[.ca] Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the ... (ISBN 0060929642)

Surprisingly unsurprising:
Charles Murray presents three questions in this book. First, can historiometric techniques be used to produce a survey of human accomplishment in the arts and sciences over time and across cultures? Second, are there any obvious patterns in the data? And third, why are those patterns present? The answer to the first question is certainly "yes". Murray uses the extent of coverage of scientists and artists in standard reference works on each field that he investigates. Basically he counts the number of times figures are mentioned and the amount of space their work is given. He makes a heroic effort to ensure that the results are not skewed by reliance on single works or works in a single language. His inventories include: astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, physics, mathematics, medicine, technology, Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy, western philosophy, western music, Chinese painting, Japanese art, western art, Arabic literature, Chinese literature, Indian literature, Japanese literature, and western literature. While many may deride this methodology as bunk, the surprising thing is that the listings "look right". Who will argue that Galileo and Kepler do not belong at the top of the astronomy list, that Newton and Einstein do not belong at the top in physics, or that Shakespeare and Goethe should be lower on the western literature list? We may quibble about minor differences in rankings, but few would assert that obviously significant figures have been completely misplaced. Some readers with extensive statistics backgrounds may attack the techniques used, especially those used later in the book in determining rates of accomplishment, but with my limited background (one year of undergraduate statistics courses at MIT, and a semester of statistics for research in grad school) Murray's methodology looks bulletproof. To this point, even multiculturalists should be happy, since no attempt is made to compare the accomplishments of western and non-western civilizations. Now, however, he lobs the baseball into the hornets' nest. He concludes that dead European white guys have done the best work in the sciences, that Jews are dramatically overrepresented as a percentage of total population, that women have not contributed at the expected rates even after sexist barriers were removed, and that significant contributions in non-western arts have not been made at the same rates as in the west. While Murray's observations on the sciences seem indisputable, his coverage of non-western art is probably the weakest part of the book. Murray next tries to extract some explanations from the data. His first conclusions are fairly obvious and noncontroversial to anyone with some knowledge of the history of sicence and the arts: war does not disrupt accomplishment, but economic health is required. Next, he points out that models of accomplishment provide behavior reinforcement for aspiring achievers. He also concludes that accomplishment requires freedom of action. Regimes ruled by Saddam Hussein's or Ayatollah Khomeini's are unlikely to produce much in the way of achievement. Further, Confucian duty to family and hierarchy can also stifle creativity. In the final section of the book, Murray turns back to the nature of accomplishment and the factors that contribute to it, and asks if accomplishment is in decline. Since this is the most interesting part of book, I will not telegraph all of the conclusions in this review. Suffice it to say that his conclusions are anathema to multiculturists and practititioners of literary theory. In sum, this is an excellent, thought-provoking work that will reward any open-minded reader.

Neglects Cambodians!:
Around 1100 AD, a Cambodian nobleman sat down in his study at Angkor Wat and decided to write a survey of human accomplishment. At the time of his writing, Angkor Wat was a metropolis as large as Los Angeles today, containing about a million human beings. It had the most sophisticated canal system in the world, and indeed the entire city was a masterpiece of know-how and urban planning. Not surprisingly, the Cambodian decided that his fellow Cambodians were outstanding examples of human accomplishment. He also paid some attention to the Chinese and Japanese, but he paid no attention at all to the Europeans, who in the year 1100 AD were hardly worth glancing at. Their big cities, London and Paris, contained barely 35,000 occupants, and they were ruled by a crowd of religious fanatics in Rome, who were the sworn enemies of civilization. Charles Murray actually mentions Angkor Wat in his survey of "human accomplishment." That is to say, he writes the name of the metropolis. But he furnishes no further information. To say that Murray's book is culture-bound is to state the extremely obvious. To say that it is enslaved by its own time is also very self-evident. Why would anyone want to buy this self-congratulatory slop? Unless they felt in need of congratulating themselves, of course!

Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts:
Murray (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C.) offers a detailed survey of human excellence, from the time of Homer to the mid-20th century. He examines who these contributors were; which are most significant and why; how human accomplishment has been distributed and has shifted across the centuries, around the world, within Europe and the U.S.; what characterizes the great accomplishments; the roles of basic economic, political, and demographic factors; to what extent streams of accomplishment are self-reinforcing; what initiatives such streams; and prospects for future human accomplishments.

quick ? for "Neglects Cambodians!":
This made me very curious to learn more about that Cambodian survey of human accomplishment from 1100AD. Of the 1,200 or so Sanskrit or Khmer inscriptions discovered around Angkor, aside from ritual instructions and listings of assets, only 3 contain preserved pieces of literature ... or so I thought??

It's a joy to see what humans can accomplish:
This is a great book to poke around in. Of the Indians Murray cites, I'd only read Kautilya. Why do musicians rank Wagner's dull crap so high? Was the Catholic 'organum' method of singing prayers a joke on Aristotle's book on logic, or (massive anachronism, but Greeks sang too) the other way around? Poke, poke.