Live data from Hacker News

Jewish problems (2011)

arxiv.org

21–30 of 101 posts

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#21
post #17

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.

This is why British fee-paying schools are called 'public schools', by the way --- they're open to any member of the public who can pay, rather than being open to only a certain subset of the population. Plus public schools were under public management (a board of governors).

I believe there still are some private schools (UK sense) in the UK, but I can't find any references.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#22
post #18
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…

I'm not a great fan of affirmative action either. Some of the things you say make perfect sense to me. I was only remarking that a similar mechanism exists today in the US and it is considered ethically valid.

As for the difference between AA and simple discrimination, the latter is usually intended to increase the power of the current dominant group, while affirmative action should act in the interest of a minority or disadvantaged group. The mechanisms are the same, it's the objective that's different. Much as the same substance or tool can be used to cure or to kill, it's the intention that matters.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#23
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."

Which groups are the 'undesirables'?

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#24
post #3

This is a well-known fact, actually. My math teacher in Lithuania mentioned that back in his days (50-s) it was practically impossible for a non-Jewish student to get into any math- or physics-related faculty: Jewish families had a very strong multi-generational tradition of both in-school and additional education. He also said he was the only non-jewish in his group in Moscow State University that year. So at some p…

[deleted]

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#25
While we're discussing this subject, and hoping to shine a bright light away from all the negativity, the solidarity of the Jewish people is amazing and unequalled! Jews seem to show great compassion and provide unconditional help for their own.

There's wisdom to be gleaned from this I'm sure...

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#26
Without the alternative easier exams to compare with and the grading scheme that were used, these problems do not mean much regarding the discrimination that took place. It is quite common to give good grades even when the exercises have not been solved completely, but interesting thoughts and ideas have been exposed, especially in mathematics.

Off topic, but regarding problem 2, a math professor once told me of a PhD student who started studying this kind of functions. He spent some time to discover their many interesting properties, until the professor made him understand why these functions were so regular, and that he had actually wasted his time. Funny to see this again.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#27
I wonder why are Askhenazi Jews apparently more intelligent on average... seems that genetics is the main factor, not culture, but I can imagine research in this area is discouraged and controversial.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#28
I wonder why are Askhenazi Jews apparently more intelligent on average... seems that genetics is the main factor, not culture, but I can imagine research in this area is discouraged and controversial.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#29
post #6

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

Stanley Kaplan,[1] who basically founded the test-prep industry in the US, did so because he was rejected from medical school for being Jewish.

1: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08...

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#30
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,…

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 1…

This is relevant because employment discrimination law in the USA prohibits the use of any tests where certain protected racial categories score worse than the national average by a specific amount. Usually that amount is specifically that each protected race must achieve four fifths of the passing scores of any other group. (Yes, that is a vague and easily gamed standard. It was made up by lawyers in the Department of Justice, not by game theorists in the DoJ.)

The result in, for example, fire and police departments has been that all the tests, especially written tests, have been dumbed down so that 80% of everyone passes. That is automatically considered to fulfil the four fifths standard. Then candidates are chosen by political patronage or random selection.

The result is much worse average qualifications. If there were just a racial quota like US universities use, you could pick the top X% of people from each protected underperforming racial category but also the top people from each of the high performing categories. In the Jewish Problem and four-fifths scenario, you don't get the top people from the high performing category except by chance and with four-fifths not from the protected categories either.

The new, state of the art federal civil service exam written under the Carter administration was abandoned because protected racial groups did badly. the obvious solution of race norming was considered out of bounds because Republicans could demagogue against the practice. The entire civil service exam system was dismantled instead and race based hiring is promoted with no objective standards. The result is the worst of all possible worlds. It's just lucky that federal jobs are still plush enough that good people work hard to game any system to get them.

Post reply on HN