The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.

The study suggests that while many girls have exceptional talent in math — the talent to become top math researchers, scientists and engineers — they are rarely identified in the United States. A major reason, according to the study, is that American culture does not highly value talent in math, and so discourages girls — and boys, for that matter — from excelling in the field. The study will be published Friday in Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

“We’re living in a culture that is telling girls you can’t do math — that’s telling everybody that only Asians and nerds do math,” said the study’s lead author, Janet E. Mertz, an oncology professor at the University of Wisconsin, whose son is a winner of what is viewed as the world’s most-demanding math competitions. “Kids in high school, where social interactions are really important, think, ‘If I’m not an Asian or a nerd, I’d better not be on the math team.’ Kids are self selecting. For social reasons they’re not even trying.”

This shouldn't come as a surprise to a civilization that is actively rewarding short-term thinking in context of selfish, hedonistic values, and actively suppressing creative, individual geniuses for being "unsocial" and "discriminating." Through immense welfare programs we're allowing the dumbest people of our populations to exponentially outbreed smart people without contributing anything valuable to society, and then we wonder why our education sucks, the public is confused, and the political leadership has to dumb itself down to make itself heard on tangible issues. We're living in an idiocracy.

We need natural selection. The West is about to face a period of time when the fundamental aspects of civilization are shaken internally and thus expose the cold reality permeating all of life. Suddenly we face food and water shortages, economic instability, welfare breakdowns and social collapse--and it's a good thing:

Their answer is that recessions (rather than booms or depressions) might actually be a blessing. People tend to drink less, smoke fewer cigarettes and lose weight. They enrol in higher education, the air is cleaner, the roads are less crowded.

People not only eat more healthily in recessions but they tend to drive less, either as an economy measure or because they are no longer commuting to their jobs. When unemployment rates rise by a point, the number of fatal car crashes decreases by 2.4 per cent.

But those who have refused to be thrifty for green reasons have now to start rationalising their lives for economic ends. In the past six months councils have reported increased use of libraries and a fall in the quantity of household rubbish.

The safety new is about to break, which allows us to reform society from within and change our lifestyle to once again become interesting, challenging and sustainable. "The end" is the beginning of a new age and we are in the middle of the transition. Embrace the chaos around you, because deep down inside you can feel it will set your spirit free.