Alazen Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/690528811537059841 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Accomplishment https://osf.io/z9cnk/ For those of you who didn't find this out, Charles Murray (author of the ''Bell Curve'') had the data of his book ''Human Accomplishment'' released last January. The book lists what the title says, whether it's Shakespeare or Einstein. I ask, what do you all make of it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Alear Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 I can't really make much of it since I haven't read the book. However, the wikipedia article isn't that encouraging, IMO. It states that the analysis was generated by determining how much space a particular thinker garners in encyclopedias, histories, etc. This seems questionable to me - for instance, in evaluating literature, for instance, do the sources surveyed actually dedicate space in their texts based primarily on quality of writing? It's personal opinion, of course, but I rank Paradise Lost over Petrarch's sonnets (for example), and Milton is hardly obscure. Another problem with the history may be the focus on figures themselves. It states that India is omitted because so many authors are anonymous, but isn't it still important to index human accomplishment based on the quality of the works as opposed to which authors they are attributed to? Finally, it's speculative, but I wonder if there's a western bias - was Murray restricted by language in his exploration of encyclopedias, histories, etc. to english? While I'm not as big a fan of Shakespeare as some, I know he's great and I can pass off my personal disinterest in elevating him to the zenith of literature as insanity. I can also accept the possibility that Einstein or Newton were super great. But I wonder if it's possible whether in the sciences as well, achievement isn't best evaluated by experts whose achievements are in the realm of documenting achievement. In short, I'm not particularly optimistic about the methodology. But, I don't really know more than a few of the lines wikipedia puts in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alazen Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 (edited) Here's a Telegraph article on the subject, be warned that you could call it controversial: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/donotmigrate/3611273/White-male-and-proud-of-it.html As for literature, Murray was trying to avoid linguistic chauvinism. He figured to have each author judged on critical sources that were not in the same language that the author wrote in. Hence, Anglo authors were scored according to what was said by non-Anglo critics, Germanic authors were scored according to what was said by non-Germanic critics, etc. Edited February 17, 2016 by Alazen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Alear Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Hmm. I might take a look at the article in a bit. Maybe I should clarify a bit about my point you addressed-if anything, I was thinking it would be good to have sources from scholars who were within a particular culture, and I was worried that wasn't the case for non-english sources. I say this because to a certain extent, writers within a culture might have particularly valuable perspectives on a work. That does include having anglo perspectives on anglo accomplishments. If all varieties of literature were examined while avoiding perspectives from the particular source culture, that sounds like an ok compromise, but I'd prefer to include both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenix Wright Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 right off the bat i see that quantum field theory isn't given the recognition it deserves. dirac and others are giants in the field of physics and mathematics, but are overtaken by some of the older folks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Alear Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 (edited) The telegraph article mentions Bloom. I'd much rather read an examination of accomplishment based directly on content by someone like Bloom than something like this, regardless of whatever apparent bias. As far as commentaries on absurdist and nihilistic literature, I have less distaste than Murray. Same for Joyce's stuff. I don't really feel optimistic about ever reading Finnegan's Wake, but I have a high opinion of Dubliners and Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Actually, I'd rather read Portrait than watch most of Shakespeare's plays unless I had been given reason to think the performance in question would be very good. I enjoyed Tom Stoppard's Arcadia more than any performance of any Shakespeare play I've ever seen, though to qualify that statement, some Shakespeare plays I've seen were performed when I was quite small. To return to Joyce for a moment, or rather Irish literature, I wonder if Yeats made an appearance in the book. Other than that, I don't think the article really brings anything else of note to the table. I've actually met Charles Murray and I liked him personally, but in general when I read commentaries about his books, including his, I feel like shaking my head. I've never read any of them myself, so it's not like my opinion is robust. Edited February 17, 2016 by Sane Young Dog Man Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naughx Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 (edited) right off the bat i see that quantum field theory isn't given the recognition it deserves. dirac and others are giants in the field of physics and mathematics, but are overtaken by some of the older folks. Nikola Tesla isn't listed either in that wikipedia article... I'm a bit disappointed since a big part of the world's electric grids use alternative current to transport energy over long distances. (Since transforming AC is easier it seems) Edited February 19, 2016 by Naughx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Life Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Neither are Bohr or Rutherfield listed under Chemistry and they arguably advanced the science much more than Dmitry Mendeleyev. Chemistry today is taught using the models that the two of them came up with. Sure, Mendeleyev constructed the Periodic Table but he only did so using knowledge from Bohr's and Rutherfeld's observations of how the atomic structure is built. It's hard to classify who did what for what subject on a quantitative level since every discovery is different and affects said subject in different ways. But I personally believe that Wu Tang Clan should be on the Western Music list considering that they have a vocabulary that is more diverse than fucking Shakespeare and revolutionized rap/hip hop. And they were composed of ten members back in the day, all with near equal responsibility in the group. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenix Wright Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 the literature and arts sections have a pretty obvious bias for old and influential folks. i guess if i was to play devil's advocate I'd say that it's influence "up till now," which wouldn't really include people born past like 1950 or something since we don't know the full impact. but that's dumb anyway. point is, i don't like the methodology or the results of murray's book Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Alear Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 (edited) the literature and arts sections have a pretty obvious bias for old and influential folks. i guess if i was to play devil's advocate I'd say that it's influence "up till now," which wouldn't really include people born past like 1950 or something since we don't know the full impact. but that's dumb anyway. point is, i don't like the methodology or the results of murray's book The article posted by Alazen states that Murray's belief is that post 1950's stuff appears less frequently because a nihilistic modern mood suppresses achievement, not because of the reasons you suggest (though those are possibly better explanations). Edited February 23, 2016 by Sane Young Dog Man Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenix Wright Posted February 24, 2016 Share Posted February 24, 2016 (edited) i think i have similar feelings to what you said earlier. anyway, it's very interesting to me that i got the cut-date correctly based off of about..maybe 30 seconds of thinking about it. or at least funny. shows how much he thought about it i guess, lol after reading the article (which i now know i was justified in my apprehension), i'm now just blatantly angry with murray. calling his methodology "scientific" is an insult to science. he's attempting to hide his racism using overtly biased methods (reading old encyclopedias which are guaranteed to contain information about the things he's trying to prove, in addition to making decisions that make no sense to begin with. is the statement that it's harder for a nihilist to do good work actually backed up by anything?) his toni morrison comment was equally nonsensical, though conrad is a really, really good writer. written western (ie, english) encyclopedias are likely to contain western bias inherently, since you can't fit everything into the set of books. it's a poor plan from the start. this was just funny: "Sceptics have pointed out that all but three of the encyclopedias were published in the latter half of the 20th century, giving the experiment a somewhat modern bias. Murray argues, however, that within 50 years, greatness will almost always have made itself known. So all pre-1950 candidates for posterity were given a fair chance." why does anyone give this idiot the time of day lol Edited February 24, 2016 by Phoenix Wright Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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