Response to Comment

Unknown Variable wrote...

Seems to me that this is a fine example of how we are a melting pot of nationalities and cultures.

To some extent, but don't you find it odd that all six members of the U.S. Olympic Chess Team are from one culture (the former Soviet Union)? It used to be said that U.S. players because Soviet players were true professionals who drew a salary from the USSR Sports Committee and did nothing but train for chess events, while U.S. players either (a) had other jobs so in a sense were amateurs despite their grandmaster standing or (b) had to go chasing tournaments to earn a living and thus did not have the time to train properly. Yet now the playing field has been levelled in this regard and U.S. players still can't compete. It definitely makes me wonder what's lacking in the background of the U.S. players.

Take a look at the nationalities of the players on the US National Soccer team. Would you say that because many of the players on the US squard are foreign born that there's an "athletic gap" between the US and the rest of the world? The same comparisons can be made for baseball. Would you say that we've become a country of "anti-athletes"? No.

Point taken.

The world is getting smaller. Other countries are catching up to the US' level for many things. Continuing with the sports theme. Take a look at basketball. I would say that the level of play for US players hasnt really changed for the last two decades, yet the NBA has more foreign born players than ever. Why? Because other countries are catching up to us in a game we've previously dominated. I think the same thing is going on here in the world of sciences.

Here I disagree, though. In my mind, the examples of chess, math and physics aren't really cases of others catching up to the US level, but rather cases where the US, already not the leader, is falling further behind.

Also keep in mind that over the last century (hell since the beginning of the USA), a great many of the scientific greatest accomplishments that are claimed as "US made" are from foreign born scientists.

True. What to make of this? Have US institutions always been sub-par? Certainly during the first quarter of the twentieth century, absolutely all the important math and physics was done in Europe. However, I have always believed that from around 1930 to around 1970 US preparation in these areas was on a par with European institutions. Maybe not?

...

By the way, unrelated to UV's comments, but I have been working on a paper discussing the NCTM standards in geometry. I hope to be able to post that here in the next week or so.