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It has everything to do with the environment they are brought up in, and the way they are taught. I don't believe intelligence is genetic at all. I read a study once on the differences between North American and Oriental students. In the study the students were given a series a pictures and asked what they saw. The observers weren't actually concerned with the answers at all, but were tracking eye movement. They determined that North American students found a focal point and locked on it, ignoring everything else in the picture. They were very much one tracked in their thinking, and ignored details. The Asian students however were observed to look all around the obvious focal point, and took in the entire picture including the detail. Their focus is on the big picture, while our students focus on the quick and the obvious.
If you go back and read something like The Art of War or The Book of Five Rings, you will understand more how this mentality has been brought up in their people through the ages. I'd be more interested in seeing how we compare per capita, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them outperform there too. Fact of the matter, is that most of the western world is bred to be idiots. We nurture mediocrity...
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