Human Accomplishment

"Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950" is a book by Charles Murray surveying outstanding contributions to the arts and sciences from ancient times to the mid-twentieth century. The book represents the first attempt to quantify the accomplishment of individuals and countries worldwide in the fields of arts and sciences by calculating the amount of space allocated to them in reference works, an area of research sometimes referred to as historiometry. Murray found that nearly all scientific progress, and all important scientific and artistic ideas, were made by white Europeans or their descendants (such as white Americans, Australians, Canadians, and New Zealanders).

Charles Murray is a controversial American political scientist most widely known as the co-author (with Richard Herrnstein) of "The Bell Curve" in 1994, exploring the role of intelligence in American life, and for his influential work on welfare reform. HarperCollins published the 668-page book in 2003. This article contains information about the book's content according to a review by Denis Dutton, a philosophy teacher at the University of Canterbury and founder of the Arts & Letters Daily website.

According to Dutton, Murray demonstrates that world progress in the arts and sciences had declined, especially since around 1800. This is true, says Dutton, despite the fact that "wealth, cities and their cultural endowments, communication, and political freedom have...improved in recent centuries."

Furthermore, in his review, Dutton cites four conditions that Murray writes are necessary for people's work to reach their full potential of excellence. Achievement is best stimulated in a culture

# "...in which the most talented people believe that life has a purpose and that the function of life is to fulfill that purpose." Moreover, Murray writes: "Human beings have been most magnificently productive and reached their highest cultural peaks in the times and places where humans have thought most deeply about their place in the universe and been most convinced they have one."
# that "encourages the belief that individuals can act efficaciously as individuals."
# where organizing structures are rich and old. Dutton, in his review, does not directly define an organizing structure, but he does say it can include "theories, styles, and techniques...such as the spectroscope in physics or the grand piano in music".
# where people have "a well-articulated vision of, and use of, the transcendental good relevant to that domain." Such a good, according to Dutton, can include truth, morality, or beauty.

Murray explains his assertion that the West produced almost all scientific progress by reference to Christianity's - i.e. the thomist - emphasis on human intelligence as a gift from God.

Index scores

Murray ranks the greats in several fields of human accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. In each field Murray identifies a number of sources providing information about the leading figures in the field. The rankings are made from information in these sources. First the number of sources is cut down by requiring that a large set of the leading figures in the field is included. Secondly the number of mathematicians is cut down by requiring that leading figures occurs in at least half the sources.

Then a raw score is determined based on how much attention they get. Then these raw scores are normalized so that the lowest score is 1 and the highest score is 100. The resulting scores are called "Index Scores".

The categories of human accomplishment where significant figures are ranked in the book are as follows: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Physics, Mathematics, Medicine, Technology, Combined Sciences, 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. The omission of several relative categories, including a broader Chinese art category or an Indian art category, are due to a lack of identifiable figures as most of the work is anonymous.

The following are some examples of the rankings found for individual categories.

External links

* cite book
last = Murray
first = Charles
authorlink = Charles Murray
title = Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950
publisher = HarperCollins
year = 2003
id = ISBN 0-06-019247-X
* [http://www.cato.org/events/031028bf.html Cato Institute Book Forum] (RealVideo) (RealAudio), 1-hour lecture that Murray gave discussing his book "Human Accomplishment", and some of the response to it.
* [http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2003/11/20031110_b_main.asp In Pursuit of Excellence] (RealAudio), one-hour interview with Michael Goldfarb on WBUR.
* [http://www.amconmag.com/11_17_03/review.html American Conservative] - book review
* [http://www.isteve.com/2003_QA_with_Charles_Murray_on_Human_Accomplishment.htm Q&A with Charles Murray on Human Accomplishment] , Steve Sailer.
* [http://human-nature.com/ep/reviews/ep025265.html book review in journal Evolutionary Psychology]

References

* [http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/22/feb04/murray.htm "Of human accomplishment"] , an article by Denis Dutton