December 19, 2012

NYT debate on Unz's charges of anti-Asian quotas in Ivy League

Here's the debate in the New York Times on Ron Unz's research suggesting Ivy League colleges keep Asian numbers down and Jewish numbers up:
Fears of an Asian Quota in the Ivy LeagueWith a disproportionate number of Asian-American students acing standardized tests, are top colleges limiting the number they admit? Read More »DEBATERS
I haven't read through this yet, but a couple of quick points:

First, this shows the overwhelming importance of the New York Times as first mover in the mass media echo system in determining What Is, and What Isn't, News. College admissions is a topic of tremendous interest to the kind of people who write the news, and of some interest to the kind of people who read the news, but Unz's research wasn't news until the New York Times said it is. If you go to Google News and type in Unz college, you get three articles over the last three weeks before the NYT decided to feature it today:

I devote a fair amount of energy to critiques of New York Times coverage both because of its power, but also because it influence is by no means wholly undeserved. The NYT employs people smart enough to get it, and sometimes they do. For example, Nicholas Wade, the NYT genetics reporter, spent a decade dismantling the Clinton Era myth that Race Does Not Exist. I haven't seen any evidence of anybody apologizing for propagating bad science, but Wade's dogged work has taken a little of the wind out of the sails of the zeitgeist.

Second, the really interesting aspect of Unz's research is his inference that not only are Ivy League colleges discriminating against Asians, they seem to be discriminating in favor of Jews. Now, that's pretty interesting. But, that's only going to leak out as a secondary aspect of the now-approved story of discrimination against Asians.

P.S., I see a rumor that the New York Times will be for sale in 2013. I think it would be nuts for politically dependent billionaires (i.e., most billionaires) to evaluate buying the NYT solely based on net present value of cash flow. Do you think Carlos Slim regrets the money he spent bailing out the NYT in 2008? The Mexican telecom monopolist bought himself years of being not considered terribly newsworthy, while Americans who want to reduce the profits Slim makes on calls to and from illegal aliens were recurrently demonized. And any connection between Slim's bailout and the NYT's virulence against immigration skeptics is simply Not News.

Money well spent.

64 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve, I see that you commented on almost every single article. Kudos to you for the good work.

Anonymous said...

You're too kind to the NY Times. Unz's article has been out for weeks now -- is this what the Times calls "news"?

And while I agree there are some smart people at the Times their numbers have dwindled to pretty few.

Finally, I think it is appalling that a major story isn't news until the NY Times says it is. If you want to know what the f*** is wrong with the present US political system, start with that.

Congrats to Unz -- the NY Times is fishwrap.

bluegrass said...

"Now, that's pretty interesting. But, that's only going to leak out as a secondary aspect of the now-approved story of discrimination against Asians."

Common Steve, you know the drill. When Jews do bad things, they magically become bad White people.

cough, Bernie Madoff, cough......

White people will never understand this deceptively simple trickery: they're still too caught up trying to build up their anti-racism cred.

The real question though: will smart Asians read between the lines?

That's what matters. A brewing occult war between the burgeoning Asian elite against their increasingly decadent and declining Jewish American overlords could tear the NYT/AIPAC/SPLC political flux-capacitor to bits.

Hurray for racist White people! This might give us a chance to walk away while China occupies Israel or something.

bdoran said...

You're loving this, aren't you?

I can't wait to see the comments on FrontPage.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the NYT is all-powerful but why?

Anonymous said...

So the two SE Asians are in favor of AA? It's interesting that the people in favor of AA can't even get on the same page.

One claims higher levels of poverty among SE Asians justifies AA. Really? I thought the debate was about discrimination based on race, not income.

Two say the holistic approach is used. Again, I thought the debate was about race, not just test scores. Are they suggesting that East Asians, who are known to game the process, don't have any extracurricular activities?

No, they are saying Whites and East Asians don't have enough extracurricular melanin.

Anonymous said...

Steve, I come to this site everyday because, well, I enjoy it. But practically everything you write about pisses me off!

Kibernetika said...

Even Pinker's extended family hasn't read Pinker?

Jeff W. said...

If they are discriminating against Asians, it can only mean one thing: they have too many non-Jewish whites.

They'll have to take some of the spots they are now wasting on the non-Jewish whites and give them to the Asians.

International Jew said...

As a sign of minimal consideration to Ron Unz, you'd think the _Times_ could have found maybe _one_ person who'd actually engage his arguments? Of the people they found: one accuses Unz of bad faith ("parties that have rarely shown their concern for Asian-Americans in other contexts"); one trots out some official Harvard boilerplate about "no quotas" and (joined by one of the others) our-system-is-too-subtle-for-you-mortals-to-understand; and the Brittain-Kallenberg pair do the "don't look here, look over there" dance.

Aaron Gross said...

I didn't read Unz's original TAC article because it was Too Long, so this factoid in his NYT article really surprised me: In 1925, 28% of Harvard freshman were Jewish (if I understood Unz right). What does this say about causes of Jewish so-called "over-representation" in elite universities?

Kevin MacDonald has made a really idiotic argument about that: the proportion of Jewish students at elite universities is much higher than predicted by Jewish IQ, therefore it's not explained by IQ, therefore it's explained by a combination of IQ and "Jewish networking." I'm not exaggerating; that's really his argument. Anyway, a parsimonious explanation of Jewish so-called over-representation would have to explain today's numbers, and also 1925 numbers where 28% of Harvard freshmen were Jews. Parsimonious doesn't mean best, but I'd think any explanation of today's numbers would have to at least address the historical numbers as well.

Tom Regan said...

I can foresee a few terse dinner-table conversations between Jewish men and their Asian brides. The likes of Zuckerberg might want to let this one pass.

DaveinHackensack said...

As a New York Times critic and observer, what do you make of the recent bucket of cold water they poured on Corey Booker? The powers that be knee-capping a potential 2016 Hillary rival? Dinging Booker for not fixing Newark seems churlish, but the NYT just legitimized that angle of attack for future opponents.

sunbeam said...

"But, that's only going to leak out as a secondary aspect of the now-approved story of discrimination against Asians. "

That has some pretty interesting implications if you think about it.

Might get even worse for flyover country as regards getting into Harvard.

Anonymous said...

Of course, the whole issue of the apparent new, pro-Jewish quotas at elite colleges is completely omitted from the NY Times debate.

And is there a more mendacious phrase than "holistic admission"? If such a BS term was used to discriminate in favor of some non-protected group, liberals would have a field day with it, but when it's used to promote their own diversity agenda, it's a-okay.

Jimbo Slice said...

How pathetic are the dissenting responses? People invested in the current system have yet to realize that droning on about "holistic" admissions is about as serious as a Republican repeatedly invoking "equality of opportunity" as a defense of yawning income disparities.

Anonymous said...

therefore it's explained by a combination of IQ and "Jewish networking." I'm not exaggerating; that's really his argument.

Are you suggesting Jews don't network?

but I'd think any explanation of today's numbers would have to at least address the historical numbers as well.

You're right. In addition, the representation of Asian and affirmative action admits need to be taken into consideration.

One way to look at it is what percentage of Jews make up the White admits today, compared to 1925.

Anonymous said...

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy.html

72% asians in maths olympiad teams, wow!

Anonymous said...

unz quoted by kevin macD

Many of the Jewish writers who focus on the history of elite university admissions … rebuked the America of the first half of the Twentieth Century for having been governed by a narrow WASP ascendency, which overwhelmingly dominated and controlled the commanding heights of business, finance, education, and politics; and some of their criticisms are not unreasonable. But we should bear in mind that this dominant group of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants—largely descended from among the earliest American settlers and which had gradually absorbed and assimilated substantial elements of Celtic, Dutch, German, and French background— was generally aligned in culture, religion, ideology, and ancestry with perhaps 60 percent of America’s total population at the time, and therefore hardly represented an alien presence. By contrast, a similarly overwhelming domination by a tiny segment of America’s current population, one which is completely misaligned in all these respects, seems far less inherently stable, especially when the institutional roots of such domination have continually increased despite the collapse of the supposedly meritocratic justification. This does not seem like a recipe for a healthy and successful society, nor one which will even long survive in anything like its current form. Power corrupts and an extreme concentration of power even more so, especially when that concentration of power is endlessly praised and glorified by the major media and the prominent intellectuals which together constitute such an important element of that power.

balls of steel or scots-irish cred?

Anonymous said...

Anyway, a parsimonious explanation of Jewish so-called over-representation would have to explain today's numbers, and also 1925 numbers where 28% of Harvard freshmen were Jews. Parsimonious doesn't mean best, but I'd think any explanation of today's numbers would have to at least address the historical numbers as well.

An obvious explanation is that in 1925 few people other than upper class East Coast WASPs and Jews even applied to Harvard. Read The Bell Curve where it is explained how few high-IQ individuals went to college at all in those days. Harvard's applicant pool is nowadays the entire nation, if not the entire world, so obviously you cannot compare today's numbers to 1925.

x said...

so no mention of anti-white discrimination, then?

Anonymous said...

"Aaron Gross said,

Kevin MacDonald has made a really idiotic argument about that: the proportion of Jewish students at elite universities is much higher than predicted by Jewish IQ, therefore it's not explained by IQ, therefore it's explained by a combination of IQ and "Jewish networking." I'm not exaggerating; that's really his argument."

Isn't that the gist of Unz's essay...? I mean what other inference can one draw from mediocre test scores of Jews relative to Whites... According to Unz's essay Whites should be 75% of admissions to Harvard not 25%, if test scores alone were used.

Oh I see Whites are not applying to Harvard ...or is it holistic admissions ...I forget.

Bigfoot said...

"Anonymous said

balls of steel or scots-irish cred?"

It's both!

You know it's like the old commercial for Shimmer Floor Wax

It's a dessert topping and a floor wax!

Shimmer Floor Wax | Video | Saturday Night Live | NBC
www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/...floor-wax/1056743

Anonymous said...

For me, the take away from this is that Whites, East Asians, and a handful of foreigners who aren't made of money admitted to the Ivys are truly gifted and should be commended.

Anonymous said...

Thomas Sowell once suggested that we actually look at which college students do best: the ones picked entirely on academic merit, or the ones picked on other considerations, like the college not wanting to be too white, too Asian, too "nerdy", or simply wanting to get future donors or sports trophies. (Yes, those "other considerations" are all strongly linked.)

Obviously, that would mean articulating what we mean by who does better, and what exactly the admissions staff are looking for. (Finding that out would be easy, but articulating it would be awkward for a lot of people.) But it would be truly fascinating to see which method works best, and what exactly the colleges are trying to achieve.

Added bonus for leftists: they could, like, totally prove that AA admissions do just as well, right? Right?

Mashie said...

It's all about money.

The rich and liberal applicants are the best because they go to college for status, and the poor and conservative applicants are the worst because they go to college to make money.

A liberal gets a degree from the ivy league and stays around to socialize.

A conservative gets a degree and moves to a job out of state and starts a family in the suburbs.

I would guess that despite voting liberal, when it comes to their own money Asians behave conservatively.

Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that the one East Asian female debater defends the Ivies, while the East Asian male agrees with Unz. Perhaps that reflects the different status of Asian males and females in our society. Also, the Asian female can always marry White and have her offspring hide their ancestry when it is beneficial to do so. That option is not as readily available to the Asian male.

Anonymous said...

It has been pointed out to me that Jewish male / Asian female couples are becoming much more prevelant (Zuckerberg, the Tiger Mom, etc.). Jewish men, for whatever reason, have always outmarried at a much higher rate than Jewish women. But the trend is moving away from the usual Jewish male / White Gentile female coupling and towards Jewish male / Asian female couples. Not sure if this is indicative if anything larger. Perhaps Jews are perceiving that the future is going to be more and more dominated by Asians, and it better now to form their usual, er, "symbiotic" relationships with Asians rather than with WASPs.

Anonymous said...

Have the comments on the articles been removed? There don't appear to be any currently.

Jessie said...

Um, all universities should have racial qoutas because there are more worthy applicants then there are seats and this should be the standard to prevent discrimination. bottom line, meritocracy works but still they can not accept every single student who applies now can they. EQUALITY should be and is the golden standard. Equal number of students admitted from each ethnic group that applies each year (corresponding to number that applies and meets the requirements)
what exactly is cockamamie about that? nothing. From what I gather the complaint is that white people no longer have a monopoly on the higher education and their god-given privilege of white.

NEWFLASH: America is and never was a white country. If I am not mistaken it was ironically built on the backs of those who are the exact opposite hue of them ..so why exactly should they have special treatment?

Kylie said...

"Steve, I come to this site everyday because, well, I enjoy it. But practically everything you write about pisses me off!"

Yes. It's all I can do to read about most of the things Steve writes about. I sure don't have the equanimity* to write about them.

*Along with all the other stuff I don't have.

wwwww said...

unz also wrote non jewish whites were discriminated against. that is not commented on. mit and cal tech do not have as many jews as the ivy league.

peterike said...

I think it's pretty clear that Jews get preferential treatment because:

1. So many of the people making the selections are Jewish. Say what you will about Jews, but they do root root root for the home team. And they root virulently against certain groups deemed too white or too Christian or too Conservative.

2. Jews write big fat checks to the alma mater. I don't think Asians are especially known for their philanthropy (maybe they haven't figured out yet that they can get their names on a shiny new building). So it directly serves the schools financial interests -- which are enormous -- to graduate those who will send them lots of money.

Maybe I'm wrong about Asian philanthropy but I don't recall ever seeing much about it. Jews are famous for it, naturally, because it is one of the highest forms of Status Whoring.

Anonymous said...

Quantity does not translate into quality. Just because the number of applicants is greater doesn't mean the talent is more abundant. Bottom line, with or without quotas, if elite colleges keep excluding the best students, eventually they will no longer be elite, at least not by previous standards.

rob said...

Aaron, if you're having trouble understanding the concept of networking, perhaps you can think of it as institutional semitism.

Anonymous said...

This whole debate is based on the false premise that Jews are not Asian. Call a spade a spade--that Jews in fact are from Asia--and we quickly see that Asians are not underrepresented or discriminated against at Ivy League schools in the least.

Anonymous said...

It isn't fair that Jews are able to choose to be in whatever quota suits them at whatever time and circumstance. No one else has that privilege. In this case, they get to be in the largest quota, that of European Americans. Either Jews should be classified as Asians for these purposes or an additional quota should be established for them.

Notice that Jews join a quota when it receives benefits: for example, as here, "European" happens to be the largest quota for academic representation in good schools; or they join the "Jewish" quota when belonging to it means gaining ownership rights to a nice seaside property on the Eastern Mediterranean. But Jews will step out of a quota where that quota may owe something. For example, where there is some guilt for past treatment of blacks in the United States, Jews are no longer white. See Mike Wallace interview with Morgan Freeman.

Anonymous said...

Of course, the whole issue of the apparent new, pro-Jewish quotas at elite colleges is completely omitted from the NY Times debate.

It's completely omitted from Ron Unz's NYT piece. Is he in on the conspiracy too?

Anonymous said...

That's the benefit for liberals of using meaningless racial categories instead of ethnic ones. Give all the white spots to Jews and yet still be able to say the student body is appropriately "diverse" because the racial background of the students roughly reflects the US as a whole. It is as ridiculous as if the majority of "black" students were Kenyans or Jamaicans or Ethiopians instead of American blacks.

Harvard is obviously if not openly Jewish supremacist. It was understood that the doctorate program at the law school, which consists of foreign students, would be majority Israeli for no particular reason.

Anon#10 said...

I would like to see some explanations,
better by White gentiles,
and by the Jews,
and by SE Asians,
and by Steve Sailer,
of the following.

Unz has thoroughly documented
(not put forward a hypothesis, not conjectured,
but documented)
the decrease
of formal academic achievements of Jews
at High School level,
at PSAT tests, at various Olympiads etc.,
during the last 3 or 4 decades.

What is the explanation of that documented decrease?

Severn said...

You're too kind to the NY Times. Unz's article has been out for weeks now -- is this what the Times calls "news"?


The piece by Unz was itself mostly just a roundup of various studies from the last few years. But that goes to the question of how anything becomes "news".

More people are killed by illegal immigrants in America each day then were killed in Sandy Hook - but the latter is Big News while the former is off limits for mention, let alone discussion. It's not called the "Gatekeeper Media" for nothing. A big part of what the MSM sees as its job is deciding what should and what should not be open to debate.

It appears that talking about discrimination against Asians may now be allowed - but talking about the discrimination against non-Jewish whites is still off limits. And talking about preferential treatment for Jews is double-plus ungood.

Svigor said...

I didn't read Unz's original TAC article because it was Too Long, so this factoid in his NYT article really surprised me: In 1925, 28% of Harvard freshman were Jewish (if I understood Unz right). What does this say about causes of Jewish so-called "over-representation" in elite universities?

Kevin MacDonald has made a really idiotic argument about that: the proportion of Jewish students at elite universities is much higher than predicted by Jewish IQ, therefore it's not explained by IQ, therefore it's explained by a combination of IQ and "Jewish networking." I'm not exaggerating; that's really his argument. Anyway, a parsimonious explanation of Jewish so-called over-representation would have to explain today's numbers, and also 1925 numbers where 28% of Harvard freshmen were Jews. Parsimonious doesn't mean best, but I'd think any explanation of today's numbers would have to at least address the historical numbers as well.


You left out the part where you explain to those of us who weren't born Jewish, and thus lack the inherent certainty that your point-and-sputter approach is sufficient.

How pathetic are the dissenting responses? People invested in the current system have yet to realize that droning on about "holistic" admissions is about as serious as a Republican repeatedly invoking "equality of opportunity" as a defense of yawning income disparities.

Come again? Equality of opportunity is reality (insofar as AA and other PC racism isn't belying it), while "holistic admissions" is a euphemism for ethnic nepotism.

Anonymous said...

Steve, I get the feeling you've been reading the NYT pretty consistently for the past 3 or 4 decades.

In your opinion, has the paper improved or gotten worse during that time period?

Did the NYT of the 1980's (for example) have more integrity than today's paper? Has the quality of journalism changed?

Anonymous said...

More people are killed by illegal immigrants in America each day then were killed in Sandy Hook.

Can you cite actual statistics for this?

Anonymous said...

Unz has thoroughly documented
(not put forward a hypothesis, not conjectured,
but documented)
the decrease
of formal academic achievements of Jews
at High School level,
at PSAT tests, at various Olympiads etc.,
during the last 3 or 4 decades.

What is the explanation of that documented decrease?


Rising levels of competition from Mongoloids, Indians, and Europeans as a consequence of mass immigration. There are simply many more people in the United States than there were. Success is partly a function of access to opportunity. And access is often a finite quantity, for example, places in Harvard's freshman class.

Anonymous said...

Maybe I'm wrong about Asian philanthropy but I don't recall ever seeing much about it. Jews are famous for it, naturally, because it is one of the highest forms of Status Whoring.

Asians aren't that wealthy. They're underrepresented on the top wealth lists, whereas Jews are very wealthy and are overrepresented on the top wealth lists:

isteve.blogspot.com/2012/07/forbes-400-by-ethnicity.html

Presumably Asians tend to have high or above average incomes, but income isn't the same as wealth. You need wealth to engage in philanthropy.

peterike said...

NEWFLASH: America is and never was a white country. If I am not mistaken it was ironically built on the backs of those who are the exact opposite hue of them...

NEW(s)FLASH: you're an idiot.

Portio said...

I haven't been reading Ron Unz sorts of articles. Really, where is the new news from it? We already know this stuff blatantly has been going on. This is just the latest in a long string of trying to get the libs to drop AA and disparate impact out of the fairness principle. We can't use whites, because darnit, as everyone knows all whites are born with Satan flowing through their veins, so who cares about them anyway?

But we can point to Asians and say," see, this stuff mistreats Asians".

The problems is, so what? Elites and NAMs already operate out of emotion and not logic. This sort of argument appeals to conservatives, but its just preaching to the choir.
















ben tillman said...

Kevin MacDonald has made a really idiotic argument about that: the proportion of Jewish students at elite universities is much higher than predicted by Jewish IQ, therefore it's not explained by IQ, therefore it's explained by [a combination of IQ and] "Jewish networking." I'm not exaggerating; that's really his argument.

Firsst, the bracketed text that you included results in a moronic bad-fath mischaracterization of the argument. Without the brackets, though, this is an argument that Unz also makes, and the argument is sound. What the hell are you talking about?

Anyway, a parsimonious explanation of Jewish so-called over-representation would have to explain today's numbers, and also 1925 numbers where 28% of Harvard freshmen were Jews.

Uh, no, it wouldn't. Two different phenomena get two different explanations. Where do you come up with this crap?

But you want an explanation that explains both? Euro-Americans don't discriminate in their own favor to the extent Jews do.

Anonymous said...

This is just the latest in a long string of trying to get the libs to drop AA and disparate impact out of the fairness principle.

Why is Unz campaigning against AA and disparate impact? Eliminating such things would not directly benefit the diverse white Americans.

It might indirectly, however, because it would swat elite blacks off the teat of the globalizers. If such a thing happened, the blacks might end up joining forces with whites to oppose the migrant influx and the displacement of both traditional American peoples.

Anonymous said...

What is the explanation of that documented decrease?

They know they can get by on networking alone. How nice it is to be the WASP.

Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that the one East Asian female debater defends the Ivies, while the East Asian male agrees with Unz.

She's not East Asian. I know it's difficult with the whole eyes thing, but if an Asian woman is darker than a typical Alpine male, she is most likely SE Asian.

Anonymous said...

Those asking what's new in Unz have obviously not read his article. I believe that Unz's piece was the first in depth study to point out that Jewish overperformance on the NMS, Math Olympiad, etc. was collapsing at the same time that Jewish representation began to expand in the Ivy League. The mirror image is that the number and quality of Asian applicants spiked just when the Ivies created a de facto quota on Asians.

Anonymous said...

Just read through many of the comments on the NYT piece.

For some of the written debate pieces, you can sort comments by NYT picks.

From reading the comments that the Times chose to highlight, it shows clearly what they want us to think.

Anonymous said...

I generally lump SE Asians in with NE Asians in the whole "East Asian" category for simplicity's sake, and to distinguish them from Indians. I am aware of the physical differences between the two. NE Asians are more pure Mongoloid, while SE Asians have varying degrees of Australoid mixed in.

Anonymous said...

"She's not East Asian. I know it's difficult with the whole eyes thing, but if an Asian woman is darker than a typical Alpine male, she is most likely SE Asian."

Do South Asians / Pacific Islanders get lumped in with North/East Asians or are they taken separately in college admissions?

I would assume that they are lobbying for a separate category if they don't already have one.

M said...

Steve,

OT Steve but: Any interest in talking about the Israel breakdowns on the TIMSS?

e.g. -

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4318453,00.html

"while Jewish Israeli eighth graders scored 536 in math and 530 in science, their Arab counterparts scored 465 in math and 481 in science."

(the Arab score is closer to Norway than Norway is to England....)

unfortunately I can't find any separation of the Ashkenaz from the Sephard and Mizrahi.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163064#.UNS_XG83Y1Y
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/wordplay-did-the-israeli-education-minister-do-his-maths-correctly-or-is-it-just-greek-to-him.premium-1.486328

"The next highest scoring Middle Eastern countries were United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Lebanon, scoring 23rd, 24th, and 25th respectively."

" Hebrew-speaking Israeli students were ranked seventh internationally in math, for example, their Israeli Arab counterparts were ranked 21st"

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=296174

"a reassessment of the data shows some problems remain with the results
...
it was also explained that the haredi school system, which represents one of the country’s weakest, was not included in the testing

the percentage of students achieving very high scores on that same test is also much lower in Israel than in other countries"


...

Other thoughts about the TIMSS:

Interesting for me as well that the Thais are still hanging around with the Georgians and Armenians.
There has been talk over at Chuck's Occidental Ascent blog about a rising Thai score and a "pan Mongoloid advantage" which certainly does not seem to be evidence here.

Another thing - nice work by the Portuguese getting a better overall score than the Germans!

M said...

I generally lump SE Asians in with NE Asians in the whole "East Asian" category for simplicity's sake, and to distinguish them from Indians. I am aware of the physical differences between the two. NE Asians are more pure Mongoloid, while SE Asians have varying degrees of Australoid mixed in.

The modern day picture is a little more complicated -

- there are clearly pure Mongoloid South East Asians like the Lahus and Dai, who don't have any contribution from South Asian or Australasian like populations at all.

these groups just do not show up as admixed with any kind of South Asian / Australasian Australoid type people at all (their relatedness to Papuans and South Asians in terms of allele frequencies is absolutely not different from e.g. Japs).

(Lahus -

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2201/2084259864_189d39272a.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3637/3411718724_784675c7e6_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7020/6833486187_4749339cff_b.jpg

Dais -

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2663/4164157086_26819739f4_b.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3427/3987439021_ac1951d65d_b.jpg)

- and there are also groups who clearly do have contributions from South Asian (both "Aryan" ANI and "Dravidian" ASI) and Australasian populations, such as the Cambodians and Burmese, and Malays

where e.g. Thais, Hmong, Viets and Filipinos (who represent the bulk of South East Asian Americans) sit on this axis is not really clear.

Han Chinese seem to be found by the cutting edge admixture analysis programs and cluster analysis as an even mix of pure Mongoloid South East Asian (e.g. like Dai people) and pure Mongoloid North East Asian (e.g. like Japanese and Korean people)

e.g. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.2555.pdf

"Han Chinese have an optimal placement as an approximately equal mixture of two ancestral East Asian populations, one related to modern Dai (likely more southerly) and one related to modern Japanese (likely more northerly)"

How smart the admixed Mongoloid South East Asians are relative to the admixed Mongoloid South East Asians is not clear.

They certainly don't seem anywhere near as dynamic as the Han Chinese or especially intelligent, by the standards of the Europe or the Middle East or India (another the Ao Nagas of India have impeccably Mongoloid genetics, but don't seem to be considered smart by the Bengalis who neighbour Nagaland, even when compared to other Indian tribals).

Anonymous said...

Do South Asians / Pacific Islanders get lumped in with North/East Asians or are they taken separately in college admissions?

I would assume that they are lobbying for a separate category if they don't already have one.


I think it largely depends on the college. But, on the Common Application that many colleges use and also on the University of California application, after one ticks Asian/Asian-American, you are then expected to tick off your ethnicity from a half page's worth of choices.

The most selective universities lump all ethnic Chinese national origins, Japanese, Koreans, and East Indians/Pakistanis into the same cohort for admissions.

Pacific Islanders and other Asian ethnicities usually get preferential consideration (AA).

Jonathan J. said...

"This whole debate is based on the false premise that Jews are not Asian. Call a spade a spade--that Jews in fact are from Asia--and we quickly see that Asians are not underrepresented or discriminated against at Ivy League schools in the least."

If you guys want to call yourselves Asians now after driving the white label into the ground then feel free, but at least do us the favor of being consistent in your labeling and officially switching your category on government docs, admissions to colleges, etc.

And it wouldn't hurt your case to have a recent ancestor who actually lived in Asia, either...

M said...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4318453,00.html

"while Jewish Israeli eighth graders scored 536 in math and 530 in science, their Arab counterparts scored 465 in math and 481 in science."

(the Arab score is closer to Norway than Norway is to England....)

unfortunately I can't find any

separation of the Ashkenaz from the Sephard and Mizrahi.


To quote myself and expand on this further, even though there is no breakdown, I did a little calculation -

Ashkenazis and all other Jews put together each both basically constitute about an even 50% of Jewish Israeli population, based on wiki's demographic assessments.

So to get the mean Jewish Israeli score of 536 maths and 530 science, then...

a) if the other Jewish Israelis have the Arab Israeli level of ability (465 math, 481 science), then Ashkenazi Israelis have 600 math and 590 science (equal Chinese Taipei)

b) if the other Jewish Israelis have Swedish level of ability (484 math), then Ashkenazi Israelis have 590 math and 560 science (equal Hong Kong China)

c) if the other Jews have Rumanian level of ability (458 math), then Ashkenazi Israelis have 610 math and 590 science (equal Republic of Korea)

d) if the other Jews have Italian level of ability (498 math), then Ashkenazi Israelis have 570 math and 550 science (equal Japan)

It basically seems like if we assume the other Jews perform either at a range of European abilities or the Arab Israeli ability, then the Ashkenazis perform at the East Asian level of ability, ranging from Japan to Korea through China, depending on the European group the other Jews are equated to.

No evidence for super duper Ashkenazi math IQ chops here - as we would expect from their fearsome Fields and Nobel credentials - but equally no evidence for it being below the East Asians, both in their own countries. Or a decline in Ashkenazi ability.

Although this all depends on the assumption that the other Jews are not = Ashkenazis, as per Cochrain and Harpending.

Sword said...

First test of existence of an Asian quota:

Find a lot of biracial applicants. In order to make relevant comparisons, only study those that have one European and one East Asian parent, and the applicant has been living with his/her married parents all his/her life.

Then divide those applicants into 2 groups:
1. Those that have European family names
2. Those that have Asian family names.

As groups, those groups should be quite similar with the exception of the family names. If the Ivies have a hidden maximum quota on asians, and are crude about it, one can predict that there will be significantly more accepted applicants from group #1 than from #2.

This has the added benefit that it can be checked to the 1st order just with the access to a yearbook, and a student that knows some kids.

Sword said...

More through test of quotas:

Organize a sociological research group, to which university applicants send in copies of the application papers, their demographic data, and wether they were accepted or not to various universities.

Then one can reverse-engineer the data, and find out the major determinants of acceptance/refusal.

A few limitations, though:
1. One will get much fewer data points than the real applications
2. The data set will be skewed in some way, but one can not know how beforehand
3. There is probably a whole lot of noise in the "Holistic" part of the application treatment, which means that minor factors in the application formula can not be sussed out.

Problems #1-2 can possibly be fixed with a freedom of information request, if someone manages to figure out an angle.

Demo King said...

"Jonathan J. said...

"This whole debate is based on the false premise that Jews are not Asian. Call a spade a spade--that Jews in fact are from Asia--and we quickly see that Asians are not underrepresented or discriminated against at Ivy League schools in the least."

If you guys want to call yourselves Asians now after driving the white label into the ground then feel free, but at least do us the favor of being consistent in your labeling and officially switching your category on government docs, admissions to colleges, etc.

And it wouldn't hurt your case to have a recent ancestor who actually lived in Asia, either..."



- Everything you wrote is true, but the problem is- why would they do that when they can currently have their cake and eat it too?