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The curriculum *is* typically discussed, at least within departments, but there is no overall standard that all schools follow. And I agree that the content cannot be emphasized enough. smile

Maybe the idea is that you're supposed to get your source of wisdom outside of school, via parents, religious or secular organizations. Well, not all sources are equal. When you're young you have tons of people telling you what to think. There's peer pressure, and try that in combination with a question authority/question those different from you mentality and you get a lot of confusion.

And yet, there is a correlation; not an absolute one, but a statistical one, in which a significant portion of the Jewish and the South and East Asian populations shows higher levels of interest and competence at mathematics than would be expected via simple population density, i.e. the Jewish and Asian population is overrepresented in higher math classes and set of high-scoring students. There might not be any logic or reasoning behind this correlation, but nonetheless it exists.
Of course it would be ridiculous to try to ascribe absolutes to these populations; I know plenty of Asians who are terrible at mathematics. But nonetheless, of the people I know who are good at math, there are disproportionately many Asians and disproportionately many Jews, and there should be a reason why.
For instance, in the math department I'm in, of the first year students, one third of them are East Asian. We also have two South Asians and a Jew; this is altogether slightly more than half of the first years. Together, the East and South Asian and Jewish populations of the US do not comprise half of the US. So why are there so many of them in the math department? (Note: I'm actually cheating somewhat here. Can you guess why?)

Also, stop using the word logic; this is the physics and mathematics guild; we use proper terminology here, regardless of whatever layman colloquialism happens to be. Not only does logic not say what you claim it does, your first sentence is, according to itself, neither precise nor absolute and hence can be ignored.

Haha. I'm not quite sure if dropping a boulder on something would be accuracy, even if you hit it; yes you did hit the object, but what if you were only trying to hit a specific hole, I think it would be inaccurate at that point. Trying to hit a specific point defines accuracy; then again if you drop a boulder on it you hit it, making it a bit confusing.

Definitely not precise by any measure, however.





Anyways, disregarding that previous statement, there is definitely no proof so far as to how math skills are hereditary. That being said, I can't find anything proving that it isn't true.

I do have proof that Cultural influences largely reflect the math skills of a person, however. This story tells of how overhearing that someone else has better math skills becuase they are genetically linked to it causes them to do worse; essentially through the placebo effect. In another report, it's been shown that the interactions between different societies has lead for more advanced math skills to appear; such as some predetermined geographic area (listed as countries as they are at the current moment) not even understanding the concept of zero or algebra without the help from extraneous cultural influences. This article goes on to explain how math is developed and understood in different geopolitical areas of the world, and even has coined it's own name for this kind of study, 'ethnomathematics'.

Math skills seem to have strong genetic links, but not strong Hereditary links. Dyscalculia and Dyslexia are problems that can be caused by your environment or by genetics, or even simply as a 'birth defect'. Concurrently, a large range of people that suffer from Autism and Savant Syndrome tend to have more Advanced math skills, and both of these have appeared tbe genetically related. None of these however, according to what we've learned from studies so far, are caused by inheriting genes from a parent, I.E. they are not hereditary.

A possible reason for Why Asians are good at math is presented in this article, a clear example of how a mere difference in the system of language can cause a person to respond differently. This is a follow up article explaining any difficulties. Chinese Educational systems, or a large amount of Asians, is also highly influential in the math skills learned by these people. 25 Facts about their educational history, in a watered down version are presented here. Japanese Educational Systems are presented here.

In accordance with the Stereotypical 'Asians are good at Math', I shall present examples of how Asian Education presents people who are not good at math. The South Korean educational system appears to be highly dependent on whether someone was attending school or not; this directly related to math skills. The India Educational System promotes many statistics such as Woman being, statistically, worse at math and more likely to be illiterate than males. This of course has been linked to the fact that Woman in these countries often times do not attend schools, or schools at the same level of education as males do.

With this information, I find it hard to conclude any form of Hereditary relation to Asian People, and instead find that cultural influences and education are more likely to determine a person's ability in the mathematical realm, making it gargantuanly more probable that math skills are learned, and not inherited.

That is the sort of thing I had in mind, though I didn't know enough about where you attend to be specific.

Dismissing things as random isn't a very scientific viewpoint, especially if there is a statistically significant deviation that lasts for a while.

There aren't more white *****. What there are are fewer less harmful, socially acceptable outlets for ***** in the West so that more often it results in actual attempts at statutory rape and when it does occur it gets more media attention and more social backlash.

Rape is physically easier for men. Significantly. There's also a longstanding history of male social dominance wherein rape was socially acceptable in deed, if not in conversation.

Blood types are largely separated geographically and racially, and despite (extremely) recent social changes the races are still mostly separate. Hence AB is rare. The United States is rare in that we have sizable minority groups and moreover that there is significant mixing between these groups; very few other places have such populations.

These are not coincidences, and it's lazy, not reasonable, to assume that they're purely random. The first one isn't true and the latter two have reasons behind them which become obvious after even momentary investigation.

Dismissing things as "chance" is no better than dismissing things as supernatural; it's a sign of intellectual laziness and inability.

Some apples just fall. It's purely random chance that all of them happen to fall downward.

Wait a second. Exactly what do you mean when you distinguish between how and why? What exactly would constitute an answer for "why"?
When someone asks for an answer as to why hot things burn skin, the typical answer is that human skin is sensitive to heat and that heat tends to flow from hotter things to colder things. Is this an answer for how, or why?

"Why" is, at least as far as I understand the word, is asking for a cause-and-effect relation. "This is true, therefore this is true." People with blood-type A and people with blood-type B typically don't interbreed, therefore blood-type AB is rare. Is this a how or a why?