Ngô Bảo Châu won the Clay Research Award in 2004. He was also a two time gold medalist in the IMO's. Note: The gold medals at the IMO's are useless. The Clay Prize is very prestigious. Though not as prestigious as a Nobel or a Fields Medal, it is certainly equivalent to a Nobel. (On average, a Fields medalist is probably more brilliant than a Nobel laureate. Aside from the Nobel Peace and Lit prizes, Nobels are really experiment oriented awards, with theoreticians only winning a fraction of the time. Theoretical physicists are without question the smartest guys around--mathematicans follow closely behind... There's tons of über brilliant theoretical physicists who will never come close to winning a Nobel.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%E1%BA%A3o-Ch%C3%A2u_Ng%C3%B4
---wiki page on the Ngô.

I always get rather ill when I read about Viet guys like this.

O well, c'est la vie.

On the flip side, I also get quite motivated by such exploits. I fully expect more and more Vietnamese to join the ranks of these lofty award winners in the decades to come. Every now and again, I come across Vietnamese names working in fields like string theory and the various fields of Math.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Research_Award
---wiki page on the Clay prize.

Note that the truly luminous Ed Witten is also a winner of the Clay Award. Witten is no doubt the most brilliant physicist, and quite possibly, also the most brilliant mathematician alive. Witten makes Hawking look like a punk.

Funny, but it seems that all the great Chinese mathematicians, i.e. Shiing-Shen Chern, Shing-Tung Yau, and Terence Tao are southern Chinese. That is, they are all descendants of the Yueh. Yueh power, Viet power! (BTW, it's my personal theory that a lot of the Cantonese are actually the descendants of the Lac Viet... Both Yau and Tao are in fact Cantonese. I've heard of anecdotal tales of how the ruling elite in northern China used to keep down the southern provinces by putting caps/quotas on the number of degrees awarded to people taking the civil service examinations. Recall that Vietnam was a Chinese province for over 1000 years. They did this supposedly because they feared the southerners were overrepresented amongst degree holders, and hence, also the holders of powerful governmental positions. Even now, it is the southern Chinese who are economically dominant, rather than their northern bethren.)

Chern's work is monunmentally important to modern mathematics. He's arguably THE heir apparent to none other than the towering Gauss, himself (or at least along with Michael Atiyah & Andre Weil). Yau actually studied under Chern. Both their works are critical to modern cosmology, Hawking's work in particular, Big Bang Theory & whatnot. Chern died in 2004 at 93. Yau is 58 and still at Harvard. Tao is 32, and is quite impressive too. Frankly, I don't think that our boy Ngô is at their level, but then again, there's about 3 million Viet diaspora worldwide vs about 50-60 million overseas Chinese, including the formerly Brit controlled Hong Kong, worldwide. And they seem to only produce one great one every 35 years or so, despite coming having a presence in the US since before the 1850's. We've only been here since 1975. The Europeans and the Jews in particular, produce a guy like this practically every fricken year. Their list of brilliant theoreticians is ridiculously long.

It'll be a while before we catch up to westerners.

P.S. At any rate, thank God, he, i.e. Ngô, is not a Nguyen!

Speaking of IQ Intelligence,

the Jews in USA and Europe are the highest, which is around 110 to 130.

Next are East Asians which is around 105.

Caucasians in USA and Europe is around 100.

Speaking of Vietnamese, we are around 95.


We are not as united as the other groups above,

therefore our divisiveness decreases our IQ Intelligence also

because when we fight each other, we have less time to help

each other to become more intelligent.

Jews are around 108-110 according to Lynn. According to Hernnstein & Murray ("Bell Curve" sh!theads) Jewish IQ is about 116-117, with the all important verbal IQ at about 122.

The Vietnamese IQ was 96 according to Lynn in 2003, i.e. "IQ and the Wealth of Nations". In his new book, 2006, he claims it is 94. His 2003 estimate was based on not a single study. I don't know where he gets the new 94 number from. Israel is 94 btw, russia is 96.

There's study on Vietnamese and Korean studies that showed Vietnamese orphans had IQ's of about 110. An Australian study showed Vietnamese Australians to have the same IQ's as whites, i.e. 100. A Vietnamese study put it a 101 about 3 years ago, but this was not Flynn adjusted. Nutrition and education are key factors in IQ.

Lynn's wife is Chinese. He's notorious for cooking the books (spuriously manipulating otherwise neutral data) and accepting "research" money from white supremacist groups. In particularly, he's cooked the books against Vietnamese in his own studies. He's also done a lousy job with Greek IQ, etc. Perhaps he has a lot of self-hatred for being a white supremacist who married a Chinese woman, so he has to come up with a grandiose theory about high East Asian IQ to placate his fellow wigga's who think that all non-whites are low IQ monkeys. He just revised his estimate for N. Korea as having 106 IQ, which is a pathetic joke. 2 million N. Koreans just died of starvation just a few years ago, and there were rampant rumors of cannibalism. Under such extreme conditions, 106 IQ is all but impossible. N. Korean males are litterally 6-8 inches shorter than they're S. Korean bethren. 200 years ago and earlier, when all populations worldwide were largely uneducated, illiterate and poor, practically groups had collective IQ's in the 75-85 range. And yet England still produced two of the most brilliant men of all time, namely Shakespeare and Newton, among many others! I don't see any N. Korean Newtons or Shakespeares despite Lynn's 106 estimate.

IQ studies of East Asian Americans during the 1950's and 1960's all showed scores of about 98 or lower. Recent immigrants, i.e. post 1960, H1-B visas, etc., are elite. Even then, their IQ's are typically about 103-104.

There are a lot of proxy measures of IQ, social economic status, income, GPA, SAT scores, etc. But be careful how you read these things.

Lastly, East Asian IQ is heavily related to their pictograms.





Recall that Vietnamese used to used pictograms up into WWII, correct me if I'm wrong. I think we just lost a few visuo-spatial IQ points when we dropped it. Ha ha.

Anyway, if Vietnam wants IQ to be increased, it needs to improve the living standards of her people.


If the country is developed, then IQ would be increased.

The reversal must be more adequate: If the IQ were high, then it would help improve living standards by empowering the capabilities of self servicing and creativity. Freedom and well-being never are granted, these must be acquired through intelligence and wisdom.

Be cautious about nationalism. It could lead to dictatorship.

^ No.

SoCal's assertion is far, far, far more correct. Besides, are you now saying that Vietnam is poor because Vietnam has low IQ? And further, that Vietnam and all other 3rd world countries are condemned to always be poor, since as you are clearly suggesting one can use the enviroment itself (i.e. a country's infrastructure, educational system, productivity, GDP, PPP, etc.) as a proxy measure for IQ (in other words, people who live in squalor are obviously stupid...) and that low IQ people simply don't have enough sense to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?!?

If so, then you don't know your history. To say the least...

1. The Flynn Effect => greater nutrition and education (or equivalently wealth) will result in "secular" (non-genetic) increases in IQ. A good analogy here is height: Populations with good nutrition grow taller and taller--up to their genetic potential. Dutch men who are now the tallest men in the world at 6'2" to 6'3" were once the among the shortest people in the world at about 5'2" about 200 years ago. (Of course, during Roman times, the Aryan/Germanic tribesmen avereaged about 6') Go back to 150-200 years and every group's/country's IQ was about 75. Back then people were largely poor, practically all uneducated, and largely illiterate peasants.

People suffering from malnutrition will be shorter than what they should otherwise be. Likewise, people suffering from malnutrition and have access to a lousy educational system will have lower IQ. It is a known fact that iodine deficiencies can result in an lower IQ of 10-16 points. Lead poisoning will also significantly lower IQ. Kids who eat a balanced breakfast do better on their exams. Etc. Etc.

Vietnamese Australians have an IQ equal to white Australians, i.e. 100. Since the boat people are highly representative of the population back in the old country, and if population back home has lower IQ, then it means they are suffering from poor conditions.

2. So how do we get around this chicken 'n egg connundrum, where as you are (misguidedly) suggesting one must raise IQ in order to raise standards of living? Answer: HARD WORK. (This goes to the heart of my Weberian hypothesis on the role culture btw...) What you lack in intelligence, you can make up in hard work. There are a lot of variables in life. IQ is just one of them, albeit a crucial one, but it is not the be all & end all of success. Vietnamese have a strong work ethic. Just look at Vietnam historically, and the how the Vietnamese diaspora are doing worldwide. Compare it to the Chinese-Vietnamese diaspora and also to the mostly non-elite Chinese immigrants, who were all voluntary btw, before the age of the H1-B visas--before the 1960's. We measure up to these two respective groups quite well.

As long as we keep up with the general population of the respective countries in which we reside, then we are doing fine. And this is exactly the case everywhere: We are either matching whites (e.g. US, Canada, Australia, etc.) or are outright beating them (e.g. France, Norway, etc.)

Further, it's not really a "chicken 'n egg connundrum" at all, but rather a virtual/viscious cycle duality. Better conditions will increase IQ--just as the Flynn Effect says, indeed, invariably commands, and higher IQ will bring on even better conditions and so on and on... Now, this doesn't go on ad infinitum of course, but rather to the upper genetic potential for humans, which is now more or less set by Ashkenazi Jews living in the West at about 110-112 IQ. And accordingly, on the flip side, is the viscious cycle: Bad conditions, i.e. bad nutrition/education, will lower IQ just as it will lower height... Remember: Iodine deficiency is known to lower IQ by 10-15 points.

3. Even if Lynn's estimates on Vietnam are correct, 94-96 IQ is plenty good to industrialize/modernize. Trust me. England's IQ at the onset of the industrial revolution was probably only around 70-75. When Japan industrialized in 1858, they only had literacy rate of about 45%. I guarantee you: They did NOT have anywhere near 105 IQ back then.

BTW, Vietnam had about 80% literacy rate during the same period. This is quite possibly the highest in the world at the time. Back then, we were still using Chinese pictograms of course.

4. Jews have mediocre visuo-spatial IQ, but high verbal IQ. East Asians have mediocre verbal IQ, but relatively high visuo-spatial IQ. This says it all about the importance, or rather, lack thereof of visuo-spatial IQ. Personally, I don't think visuo-spatial IQ is important at all provided you have a minimum of about 90-95. And it is important only if you're an engineer, physicist, mathematician, computer scientist, or a topnotch artist, cinematographer, photographer, fashion designer, etc., in which case you'd need at least 130 visuo-spatial IQ points to be successful in your chosen field. Below a certain upper limit, i.e. 130, for sake of argument, visuo-spatial IQ is irrelevant fluff.

Jews are doing quite well despite having significantly lower visuo-spatial IQ than East Asians.


Your Honor, I rest my case...

Your argument to get us out of the chicken'n'agg conumdrum may appear sensible but you inadvertently raised the main proof supporting my stance: the knowledge of malnutrition causing intellectual deficiency (although relative) is a result of a long study performed by western scientists. and that is a proof of high intelligence. The second proof of intelligence is that westerners managed to largely spread their knowledge which results into even better condition for the bloom of high IQ.

Malnutrition is a consequence of ignorance and stubborness.

The polynesians, the former caribeans used to have better life conditions than westerners and asian until the renaissance. They certainly didn't fall short of iodine ..but no Pascal, Newton, Leonardo da vinci have emerged from among them.

Only stupid men give it up to chance and nature to determine their fate.

1. Sorry, but I'm by no means unwittingly supporting your thoroughly misguided logic.

2. Your writing itself is quite unclear--this, aside from your convoluted thought process.


Bullsh!t. 2 Million Vietnamese died of malnutrition in 1912. The Mayor of Saigon recorded that he would often find dead beggars on his door steps in the morning from time to time. In 1945, another 2 Million Vietnamese died of starvation when the Japanese imperial forces confiscated our grains to run their trains, since they had no fuel. Bastards! Vietnam under the French, and India under the Brits, among many other victims/imperialists combos, suffered numerous famines. Before the French, the Vietnamese emperors forbade the export of rice. Under the French, that's all we did. India suffered staggering famine after famine under the Brits. When they left, India has never underwent a famine at all.

The Brits also introduced opium to the Far East. At the height of the opium trade, which fattened England's coffers BIG TIME, scholars estimate taht 1/3 of all ~300 million Chinese were crack heads. Later, when Chinese brought their opium habits to the US, the American newspapers demonized them as filty crack heads. Truly ironic, indeed the height of hypocrisy, since America, the other Europeans and eventually the Japanese also participated in this satanic trade. Do you know who has the lowest drug use in the US now?!? It's Asians. Do you know that amongst Asians, the Chinese have the lowest rate of drug use?!? It's true. Look it up. BTW, whites Americans have the highest rate of drug use--not blacks. Shocking, no?

Long story short... I don't know what the Hell you're talking about.

Also, you don't think the war and the crippling sore loser embargo the US put on Vietnam had anything to do with the fact that Vietnamese males were actually 2-3 inches shorter than the previous generation who lived during the war and averaged about 5'6"?

Vietnamese males born and raise in the US who eat copious amounts of BGH (bovine growth hormone) laden meat and drink uddles of BGH laden milk probably average 5'8". 6' Vietnamese Americans are not uncommon, btw.


I'm not sure where you are getting this claim from, but for sake of argument, lets assume you are right... You still need to keep in mind what the population density was along with how fertile & abundant the respective land & seas surrounding them were.

The Polynesians of Easter Island overconsumed to the point where they completely depleted their environment. The cut down all the trees. This had a catastrophic consequence when their population surpassed what the island could support. They resorted to cannibalism and basically died out. Why didn't the Polynesians, so famous for their seafaring abilities, simply sail away?!? Because they had cut down all the trees from which they made their trusty dugout canoes.

BTW, it's never a good idea to single out islanders as a typical sample population. Although it's abundantly true that no man is an island, it is also true that most people don't live on small islands either. Heh heh.


Listen genius, if you've read my previous posts on this subject matter, and I do distinctly recall debating--if one can call the mindless things you said "debating", the merits or lack thereof of confucianism with you about 2 years ago..., then you should always keep in mind my Weberian hypothesis on culture. Go back and reread it. I'm by no means contradicting myself.


Look in the mirror.


BTW, you're thoroughly contradicting yourself here. When you tried to correct SoCal, who essentially said that improved conditions will raise IQ, you claimed just the opposite. SoCal is basically citing the Flynn Effect. You, dear friend, were contradicting it. Now you're agreeing with it, thereby contradicting yourself.



I told you that you have convoluted logic.


No one is being nationalistic here. And certainly NOT to the point where it blinds them. Certainly not SoCal.

Only blind nationalism leads to dictatorship. Stupidity is another key ingredient, btw.

I should qualify my response above by saying you're (partially) right but only in extreme cases, like Mao's Great Leap Forward, the KR controlled Cambodia, and Kim Jong Idiot controlled N. Korea. But in general, much of the world's suffering past & present is due to colonialism, imperialism, neo-imperialism. Heck, even the attrocities of the Great Leap Forward, the killing fields of Cambodia, North Korea, etc., didn't occur in isolation:

No man is an island.

Nor did communism, marxism-leninism, maoism, and for that matter jihadism, develop in a vacuum. They developed dialectically in tandem, indeed as a response, to colonialism, imperialism, and of course, neo-imperialism.

Long story short... Stubborness and ignorance have nothing to do with the modern instances of mass starvation.
'

(just thought I drop in for a quick jab)
You mean "little to do", in the course of your arguments. Also, NK stave do have something to do with stubborness and ignorance, since it leadership decided to focus most of it effort on counter-intelligence, espionage, building and maintaining weapons, having a large standing arm force.

^ Eh, please look at my comment on how (significant) historical trends do not develop in isolation but rather they do so dialectically.

For future reference, if you're gonna debate me, read carefully and put on your thinking cap to boot.

someone give me the vietnamese word for MULLET

No. Just giving you a taste of your own tactic: taking things out of context and then veer it to meet your own advantage. This place are in desperate need of balancing view points, did not they teach you that at Yale I assume.

Nice attempt at a save...

If there was no European colonialism, then there would be no Japanese colonialism. If there were no Japanese colonialism, then there would be no North Korean communism. If there were no North Korean communism, then there would be no Kim Il Sung. No Kim Il Sung => No Kim Jong Idiot. It's that simple.

BTW, please show me where I take things out of context.

P.S. I didn't go to Yale.

For example, this statement "Malnutrition is a consequence of ignorance and stubborness," cannot be taken as in a universal sense but only as a special case. BTW, it's not a save, nice "debate" counter though.

You're obviously not reading Sideley's comments very closely. I know him from a previous debate where he constantly talks out of his butt. He has quite a penchant for making things up and arguing vehemently as though they are the Holy TRUTH. For example, he once asserted that: "It is proven the Japanese are no longer confucian." --or someting to this extent. My response was to simply post some comments from a book on the resurgence of (neo) confucianism all over asia.

I assure you, Sideley has fundamental problems with logic. Frankly, my instincts are off the charts, and it informs me that he meant it universally.

Any other examples of where I take things out of context? Pray do tell...


Sure.

Oh, so this whole thing was between you guys. My apology then.

Simply put, as someone said, raising the standard of living will increase IQ. BTW Vietguy7 this Sideley character can't debate worth a s-hit. He also likes to use strawman tactics in his arguments.