6 ms·

How much of mathematical intelligence genetic or environmental? It seems to be at least a fair amount genetic. After all, the brain is a body part like any ot

How much of mathematical intelligence genetic or environmental? It seems to be at least a fair amount genetic. After all, the brain is a body part like any other. Height is genetic, so why wouldn't physical brain characteristics also be? It is remarkable the amount of asian and male students in this top echelon. It could be because of societal influence - but that really seems unlikely to me to cover this huge gap. It may be unsavory, politically taboo, and not the way we want the world to be - but are males and people of asian-ancestry just better at math? And would knowing if that is the case help anything in any way?

neurostimulant 10y ago
Asian parents usually regards their children's academic achievement as family prestige. As the result, the children spent a lot more time studying compared to other children from other families since young age. At the extreme end, getting scolded for getting a B is not unheard of.
dannylandau 10y ago
I'll take a shot at this (your bait). For context have an undergrad in Math, my parents are mathematicians and theoretical computer scientist. Read quite a few biographies on famous mathematicians, and one salient inescapable conclusion is that the most prominent mathematicians tend to be European or American, and very rarely Asian (chinese, Korea or Japan). There are of course exceptions, but few. The top mathematicians are not Asian, just a fact. And yet, the majority of IMO gold winners are, not sure how to explain the discrepancy, but the most likely conclusion is that solving Olympiad math questions has very little correlation with with doing creative mathematics.
- dsacco 10y ago
  How many biographies did you read, and whose, by whom? It would be nice to see data in this conversation.
- chillacy 10y ago
  > The top mathematicians are not Asian, just a fact Alright I'll bite as well. Though I don't think the OP's conclusion is correct, I also don't think the lack of prominent asian mathematicians is entirely indicative of ability or creativity, but rather largely caused by the availability bias of English speakers and our current vantage point in history. First: availability bias. We're reading English books and working within an education system born out of Europe. Asian history has been full of interesting wars, rulers, artists, politics, etc for thousands of years, but few in America will ever learn anything except for where it relates to America / Europe. Much of the information about Asian history will be in another language as well. Second: Recent history. Knowledge-creators in other countries are playing a game they are disadvantaged in, having to first learn English, then travel abroad for the best universities, etc. (Imagine if you had to learn Japanese and travel to Japan to go to get a decent higher education!) The reason of course is that 1500s and onwards (post-renaissance), most of the knowledge generation was happening in Europe. But that wasn't always the case: if we look a thousand years prior, or 2 thousand years prior, knowledge was being generated by Greek, Arab, or Chinese mathematicians. For instance, the concept of 0 arrived to Europe pretty late: http://www.livescience.com/27853-who-invented-zero.html http://www.livescience.com/27853-who-invented-zero.html So circling back to the original question of the importance of genetics vs environment: That the world's patches of knowledge has shifted across different cultures, peoples, and places over the last maybe 8 thousand years to me doesn't imply such a large importance on inherent genetic ability, and that time frame is too short for any evolutionary changes. Culture seems to be a much larger factor (and this is where I will concede that asian culture can stifle creativity). Culture is the main difference between the heads down religious conviction of the 9th century in Europe and the renaissance, not genetics.
  - jernfrost 10y ago
    I also don't believe there is a genetic difference, however I think there is a clear cultural difference which favors westerners. Asian culture with its emphasis on harmony and respect for the elders does not IMHO foster radical innovation. A key problem for China is that it is united. This stifles competition in ideas of how to organize society. Europe has benefited tremendously from being divided. That has prevented Europe from stagnating the way China did for hundreds of years. One stupid ruler can bring down all of China. One stupid European leader can't bring down the whole of Europe. It is also false to consider Europe being a laggard in earlier times just because it was behind in maths and higher learning. One tends to think the Roman empire was so superior due to its progress in the arts and sciences. However medieval Europe saw far more progress in e.g. machinery and labour saving devices. Windmills, waterwheels, better plows etc was developed in this period. In the short term the unit of China reaped a lot of benefits in the form of having much more peace. Europe suffered many setbacks due to the frequency of wars. But in the long run this proved a benefit. The fierce competitive nature of westerners could not be countered by harmony focused asian cultures.
- nl 10y ago
  The top mathematicians are not Asian, just a fact. Those who awarded the Fields medal to Terrance Tao, Ngô Bảo Châu and Manjul Bhargava may disagree.
chillacy 10y ago
With regards to top mathematicians being male, it's understood that the variance in male IQ is much greater than for females, so men end up over-represented in both the top and bottom tiers of intelligence. But society factors do have an effect. In one study with asian american women asked to do a difficult math test, those primed to remember that they were asian did better than those primed reminded that they were female: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/1/80.abstract http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/1/80.abstract
- DaniFong 10y ago
  I'm sorry about nitpicking, as I think your heart is in the right place, but I believe you're incorrect regarding the variance in male IQ vs female. It is a conventionally believed thing, but I think it is conventionally misunderstood. The IQ tests don't even have validity well outside 2 s.d. (how could they without much more testing outside the sample?) It's not even a particularly valid statistical idea to be contemplating very high IQs beyond the normed values of the tests (how are they supposed to calibrate the scale?) nor is there good evidence that whatever the measures are that we're given are normally distributed. I have personally known several people with "measured IQs" above 200; that is statistically not supposed to happen. There are a lot of conceptual and practical problems with the idea of IQ. Regarding mathematical ability, please see this paper by the former USA IMO coach Titu Andreescu. http://www.ams.org/notices/200810/fea-gallian.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200810/fea-gallian.pdf They make a very good case for cultural specific factors in the development of mathematical skill, at least as far as Olympiad maths goes. The presence of women in the competition varies dramatically depending on the culture (and even the team)
  - chillacy 10y ago
    Thanks for sharing data, that's a pretty good case for cultural factors making up a large part of the discrepancy, as I suspected. As for the IQ test variability, do you have any papers or research on that? Citation 19 in this wikipedia article doesn't seem to actually address the issue of variance, only the question of absolute ability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...
simosx 10y ago
There is a fixation that many things are genetic. Here is what Po-Shen Loh says in the article: "P-S.L.: I don’t want to say it’s genetic. A lot of people say you must be born with something very special. Maybe once in a while, you may see something like that. But people are basically the same."
yodsanklai 10y ago
> How much of mathematical intelligence genetic or environmental? It seems to be at least a fair amount genetic. That would be my guess too. For instance, in France, some of the most prestigious "schools" base their selections on maths. It's interesting to see some students that got all the possible help from their rich family (very best schools, tutors...) being totally outcompeted by kids that grew up in much less favored environment. With maths, it seems either you have it or you don't.
- jernfrost 10y ago
  Tutors and riches can't make up for lack of interest. If you look at top sports athletes many of those who reached the top did so because they had a motivation to train harder and longer than the rest. I remember a story about our best skier. She said her sister had more natural talent than her and was better. However her sister did not have the zeal for getting better and training hard, that is why she never became a top athlete. I think there is a lot of truth to this. I drew better than my peers and I tended to do better in math. But if I reflect on it, I'd say it was mostly about interest. I drew a lot of drawings as a kid and I obsessed a lot about problems which are mathematical in nature. I wanted to understand how things worked. It wasn't enough to just get the right answer. I had to know why it was right. The people I talk to who aren't very good at math typically strikes me as simply having no curiosity for why things work the way they do. They just want the answer and move on. My brother e.g. has no curiosity like that, but he was born with better math skills than me. He could always do mental arithmetic better than me e.g. But as soon as math started getting abstract he fell behind me. Ability simply can't carry you if you have no motivation, curiosity or desire. I believe "genes for math" is simply genes for having a personality that is curios and patient.
nabla9 10y ago
There is strong genetic factor for intelligence but it's not divided between races. Most human genetic variation happens between individuals. There are large regional differences between intelligence, but they are explained with environmental factors: 1. parasite load and infectious diseases are strongly negatively corrected with intelligence. This applies between different countries and between states in United States. 2. Nutrition, prenatal nutrition is very important. Intelligence correlates with height. Most likely common cause for this correlation is nutrition. 3. Then comes other things like culture etc. Natural abilities can be enhanced with hard work and cultural incentives. In some cultures mathematically gifted may become lawyers. Edward Witten got degree in history and became a journalist. He published articles in The New Republic and The Nation and worked in George McGovern's presidential campaign. His physics and math carer came later.
jernfrost 10y ago
Funny you should pick height, since it is a classic case for the influence of the environment. Large differences in height between countries today is primarily due to the environment. The dutch are the tallest today, but used to be the shortest in Europe. White Americans used to be far taller than Europeans but today Americans are relatively short in comparison to most European nations. Japanese used to among the shortest in the world but the young generation has almost caught up to the American average. As for math, why have Russia and the Soviet Union won so much if Asians have such advantage? They have much smaller population than China? Why does Hungary have so many wins? How many asian immigrants do you think they have? Considering the small population of Hungary they are completely outperforming China.
rajacombinator 10y ago
Genetics is a factor, but based on my observation of top math students environment (at home) is a much bigger factor.

neurostimulant 10y ago

Asian parents usually regards their children's academic achievement as family prestige. As the result, the children spent a lot more time studying compared to other children from other families since young age. At the extreme end, getting scolded for getting a B is not unheard of.

dannylandau 10y ago

I'll take a shot at this (your bait). For context have an undergrad in Math, my parents are mathematicians and theoretical computer scientist. Read quite a few biographies on famous mathematicians, and one salient inescapable conclusion is that the most prominent mathematicians tend to be European or American, and very rarely Asian (chinese, Korea or Japan). There are of course exceptions, but few. The top mathematicians are not Asian, just a fact. And yet, the majority of IMO gold winners are, not sure how to explain the discrepancy, but the most likely conclusion is that solving Olympiad math questions has very little correlation with with doing creative mathematics.

dsacco 10y ago
How many biographies did you read, and whose, by whom? It would be nice to see data in this conversation.
chillacy 10y ago
> The top mathematicians are not Asian, just a fact Alright I'll bite as well. Though I don't think the OP's conclusion is correct, I also don't think the lack of prominent asian mathematicians is entirely indicative of ability or creativity, but rather largely caused by the availability bias of English speakers and our current vantage point in history. First: availability bias. We're reading English books and working within an education system born out of Europe. Asian history has been full of interesting wars, rulers, artists, politics, etc for thousands of years, but few in America will ever learn anything except for where it relates to America / Europe. Much of the information about Asian history will be in another language as well. Second: Recent history. Knowledge-creators in other countries are playing a game they are disadvantaged in, having to first learn English, then travel abroad for the best universities, etc. (Imagine if you had to learn Japanese and travel to Japan to go to get a decent higher education!) The reason of course is that 1500s and onwards (post-renaissance), most of the knowledge generation was happening in Europe. But that wasn't always the case: if we look a thousand years prior, or 2 thousand years prior, knowledge was being generated by Greek, Arab, or Chinese mathematicians. For instance, the concept of 0 arrived to Europe pretty late: http://www.livescience.com/27853-who-invented-zero.html http://www.livescience.com/27853-who-invented-zero.html So circling back to the original question of the importance of genetics vs environment: That the world's patches of knowledge has shifted across different cultures, peoples, and places over the last maybe 8 thousand years to me doesn't imply such a large importance on inherent genetic ability, and that time frame is too short for any evolutionary changes. Culture seems to be a much larger factor (and this is where I will concede that asian culture can stifle creativity). Culture is the main difference between the heads down religious conviction of the 9th century in Europe and the renaissance, not genetics.
- jernfrost 10y ago
  I also don't believe there is a genetic difference, however I think there is a clear cultural difference which favors westerners. Asian culture with its emphasis on harmony and respect for the elders does not IMHO foster radical innovation. A key problem for China is that it is united. This stifles competition in ideas of how to organize society. Europe has benefited tremendously from being divided. That has prevented Europe from stagnating the way China did for hundreds of years. One stupid ruler can bring down all of China. One stupid European leader can't bring down the whole of Europe. It is also false to consider Europe being a laggard in earlier times just because it was behind in maths and higher learning. One tends to think the Roman empire was so superior due to its progress in the arts and sciences. However medieval Europe saw far more progress in e.g. machinery and labour saving devices. Windmills, waterwheels, better plows etc was developed in this period. In the short term the unit of China reaped a lot of benefits in the form of having much more peace. Europe suffered many setbacks due to the frequency of wars. But in the long run this proved a benefit. The fierce competitive nature of westerners could not be countered by harmony focused asian cultures.
nl 10y ago
The top mathematicians are not Asian, just a fact. Those who awarded the Fields medal to Terrance Tao, Ngô Bảo Châu and Manjul Bhargava may disagree.

chillacy 10y ago

With regards to top mathematicians being male, it's understood that the variance in male IQ is much greater than for females, so men end up over-represented in both the top and bottom tiers of intelligence. But society factors do have an effect. In one study with asian american women asked to do a difficult math test, those primed to remember that they were asian did better than those primed reminded that they were female: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/1/80.abstract http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/1/80.abstract

DaniFong 10y ago
I'm sorry about nitpicking, as I think your heart is in the right place, but I believe you're incorrect regarding the variance in male IQ vs female. It is a conventionally believed thing, but I think it is conventionally misunderstood. The IQ tests don't even have validity well outside 2 s.d. (how could they without much more testing outside the sample?) It's not even a particularly valid statistical idea to be contemplating very high IQs beyond the normed values of the tests (how are they supposed to calibrate the scale?) nor is there good evidence that whatever the measures are that we're given are normally distributed. I have personally known several people with "measured IQs" above 200; that is statistically not supposed to happen. There are a lot of conceptual and practical problems with the idea of IQ. Regarding mathematical ability, please see this paper by the former USA IMO coach Titu Andreescu. http://www.ams.org/notices/200810/fea-gallian.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200810/fea-gallian.pdf They make a very good case for cultural specific factors in the development of mathematical skill, at least as far as Olympiad maths goes. The presence of women in the competition varies dramatically depending on the culture (and even the team)
- chillacy 10y ago
  Thanks for sharing data, that's a pretty good case for cultural factors making up a large part of the discrepancy, as I suspected. As for the IQ test variability, do you have any papers or research on that? Citation 19 in this wikipedia article doesn't seem to actually address the issue of variance, only the question of absolute ability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...

simosx 10y ago

There is a fixation that many things are genetic. Here is what Po-Shen Loh says in the article: "P-S.L.: I don’t want to say it’s genetic. A lot of people say you must be born with something very special. Maybe once in a while, you may see something like that. But people are basically the same."

yodsanklai 10y ago

> How much of mathematical intelligence genetic or environmental? It seems to be at least a fair amount genetic. That would be my guess too. For instance, in France, some of the most prestigious "schools" base their selections on maths. It's interesting to see some students that got all the possible help from their rich family (very best schools, tutors...) being totally outcompeted by kids that grew up in much less favored environment. With maths, it seems either you have it or you don't.

jernfrost 10y ago
Tutors and riches can't make up for lack of interest. If you look at top sports athletes many of those who reached the top did so because they had a motivation to train harder and longer than the rest. I remember a story about our best skier. She said her sister had more natural talent than her and was better. However her sister did not have the zeal for getting better and training hard, that is why she never became a top athlete. I think there is a lot of truth to this. I drew better than my peers and I tended to do better in math. But if I reflect on it, I'd say it was mostly about interest. I drew a lot of drawings as a kid and I obsessed a lot about problems which are mathematical in nature. I wanted to understand how things worked. It wasn't enough to just get the right answer. I had to know why it was right. The people I talk to who aren't very good at math typically strikes me as simply having no curiosity for why things work the way they do. They just want the answer and move on. My brother e.g. has no curiosity like that, but he was born with better math skills than me. He could always do mental arithmetic better than me e.g. But as soon as math started getting abstract he fell behind me. Ability simply can't carry you if you have no motivation, curiosity or desire. I believe "genes for math" is simply genes for having a personality that is curios and patient.

nabla9 10y ago

There is strong genetic factor for intelligence but it's not divided between races. Most human genetic variation happens between individuals. There are large regional differences between intelligence, but they are explained with environmental factors: 1. parasite load and infectious diseases are strongly negatively corrected with intelligence. This applies between different countries and between states in United States. 2. Nutrition, prenatal nutrition is very important. Intelligence correlates with height. Most likely common cause for this correlation is nutrition. 3. Then comes other things like culture etc. Natural abilities can be enhanced with hard work and cultural incentives. In some cultures mathematically gifted may become lawyers. Edward Witten got degree in history and became a journalist. He published articles in The New Republic and The Nation and worked in George McGovern's presidential campaign. His physics and math carer came later.

jernfrost 10y ago

Funny you should pick height, since it is a classic case for the influence of the environment. Large differences in height between countries today is primarily due to the environment. The dutch are the tallest today, but used to be the shortest in Europe. White Americans used to be far taller than Europeans but today Americans are relatively short in comparison to most European nations. Japanese used to among the shortest in the world but the young generation has almost caught up to the American average. As for math, why have Russia and the Soviet Union won so much if Asians have such advantage? They have much smaller population than China? Why does Hungary have so many wins? How many asian immigrants do you think they have? Considering the small population of Hungary they are completely outperforming China.

rajacombinator 10y ago

Genetics is a factor, but based on my observation of top math students environment (at home) is a much bigger factor.