Following the Why Asians Are Good At Math post I wrote back in February, a few comments came up that I feel are necessary to clarify.

After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s position and possible explanation to the Asian-Americans are good at math phenomenon,

David had this to say:

So following his argument, he is insinuating Asian Americans who aren’t fluent in their native language would struggle with math like every other American whose primary language is English.

While Mr. “Not_An_Asian” followed up with:

Exactly. Something is terribly wrong with this theory. And there are other languages with similar number systems.

As David and company bring up valid arguments and points, the arguments rely on faulty logic.

The intricacies in a few Asian languages MAY present an advantage. With that said, an argument dictating that one characteristic may give a person an advantage fails to imply, without that advantage, that a same person will struggle.

For instance:

Being tall may give you an advantage at basketball. But not being tall doesn’t mean you will struggle, nor does it preclude you from other traits that would give you an advantage (i.e., speed, agility, endurance, etc…)

With that said, the theory attempts to explain why a larger percentage of Asian-Americans (and we know it’s a percentage since the SAT is scored in percentiles), succeed at math.

Language is a clearly identifiable trait you can associate to specific subsets of people and, to a degree, isolate as a factor that contributes to mathematical prowess.

And sure, there are plenty of mathematical genius’ around that are not Asian (Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Steve Nash, etc…). But we are not looking at the outliers, instead we are looking to explain why Asians as a group score higher in math than other groups.

I’m not saying the theory is true, for the pure fact that theories are unproven assertions, my contention is Malcolm Gladwell’s theory presents a new and refreshed theory to explain some American social phenomenon.