In making the charge that Asian graduates from top universities don’t distinguish themselves, the author failed to also note that this is the case with almost all graduates – of any race – from those universities. Which led former Yale professor William Deresiewicz to write a book about them called, “Excellent Sheep”. Most go on to highly lucrative but rather conventional careers in finance, medicine, law and consulting ; you never hear about them unless one of these folks, like an Al Gore, runs for office. Nothing wrong with their career paths, but it’s not as if the Ivies are known for creating iconoclasts; the vague admissions criteria, which Steve Pinker called a witch’s brew, does not select for truly original thinking. Which probably isn’t what those Harvard and Yale dons are after anyway: they are looking to consolidate and maintain power and privilege within a select group for generations to come. This isn’t news to anyone, so I’m not sure why anyone is surprised that Harvard discriminates against anyone deemed outside that group, whether it was mid-century Jews or late-century Asians.

At any rate, how would the Ivies know in 1990 that Asian graduates supposedly would not have distinguishing careers? There just weren’t that many Asian alums back then, as their share of student bodies was almost nothing in the 70s, rising only in the 80s. This coincides with the alleged imposition of quotas against Asians, as our very own Ron Unz has pointed out: their percentage basically flattened by 1990 after skyrocketing in the 80s, despite the fact that the percentage of Asian youth kept growing. Circumstantial evidence, probably. But my sense is that if the Ivies do discriminate, it’s not for the reasons Chisala puts forth. Because, as stated above, they weren’t in the business of creating or even selecting for truly original thinkers: the vast majority of grads have lucrative but middling careers, supporting those in power or becoming one of them.

It’s also worth noting that the Japanese have won Nobels at the same rate as Americans in the last twenty years, once you remove expat scientists – most of whom came here as post-docs or recruited researchers – from the list. Japan, with next to zero immigration (especially that of top scientists) does not have that benefit, what some have quipped is “America’s top-secret weapon”.

That’s twenty Nobels in the last twenty years – a higher rate than most countries, including in Europe. If you go back 25-30 years, it’s about the same rate as France and Germany, the traditional Nobel powerhouses. This includes key inventions like iPS Stem cells by Yamanaka and immunotherapy by Honjo – who, by the way, published his research nearly two years before Allison, with whom he shared the Nobel last year.

As you rightly point out, the surge in Japanese Nobels speaks to the backward-looking nature of Nobel prizes, which tend to recognize work done decades ago. Which explains the paucity of Japanese Nobels in the last century: they had yet to funnel talent and fund scientific research until well after they rebuilt their country after WWII, which took decades. (Having said that, early-20th century Japanese researchers were nominated many times for things like the cancer chemocarcinogenesis model, discovery of thiamine, and discovery of the agent for plague – interestingly, the Nobel for the first thing on that list went to a German, even though his research was falsified a few years later.) Spending precious resources on basic science would have been a waste at that stage; better to spend what little resources they had on proven technologies they could quickly monetize, which is what they did. That’s why became the #2 economy in the world in record time…until they were surpassed by China, which by the way is following their approach: spend resources on proven technologies, becoming a tech manufacturing center just like Japan did in the mid 60’s through 80s. Difference is, of course, is that China has much further to go, having hundreds of millions to bring out poverty. Still, bringing 750 million out of poverty (as reported in Barron’s) ain’t bad.

Thing about China, unlike Japan, is that it has a very long history of innovation. In fact, there was a British observer in Asia around 1900 who pointed out that, for all of Japan’s accomplishments and rapid industrialization, it had not invented anything like paper, gunpowder, or the compass – things that were well-known by then in the West to have come from China. Francis Bacon himself said centuries before that nothing had changed the modern world more than paper, gunpowder or the compass, but that for some reason their origins were obscure. Obscure, because they came from far away…China! And it doesn’t stop there…printing, moveable type, paper money, rockets, cannons, rudimentary guns, mechanical clock, seed drill, wheelbarrow, linear algebra, cast iron, blast furnace, deep drilling, rudder, crossbow, decimal fractions, interchangeable parts, trip hammer, the list goes on and on. Given this, I don’t understand why the Chisala makes the charge that China can’t innovate. Even if the Chinese seem to acknowledge this themselves, it’s a little early in their development to expect groundbreaking research. And, with their long list of ancient inventions, I wouldn’t count them out.