Human Accomplishment

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

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

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

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

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

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

[edit] Index scores

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

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

Here are the top 20 mathematicians, philosophers, physicists, and musical composers ranked by their index score.

Mathematics Index score Euler 100 Newton 89 Euclid 83 Gauss 81 Fermat 72 Leibniz 72 Descartes 54 Cantor 50 Pascal 47 Riemann 47 Hilbert 40 Bernoulli 40 Diophantus 39 Cardano 37 Viete 36 Legendre 36 John Wallis 36 Cauchy 35 Fibonacci 34 Archimedes 33 Western philosophy Index score Aristotle 100 Plato 87 Kant 74 Descartes 51 Hegel 46 Aquinas 39 Locke 37 Hume 36 Augustine 30 Spinoza 27 Leibniz 27 Socrates 26 Schopenhauer 24 Berkeley 21 Nietzsche 20 Hobbes 19 Russell 18 Rousseau 17 Plotinus 17 Fichte 17 Physics Index score Newton 100 Einstein 100 Rutherford 88 Faraday 86 Galileo 83 Cavendish 57 Bohr 52 J.J. Thomson 50 Maxwell 50 P. Currie 47 Kirchhoff 43 Fermi 42 Heisenberg 41 M. Curie 41 Dirac 40 Joule 40 Huygens 39 Gilbert 37 T. Young 37 Hooke 36

Western music Index score Beethoven 100 Mozart 100 Johann Sebastian Bach 87 Wagner 80 Haydn 56 Handel 46 Stravinsky 45 Debussy 45 Liszt 45 Schubert 44 Schumann 42 Berlioz 41 Schoenberg 39 Brahms 35 Chopin 32 Monteverdi 31 Verdi 30 Mendelssohn 30 Weber 27 Gluck 26 Chinese literature Index score Du Fu 100 Li Bai 87 Bo Juyi (Bai Juyi) 86 Su Dungpo (Su Shi) 83 Han Yu 80 Qu Yuan 78 Sima Qian 68 Tao Cian (Tao Qian) 68 Ouyang Xiu 61 Yuan Zhen 49 Guan Hanqing 45 Sima Xiangru 41 Liu Xongyuan (Liu Zongyuan) 40 Ban Gu 37 Wang Wi (Wang Wei) 35 Luo Guanzhong 34 Ma Zhiyuan 34 Wang Shifu 34 Song Yu 33 Cao Xueqin 32 Western art Index score Michelangelo 100 Picasso 77 Raphael 73 Leonardo 61 Titian 60 Durer 56 Rembrandt 56 Giotto 54 Bernini 53 Cezanne 50 Rubens 49 Caravaggio 43 Velázquez 43 Donatello 42 Van Eyck 42 Goya 41 Monet 41 Masaccio 41 Van Gogh 40 Gauguin 38

Combined sciences Index score Newton 100 Galileo 89 Aristotle 78 Kepler 53 Lavoisier 51 Descartes 51 Huygens 49 Laplace 48 Einstein 48 Faraday 46 Pasteur 46 Ptolemy 43 Hooke 41 Leibniz 40 Rutherford 40 Euler 39 Darwin 37 Berzelius 36 Euclid 36 Maxwell 35 Western literature Index score Shakespeare 100 Goethe 81 Dante 62 Virgil 55 Homer 54 Rousseau 48 Voltaire 47 Molière 43 Byron 42 Tolstoy 42 Dostoevsky 41 Petrarch 40 Hugo 40 Schiller 38 Boccaccio 35 Horace 35 Euripides 35 Racine 34 Scott 33 Ibsen 32 Technology Index score Watt 100 Edison 100 Leonardo da Vinci 60 Huygens 51 Archimedes 51 Marconi 50 Vitruvius 43 John Smeaton 37 Bessemer 34 Newcomen 33 Babbage 33 Siemens 32 Wilkinson 32 Franklin 32 Wheatstone 32 Nobel 32 Faraday 31 Papin 31 Stephenson 30 Morse 30

[edit] External links

• Murray, Charles (2003). Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-019247-X. 
• Cato Institute Book Forum (RealVideo) (RealAudio), 1-hour lecture that Murray gave discussing his book Human Accomplishment, and some of the response to it.
• In Pursuit of Excellence (RealAudio), one-hour interview with Michael Goldfarb on WBUR.
• American Conservative - book review
• Q&A with Charles Murray on Human Accomplishment, Steve Sailer.
• book review in journal Evolutionary Psychology

[edit] References

• "Of human accomplishment", an article by Denis Dutton