving on technologies developed by the gpd/capita rich west (as blueprints are cheap), to modern times where they are starting to push to become more innovative now in the more gdp/capita rich countries.

similar patterns can be observed in european nations (relative to eachother) in the past, especially during the industrial revolution.

regardless, reviewing the statistics and study on east asians shows very promising demographics. the east asian/white gap in IQ is underestimated, as fewer language-normed tests and studies tracking fluctuations in iq as populations mature have been administered. also, many of the tests are not controlled for nutrition and standard for living.

it's common knowledge that asians develop slower; they being walking and talking the latest as infants and live the longest (east asians generally live 4-6 years longer compared to whites at comparable incomes)

what this means is that while 138-140 iq individuals (MIT average) are 1/200 for whites; it's around 1/50 for east asians. if you break it down by profession there are many more east asians suitable for certain jobs as compared to others. for example, in China there would be 26 million people able to meet standards for acceptance at the best US colleges; while the numbers for whites in Europe and America combined would be 35000 (70000 if adjusted for population).

when it comes to predictions for east asian economic growth, it should be noted that east asians have the lowest crime rates (1/6-1/2 that of white gentiles at equal income), require the least resources (food, water, space), are the least prone to nearly all health risks, have the fewest genetic diseases, are at a much lower risk for std transmission, are more likely to work longer hours and conserve wealth (delay of gratification), wear down infrastructure more slowly (weight), least likely to be obese, and have higher reaction times.

all of this has contributed to the growth of east asia; though confucian teachings are good and bad.. currently, critics in asia are pushing to moderate the school systems.

if and when china reaches the gdp/capita of the us in the distant future (and some sort of East Asian Trade Union is formed) there will be around 230,000,000-240,000,000 people who would be qualified to be doctors for example, not counting aging population as it's unclear if the CCP will take more draconian measures to change things.

amusing, anyway.

Ferins, I am not sure where you are getting these figures (are these reliable, large-scale studies? And how are these estimates made?), but they seem to be way too biased in favor of East Asians (for instance, 1/200~1/50 claim on IQ). I generally agree with lower crime rates, higher savings rates, and more focus on education for East Asians.

That sounds like a rough estimate. In any case, I have no doubt in my mind that East Asians are generally more intelligent.

For example, east asians (and ashkenazim) in harvard as well are both 10 times overrepresented. However, there is selective bias as a great bulk of east asian americans are children of people who were granted permament residence for comp sci jobs and other science professions. They are heavily visuospatial/auditory (perfect pitch being 7 times more frequent) compared to whites, but their verbal scores don't lack (at least third-gen asian americans, specifically); while they do have some mild advantages in analytical, auditory and reasoning as well.

I think language has a lot to due with how people with good pitch and visuospatial skills were selected for; considering east asian languages are heavily based on memory, visualization and intonation to the point where one stroke or fluctuation of pitch changes the word completely.

It really was surprising for me to see the bell curve studies by various psychometrics researchers; but thinking about it, and reading as many studies as I could find, there does seem to be sound evidence for that.