Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jewish problems (2011)

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 101 posts

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#11

Post by replicant »

gcb0 wrote: post #10

were those offered only to undesired applicants or to everyone and somehow only the desired people knew how to solve?

Only to the undesirables students. Quoting the paper, "The Mathematics Department of Moscow State University, the most prestigious mathematics school in Russia, was at that time actively trying to keep Jewish students (and other 'undesirables') from enrolling in the department. One of the methods they used for doing this was to give the unwanted students a different set of problems on their oral exam."

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#12

Post by Kliment »

jkot wrote: post #6

US had something similar, Isaac Asimov started writing sci-fi, after he was not accepted to medical university.

I thought he was a biochemist and taught at a med school. Wikipedia says he started writing scifi at 11, and I doubt even he was eligible for med school at that age.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#13

Post by golergka »

gcb0 wrote: post #10

were those offered only to undesired applicants or to everyone and somehow only the desired people knew how to solve?

Only to undesirables. Entry exams at mechmath are composed of written and oral stages; these are the questions asked by examiners at oral stage of examination, one on one with potential student.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#14

Post by fennecfoxen »

Udik wrote: post #9
fennecfoxen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The differences: In the US, they'd ask everyone the same questions, but have different standards for the results. The practice would not be secret, and so there would not be subterfuge of this scope (the plausible-deniability angle is gone). Finally, the practice would be used to boost the effective scores of the select less-qualified candidates, instead of damaging the scores of select more-qualified candidates. (Th…

True, it's important, if ever a mechanism like this is applied, that it is made official and mandated by law. I don't agree that the system described works in a substantially different way from affirmative action, though, as you can consider the current admission tests to already include the "Jewish problems", for a number of points equivalent to the "score boosting" applied to the other candidates. Most importantly,…

If the intended effect was merely to balance its overwhelming predominance, sabotage in the exams is the most problematic way to do so, because of the way that it can efface the best talent in the group; diversity-quotas of some sort would damage the field less.

More broadly, though, if you think that this was "merely" about balance and that there was no anti-Semitic sentiment in academia in Soviet Lithuania in the 1950s, shortly after the "Rootless Cosmopolitan" campaign and squarely in the era of the "Doctors' Plot", then I may have a bridge to sell you.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#15

Post by irixusr »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #8
Udik wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that be called "affirmative action" in the US?

The differences: In the US, they'd ask everyone the same questions, but have different standards for the results. The practice would not be secret, and so there would not be subterfuge of this scope (the plausible-deniability angle is gone). Finally, the practice would be used to boost the effective scores of the select less-qualified candidates, instead of damaging the scores of select more-qualified candidates. (Th…

The differences are mostly aesthetic then.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#16

Post by alkonaut »

replicant wrote: post #11
gcb0 wrote: post #10

were those offered only to undesired applicants or to everyone and somehow only the desired people knew how to solve?

Only to the undesirables students. Quoting the paper, "The Mathematics Department of Moscow State University, the most prestigious mathematics school in Russia, was at that time actively trying to keep Jewish students (and other 'undesirables') from enrolling in the department. One of the methods they used for doing this was to give the unwanted students a different set of problems on their oral exam."

Ah. Then it makes sense. I thought first it was a set of carefully selected problems, created for the purpose of letting one group fail and another pass. Which would have been very interesting (i.e. are there problems which one group solves better than another, or problems that one group must refuse to solve for religious reasons etc).

Giving a set of hard problems to an unwanted group and a separate set of problems (or no problems at all) to another is just simple discrimination. They could just as well have had a sign that told the unwanted group not to apply and it would have been no less discriminating.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#17

Post by bb101 »

Similar events happened in London in the mid-19th century. University College London (UCL), now one of the best colleges in the University of London, was founded to allow students entry through non-religious means. Consequently, it was the first college in the university to allow equal entry to both Jews and women.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#18

Post by _yosefk »

Udik wrote: post #9
fennecfoxen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The differences: In the US, they'd ask everyone the same questions, but have different standards for the results. The practice would not be secret, and so there would not be subterfuge of this scope (the plausible-deniability angle is gone). Finally, the practice would be used to boost the effective scores of the select less-qualified candidates, instead of damaging the scores of select more-qualified candidates. (Th…

True, it's important, if ever a mechanism like this is applied, that it is made official and mandated by law. I don't agree that the system described works in a substantially different way from affirmative action, though, as you can consider the current admission tests to already include the "Jewish problems", for a number of points equivalent to the "score boosting" applied to the other candidates. Most importantly,…

How is "discriminating against a group" different from "balancing its overwhelming predominance in a particular field"? The dictionary definition of "discrimination" says there's no difference. Is the definition that says there is a difference some sort of a moral standard? What are the thresholds of that standard - at what point group members outdoing others warrants affirmative action and by how much the numbers of those members should be dwindled by affirmative action? Which groups should be punished by affirmative action - ethnic and gender, or is religion a legitimate target, what about height, family history, a preference to wear clothes of a certain color - whom is it OK to count and then hold to a higher standard to balance their overwhelming predominance?

Also - what cost should society pay in lost output due to the average ability of people allowed to enter certain occupations having been lowered by affirmative action (as it has to be if less capable candidates are admitted instead of more capable)?

Perhaps most interestingly - how much cost should a group supposedly "helped" by affirmative action pay for the dubious favor in (A) people being unable to successfully function at institutions who admitted them, not because of their abilities, but due to affirmative action and (B) perfectly capable people of the "helped" group being stigmatized because "everyone knows they only got to where they were due to affirmative action, and not due to their ability?"

(I guess you might notice that I'm not a huge fan of affirmative action, but if we could at least agree that there's no reasonable way to distinguish between "affirmative action" and "discrimination", that would be in itself awesome, even if we disagree about the merit of, well, that one thing with two names...)

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#19

Post by madcaptenor »

Kliment wrote: post #12
jkot wrote: post #6

US had something similar, Isaac Asimov started writing sci-fi, after he was not accepted to medical university.

I thought he was a biochemist and taught at a med school. Wikipedia says he started writing scifi at 11, and I doubt even he was eligible for med school at that age.

Wikipedia says that he applied to med school, was rejected, went to grad school in chemistry at Columbia (partially before and partially after World War II), and then after getting his PhD he taught at the Boston University School of Medicine. So he taught at a med school without attending a med school.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#20

Post by fennecfoxen »

_yosefk wrote: post #18
Udik wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it's important, if ever a mechanism like this is applied, that it is made official and mandated by law. I don't agree that the system described works in a substantially different way from affirmative action, though, as you can consider the current admission tests to already include the "Jewish problems", for a number of points equivalent to the "score boosting" applied to the other candidates. Most importantly,…

How is "discriminating against a group" different from "balancing its overwhelming predominance in a particular field"? The dictionary definition of "discrimination" says there's no difference. Is the definition that says there is a difference some sort of a moral standard? What are the thresholds of that standard - at what point group members outdoing others warrants affirmative action and by how much the numbers of…

> How is "discriminating against a group" different from "balancing its overwhelming predominance in a particular field"?

Since you ask, I'll repeat myself. Suppose you have lots of people applying for 100 slots in the university. Affirmative action at a US university designed to give you a quota of, say, 10% minorities could, in the worst case, crowd out qualified persons #91-100. "Jewish questions" deployed against highly qualified Jews in a Jewish-dominated field in Lithuania could have easily excluded most qualified persons in the range #1-100.

I really don't like affirmative action either, but it differs substantially in intent, technique, and impact. Considering them morally equivalent slights against the ideals of fairness and merit is a very narrow, black-and-white world view - and without abandoning the ideal of justice, I think it's important to see that there are many shades grays in this world, and some are much much darker than others.

Post reply on HN