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Human Accomplishment
For our species' resume, you probably would not list to put "Defeated Hitler" as one of humanity's accomplishments, because it sounds too much like 'Beat my Heroin Addiction.' You would want to include things like 'Painted the Roof of the Sistine Chapel' or 'Discovered General Relativity.' In other words, you would want to include examples of human excellence throughout the ages.
Not only has Murray set out to compile this resume, but he sought to do it for a reason that is at the same time both interesting and audacious: once you have compiled a list of the several thousand most important creators and discoverers of all time, you can stick it into a database. The idea is that with this database a person can spot trends in accomplishment; he can identify regions and cities where excellence has clustered; he can evaluate qualities of political systems that spur innovation and those that stifle it. Murray's book is a stunning profusion of graphs and plots that do much more to teach us about accomplishment that most narrative histories.
For this to work, however, Murray first had to tackle the problem of differing opinions on who exactly deserves a place in the database. Everybody's list would differ -- yours, mine, and Charles Murray's. There would be substantial similarities between our lists, to be sure; nobody is going to leave out Newton, Darwin, Goethe, Shakespeare, Confucius, or al-Mutanabbi. But when it comes to lesser achievements, the arguments would be endless. Does Hooke make it into the list of the top 20 physicists of all time, or does Pascal make it into the list of the top 10 mathematicians?
So what Murray has done is to split up accomplishment into a number of fields and tried to take a neutral measure of each person's respective 'eminence' in the field. He measures 'eminence' by taking a number of comprehensive sources on each field and counting the references to each person and how many paragraphs they get. The sources are from as many different languages as possible and Murray does a good job of avoiding the distorting effects of ethnocentrism. He uses sharp cutoff dates at 800 B.C. and 1950 A.D. to limit the data.
What Murray winds up with is a procedurally neutral measure of human accomplishment that is stable when new sources are added or taken away, and also has good face validity. In Medicine, for example, Pasteur is first with an index score of 100, Koch is third with 90 and Freud (for clinical descriptions of mental illnesses) is 18th with a score of 34.
The Lotka Curve Murray's other major work made a certain kind of statistical curve a household word, and Human Accomplishment prepares a second candidate for improving public statistical awareness: the Lotka Curve. In the mid-1920s, Alfred Lotka noticed an interesting pattern in scientific journals. About 60% of people publish only one article for a journal. The number of people publishing more that this falls off very fast with the number of articles. This makes up a Lotka curve and is almost L shaped.It turns out that in just about every field of human accomplishment significant figures fall along a Lotka curve. In Western literature, Shakespeare is far out along the horizontal part of the curve, Goethe a bit less so, and a whole host of lesser figures make up the nearly vertical part of the data set.
Dead White MalesDespite using several data collection techniques that wind up exaggerating the influence of non-Western cultures, Murray's data shows a strong majority of Westerners among the significant figures of world history.
Fully 97% of significant figures in the sciences come from the West. The same figure is arrived at from looking only at significant events. Even America is dwarfed by European accomplishment in the sciences, hosting less than 20% of significant figures before 1950 compared to Europe's nearly 80%. Europe's dominance over America is even greater in the arts. And though Murray makes sure to calculate what is an upper limit for artistic accomplishment in non-Western parts of the world, the graph is substantially the same as that for the sciences.
One of the astonishing parts of Murray's data is how it demonstrates the significant effects of legal equality. Jewish achievement after 1850 skyrocketed due to their newfound position before the law. Between 1910 and 1950, Jewish achievement tripled despite even the Third Reich and the Holocaust.
The graph of the achievement of woman displays a different pattern, despite their having gained substantial legal equality in the past century. Though there are slight increases in the numbers, women only represent a few percent of Murray's significant figures after 1900. Nor does the data available for the years beyond 1950 bear out any substantial increase in women's achievement during the second half of the twentieth century. Murray provides several possible explanations. Despite legal equality, women did not gain the same degree of immediate social equality that other groups did. Moreover, the substantially greater demands of parenthood upon women make achievement harder.
DeclineThe last section of Human Accomplishment is somewhat surprising. When adjusted for population, Murray's numbers show a decline in accomplishment after 1800. When numbers are used that take not only total population in account, but also urban population and educated population, the decline has brought us down to nearly pre-Renaissance levels. For example, we have 65 playwrights alive today for every one in Elizabethan England. Yet do we have dozens of Shakespeares? The picture is even more stark when the 12,000 members of the screen Writers Guild are taken into account.
As a percentage, the number of significant figures in the sciences compared to the total population has dropped a great deal; this is despite a far greater percentage of working scientists and far more science and technical journals being published.
Murray goes through the data and shows why he believes that the decline is real and is not explicable by any procedural artifacts brought about by his methods. It is a somewhat disturbing conclusion to a great work.
You can purchase Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
though its not really a negative rating...on a scale of 1-10 (or number of appenages up/down) what is a "Thought-provoking"?
The numbers are without a doubt skewed. Come on... Saying 97 percent of the significant figures in sciences come from the west is like saying 90 percent of shark bite victims happen within 100 meters of the shoreline. Where did Murray receive his education? I suppose I'll have to read this book now. hmmmm, what to do this weekend, what to do...
The first spin is the fact that he chose the cutoff dates he did. If you chose cutoff dates of 2000 bce - 800 bce and 200 ad - 1200 ad, you'd decide that 97% of scientists and artists were Chinese, Arab, or Persian, and that Europeans were the giggling idiots of the planet.
The second spin is how he defines "significant."
To reach a basic understanding of yourself/society everyone needs to realize that human life is trivial, we have existed for a very short time and will most likely exist for a short time before reaching extinction. Furthermore as a piece of the Universe we are extremely trivial. I am not trying to downplay the importance of your life with your family or friends, if humans just realized this, we would have a better more peaceful planet.
People argue that society is non-trivial and chain effect of actions, most chain actions stop and celestial bodies are impacted on a minimal level...if you wanted to be non-trivial perhaps you could exist as a sun, comet, nebula, or some other celestial body.
I would think the author would go back to at least 2,000 BCE or even 10,000 and identify the collosal leap made in farming. For a species to go from forraging to agrigulture seems like an enormous effort of overlapping memes (and luck).
Can't wait to read the book.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
....this line:
"Moreover, the substantially greater demands of parenthood upon women make achievement harder."
The problem is that it's difficult to quantify the contribution of a stay-at-home Mom to her childrens' education, welfare, development, etc. It's very significant; it's just difficult to measure with numbers. "Achievement" means different things to different people.
The Army reading list
Do 97% of the world's significant scientists come from the West?
No, they come from India.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
1. The west embraces the free marketplace of ideas more than others.
2. Western dead white males write the history books that most of us read.
Fully 97% of significant figures in the sciences come from the West. The same figure is arrived at from looking only at significant events. Even America is dwarfed by European accomplishment in the sciences, hosting less than 20% of significant figures before 1950 compared to Europe's nearly 80%
Wow, that's surprising! I would have NEVER expected that Europe, with LOADS more people than America, would have more significant figures! Especially before 1950, when America hadn't really gotten up to full speed yet.
If Lotka Curves were known since early last century, why do I find just one occurance of "Lotka Curve" (in quotes) on Google?
Those who complain about affect & effect on
I guess most people will agree with me that most of mankind's biggest accomplishments have been made possible by either great minds ( Einstein ), mass mobilization ( the Pyramids ) or both ( French and American revolutions ). I think this implies that top notch and accessible education ( be it at schools or in independant organizations ) is a must for any ambitious society.
However, we live in a time when information is being bought as merchandise and considered as a mere product ( proprietary software and copyrighted works come to mind ), and, in America's case, lower education is in a much worse situation than in many other developed countries while having the highest tuitions fees for higher education in that same bunch. I think this state of affairs have grave consequences for the American society, and since it is so powerful, for the whole world as well.
Just my 2 cents here, comment if you please.
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
... the advances in Religious Fundamentalism have far outstripped our scientific achievements.
"I am right, you are wrong; god told me, simple as that. You must die."
What else were we expecting from Charles Murray? Lots of clever-sounding numbers and an inherent bias towards male white westerners.
Because of the clear subjectivity in deciding what makes something an achievement he is free to exercise his partiality.
It may be asking too much to ask for a book that contains no stupid figures but then didn't we all cotton on to his agenda back in 1994?
The other significant problem with assigning "value" to more current achievements is that we have yet to find out what the implications of much research is. For instance, many people do not know who Mario Capecchi is, as he has yet to win a Nobel prize (but he will given his contributions to genetics). Furthermore, folks like Shakespeare were not recognized as the geniuses they were until long after their time on earth had passed.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Maybe we'll see an even steadier decline. People are, overall content with the status quo. In school, we aren't taught creativity, we aren't taught balls.
We are taught life will be ok just as long as we can watch Friends every Thursday night. We're complacent and lazy. But, is there a limit to human achievement? Some think that we've reached the pinnacle.
What will spark the next revoloution in human development? We'll go from the electronic age to the ?? age?
I hope it's the human age. Once all our basic needs are satisfied easily, food, shelter, etc, I hope our creative energies are spent exploring the human possibilites. Such as longivity, what happens when we die, why do we think the way we do, why do people murder others, how do we effectively teach our children, how do we effectively punish criminals? etc.. etc..
97% of the world's significant persons (sorry MEN) in *WESTERN* science come from the West.
The thing is, all of those scientists in China, India, Arabia, Indigeonous American Cultures, etc don't count. They don't count because either 1) we've lost track of them since they aren't in *western* history, and thus "aren't important" to western historians (whom we count as the authorities) or 2) they don't follow greek principles and as such their achievements "aren't science".
This is why we give kudos to European "scientists" which are trying to discover how God made the world, but immediately blow off Chinese scientists because they talk in terms of Qi (Chi), as if one supernatural force is somehow better than another.
1. Engineered a strain of mouse-pox virus which kills 100% of animals it infects.
It sounds like an interesting read, perhaps, but I tend to need to take these kinds of things with a whole shakerfull of salt. Human civilization is something that is occurring over a timescale of millions of years, not a couple thousand, and it is the seemingly inescapable tendency of every age to think it can see past the cultural and temporal blinders and set down the "objective" view of the way things are. If you believe anyone really has it, I've got a bottle of phlogiston to sell you.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
We have a reasonably good count of the writers and actors who are waiting tables for a living while awaiting their big break. We do not have a good count -- I'd be surprised if we have any count at all -- of similar people in Elizabethan England.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The Universe is a big place. It's mostly empty. Does that mean matter is trivial?
I'd suggest that matter is non-trivial, but in the minority when measured by volume occupied. I think we're like that; I think organized matter supporting intelligence is non-trivial, but is certainly in the minority when measured as a percentage of matter in the universe.
Here is a poem by al-Mutanabbi: "Glory and honour were healed when you were healed, and your pain passed on to your enemies. Light, that had left the sun, as if it was sick in its body, came back to it. By race, the Arabs are supreme in the world, but a foreigner will take part with the Arabs of good heart." And I wondered why I've never heard of him.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
i have 2 primary concerns:
1. what references? i'd be curious about how he selected the references used to cull the paragraphs/mentions.
2. what about cults of personality? while the analysis methodology seems reasonable enough, certain figures are bound to produce more references. while in many cases, this is reasonable (e.g., shakespeare), in others, it's less so (e.g., byron vs. say shelley). this is going to skew things. while this may in fact be part of "eminence", i think it may not produce adequately objective results.
ed
Much of the world's different development is due to geography. For example, agricultural civilizations developed faster in Europe/Asia because of it's long East-West length, and the ability to grow similar things across this huge continent in the same temperate zones. Africa on the other hand had many more temperate zones, making it more difficult to spread agricultural ways.
Second, a lot of Asia's early success was due to natural irrigation, however, this also created a lot of central authority. It was the only way to make sure each year's harvest worked. This central authority allowed Chinese emperors to basically prohibit their population from trade with the rest of the world.
Europe on the other hand had lots of mountains and rivers. This allowed various kingdoms to develop in relative peace, and gave them the freedom to experiment a bit more. Eventually people began to work ways around these natural barriers which led to tons of competition. This competition to get ahead helped things keep from stagnating. Plus, the populace in Europe developed power faster than elsewhere, as early mercantilism developed. Oh, and you also have to credit the early Protestant "work ethic" which had people working hard, but not buying much. They could sell their goods to the rich, and this redistribution of wealth eventually led to loss of power for the nobility.
The United States flourished for a combination of these same reasons. The spread across the continent, it had huge natural boundaries to protect it from most enemies, and it was originally colonized by fairly strict Protestants.
I've always felt like the world is in a period of decline despite the amazing advances in the sciences and arts. If asked, I would normally frame that decline as somehow moral or spiritual in nature. I'm going to seek out this book to investigate this idea of decline more carefully.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
I found this last part the most intriguing, and it is something that I have suspected for a long time. When you consider that in ancient times it took 9 out of every 10 people just to produce enough food to feed everyone, it makes the accomplishments and inventions of those times even more astounding.
We are building our new technology on the backs of the inventiveness of our ancestors. We don't have to re-invent the wheel... or the combustion engine... or depth perspective art. It has already been done for us. So while our technology seems to be advancing at an incredible rate, this does not mean that we as a people have improved in our mental capacity. Maybe we are so busy using our technology that we have forgotten how to use our minds.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
(And to head off the inevitable complaining: no, there is no referrer tag in that URL. Whatever you're bitching about, it's Amazon's, not mine.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Are we supposed to believe that "how many paragraphs were written about person X" is a reasonable measurement of how good a scientist person X is? It might be something of a indication, but it is almost certainly not enough to rank people in a meaningful order.
If he had just chosen his favorites (and defended his choices), that would be reasonable, but claiming that this method is objective is ridiculous.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Imagine that you found yourself in a position to write a resume for the whole human species
Still not evolved enough to quit killing its own species.
(until that threshold is reached we should consider taking ourselves less seriously. hint: several other species seem to be able to get by without killing eachother...)
She's a hottie, though.
How many bright minds would *do* something if it wasn't so easy to go to the library, surf the web, ... or (dare I say?) turn on the tv?
Charles Murray bows down and worships my splendiferous accomplishment!
pleeeeeeease?!!!
Not enough great discoveries in recent times?
Has this stiff ever seen a goddamn Tivo??
Or internet porn??
AllDirect has the same book for $18.57, with no patent-supporting nastiness.
Institute for Scientific Infromation has an index that judges the relevance and current utility of publications by the number of times it is cited in other publications. But really seminal work is often not recognized for the paradigm shift it brings until later. So the apparent fall off in creativity the author sees may be due to the length of time it takes before a work is acknowledged to be great. Shakespeare (or whoever) was a prolific playwright but was not given great respect until much later. Gregor Mendel described genetic theory but the significance not realized until years later. The Western bias may be real based on the published observation that creative scientists tend to be from rather secular families. Cultures that bow to a rigid religious standard would be expected to have fewer creative types or not allow creativity to be widely encouraged or expressed.
Look at our Military Budget compared to everything else and you will notice a major problem, a major catastrophe and a major crime.
The only thing our military is doing for us right now is being used as a tool for evil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Unless you mean to say, that "Duh! Of course all the signifigant figures come from the West, we all know the East and other parts of the world are full of imitators and sub-par intellects."
Which, well, would seem to be supported by the data...
Blar.
Human Race
humanrace@earth.com
Third Planet from Sun
Sol, Milky Way 90210
(555)0000001
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Sucessful downsizing of pesky animal and plant problem on planet.
Created science, religion, and McDonalds.
Created bureaucracy.
We're the ones sending out 50 year old "I Love Lucy" episodes in space.
Created the atomic bomb.
QUALIFICATIONS
Ability to split everything in to groups, reduce them to superficial views then discriminate.
Can eradicate anything you want in a quick, effeciant manner.
We laugh, we love, we play, we're like sea monkeys except we breathe air.
Terraforming.
Created computers, then made them useful enough to take over the jobs of 80% of our species, smart eh?
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
Stone Age, Earth: (10KBC - 2000BC)
Mostly went around grunting at eachother.
Occasionaly raped and pillaged another cave.
Created art using feces and cave walls.
Dark Ages, Earth: (500AD- 800AD)
Not too much happened. We did kill off a shitload of our own people cause we lived like pigs and ended up catching the black plauge.
Technology Age, Earth: (1900AD - Current)
Created manned flight, space travel, robotics, computers, cloning and bio terrorism. Job seems risky right now and looking for new oppurtunities before recently created AI becomes new manager.
EDUCATION
Graduated first in class of 1,000,000,000,000 species on planet.
Top 1% of tool using monkeys.
HONORS
Created especially by this God fellow.
It's not uncommon for "greatness" in (literature, painting, scupture -- "the arts") not to be generally recognized until well after the artists death. This might accuont for the recent "Decline" the author talks about.
This L-shaped Lotka curve bears a suspicious resemblance to the Zipf distribution, which describes the popularity or prominence of objects in a wide range of fields. It is better displayed on a logarithmic scale, where the L shaped curve becomes a straight line. It would be interesting to see if Murray's data also showed that effect.
The book reviewed book sounds like a crude quantization of the joy of culture. Not that I've read it, which makes my criticism phillistine at best.
But seriously, if you get a chance to pick up the book of the TV Series (or they rerun the series--I believe it was broadcast on PBS in the states) I highly recommend it.
Referral Link: Amazon has this book for the same price as bn
Spend $4 more to get free shipping.
-Dubya
I for one welcome our new Western overlords...
Um...
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
Read "Guns Germs and Steel" (as Bill Gates has ;p ) to understand why this may be the case.s .htm
http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring99/gunsgerm
-... ---
We made plastic. That is our sole purpose. What else is left?
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
Being the egotistical SOB that I am, when I first started my Masters degree I was disappointed when I sat down with my advisor and was forced to narrow my research from inventing a perpetual motion machine to a (what I thought at the time) simple diesel engine emission model.
My professor tried to explain to me that great leaps in advancement only happen after many small advancements have built up and are available to reference. An example would be Newton; he is recognized as a great physist, however his theories did not materialize out of thin air. Almost everything he put forward had been said before by his peers at the time, he was just able to organize all the ideas and present them in one place.
A more accurate study of achievement should not be how many references one received, but who the great achievers reference themselves.
I also believe that may explains why 'large scale' achievement has slowed in the modern day. It now takes many more small steps forward to really set the stage for great advancement.
Of course, I could be wrong
what about the guy (or gal) who invented FIRE!!! That accomplishment is no less than frigging Einstein!! Also, I sure would like to invent the dude who learnt to count with his fingers, that's pretty smart too.
I agree with previous posters about the skewed results occuring as a natural result of the time period selected. That is why I have always been fond of "The Ascent of Man" (book and TV series) from the mid-to-late 1970's, as I recall. While I never read that book by Jacob Bronowski, I was captivated by his TV series and developed a respect for the achievements of our ancestors. I've always loved science, but I learned of the deep connection it has with art from the serires. I wish some network would re-run that series so I and my kid could experience it again.
-- Instant Karma's gonna get you! [320848 = 2*2*2*2*11*1823]
I remember when Jean-Luc Picard stood trial for all of humanity. He also had to present a resume of human accomplishment to Q.
was that blacks are inherently stupid, I'm not surprised that he comes to the conclusion in this book that Westerners do all the great work. Does George Washington Carver (presumeably an outlier on the Bell Curve) make the list?
Are there a dozen Shakespeares? Maybe! How would you know? There are dozens of great playwrights in the world today, and dozens of authors, etc. Which are today's Shakespeare? Ask me in three hundred years when can see which authors are still talked about and studied in school. Was Shakespeare hailed as "the Homer of today" at the time? No!
"Significant" figures in science are decreasing? Maybe it's because more science is being done by groups of scientists collaborating. If a dozen papers come out of one university research group, but each has a different author's name on the top, then is that less accomplishment than six papers with one author? I guess the accomplishments of groups of scientists working together isn't significant.
Frankly, I think the absence of "significant" figures is a sign of progress. It shows that our scientific base is widening, so that contributions come from a greater number of individuals. Contrast for example Galileo, one of the only people doing astrological work at the time. Whereas now there are observatories around the world with thousands upon thousands of individuals studying the stars, each making their own contributions.
This book sounds like crap, which I base half on the review and half on my opinion that the Bell Curve was crap. Knowing the way he covers his crap assumptions and the resulting crap conclusions with statistics and charts that seem reasonable at first, I'm seeing heavy potential for the same kind of thing here. Starting with taking whatever statistical feature he's actually looking at and calling it "Achievment", a mirror of taking scores from a military aptitude test and calling that "Intelligence".
But he'll probably get a lot of book sales from people who want to hear about how white folk from the west are the producers of all human achievment.
The enemies of Democracy are
write a resume for the whole human species
Tastes great with ketchup...
The graph of the achievement of woman displays a different pattern, despite their having gained substantial legal equality in the past century. Though there are slight increases in the numbers, women only represent a few percent of Murray's significant figures after 1900. ... Murray provides several possible explanations. Despite legal equality, women did not gain the same degree of immediate social equality that other groups did. Moreover, the substantially greater demands of parenthood upon women make achievement harder.
Uhhhh....Hellllooooooo....Brain architecture!
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
The thought we are in decline is silly.. All the old, great scientific minds got into the sciences because of their love for it, and working in them full time was tough back in the day. Now everyone with a math SAT score over 600 is encouraged to be a scientist/engineer, so of course the fields are deluted. And this, i think, is a requirement for further advancment because we are ever approaching a time where some guy cant invent something incredible in his garage by himself. You need to build upon the work of your peers.
When adjusted for population, Murray's numbers show a decline in accomplishment after 1800. When numbers are used that take not only total population in account, but also urban population and educated population, the decline has brought us down to nearly pre-Renaissance levels.
Stand that argument on its head and it becomes interesting. The modern rate of accomplishment puts the Renaissance to shame, yet the per-capita rate of accomplishment is Dark Ages or worse. That means that the modern impact of each accomplishment is far greater than it was then.
It also means that if we find new ways to increase population (space colonies anyone?) we should also see a rise in the rate of accomplishmet of the human race as a whole.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
There is only on thing that entered my mind when I saw the title: We have survived so far.
Anonymous Cowards Unite
"Mr. President, I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy... heh heh... At the bottom of ah... some of our deeper mineshafts. The radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep. And in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in dwelling space could easily be provided."
The owls are not what they seem
The whole point of a resume is to highlight a persons accomplishments and experiece that might have prepared you for some new position. Therefore most recent experience and accomplishment is most relevant. But an intelectual exercise to come up with a resume for humanity is pointless unless you determine who your reader would be... It might be a good exercise if one were to think of an alien race looking at a resume or God, but isn't a list of individuals pointless and even a list of ideas and discoveries might be included in some sort of list of skills. But the meat of the resume, the experience section would be filled with accomplishments, if alien civilizations where our readers then experience and accomplishments such as; harnessing energy to set up a vaste electrical grid, setting up a communication network around the Earth, distributing water, the Suez and Panama canals, exploring our Solar system with probes, basically anything big that humanity has done to interact with and change our environment. Otherwise, much like the "defeated Hitler" argument, many of humanities endeavors are purely to perpetuate our species, akin to putting "I lost 10 pounds" on your resume. Even some of those things that I wrote might be considered in this category of basic self help... ie discovered drug A that allowed us to live longer would not be important, rather only what was done with that extra time would be important. But the increase in population might go on the resume as an indication of success, as well as, the fact that humans can be found all over the earth as well as in orbit. But these would be the lines of a resume of humanity, not that some individual discovered gravity.
As for the usual education section, it seems that we would want to give an indication here that we have a sizeable recorded history stretching back a few thousand years, so as to indicate that perhaps we have learned something during that time that might be useful.
Hmm... References Available Upon Request.
I spent several years living in Korea among the Koreans. I've studied their culture and personality up-close and personal.
/Roman / European system we inherited. It used to be, "Do as the teacher says, memorize, and repeat". Now it is becoming, "Question the teacher, and when the teacher can't answer your questions, turn to other sources, or discover the answer for yourself." This is going counter to almost 5,000 years of history in that region.
Ask a Korean where all the science development occured, and they will point to Europe. Ask them what they have done to further humanity's knowledge and they might mutter something about a great world vision and system called Confucianism, but not much else.
It is true that recently (like in the past 50 years) Korea has experienced a rennaissance in that only now are their thinkers and artists truly free to express themselves. They understand that at this point, they are by no means pioneers. But soon their society will have "advanced" to a level that will be comparable with the European societies. They look to the West to find examples of great scientists, artists, political leaders (think American Revolution, Economic policy, etc...), in their effort to obtain the great wealth in all areas of life that we experience.
They are even now adjusting their entire education system to become like the Greek
The same holds true for Japan, China, and other Asian countries. It probably holds true for most of Africa, Australia, and even pre-1800's North and South America.
They literally contributed very, very little to humanity while the West was changing the world every 50 years or so. This is not racism, or me being and egotistical white male American, this is solid fact.
If you want to look at true human achievement, look at what the world is becoming. Only now do Asian, African, and other non-European begin to contribute to the arts and the sciences. Only now do you see advances in political and economical thought coming from there as well. This is all due to our natural sharing attitude, where we would rather teach and lift and bring others to our level than maintain our superiority with an iron fist. We understand that we are much more "wealthy" in true human achievemtn when we have two well-educated, intelligent people, than one well-educate and the other mis-educated.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
That's such a no-brainer! Ninnle Linux can do anything!
There is a disturbing historical precedent for this bizarre piece of nonsense. Francis Galton , the man who invented eugenics, wrote on 'Hereditary genius' by assigning what were effectively IQ scores to dead historical figures based on their biographies. He thought that he had found that these scores were heritable. He used this to argue for restrictions on human breeding.
Galton, by repute a kindly and pleasant man, was the unwitting intellectual godfather both of the Nazi exterminaiton programs, and of the disgraceful programs of forcible sterilisation in the United States and many other Western countries.
Galton's procedure was nonsense, based as it was on a completely circular defintion of "intelligence", a complete absence of data, and a deal of fuzzy thinking. Murray's appears to be equally nonsense, and probably for very similar reasons. What he has managed to show is that certain types of achievement are more likely to be recorded than others, which is at most mildly interesting, and that dominant social groups write about themselves, which is not very surprising, and entirely un-original.
Having read Murray's previous opus, I will not be parting with my hard-earned euros to read this one...
-- Anthony Staines
I'd boast of our "less likely being a random occurence", like this
"Provided by the management for your protection."
...'Mostly Harmless'
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
While the Human Race's resume is certainly impressive, without an MCSE we cannot accept it for this position. Best of luck in your future endeavours.
This reminds me of Dead Poets Society and Pr. Pritchard willing to "measure" litterature.
Probably the only scientific conclusion you can draw from such statistics is that whatever the domain, whatever the time, "meaningfull" people come from the dominating nations. With the dates he chose, I bet this is Greece, then Roma, then Western Europe, and 50 more years after 1950 would have brought the USA on top of the list. This is not a wonder to see that the author of The Bell Curve choose the beginning of the western civilization as starting date of his study.
The whole concept of progress, not just looking back to a Golden Age coupled with a purpose of study of the Natural Sciences as it was called.
The Purpose was still framed in Christian ethics of Charity ie Betterment of the life of fellow human beings, but this was enough to "shovel off this religious coil" that has keept man's progress down.
The problem with the rest of the world is that the Coil is still there.
Help fight continental drift.
Simple reason: increased competition leads to decreased fame. If you have dozens of Shakespeares, no single one of them is going to be as famous as if you have just one. Since the measure of success is necessarily some form of popularity contest, you cannot fairly compare Shakespeare's talent to modern talent. It's like saying Perrier is better than tap water when you tasted the former at noon on a hot day in Death Valley and the latter on a cold and rainy October day in Minnesota.
Nor can you say "I saw a Shakespeare play today and a Tom Stoppard play yesterday, and X is better." We have a culture that primes you for Shakespeare starting before Kindergarden, with all of those "Romeo and Juliet" references, among other things. Stoppard, on the other hand, writes for a post-Shakespeare audience, and builds on Shakespeare. You can't isolate one from the other, nor either from its environment.
I agree with you women, that women are indeed better than men. ... here's the punchline ... So if you're better than us, why are you trying to lower yourself to our level?
Another way of looking at the world is that for every great achievement of every great person, there were at least one and perhaps two women who can claim a large portion of the credit:
1) Their mother. (Who else nurtured them and prepard them for greatness?)
2) Their wife. (Who else encouraged them and supported them?)
So next time you hear, "Albert Einstein is a great man", think, "There are two women who are at least as great". This simple fact puts the number of great women at nearly doubly the number of great men.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
The review (and the book?) left out two important factors. Physical evolution: very evolved. Emotional evolutions: not much past crayfish.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
I bet if you go to vast part of Asia, Africa... some place other than Europe or U.S., not many people would know who Shakespeares or any other so called "Genius" by Europeans. If one looks back in just previous Centuries, world was colonized by Europeans. Not because Europeans were smarter than the rest, but because they were the first to realize the importance of warfare. Naturally, they had first opportunity to invent weapons which many other cultures didn't think of it as too much of importance. I am not Chinese but, if you compare the accomplishments of the Chinese and Arabs, what Europe has accomplished so far is just a sand on a beach! Unfortunately, Chinese and Arabs weren't much interested in weapons developements. They spent too much time on philosophy and medicinal sciences! Last Century, Japanses realized the importance of weapons, therefore, they too became powerful nation and colonization followed. I would say, in this Century, everyone is about at eqaul footing. All nations now know science (taylored to weapons developement) are important. It is sad thing that certain people (Murray) have just too much pride and make race or ethnicity as an issue worthy talking about; it isn't.
Sung N. Cho
I don't think so! I'll bet the great majority of sources are english and the rest are western european. Guess what? People tend to reference works written in their own native language! This is bias up the wazoo! So much for a neutral measure!
I've only spent about 5 minutes thinking about it, but a slightly less biased (but not neutral) measure would involve counting works translated into multiple languages. The idea being that if a work is worth the effort of importing from another language/culture, then it's more significant than an untranslated work.
The fact that Murray could build this obvious fundamental bias into his metric is laughable. Then to proceed blithely with the whole book pretending his metric is neutral is just absurd. A whole book about measuring science, and it's based on a warped ruler!
Truly, Schiller was right: against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
If you determine a persons scientific significance by seeing how often they are cited of course we are declining since the 1500's.
First off there are more scientists publishing now to cite from. If before there were 3 guys publishing and now there are 1000 you are going to have to do a lot more to get noticed out of that 1000 versus the 3.
Second, science has become much more specialized. Da Vinci did a lot of things across many fields. Now you may spend an entire career in one field maybe working on just one project. Nobody will cite you then.
Third, about 500 years ago lots of new fields and new trains of thought popped up. Newton is going to be cited by lots and lots of people some of whom maybe smarter, more inventive and better educated but decide to pursue a career in a field not founded by them so they will not be cited as much.
With the exception of the Far East, the rest of the world simply didn't have the technology the Europeans had - Native Americans were still using stone knives and bearskins when we crossed the Atlantic, and bloody likely still would be today if we hadn't showed up (been doing it for 1500 years, no need to change for the next 500). Ditto Africa. Now..that has nothing to do with skin color, or eye color, or anything as silly and superficial as that - but the unfortunate fact is Europe and the DWMs came up with modern science and technology, while the rest of the world was stagnating. And there's about nine million other issues as well, but the tech thing was kind of important.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
While I appreciate Charles Murray's contributions, we should understand that he has a political agenda.
My own belief that is that his observation "decline" is due to 1) the law of decreasing returns -- making new scientific discoveries or gaining new insights is more difficult and requires more work and education, and 2) improved communications -- we need (and therefore discover) fewer "Shakespeares" simply because the modern equivalents get published and seen by a much larger audience.
History is written by the winners. - George Orwell
Of course we have fewer Shakespeares. During Elizabethan times, we were in the very early stages of Capitalism, if at all. The point of writing plays was to fulfill one's calling, not to make money. In our capitalist system, one is considered a success by making films pointed at the lowest common denominator that make the most money...
As our writers, scientists, and other "intellectual heavyweights" are alienated from the products of their labour, meaning that they base their research on what will make money (or even what their benefactors want them to find) we will never have the type of intellectual development as before.
Oh, we'll get more gadgets and stuff for us techies, but will those make our lives better?
I'm not a Marxist... I just believe that the overthrow of capitalism is the best option.
...and began to use Western techniques. I don't see this as sharing, I see it as finally recognizing a superior way of doing things.
Blar.
What's the job? Who is the target audience of this resume? It's not a resume.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Anti-rocket laser cannon gets funding
Report: Company develops rifle that fires at right angles
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 Posted: 10:27 AM EST (1527 GMT)
The U.S. Army's beam director is shown during tests at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel and the U.S. are to spend at least $57 million for development of a laser cannon that can shoot down short-range missiles, an Israeli legislator and security officials said Tuesday.
A recent Israeli delegation successfully lobbied Congress to approve the new funding package for the joint U.S.-Israeli Nautilus laser weapon project, said Israeli lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, who was part of the delegation.
Israel wants the Nautilus to help protect its northern border towns from Katyusha rockets, fired by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah during Israel's 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000. Israel claims that Hezbollah now has 11,000 rockets aimed at Israel.
Congress approved $57 million to fund the project, and Israel will also contribute funding, Steinitz said, but could not say how much.
There is, however, no public record of congressional approval for Nautilus funding. It may fall under the classified portion of the 2004 Defense Authorization bill, passed by Congress and signed by U.S. President George W. Bush on September 30.
The laser beam system was successfully tested at the U.S. White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, in February 1996. However, since then, development of the project had been held up by skeptics in the U.S. Congress, said an Israeli security official.
New funding is now needed to transform the technology into a practical weapon, said Steinitz, who is the chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs and defense committee.
"Now we have to make it an efficient, compact weapon that can be used in the battlefield and in the war on terrorism," Steinitz said.
The Nautilus uses a high power radar to track and lock onto the incoming projectile. Then a Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL), which looks like a large spotlight, shoots out an intense beam that destroys the rocket.
The White Sands test marked the first time that a rocket has been destroyed in flight by a laser beam. The laser has also proved its ability to shoot down artillery shells.
Israeli security officials said that the potential to use this technology in the war against terrorism was a major factor in convincing Congress to renew support for the project.
Also Tuesday, the Maariv daily reported that a U.S.-Israeli company has developed a gun that can fire at right angles.
Corner Shot said its new rifle is composed of two parts. The front, that can swivel from side to side, contains a pistol with a color camera mounted on top. The back section consists of the stock, trigger and a monitor.
"If the technology is developed, it will be applicable to many other military mechanisms," said Steinitz, "It could be a central mechanism in the future battlefield." Congress also approved a further $89 million for a second joint U.S.-Israeli project, the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system, which has already entered production, Steinitz said. The system is already operational.
According to the report, the pistol, produced by the Florida-based Corner Shot Holdings, is being tested by the Israeli military and has already been bought by a number of special forces around the world.
A spokesman for the Israeli branch of the company refused to comment on the report.
Pictures of the weapon show a gun composed of two parts -- the front, that can swivel from side to side, containing a pistol with a color camera mounted on top, and the back section which consists of the stock, trigger and a monitor.
The unique weapon allows the soldier to remain behind cover, with only the barrel of the rifle exposed in the direction of the hostile fire, even at a sharp angle.
I found this last part the most intriguing, and it is something that I have suspected for a long time.
Don't let the fact that he's telling you what you already believed cause you to not investigate the claims. He's measuring his decline based on the number of "significant" individuals. That "significant" is defined by how much they are talked about, and that achievments by groups of non-famous people are ignored, should show that even if the claim of a decline is true, he isn't conclusively proving it.
When you consider that in ancient times it took 9 out of every 10 people just to produce enough food to feed everyone, it makes the accomplishments and inventions of those times even more astounding.
But it makes his method for picking achievment even more obviously crap. Only a small portion of the population had the ability to pursue science, so those who did have a much higher chance of standing out. That's why you've heard of Newton, but not any of the people who discovered and then demonstrated how to teleport photons instantaneously. There will be no Principia of our day, because the scientific advancements were written about by thousands of individuals.
So while our technology seems to be advancing at an incredible rate, this does not mean that we as a people have improved in our mental capacity.
I'd say that would be a highly unlikely occurance anyway. Until we start mucking about with our own genes or a few million years pass, there isn't much that's going to happen on the "capacity" front. The best we can do is to better realize and utilize that capacity.
And everyone has built their technology on the backs of their ancestors. Newton understood this, and said so. This does nothing to diminish the accomplishments of Newton or of modern day scientists who are too freaking numerous to mention or remember.
I guess what I'm saying is: You may be right and there -is- a decline, but this guy isn't proving it other than by being an example.
The enemies of Democracy are
You misspelled half of those names. You are a fucking moron. Nobody cares about your idiotic opinions, so please go die. Thanks in advance.
It is hardly surprising that most of the accomplishments of value to certain societys were done by members of that society.
If painting is not meaningful to a society, it will not be likely to produce a major figure in this fine art. And Murray, who comes from a society that values paintings, will think the "others" are somehow inferior because they've not created any Picassos.
One of the astonishing parts of Murray's data is how it demonstrates the significant effects of legal equality. Jewish achievement after 1850 skyrocketed due to their newfound position before the law. Between 1910 and 1950, Jewish achievement tripled despite even the Third Reich and the Holocaust.
What about Catholic achievements? Or Islamic? Where are the Hindus? Wiccans? Atheists?
why is it that we are debating whether or not the universe started with a big bang, while guys like stephen hawkings are imagining multiple universes creating and destroying themselves, in open and closed systems, dimensions and branes and all sorts of weird shit, nevermind we still don't have a Unified Grand Theory of Everything, or even a descent connection between Quantum Physics and Astrophysics_Scale Classical Physics. or at least _i_ don't. mabye i missed something, where the scientists in harvard or cambridge or mcgill somewhere decided how to travel through time, what time is, how to move energy from one universe to another (or even, if there _is_ another universe,) how to use the corelation effect properly or to go between going-faster-than-the-speed-of-light and -going-the-speed of light...right down to how it is, that human's can even exist in thought---as in, that soul-thing that descartes was talking about...how does it work? at what layer does it interact with the universe? is there a god? is there a greater layer of reality that our universe, big bang to slow freeze, is merely a part of? is everything we know, everything we have seen so far not even a speck to some grand massive multiuniverse sized _life form_? personally i see a lot of room for improvement, ESPECIALLY in the fundemental axioms of thought, reason, and science. and definitely some changes in the fundemental thought processes of the mainstream human being.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
As for the decline in achievement post 1800... that's probably because all the low-hanging fruit are gone.
As we develop new areas of science and mathematics, we find new branches of low-hanging fruit of which we were previously unaware, so this statement is not true in general. For example, when Feynman and Schwinger figured out how to regularize quantum field theory calculations in QED (for which they received the Nobel prize), they made a wide array of previously unsolvable particle physics problems into low hanging fruit, generating a burst of research in the field for the next few decades.
However, such opportunities are rarer in the arts. It's no surprise that someone like Shakespeare appeared during the particular time period when he wrote. He was lucky to be born at a time when the field of English-language plays was emerging and took advantage of that fact to pick plenty of the low-hanging fruit. The same is true for the other great Renaissance artists. Today's artists have to reach much higher to find any fruit.
He measures 'eminence' by taking a number of comprehensive sources on each field and counting the references to each person and how many paragraphs they get.
Translation: "The author used Google to look up his stats."
Apparently, Murray didn't look at any analysis of changing economic systems and the effect they might have on this decrease in accomplishment. Perhaps capitalism and an overwhelming concern with collecting pounds/francs/marks/dollars is funneling that "lateral thinking" in ways that are, overall, detrimental to our own best progress.
"Practical" these days all too often means "Profit!"
Mostly Harmless
The thing is that most other cultures gave exisitng mores and morality precedence. So rather than use technology to break down an existing society, they used it to reinforce what they had. Hence, the Chinese used gun power to amuse themselves, rather than blow each other up. They forced their soldiers to be fluent in the arts, to have balance, to, in effect, be more human. That, interestingly, is a lesson the US Armed Forces would do well to learn.
From the review it seems the author is afflicted with a common disease of the West: Everyone is just like us! Everyone wants the same thing in life!. It's an infantile world-view, as anyone who has traveled abroad and talked to people may tell you. Not everyone wants to be the way Europe or the US is. Not everyones priority is to create the next great amusement for the masses, or the next killing bacteria, or what have you. Some people actually want to improve the human condition, you know -- a house for everyone, low suicide rates, a society not cowering in fear, things that the Ottomans (for instance) achieved to a great degree in their heyday (sp). Just as an example, I listened to a man once telling of his teacher who visited America. The teacher, who is a from a very poor town in arabia, was shocked when he saw a homeless man and thought him to be mad. The teacher had never seen a homeless man. Once the the author figures out how to pull America as the country with the highest number of kids below the poverty line, he can talk about human achievement, until then he would do better to exert his efforts in better pursuits
In conclusion, any measurement of the respective human achievements of various cultures/societies, must be tempered with a look at what they wished to achieve.
Discussions, arguments, diatribes against "bias" one way or another by the researcher [hey, this _is_ /., afterall!]
But let's not forget...all research includes some form of bias or variable to skew the data [even pristine labs have some, albeit usually negligible to make it non-noteworthy]. And social science, well, that's just silly to assume all bias is removed.
Based on the review [I haven't read the book], the author has gone to some lengths to try and define how to make his research as unbiased [meaning accounting for unwanted variables] as possible. Some good counter-points have already been raised here concerning the time period [prior to 800 b.c. would give different results]; and cultural influences [religious beliefs not allowing some uses of technology; closed cultures not benefitting from 'cross-pollenized' ideas].
Some of those that bring up these counter-points may even do additional research to see if what they find supports/amends/contradicts what this author is saying, which will add to the discussion, and hopefully, learning about humankind as a species.
My point: We sometimes confuse words such as "superior" with concepts like "advancing". Some cultures may not have advanced technology, but that doesn't inherently make them less superior. Based on the review, this book, if taken separately from any politicized views [technological progress = good, religion = bad; west=good, east=not so good], is a great thought-starter. And shouldn't that be what science is all about?
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
The problem with comparing art and events from the 20th Century is that they haven't weathered the cruelest judge of all: Time.
Mozart and Shakespeare didn't create in a vacuum. There were other composers, playwrites, and poets running around during their days yet their material not only survives but thrives. It is because their ideas captured a timeless quality. How do you measure that on recent creations?
It seems slightly unfair to say that the world is in decline just because we don't have 12 Shaekspeares turning out hundreds of "MacBeths". It is just too soon to call that judgement. In 100 Years Frank Lloyd Wright might reveared as Leonardo da Vinci.
So stark are the historical cultural differences, that the writer is apparently blind to the fact that the very concept of searching for scientific truths and advancements is predominantly a -western- quest.
many non-western cultures sought primarily philosophical and religious achievement rather than technical. By measuring predominantly those achievements which leave behind tangible art and science you not only ignore the great Oral traditions of many cultures - but you surely miss what was the focus of Eastern culture for millenia.
Surely philosophical and religious achievements are not something one can put into a database easily - so i do not fault the method. Only the analysis, which doesn't explain awareness that the entire -experiment- is geared towards weastern goals, and therefore should be -expected- to bear out primarily western achievers.
though I do expect the data to show that cultures free from governmental or religious limitations on -creative arts- are more conducive to the creation of great art.
While much Eastern art is easily comparable to anything Michaelangelo has done, Western artists have had many more creative freedoms to explore.
This, assuming of course that the writer had the forethought to include painting and sculpture as well as the written latin word.
Though it would not surprise me if his method again prohibited him for cataloguing any of the great eastern scrolls or carvings.
Now, whereas we may not have the same -incidence- of great acheivers of western goals by population, that isn't indicative of a -decline-, only an approach to an asymptote.
which indicates that we, as a civilization, are approaching critical mass relative to rate of technical achievement. perhaps this is shown to be a 'hiccup' in the trend as we begin to count the impending genetic, robotic and nanotech advancements of the 21st century, but perhaps not.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Creating fire. All of human history was made possible by this one discovery. Fire changed everything.
Absolutely. 1000 years ago, we were the barbarians trying to impose a tyrannical theocracy on everyone, and they were the light of the civilized world.
But what have they done for humanity lately?
(Emphasis added)
And that is why they hate us.
Thus beginneth the rant. This is not addressed to the poster to whom I'm responding, your post just provided me with a jumping-off point for a rant that's been brewing in my mind all week.
An open letter to the world's barbarians:
"DEMOCRACY! WHISKEY! SEXY!"
If the best your culture has to offer the 21st Century is mass gang rape in France ("taking turns", I believe you call it?) and mass murder damn near everywhere else, then fuck you, I call bullshit on your culture, because by any rational measure, your culture is inferior to ours. That's right. I said a taboo word. You're not "different". You're not "diverse". You're inferior. You are barbarians. And worse, you're not just content to live as animals, you seek to reduce us to your level. And I'm sick to my stomach at having to watch the news - as every day, you use our western tendency towards tolerance as a shield for your culture's twin values of mass rape and mass murder. I am a free man. I will not tolerate Dhimmitude. You will have to kill me before I bow down to your false God.
You have two options. You can join civilization or you can be wiped out by an unstoppable wave of cultural imperialism. You have left us with no other means of dealing with you short of genocide. (I know you - being barbarians - won't understand this, but we believe it's better, not just for our bottom line, but on a moral level, to sell stuff to you than kill you.)
We're the 2-3 billion people who have adopted Western Civilization. We're here, we're better than you, and we're not going away.
The Bell Curve (the book not the concept) has pretty much been completely discredited.
I imagine that this book will be as well. Measuring "achievement" is easy to skew since it is a moving target that you can define to suit your opinion.
If you asked a Chinese scholar a couple of hundred years ago about the meaning of achievement, he would probaly stress cultural and social stability.
If you asked a Sioux in 1750, he'd probaly describe a great buffalo hunt.
Mr. Murray has undoubtably done a great job describing how citizens of Western societies have done a great job of advancing western civilization.
What a revelation! Maybe in his next book he'll statistically analyze swimming and discover that fish are the best swimmers!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
"For example, we have 65 playwrights alive today for every one in Elizabethan England. Yet do we have dozens of Shakespeares?"
65 bad playwrights don't equal one good one. Any number of thousands of 'Physics for Poets' or 'Rocks for Jocks' students don't equal one Einstein or Currie.
With NaNoWriMo coming up, I'm sure our ratio of novelists will skyrocket. I'm not holding my breath for a Pynchon or Goethe to be discovered as a result.
We even have cameras in our phones. Does that make it more likely I'll see another artist like Ansel Adams come along? Or does it make it less likely such a talent would be heard above the noise? Would 5 different bosses sending you memos about TPS reports make you more productive?
The Bell Curve was crappy science.
The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould's masterful demolition of the IQ industry, should be required reading. Gould's brilliant, funny, engaging prose dissects the motivations behind those who would judge intelligence, and hence worth, by cranial size, convolutions, or score on extremely narrow tests [from Amazon review].
Test 1 2 3 4
The amount of disinformation on Murray's "The Bell Curve" is a pathetic symptom of this. I've met so many people who are *rabid* in their assessment of Murray as a hardcore racist and Bell Curve as belonging on the same shelf as The Turner Diaries. NONE of these people read the book, or even knew that race was covered only in a couple chapters. Many, like at least one poster below, have an opinion formed by reading reviews of the book written by other people with similar ideology. That's how many approach controversial topics- they only view through an ideological filter.
They are neurologically incapable of grasping that the book is not, in any real way, racist. I own the book and have read it- or as much as I could. It's a rather dry and academic text. A couple critics, when I tried to show them the book, actually ran out of the room rather than be confronted with reality. This is a true story.
To be honest, I don't know why Murray subjects himself to this. I know if he didn't follow his interests it would be a surrender of intellectual study and cerebral exploration to mindless, reptilian ideology, but it's not something I could stomach. I'm also such a misanthrope at this point that I could care less if anyone expands human knowledge anymore. People will just misuse it or use it to feed their hateful little dark hearts.
--- Ban humanity.
Doesn't matter how good earth's resume is if all the planetary work is shipped to mars for 1/5 the price.
Run with Scissors!
" Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950."
"Even America is dwarfed by European accomplishment in the sciences, hosting less than 20% of significant figures before 1950 compared to Europe's nearly 80%"
America, of course, was populated by aboriginal Indians exclusively until the early 1600's. Jamestown wasn't settled until 1607. So, a stat like this is like saying that the Earth has produced 95% more accomplishments than the moon. Go figure.
We survived. We conquered an entire planet. We took a body structure that was inferior to so many other animals (no fangs, no claws, no fur, etc.) and through wit became the dominant species on the planet.
That's all momma nature cares about and everything else is antropomorphic nonsense that any imaginary, objective (presumably non-human) reader of the resume would discount!
They literally contributed very, very little to humanity while the West was changing the world every 50 years or so. This is not racism, or me being and egotistical white male American, this is solid fact.
No, it is not a "solid" fact. You have taken for granted that the West has improved human civilization (as opposed to its own subnet of it), which is *certainly* in dispute. With the exception of a *few* individuals, the West has had nothing to offer "the rest of humanity".
What is the world becoming? A West-based tyranny through corporate globalization. You're a fool to believe you're any different from the average "Asian".
No, you're more than a fool--you're an ignorant racist.
But here's something to chew on: did it ever give you pause that books like these seem to be published and gain interest at times of Western expansionism? Perhaps these texts--which are self-referential, self-serving justifications for the Western intellectual elite--are little Mein Kampfs to make those with their boots on the throat of humanity to feel better about themselves?
Any illusions about democracy and freedom were crushed during the 20th century. If you're under the impression they still exist, you need some de-programming. Try a little Chomsky in your diet, like Year 501. It may not taste good, but it'll certainly be better for you than the McJunk Murray and his fellow hacks peddle.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
Just for those of you who think it's because we have dead white guys writting our history books. Please provide someone not from the west that matches the accomplishments of the following.
Heck go back as far as you want in history.
Da Vinci, Newton, Einstein, Franklin, Babbage, Hawking, Bell, Wright brothers, Edison, etc etc etc,
Congratulations on having adopted Western Civilization. You showed great discernment in having been born into it. Very shrewd, indeed. I suppose that's why you're entitled to call yourself better than people stupid enough to be born in the Third World.
Asshat.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
As a Korean-American, I find your condenscending, ignorant view of Koreans to be offensive.
Koreans were the first to develop printing blocks, water clocks, submarines, etc. Not to mentions the most scientific and graceful written languauge in the world - Hangul.
Koreans are very proud of their scientific and artistic achievements. And you if actually spent ANY time learning about their 4000 years of culture and achievements, then you wouldn't be spewing your little ignorant diatribe.
Koreans are adopting to some (NOT ALL) western culture and methods because that makes them competitive in the modern economic world. And if you really want to nitpick, they are modeling themselves after Japan more than any other western country (yes, Japan modeled much from US, but I would argue they have improved much upon the original).
What a nimcompoop...
I rather think it was fermentation that changed everything. Hunter/gatherers became farmers, cooperated to get larger quantities of grain and/or grapes, and so on.
Perhaps "Learning to Party" was the greatest achievment.
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
when data disproves their propaganda/brainwashing. Especially if it's put in a book with lots of graphs...it's easier to bury trends in row after row of unsorted text & numbers.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
helped get Reagan's roaring 80's going
If you want to look at true human achievement, look at what the world is becoming. Only now do Asian, African, and other non-European begin to contribute to the arts and the sciences. Only now do you see advances in political and economical thought coming from there as well. This is all due to our natural sharing attitude, where we would rather teach and lift and bring others to our level than maintain our superiority with an iron fist.
Teach and uplift and bring others to our level? This is certainly not what Europe was doing between the 1500s and 50 years ago. Granted, scientific achievement in the west is superior in my possibly biased opinion. But as for the rest of the world, well it's hard to do research when you're struggling under colonialism. The book review mentions that certain demographics acheived much more when legal equality was gained. A large portion of the world didn't gain legal equality Until the latter half of the 20th century. Thus "Only now do Asian, African, and other non-European begin to contribute to the arts and the sciences"
After all, he can only compile information about widely known history. This is basically following from Roman times to present, through the European and Mediterranean areas.
The Mayans supposedly had an amazing grasp of celestial workings, like tracking stars, and I think also knew about trigonometry. They probably discovered these ideas independently and in parallel with traditional civilizations, but and so they would not have gotten any credit for it.
I seriously doubt we 'created' fire. We saw fire created by nature and eventually figured out how to copy it.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
Some possible entries:
- Created escalating series of weapons, including: stone axes, fire, spears, swords, bows and arrows, firearms, missiles, and thermonuclear bombs
- Carried out many bloody wars -- millions killed
- Able to invent catchy war cries
[Idea by: that one episode of the 1980s version of "The Twilight Zone"]"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Yes.
It also depends on what's valued at the time. If a musical genius like Mozart comes along today, does he write symphonies? If he did, you'd probably never hear of him. More likely, he'd do something that pays well like develop movie scores, or he might even start a rock band.
Er, dogs have been purposefully bred for thousands of years to have certain traits, while humans have always intermixed. Do you think there are many African-Americans who are 100% African?
Who?
Typo. Woops.
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm from Europe so I'm not biased in saying this: Saying that 80 % of significat achievment in the Sciences compared to America is really quite lame. There are a large proportion of Caucasian ( that is people descending from any lands west of the Caucus mountains in Eastern Europe/Asia ) people in the U.S. When will people learn. There is not geographic identity in this world anymore. Companies rule the world..
Leonardo da Vinci..
Joan of Arc..
Norman Fell
A googlewhack is two distinct words searched without quotes -- an implicit OR condition. You searched for the phrase "Lotka Curve" as a single unit.
Just an OT nitpick.
I would be happy to explain Hangul to any interested party. Hangul was developed by King Sejong in 1446. Until then Koreans had used Chinese characters for writing, but obviously using foreign characters was not the most efficient (or easy to learn). Kin Sejong set out the change all that (very fascinating character ? one of the most scientifically minded royal ever. Scientific achievements flourished under him). He tasked best scholars and scientists in the land to come up with a new Korean alphabet system. The system that came up with is a phonetic alphabet system consisting of twenty eight letters (17 consonants and 11 vowels). The symbols were mostly driven from the shape of the lips of tongue when they made a particular sound (i.e. ?g? sound in Korean alphabet looks like ?7? just like how the tongue looks like when it makes that sound). In addition, similar sounds have similar looking symbols ? logical and easy to learn. Unlike roman alphabets, where consonants and vowels are jumbled together to make a word (separated by spaces), Koreans recreate sounds by representing each syllables separately by combining a consonant, vowel, and an optional consonants for finishing the syllable. Then the syllables are grouped together to make a word (separated by spaces). The strength of Hangul is that it can represent almost any sound. And because it is so phonetic, it is very easy to learn (I taught my wife how to read Korean over two nights ? of course she had no idea what they meant, but she could read them). In fact, the rules are so clear and easy to identify that it is the language of choice for many computer scientists working on AI. Most modern linguists have hailed it as the most scientific writing system in the world. If you would like to learn more, I would recommend starting on Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul). I guarantee you will find it fascinating.
Not sure if it is a complete joke or not but one of the signs the end of the world is near, "tallest player in the nba is japanese".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
With the American and French revolutions, it became commonplace to believe in the ascencion of the masses, and to degrade the accomplishments of the historically better educated and better bred.
It is no coincidence that the growth of mass democracy has resulted in the slow steady decay of Western civilization.
I think defeating hitler does need to be included in the list of accomplishments. Destroying a major dictator shows that the culture has passed through a trial. Beyond this I think that the entire study is flawed. First of all, it seems skewed towards white western accomplishments, which is something we expect from the bell curve. Second we need to go much further into the past. It can be argued that we can trace a lot of the accomplishment back to particular schools of though : plato, aristotle, ceaser, confucius, lao tsu, pythagorus etc People like this created schools of though that many other ideas grew from. The whole scoring system is also suspect but since I am so far down on the message tree I will stop here.
I haven't read the book, but based on this review, it appears that Mr. Murray is using a similar method to Google's algorithm, that is, using the number of links and references to an author or a page to find what is most like what is judged as important or useful. It is interesting, because people's perceptions of this importance may change over time, and this ranking would probably change with it.
Okay, so somebody is going to be offended that his pet project/person/??? was excluded. However, I would say that there has been a concerted effort to include those of any minority group over the lifespan of the web, and that might actually skew results. For example, I just used Google to check three names, of eminent Agricultural Scientists, and found these results
George Washington Carver 147,000 hits
Luther Burbank 57,300 hits
Norman Borlaug 15,400 hits
What is interesting about this is that Norman Borlaug is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, for helping to win the war on hunger. He recieved the least amount of hits. George Washington Carver, I believe, recieved his number of hits primarily because of his race, as his accomplishments were probably comparable to the other two gentleman, and I certainly take nothing away from any of them or their accomplishments. It shows, I believe, the influence of the changes in culture over time, especially to include minorities in the West.
Democracy believed that the masses could be motivated to fight for their own interests. This has proven sadly false and will be the undoing of societies espousing democracy.
Basic physics is a depleting resource. It becomes harder to extract new fundamental results over time. The easy ones are found first; gradually, it gets hard. Balancing this is that the tools improve. They also become far more expensive. The big phenomena that can be found under common conditions have all been found. Basic physics today involves tiny effects or extreme conditions - often both.
In the arts, anyone writing today is in direct competition with every major writer who ever published. Musicians face the same problem in each new genre, and it gets worse over time. The best symphonies are over a century old. Few write symphonies any more, and those who do are obscure figures compared to the historical greats. Jazz peaked half a century ago. Rock peaked decades ago. Even rap peaked a decade ago. Generes get mined out, like coal fields.
In the arts, this is only annoying, but for science, it's serious. There may be new basic physics to be found, but it may be too far out of reach.
We're seeing more interest in biology, where the problem is dealing with complexity. That will keep people busy for a few decades.
Pursuing engineering/techical career tracks is becoming increasingly foolish in America.
Also, English wasn't much spoken when a lot of the major scientific achievments were going on. As far as ground breaking discoveries go, the 1500s through the late 1800s were the boom time. You can only discover gravity once.
Very smart indeed. The managers produce ... negative feedback. Nothing happens without permission! Thus nothing changes ... even for the better. While productive engineers & scientists generate chaotic, positive feedback environs. New stuff just happens & some of that new stuff is very, very good!
The standards may be moving too, but I think the decline maybe due to energy-density. (Or "money-density"?) Think about scientific experiments 100 years ago, and what the bleeding edge in tools required. Now compare that to CERN, pharmaco's, or any University's computer sciences department.
This "more expensive tools" argument doesn't apply evenly to the arts, but does have some relevance to writers and others involved in presentation. (Imagine the costs of reaching a small % of the audience in Ancient Rome, and in modern New York.)
So while "higher societal costs for just getting noticed" can apply to just being seen, there's also a very real increase in the costs of finding novelty. (The low-hanging fruit's already gone.)
Talent is also a matter of a game of numbers. All races have very talented individuals. Some races just have a few more of them. This slight difference pushes the society as a whole to advance further.
Koreans are good for two things: tight pussy, and good kimchee.
I say this as a self-hating Korean FOB.
How mysterious. All the railroad, harbor, electrical, and road infrastructure in former European colonies was built in the last fifty years? The introduction of schools, written languages (in Africa, Australia, and the Americas), civil laws, medicine, etc. occurred magically in 1953?
Why, the concept of "uplifting" other peoples even seems to be European in origin. I don't recall the Aztecs ever giving foreign aid to anyone, or the Manchus believing that it would be a good idea to make other peoples wealthier. Stranger and stranger.
Or, on the other hand, you're staggeringly ignorant of history. One or the other.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
It's not reasonable to expect important figures who were mentioned in 150 years worth of comprehensive sources to have as many references as those mentioned in 1150 years worth of comprehensive sources.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Made more babies than we killed. So far.
(Not a pro/anti-abortion statement--just a comment on our undying thirst for killing)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
hmmm, let's see, the west has produced, just 2 name a few:
sanitation
abolition
vaccination
electricity
flight
looks like it's skewed 4 a very good reason;-)
I don't know where you got this, but this system is certainly not the one we have in USA. We have exactly the "memorize and repeat" system here with few exceptions (mostly high level grad/phd, exclusive, elite universities, etc.).
The Japanese actually use 3 writing systems
The Koreans use two
Japanese use:
Hiragana - A Phonetic alphabet used to create any word within the Japanese Language.
Katakana - A Phonetic alphabet used to create Foreign (Non-Japanese words)
Kanji - Chinese Characters used with Japanese pronounciation. If you can read Chinese, you can read Kanji.
Generally, most texts will use Hiragana and Kanji.
Koreans use Chinese for all official documentation (or at least they used to)
Hangul is a Phonetic alphabet much in the same way Hiragana is, it consists of a set number of symbols used to depict all corresponding sounds needed to create any word in the Korean Language.
Both Japan and Korea use Chinese to some extent, mostly because of historical context (China controlled Korea for a time, Japan is mixed between those who migrated there from the Asian mainland and the earlier natives of the islands (the Ainu represent a quickly vanishing minority amongst the Japanese population.)
English uses a simliar concept to Hangul and Hiragana, except in English we have strange things like silent letters (knife anyone?) and other non intuitive usage rules. English is one of the harder languages to learn.
Asian languages are indeed very elegant and the cultures that they have formed from have alot of subtle nuances to them. No two are alike, although you can sort of tie alot of things back to a central Chinese influence (whether they like it or not =)
Regards,
Anonymous Basque dude.
I dont think Kobe Tai, Asia Carera, Tera Patrick, or SungHi Lee have tight pussies anymore.
The development of railroad, harbor, electrical and road infrastructure in former European colonies was strictly to bring raw materials like gold, diamonds, palm oil and other commodities out of the region to sell on the world market for the colonizers profit.
As for written languages, civil laws and medicine; sure colonisers brought those, but trade also brings those things to an 'unenlightened people' without the oppresion. Trade and exploration is the natural way to spread enlightenment. If Europe was all about upliftment, there would have been only missionaries and no armies.
And as for schools, the vast majority of African universities were founded after colonialism ended.
Furthurmore, if you look into the sentiments of the time it's clear that every nearly European country had the goal of being a world power. From the new world to the 'scramble for Africa', no European country wanted to be left out of acquiring vast foreign empires. It was about status and world prestige and power. Sure, some missionaries actually wanted to help, but they were in the minority.
It's not hard to find examples where not only did the colonizers not help the indiginous population, but they actively tried to exterminate them. Try googling 'Herero genocide' sometime.
Meanwhile you can go next door to Botswana where colonization was relatively benign. (In fact it was never technically a colony). Nearly all their improvements due to western scientific knowledge came from Europeans sharing with the people there. And to this day Botswana is one of the most stable, well managed countries in Africa. An example of what enlightenment without the oppression can do.
If you don't agree please just point out where i'm wrong without any insults.
One thing that does not seem to be taken into account is that, by the shear number of scientists out there doing research and making discoveries today compared to 100 or 1000 years ago creates its own kind of obscurity. No 1 person is likely to get the kind of attention that someone like Edison could. There are amazing discoveries being made all the time, beautiful works of art being created, but they are buried under an avalanch of mediocre work, or just outright crap. Sometimes you can't see the trees for the forest.
What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
I don't agree with the idea that the West had better lateral thinking. I lean towards an idea put forward by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel.
:-)
Basically, the West isn't/wasn't one culture but many. In China, if the emporer didn't like your ideas about how to use gunpowder you had nobody else to go to. However, in Europe you could shop your idea around to Italy, Portugal, or even Spain. If it was a good idea (was successful) then other countries adopted it readily, especially if it had military implications.
It isn't that the West are better thinkers, it's just that we are a diverse lot trying to kill each other.
Coffee roasting process that retains most of the natural oils. Especially when applied to Kenyan AA or Sumatran coffee beans.
Humanity has been enriched because of that.
Regards,
Fredrick
We (U.S.) often time "teach" or "lift" other nations when it benefits us.
Does the U.S. Spend billions upon billions in countries that have absolutely nothing to give back to the us? many central and south american countries fall into this country. An example on the other side is Iraq. The power that region has because of oil makes us keenly aware of that region and how we can help and in turn influence or look good with people of that region (often times looking good and influencing that region for our benifit do not coincide, sometimes the U.S. fails at both, but none the less we try). Compare Iraq to Samaria. A rare purely humanatarian effort by the U.S.. What happened when our servicemen begin to die. We pulled out. Conversely we stay in Iraq...why, well, I think the main reason is obvious. A major and often times pretty much the only reason a developed country helps out a less developed country is to GAIN something besides a warm tingly feeling of doing something good.
Developing countries don't rule with a iron fist for two major reasons. One, it hasn't worked in the past. Two, we are to interconnected, communications are too good.
Nuttles
Christian and proud of it!!!
Well I think that's the grandparent's point, no?
The bible isn't a history book.
(It's actually a romantic book in essence, telling the story of how God created human's and loved them.
And how humans keep rejecting God and how His love never dies and that He keeps trying to find humans who will love and worship Him.)
It's not about history (primarily, some books in it like chronicles and kings were written as Jewish histroical documents,and all the books more or less have some historical value for Jews), but as it was written during a great time period it does contain some history.
And that was his point:
Our best historical record is the bible, and it doesn't contain that much history.
(And the histroy it does contain is primarilly Jewish)
In other words: we don't have much of a world historic record.
Unfortunately, this attempt is headed by a guy known for using dependent variables that are not well agreed on.
Unfortunately, this guy is also known for then using manipulations that do not respect the limits of his independent variables
That's why Herrnstein and Murray's previous "work" is termed ideology, not science.
We might hope that risky theses are attempted, to push the limits of what can be known, to enlighten and inform the debate, if not to provide definitive answers. No one's against that. But it's a fact of life that if your key staff include people known not to be equal to the task, your conclusions won't be taken seriously.
In short, Herrnstein and Murray gave up the right to be taken seriously in this field when they published their "work" last time. Perhaps some day a credible proponent of this thesis will come forward, who can be taken seriously.
Looks to me like we're on track for a 100% death rate among humans, though. That's pretty bad, losing every single freakin' person. I wouldn't hire the humans if I was an employer.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
The appearance of science and statistical rigor are all over this, but just as last time, the one thing Murray never does is is meet the standards of science: publish in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. He publishes in the popular press, his own book, looking oh-so-scientific and rigorous, and conveniently never subjected to peer review.
I am a woman. As a Western woman I have the right to receive the same kind of education and health care as male individuals. And I have the right to compete with them in the work place. It is true that it may not, as yet, be competing on equal terms[*], but that is a situation I believe is slowly but surely changing. Thanks to advances in Western medicine, I can reasonably expect not to die at childbirth and I can also reasonably expect any child of mine to survive infancy: in fact, both of us can, thanks to medical science and vastly improved living conditions (including both nutrition and hygiene) to live reasonably long lives. I have the right to vote and I also have the right to stand for office. I have the right to walk down the street, dressed however, without a male chaperone in the middle of the night without being harassed in any way. Yes, I admit that that right is unfortunaly violated far too often, but that doesn't actually mean that I don't have that right, nor that my society, should my right be violated, wouldn't try to correct it. I can marry whomever I want and I don't have to ask anyone's (be it my father, my brother or my husband) permission -- not even as a token gesture. I cannot legally be treated as an inferior individual. I am not deemed a as somehow 'unclean' when I am menstruating. No one can mutilate my body without my explicit say-so. In short, my life is my own: to do with as I please.
How is Western culture superior? Let me count the ways...
[*]Please note that I wrote 'equal' not 'the same'.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Pixie
don't mess with those geekgrrls
Printing blocks were invented by the Chinese, not the Koreans.
Water clocks were used by the Greeks ~325bc, 500 years before they were used in the far east.
Finally, TURTLE BOATS WERE NOT SUBMARINES
John Susek
Women are not equal to men. If this book claims so, I wonder how many other things are misleading and just plain wrong.
If women are equal, how come there are very few with power? How many female executives are there? How many female politicians? Until women acheive those goals, it is dubious at best to claim they are equal.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Probably due to the 'magic' of science taking hold in that period. Science has a great way of limiting human potential. It gives set rules which you should not think outside of or face the ridicule of the scientific community.
The main limiting factor to human accomplishment is, not just in my opinion, has been and still is religion. Can you imagine how much more advanced the human race would be, spiritually, emotionally and technologically, if so many resources had not been wasted on religion? Rather than building places of worship or killing people these people might had focused on advancing the human race. Too much to expect I imagine.
-------------
ConSychophant
Wake up, please...
The following is a personal opinian and my be regaurded as flamebait. Please reflect on the thesis above before disregaurding it becuase of the following extremism. The drive for more managers is reflective of our ever increasingly social society. As the parent noted China has been held too many managers for centuries. Please note that China and eastern culuture in general is very social when constrasted against our tradionaly indivualistic western culture. If we contiue down this path we will only find Communism and there will be no more drive to inovate. Yes there is a bit of a jump there, but I have to go, fill in the rest yourself.
although Humanity's resume looks quite impressive, consider how it will get those felonies past HR...
The desire to become 'filthy rich' or the state of being 'filthy rich' is not necessarily connected with the 'at the expense of others'.
It is difficult to see how, for instance, Bill Gates got 'filthy rich' by somehow exploiting poor, homeless drunkards: surely, these are not normally the people buying lots of Windows or the Office Suites?!?! Bill Gates got 'filthy rich' by selling his products to other companies and to people with enough money with which to buy Microsoft products: now, there may be some problems with Microsoft but it is hard to argue that its customers ended up on skid row because they were ruthlessly exploited by 'evil Bill'.
It also works the other way around: poor people would not automatically become better off even if we were to tax all 'rich' people 100%.
Finally, if someone chooses (your word) not to compete, why should that person be entitled to the same lifestyle as you? If they choose not to compete, surely they choose to be poor (or at least poorer than you). Their poverty is, in that case, a consequence of their choice. And in that sense, yes, they deserve it.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
When Germany attacked Norway and Denmark during the WWII, the US was not a combatant party. Nor was it an ally to either country. It is therefore difficult to see what the US should have done in this situation. During the Cold War all three countries were parties in NATO, which I assume afforded protection; why else be a member? And as far as I am concerned, NATO did largely rely upon US military might for protection.
During both periods, Sweden liked to rely on its pretend-neutrality for protection. During the WWII, it pretended to be neutral vis-a-vis Germany (as the old jokes goes: it took Germany one week to invade Norway; it took one day to invade Denmark; and all it took to invade Sweden was a telephone call to Stockholm) and during the Cold War it pretended to be neutral vis-a-vis the US (thereby effectly relying on the American military for protection).
Finland was screwed by just about everybody and had to do all of its protection itself, although in defense of the US I would have to say that during the WWII, Finland and the US weren't, as far as I remember, allies. But more should have been done to support Finland in both those periods, that's for sure.
In summa, I hope you're Finnish; otherwise your statement isn't really true, is it?
The liver is evil and must be punished.
"For example, we have 65 playwrights alive today for every one in Elizabethan England. Yet do we have dozens of Shakespeares?"
We no doubt do have dozens of "Shakespeares", who will be recognized for their artistic achievements a couple hundred years from now. Unfortunately we seem to deify historic artists while ignoring the ones living next door to us. And no matter how many times I see people worship at the church of Shakespeare, he still fails to impress me.
Also it is on it's face misleading to compare "playwrights" from hundreds of years ago to "playwrights" today, because the people who would have become playwrights are now doing much more interesting things like writing movie scripts.
How many great "movie producers" did they have in Shakespeare's day?
Idiot!.Australia is not part of the West?
"Only now do Asian, African, and other non-European begin to contribute to the arts and the sciences."
Double idiot!
To seek to 'know the very truth of each thing' is a tough road to travel, although I agree with you that it is the striving that can deliver us to our destiny, whatever that may be.
However, I think it is easy to propose a new kind of aristocracy, when you yourself are part of it. Plenty of wise, educated Aryan people agreed when Hitler said:
Is that similar to how you would describe your proposed ruling authority? What makes your proposal different? Yah, I know, you aren't planning on eradicating an entire race of people. But you could. You'd have that power. Who could stop you?Just food for thought...
Pixie
don't mess with those geekgrrls
1. I never said I was an authority. That was your own strawman after ignoring everything else I said.
2. My only point was that it's sad such things cannot be discussed because people can't handle it, and lapse into ideological stupors.
3. I never said The Bell Curve was *correct*. In fact, I disagree with several of its theses. I said it wasn't racist. But you saw things through your own ideological filters, and, as I stated, rational discussion is dead.
--- Ban humanity.
Others have critiqued your
so I won't comment on your education. After all, that would be an ad hominem attack.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
If you want to look at true human achievement, look at what the world is becoming. Only now do Asian, African, and other non-European begin to contribute to the arts and the sciences. Only now do you see advances in political and economical thought coming from there as well. This is all due to our natural sharing attitude, where we would rather teach and lift and bring others to our level than maintain our superiority with an iron fist.
The western world tried to rule with an iron fist. Remember slavery? Colonialism? If Westerners have a "natural sharing attitude" then why didn't they share more than the ends of their whips with the Africans?
If you pay any attention to modern archeaology, there are extremely impressive Native American earthworks in North America. These earthworks were once the centers of cities ruled by rulers called "Great Suns" and they were part of larger nations. The largest of these earthworks remaining today covers 16 acres. Goods were traded across the continent in a manner uncommon in the culture you seem to think existed. Of course, these cities were abandoned and fell into ruin about 500 years ago for some reason. Perhaps something else in history happened about 500 years ago?
because of human nature. Specifically the principal "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" Even the most wise humans are still human, and giving them power will still corrupt enough of them that your society will always result in tyrany of one sort or another (usually within 50 years if history is any guide)
This is why you need something a bit harder to corrupt than people to rule. That is why the U.S. is so great, it started with a well crafted constitution, tailored to prevent abuse of power. It has proven much harder to corrupt, 200+ years and it is still limping along only a little more than half broken. I give it another 20-50 years unless something changes fast (for the better OR worse)
who appeared on Politically Incorrect a few years back, where he advocated the elimination of the US Department of Agriculture, or at least that part of the USDA responsible for food safety. Murray argued that there was no need for the government to intervene, since no businessman would risk his business and his customers' lives through substandard practices.
Obviously, Mr. Murray had never heard of the Jalisco Cheese Company. Or Bon Vivant vichyssoise. Or any other case where companies have, through carelessness or malice, put their profits ahead of the safety of their customers. And just as clearly, Mr. Murry doesn't understand the law of averages any better than the punters at the slot machines in Vegas. Because the first law of averages is that, given enough time, the combination you don't want always comes up.
I knew after that PI broadcast that Mr. Murray was a charlatan, a demagogue or a fool. More likely some combination of the three. The pap in his latest work confirms that earlier opinion.
You've got to wonder about that population thing. I mean you cant really just look at the population we have today and extrapolate backwards to find when it should be zero. If you stopped to think about it at some point in the stone age or whenever the cromagnons or neanderthals or something would have been at a fairly steady population right?
Hmm... on the other hand running the exponential backwards would be better math than intelligent design. (slight flamebait)
"organized matter supporting intelligence is certainly in the minority when measured as a percentage of matter in the universe"
Little do you know that we're all really unconscious stacked up in fish tanks like sardines.
You can certainly argue that colonialism has had some positive side effects. But I'd like to hear how European colonialism helped most of the indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australia. Most of them have been marginalized for centuries. Many of them were wiped out altogether. Ignoring this is like arguing for Soviet communism while pretending the purges and the famines in the thirties didn't happen.
Two points:
1. Are they Korean?
2. Maybe you're just small.
(paraphrase)
"If acheivement were up to women, we would still be living in mud huts."
The idea that every man's acheivement can be traced back to his mother's TLC is really desperate. By the same argument, one can argue that the Sun is responsible for all human acheivement, since without the Sun, little Newton would have iced over in no time flat.
In reverse, every women's accomplishment was due to the father or husband of the woman..For example, Ava Lovelace made her modest accomplishments due only to her eminent father, Lord Byron, right? The theory doesn't look so hot in reverse.
That exceptional individuals achieve in the context in which they live, which necessarily involves women somewhere along the line, does not mean that the context is responsible for the achievement. It is only through that particular individual that the acheivement is realized. In some cases, it is difficult to know whether such an accomplishment would ever have been made at all in any time if it were not for certain, peculiar men.
Certainly if Mozart had not seen an orchestra, he would never have written music for an orchestra, and therefore would not be the Mozart we know of today. He would probably be nobody at all. In that sense, the orchestra was, well, instrumental to the generation of Mozart as a musical genius.
It is logical that had Mozarts mother not existed, Mozart also would not have existed. But merely existing so that what necessarily comes to be may exist is not an accomplishment. It's chance.
And if Mozart's mother had been quite different, then perhaps Mozart would have been different. But it is unlikely that a change in Mozarts mother would have resulted in his being a genius in some other area, or would have made him more or less of a genius of music. His mother was not transmitting to young Mozart genius particles which only his mother could give him. It is possible that she could have killed him, or abused him into suicide, surely, but the alternative, simply caring for a child in the regular way, is not much of an accomplishment. Shitting, hunting for food, winning fights and other common occurences are not notable accomplishments.
What Mozarts mother gave him was probably the generic kind of TLC that every mother gives every child, or maybe even the beatings every mother gives every child. It is something that suggests interchangability If his mother was, in a coarse sense, interchangeable with any other mother, how can anything she did be said to be a contributing accomplishment? Accident would be a better way to put it.
(If the orchestra was necessary for Mozart's development, but his mother's contribution is questionable, was his mother worth less than the orchestra? I guess that would depend on how one places value on things.)
Anyway, under no circumstances has a non-contributing anybody (female, white, black, man, alien, god) contributed to accomplishment by inference of effort. Forget it. It's pathetic even to suggest it.
Women should be embarassed to take pride in such shadowy figures as the mom of Newton, or the aunt of Einstien. Even Ada Lovelace is a minor, accessory figure in the pantheon of genius. Women should refuse any attempt at 'inclusive excellence.' Either someone is excellent, or they are not. Lowering the bar, or handing out false credentials (such as calling Ada Lovelace the first programmer) is dishonest foolishness suitable only to small children.
If women want to have female accomplishment writ in history, they have to make it happen -- undeniably.
There are disputed evidence of printing blocks used in Korea earlier than the Chinese.
The water clock I am talking about is a mechanical clock powered by water, not just a dripping kind (which isn't really much different than the hour glass).
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Yes, I feel empowered by my right to vote. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one: men and women equally have fought and sometimes died for the right to vote; the right to influence power in their society; their right to empowerment. Maybe you feel that 'thing[s] go on the same no matter who's driving the boat'; it is called 'not-having-persuaded-enough-people-that-your-opi
I'm not quite sure I understand your argument here. Are you seriously arguing that if there had been no advances in Western medicine there would be no starvation? Or no homeless people? Or should Western medicine somehow have come up with a cure for obesity and because it hasn't there is now starvation in other parts of the world and homelessness in the Western one? Or are you arguing that the resources that have been invested in advancing Western medicine should have been better invested in methods alleviating starvation and homelessness? I don't get it, I really don't. And why should I compare obesity and advances in Western medicine on the one hand with starvation and homelessness on the other at all? What have advances in medicine of any cultural kind got to with obesity anyway? Or starvation? Or homelessness?
I agree with you that if the society I live in makes it virtually impossible for me to exercise rights that I am theoretically entitled to, one can credibly question whether I have those rights at all. But I disagee that that would somehow be the case regarding my right to walk around at strange, dark places at midnight. I think my society supports my right to do that; I think my society expects the police to do a lot more than merely filling our a report should any assault occur; I know I do. And I know that that wasn't what I was suggesting.
This part of your argument I find the most baffling (and that is baffling indeed, trust me). Are you calling me a terrorist? Or not? And if yes, why would that be 'appropriate'?
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Contrast for example Galileo, one of the only people doing astrological work at the time.
He was one of the few doing astronomy. In contrast, the astrology crap was as popular back then as it is now.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
This is my opinoin granted, but I would take William Burroughs over Shakespeare any day. Matter of fact, I am really not horribly impressed with Shakespeare. A few plays were good, but I really don't think that he was the best writer that ever lived. Anymore than I think that Elvis Presely was the king of rock and roll. This whole book is based on popular opinion and stastical viewing. I am not saying I could do it better, cause I don't think it can be done. I think that the very premise is a bad idea, espically breaking it down into numbers. So much is opinon, drawing to fact on something like this is just not feasible.
Prove me wrong kids, prove me wrong.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
This is not factual at all. It's just shows that your viewpoint is self-centered and ignorant. For example, there were advanced African civilizations while Europe was a bunch of "savages". You can't ignore all other civilizations and then use your ignorance to proclaim your own accomplishments to be superior. Not to mention, your idea of "contribution to humanity" comes from a western perspective. Abducted Africans would not have considered advancements in shipbuilding and weaponry to be a contribution to humanity. People in Hiroshima wouldn't've considered (if they could've lived) atomic developments an advancement of humanity.
And in the end, we all end up dead anyway, so what does any "advancement" accomplish?
The Western bias for a biographical rather than sociological view of innovation filters change through an heroic rather than an evolutionary lens, but it is often the context that spurs innovation as much as the efforts of individuals within that context.
Men like Iiichi Shibusawa, who worked to transform the basis of Japan's institutions during the Meiji Restoration, understood that the rapid innovation underlying the success of Western economies was itself an effect of institutional and social structures which provided both rewards and pressures for both invention and the innovative application of new ideas to solving nearly every kind of social need.
The speed and extent of modern innovation, and the institutional nature of many innovative efforts, create a story which cannot be completely told by reference to the work of indivudals alone. Not only that, but the modern spread of the kinds of social structures which almost recursively absorb new techniques and methods, may lead to a wider variety of innovative styles as differences in regional cultures develop and react to their own versions of the innovative society.
The burden of externalities created by both a parasitic effect as well as an increasingly institutional resistance to change is one of the most common causes of civilizational inertia and decline. The areas you identify are just such potentially sclerotic forces which evolve from natural, or even supportive, functions but lead to an inability to support the external costs imposed by the reactions of a society to its own production.
Even though the loss of the ability to produce imposes tremendous costs on a society, such negative traditions, once imposed, can lead to an Ottoman like stagnation, or even as far as the kind of deification and worship of traditional but inefficient methods of production seen in "native" societies. The lawyers eventually become priests, and an anamistic trance imposed by an hypnotic shadow box view of reality gradually leads a once practical people into believing and defending the most specious nonsense. The sad thing is that, as much as we refuse to admit it, we all live in one form of cultural trance or another. Both a great age of achievement and innovation and the tail end of a famine prone traditionalism are cultures, and the fervent views of their participants can be ironically similar in the dedication to the cliffs toward which they hurry.
Hawking. right. ugckh. notice most of the rest of the post should be mis-spelled, too.
i'm not debating that we are nothing more than sets of complex self-organizing molecules. my question is what is it, in our complexity, that causes us to actually be thinking about what is it, in our complexity, that causes us to actually be thinking about what is it, in our complexity, that causes us to actually be thinking about what is it....you get the point. mabye this exists somewhere, but if it does, it has not been explained to me.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
jgrdn's claim that he knows the thinking of the Koreans, the Chinese, the Japanese.... is at best only a wish. How many Koreans should one ask to get a confirmation of his 'finding'? To get a refutation, he need only ask any one of the militant Hindus anywhere in the world. Or, just ask Dr.Frawley. They will tell you that not only science but everything relating to human culture was born in India, let alone human beings. Mathematics, astronomy, medicine ..., you name it and they say everything is dealt with in the Vedas. Are we to counter one prejudice with another? Looking for substance in such claims and counter-claims is not worth the effort.
I lived in Korea for years and am quite fluent in Korean (for a time I was a professional interpreter), and I can attest to the essential correctness of what the poster you're responding to is saying, whether it bruises your Korean-American feelings or not.
But your own points are mostly correct, too.
Koreans (in Korea) don't generally consider themselves to have made much of a contribution toward bringing about the modern scientific and technological world. Partly for that reason, they are intensely proud of a *very* short list of things they *can* take credit for.
Hangul is probably the best of the world's major writing systems from the perspective of representing its (single) target spoken language in written form with maximum consistency and minimal cruft. Claims of it having been personally invented by King Sejong, of it having been patterned after mouth shapes, of it being good for any language other than Korean, etc., are mostly specious (cultural myths not taken seriously by genuine Korean linguists), but for its core purpose -- writing Korean -- it's marvelous. Ironically, it wasn't held in much esteem by Koreans themselves until as recently as the Japanese occupation in the 20th century, but now it's practically worshipped in Korea.
Korea's historical population is not so different from that of England, France, or Germany. Ask a Korean about Korea's accomplishments and you'll get roughly the same list you quoted: Hangul, turtle boats, non-movable wood block printing, a water clock. There are several *single individuals* in the West who have accomplished that much.
Now consider the accomplishments of England, France, or Germany over the last three centuries or so. Art, music, literature, science, technology, law.... I'm afraid there's no comparison, and few Koreans try to pretend that there is.
The reasons for the discrepancy will be argued about for generations, but I think the accomplishments of Korean-Americans, for example, make it pretty clear that it's not genetic. Whatever the reason(s), the discrepancy is real, and largely uncontradicted in Korea.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
A right to vote involves not only the right to vote in regular elections but also the right to vote in referenda. Both elections and referenda are part of democracy. If I am disenfranchised I have neither the right to vote in elections nor in referenda. My right to vote empowers me. Judging by this argument you too feel empowered by right to vote
This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my original argument, but I shall answer it anyway. That Western society somehow 'squanders' its medical advances is your subjective opinion, a value judgment you make, not some objective fact. Furthermore, your constant harping on about obesity is largely beside the point: no medical resources are 'squandered' on making people obese and what's more, obesity is, as far as I know, only really a problem in two Western countries, the U.S. and Australia. There are other countries 'in the Western world' beside those two
You're right: it's actually your pathetic arguments that makes you wrong.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
I am generally refering to society as the ideals of a group, say your rights, and to culture as the morality (if you like) of that group. All in a subjective context, or if you like - opinion.
I tried to point out the inequities in your opinion, as I see them - that's all. You know, my opinion. Resorting to "baffling", "pathetic" etc without trying (really) to read throgh the typos etc is just pointless, and more an expression of you ignoring the points which you agreed with, or your ignor-ance, if you like.
Its perfectly possible to contend eastern culture is superior, but whats the point.
Yes I feel empowered by the right to vote but my right is almost entirely erroded by the culture(s) surrounding the voting system. This - subjectively - leaves me feeling very dis-empowered. CIR has other benefits other than empowering the voter, it applies much greater accounability on the politicians and beaurocrats. The negative aspect of this system, according to say - John Howard, is that the people would have to be fully aware of the issues that concern them. Oh the horror!
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"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
- Resorting to "baffling", "pathetic" etc without trying (really) to read throgh the typos etc is just pointless, and more an expression of you ignoring the points which you agreed with, or your ignor-ance, if you like.
Ooooooh, someone is really getting his knickers in a twist. Yes, it must be terrible when what I assume is your usual m.o. -- imply that people are right-wing, accuse them of watching Fox, overwhelm them with some irrelevant preaching about the horrible state of the third world and watch them back down -- doesn't work for a change. And using arguments verging on ad hominem attacks and then turning around acting all hurt and upset because someone identified one's arguments as 'pathetic' ('baffling' is not normally considered a pejorative word, dear) is just plain dishonest.I don't particularly care about your typos and if you were to actually read my comments -- you know how to read don't you? or don't you? -- you would find that the only comments regarding your typing etc are made by you. Since you seem very aware of your typos I don't quite understand why you just don't correct them before submitting your post
- I tried to point out the inequities in your opinion
...
Maybe you should look up the meaning and usage of the word 'inequities' before using it next time.- Its perfectly possible to contend eastern culture is superior, but whats the point.
That would at least have had some relevance to the opinion in my original post, which the issue obesity, for instance, doesn't have. I notice, however, that you haven't even tried to make that argument. Personally, I would disagree, of course. I don't think that Eastern culture is superior and what's more, judging by the general level of your argumentation in this discussion, I don't think that you could even begin to make that argument.Finally, let me make this perfectly clear: the fact that I have ignored some of your 'points' doesn't mean that I agree with them but that I have found them so far beside the point as to be a different discussion altogether. My main problem with your 'arguments' is not so much your opinions as such -- they are not particularly insightful nor intelligent but that's your problem not mine -- but the fact that they are, virtually all of them, beside my point: you don't counter my arguments, you avoid them by waffling on about obesity, AIDS patients and John Howard (you know, I was waiting for John Howard or George Bush to pop up somewhere in your posts: why leave any cliche unturned?). These may be worthwhile issues to discuss, but they are irrelevant in the context of my original post. Stick it to me if you like, but if you want me to respect you in the morning you had better be to the point and convincing: so far, boy, you have managed neither. And with three posts and counting that is truly pathetic. In my subjective opinion.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Speaking down to people or being insulting does not convey inteligence or insight. As I understnd it, in a discussion, resorting to such means you lost.
There are two things I can infer from your objections to my non-personal references to obesity and JH... Here's a good /. quote that is applicable:
"And as it seems to be the custom in your culture to end each correspondence with an insult, I should do the same to avoid offending you." - Your arse is FAT and your hair is ugly!
Yours in appathy, Ratso.
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"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
You all are a bunch of fucking pathetic nerds that need your asses kicked, its pathetic the lame shit you sit around and talk about
... and then wonder why someone disagrees?
No, I don't wonder about that at all. In fact, I fully expect people to disagree. But I also expect people to disagree in a relevant and coherent manner. You have managed neither.- Speaking down to people or being insulting does not convey inteligence or insight. As I understnd it, in a discussion, resorting to such means you lost. There are two things I can infer from your objections to my non-personal references to obesity and JH... [...]- Your arse is FAT and your hair is ugly!
My objection to your references to obesity and John Howard are, insofar as this discussion is concerned, based purely on their irrelevancy to the argument in my original post. Furthermore, as I pointed out in my previous post I find it dishonest (but perhaps you are merely deluding yourself) to use an array of derogatory and condescending remarks yourself ('not actually thinking for yourself'; 'turn off fox'; 'grab a book'; 'Settle down dear'; 'your ignor-ance') and then get all huffy just because I point out how pathetic I find your arguments. Finally, I don't know whether I particularly agree with your 'how-to-lose-an-argument' rule, but I note with some slight interest that under that rule, you are the loser in this discussionThe liver is evil and must be punished.
When Hitler said Germans were superior we had WW2. When he says white race is superior, I have a deja vu...