Human Accomplishment
Author | Charles Murray |
---|---|
Cover artist | Robert Bull Design |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Art, science |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | 9 October 2003 |
Media type | |
Pages | 668 |
ISBN | 9780060192471 |
OCLC | 52047270 |
Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 is a 2003 book by Charles Murray, most widely known as the co-author of The Bell Curve. Surveying outstanding contributions to the arts and sciences from ancient times to the mid-twentieth century, Murray attempts to quantify and explain human accomplishment 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.
Index scores
Murray ranks the leading 4,000 innovators in several fields of human accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. In each field Murray identifies a number of sources (leading encyclopedias, histories and surveys) providing information about the leading figures in the field. The rankings are made from information in these sources. A raw score is determined based on how many sources mention and on how much space in each source is devoted to a person. Then these raw scores are normalized so that the lowest score is 1 and the highest score is 100. The resulting scores are called "Index Scores".
The categories of human accomplishment where significant figures are ranked in the book are as follows: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Physics, Mathematics, Medicine, Technology, Combined Sciences, Chinese Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Western Philosophy, Western Music, Chinese Painting, Japanese Art, Western Art, Arabic Literature, Chinese Literature, Indian Literature, Japanese Literature, and Western Literature. The omission of several relative categories, including a broader Chinese art category or an Indian art category, are due to a lack of identifiable figures as most of the work is anonymous.
The following are some examples of the rankings found for individual categories.
Top figures by field
Combined Sciences
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Isaac Newton | 100 |
Galileo Galilei | 89 |
Aristotle | 78 |
Johannes Kepler | 53 |
Antoine Lavoisier | 51 |
René Descartes | 51 |
Christiaan Huygens | 49 |
Pierre-Simon Laplace | 48 |
Albert Einstein | 48 |
Michael Faraday | 46 |
Louis Pasteur | 46 |
Ptolemy | 43 |
Robert Hooke | 41 |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | 40 |
Ernest Rutherford | 40 |
Leonhard Euler | 39 |
Charles Darwin | 37 |
Jöns Jacob Berzelius | 36 |
Euclid | 36 |
James Clerk Maxwell | 35 |
Astronomy
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Galileo Galilei | 100 |
Johannes Kepler | 93 |
William Herschel | 88 |
Pierre-Simon Laplace | 79 |
Nicolaus Copernicus | 75 |
Ptolemy | 73 |
Tycho Brahe | 68 |
Edmond Halley | 57 |
Giovanni Domenico Cassini | 53 |
Hipparchus | 49 |
Walter Baade | 47 |
Edwin Hubble | 45 |
Friedrich Bessel | 39 |
William Huggins | 38 |
George Ellery Hale | 37 |
Arthur Eddington | 37 |
Ejnar Hertzsprung | 35 |
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers | 33 |
Gerard Kuiper | 32 |
Johannes Hevelius | 30 |
Biology
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Charles Darwin | 100 |
Aristotle | 94 |
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck | 88 |
Georges Cuvier | 83 |
Thomas Hunt Morgan | 75 |
Carl Linnaeus | 59 |
William Harvey | 51 |
Theodor Schwann | 48 |
Stephen Hales | 48 |
Jan Swammerdam | 47 |
Marcello Malpighi | 45 |
Claude Bernard | 45 |
Hugo de Vries | 44 |
Karl Ernst von Baer | 43 |
John Ray | 42 |
Ernst Haeckel | 41 |
Lazzaro Spallanzani | 38 |
Gregor Mendel | 38 |
Pliny the Elder | 37 |
Albrecht von Haller | 37 |
Chemistry
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Antoine Lavoisier | 100 |
Jöns Jacob Berzelius | 67 |
Carl Wilhelm Scheele | 53 |
Joseph Priestley | 49 |
Humphry Davy | 46 |
Robert Boyle | 42 |
John Dalton | 38 |
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac | 37 |
Joseph Black | 33 |
William Ramsay | 31 |
Justus Liebig | 31 |
William Crookes | 30 |
Claude Louis Berthollet | 29 |
Linus Pauling | 27 |
August Kekulé | 27 |
Dmitry Mendeleyev | 25 |
Jan Baptist van Helmont | 25 |
Frederick Soddy | 25 |
Martin Heinrich Klaproth | 23 |
Robert Bunsen | 22 |
Earth Sciences
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Charles Lyell | 100 |
James Hutton | 77 |
William Smith | 55 |
Georgius Agricola | 51 |
Abraham Gottlob Werner | 46 |
Roderick Murchison | 40 |
Matthew Fontaine Maury | 40 |
Louis Agassiz | 37 |
Jean-Étienne Guettard | 37 |
Carl Gustaf Mosander | 37 |
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure | 35 |
Nicolas Desmarest | 33 |
Alfred Wegener | 33 |
Alexandre Brongniart | 31 |
Adam Sedgwick | 31 |
Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin | 29 |
Vilhelm Bjerknes | 29 |
Eilhard Mitscherlich | 29 |
Per Teodor Cleve | 29 |
Maurice Ewing | 26 |
Physics
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Isaac Newton | 100 |
Albert Einstein | 100 |
Ernest Rutherford | 88 |
Michael Faraday | 86 |
Galileo Galilei | 83 |
Henry Cavendish | 57 |
Niels Bohr | 52 |
J. J. Thomson | 50 |
James Clerk Maxwell | 50 |
Pierre Curie | 47 |
Gustav Kirchhoff | 43 |
Enrico Fermi | 42 |
Werner Heisenberg | 41 |
Marie Curie | 41 |
Paul Dirac | 40 |
James Prescott Joule | 40 |
Christiaan Huygens | 39 |
William Gilbert | 37 |
Thomas Young | 37 |
Robert Hooke | 36 |
Mathematics
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Leonhard Euler | 100 |
Isaac Newton | 89 |
Euclid | 83 |
Carl Friedrich Gauss | 81 |
Pierre de Fermat | 72 |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | 72 |
René Descartes | 54 |
Georg Cantor | 50 |
Blaise Pascal | 47 |
Bernhard Riemann | 47 |
David Hilbert | 40 |
Jakob Bernoulli | 40 |
Diophantus | 39 |
Gerolamo Cardano | 37 |
François Viète | 36 |
Adrien-Marie Legendre | 36 |
John Wallis | 36 |
Augustin-Louis Cauchy | 35 |
Fibonacci | 34 |
Archimedes | 33 |
Medicine
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Louis Pasteur | 100 |
Hippocrates | 93 |
Robert Koch | 90 |
Galen | 74 |
Paracelsus | 68 |
Paul Ehrlich | 59 |
René Laennec | 54 |
Elmer McCollum | 49 |
Alexander Fleming | 47 |
Ambroise Paré | 46 |
Emil Adolf von Behring | 44 |
Joseph Lister | 43 |
Kitasato Shibasaburō | 42 |
Thomas Sydenham | 40 |
Andreas Vesalius | 38 |
Gerhard Domagk | 36 |
Alexis Carrel | 36 |
Sigmund Freud | 34 |
John Hunter | 34 |
Ignaz Semmelweis | 34 |
Technology
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
James Watt | 100 |
Thomas Edison | 100 |
Leonardo da Vinci | 60 |
Christiaan Huygens | 51 |
Archimedes | 51 |
Guglielmo Marconi | 50 |
Vitruvius | 43 |
John Smeaton | 37 |
Henry Bessemer | 34 |
Thomas Newcomen | 33 |
Charles Babbage | 33 |
Carl Wilhelm Siemens | 32 |
John Wilkinson | 32 |
Benjamin Franklin | 32 |
Charles Wheatstone | 32 |
Alfred Nobel | 32 |
Michael Faraday | 31 |
Denis Papin | 31 |
George Stephenson | 30 |
Samuel Morse | 30 |
Western Philosophy
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Aristotle | 100 |
Plato | 87 |
Immanuel Kant | 74 |
René Descartes | 51 |
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel | 46 |
Thomas Aquinas | 39 |
John Locke | 37 |
David Hume | 36 |
Augustine | 30 |
Baruch Spinoza | 27 |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | 27 |
Socrates | 26 |
Arthur Schopenhauer | 24 |
George Berkeley | 21 |
Friedrich Nietzsche | 20 |
Thomas Hobbes | 19 |
Bertrand Russell | 18 |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 17 |
Plotinus | 17 |
Johann Gottlieb Fichte | 17 |
Western Music
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Ludwig van Beethoven | 100 |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 100 |
Johann Sebastian Bach | 87 |
Richard Wagner | 80 |
Joseph Haydn | 56 |
Georg Friedrich Händel | 46 |
Igor Stravinsky | 45 |
Claude Debussy | 45 |
Franz Liszt | 45 |
Franz Schubert | 44 |
Robert Schumann | 42 |
Hector Berlioz | 41 |
Arnold Schoenberg | 39 |
Johannes Brahms | 35 |
Frédéric Chopin | 32 |
Claudio Monteverdi | 31 |
Giuseppe Verdi | 30 |
Felix Mendelssohn | 30 |
Carl Maria von Weber | 27 |
Christoph Willibald Gluck | 26 |
Western Art
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Michelangelo | 100 |
Pablo Picasso | 77 |
Raphael | 73 |
Leonardo da Vinci | 61 |
Titian | 60 |
Albrecht Dürer | 56 |
Rembrandt | 56 |
Giotto | 54 |
Gian Lorenzo Bernini | 53 |
Paul Cézanne | 50 |
Peter Paul Rubens | 49 |
Caravaggio | 43 |
Diego Velázquez | 43 |
Donatello | 42 |
Jan van Eyck | 42 |
Francisco Goya | 41 |
Claude Monet | 41 |
Masaccio | 41 |
Vincent van Gogh | 40 |
Paul Gauguin | 38 |
Western Literature
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
William Shakespeare | 100 |
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | 81 |
Dante Alighieri | 62 |
Virgil | 55 |
Homer | 54 |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 48 |
Voltaire | 47 |
Molière | 43 |
Lord Byron | 42 |
Leo Tolstoy | 42 |
Fyodor Dostoyevsky | 41 |
Petrarch | 40 |
Victor Hugo | 40 |
Friedrich Schiller | 38 |
Giovanni Boccaccio | 35 |
Horace | 35 |
Euripides | 35 |
Jean Racine | 34 |
Walter Scott | 33 |
Henrik Ibsen | 32 |
Chinese Philosophy
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Confucius | 100 |
Laozi | 69 |
Zhu Xi | 51 |
Mencius | 40 |
Zhuang Zhou | 39 |
Xun Kuang | 29 |
Wang Yangming | 24 |
Mozi | 22 |
Dong Zhongshu | 16 |
Cheng Hao | 15 |
Chengi | 14 |
Feng Youlan | 13 |
Zhou Dunyi | 11 |
Kang Youwei | 10 |
Dai Zhen | 9 |
Han Fei | 9 |
Zou Yan | 8 |
Lu Jiuyuan | 8 |
Zhang Zai | 8 |
Huineng | 8 |
Chinese Literature
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Du Fu | 100 |
Li Bai | 87 |
Bai Juyi | 86 |
Su Shi | 83 |
Han Yu | 80 |
Qu Yuan | 78 |
Sima Qian | 68 |
Tao Qian | 68 |
Ouyang Xiu | 61 |
Yuan Zhen | 49 |
Guan Hanqing | 45 |
Sima Xiangru | 41 |
Liu Zongyuan | 40 |
Ban Gu | 37 |
Wang Wei | 35 |
Luo Guanzhong | 34 |
Ma Zhiyuan | 34 |
Wang Shifu | 34 |
Song Yu | 33 |
Cao Xueqin | 32 |
Indian Philosophy
Figure | Index score |
---|---|
Adi Sankara | 100 |
Nagarjuna | 56 |
Ramanuja | 55 |
Gautama Buddha | 47 |
Madhvacharya | 28 |
Patanjali | 21 |
Charvaka | 16 |
Swami Vivekananda | 15 |
Vasubandhu | 14 |
Udayana | 13 |
Vacaspatimitra | 13 |
Sri Aurobindo | 13 |
Vallabha Acharya | 12 |
Dignāga | 11 |
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa | 11 |
Bhartṛhari | 10 |
Gaudapada | 10 |
Dasgupta | 9 |
Nimbarka | 9 |
Asanga | 9 |
Analysis
Murray collected many data for each innovator and did a statistical analysis. One result was that accomplishment has not been uniformly distributed. For example, in Italian Renaissance, accomplishment was concentrated in Florence and Venice. In the British Isles, around London, the industrial north, and lowland Scotland. He argued that most innovation has been accomplished by men, not women, and Europeans, not other ethnic and cultural groups. One explanation for the last is that Thomas Aquinas (1226–1274) influentially argued that human intelligence is a gift from God and using it to understand the world is pleasing to God.
There is a relationship between closeness to elite universities and human accomplishment (but not between non-elite universities and accomplishment). Furthermore, innovation is self–reinforcing: Where there has been innovation, likely more will occur.
The book argued that "Streams of accomplishment are fostered by political regimes that give de facto freedom of action to their potential artists and scholars". This means freedom of expression and innovation. It does not necessarily mean democracy although totalitarianism suppressed innovation. War and civil unrest did not affect innovation.
Religious liberty increased innovation. Jews had "sparse representation in European arts and sciences through the beginning of the 19C", but within a century Jews were disproportionately represented (except in astronomy). This coincided with the emancipation of Jews who earlier had been denied legal rights and access to universities and public office.
The highest scoring woman in a category was Murasaki Shikibu among Japanese literature. The highest in western literature was Virginia Woolf. The highest in science was Marie Curie.
Decline
Murray argued that the world's per capita progress in the sciences and especially the arts have declined, usually starting sometimes in the nineteenth century. In part this is due to diminishing returns. In the final chapters he abandons empirical analysis, writing "I cannot supply quantitative measures", and the analysis is "less quantitative, more speculative, and definitely more opinionated." He argued, based on Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, that innovation is increased by beliefs that life has a purpose and that the function of life is to fulfill that purpose; by beliefs about transcendental goods and a sense of goodness, truth and beauty; and by beliefs that individuals can act efficaciously as individuals, and a culture that enables them to do so. Murray argued that there is an absence of this in the current secularist and nihilist society which has caused the decline.
Reviews
The American Library Association: "Achievements that require mental and spiritual effort are the highest forms of human endeavor, Murray says. He has scanned the most reputable biographical dictionaries and histories of the arts, philosophy, and sciences to find who and what, during 800 B.C.-1950, are mentioned in them. He came up with 4,139 persons and a list of events and ponders 20 persons in each of nine scientific, three philosophic, and nine artistic fields who were most extensively covered in the resources. More than 80 percent are "dead white males," and Murray carefully examines why. The greatest achievements of India, China, Japan, and Islam occurred well before the West took off during the Renaissance, and each of those cultures valued duty, family, and consensus, whereas the West prefers individualism, the sine qua non of scientific debate and discovery. Further, the scientific method was a set of Western "meta-inventions" (Murray's term) that arose, fortunately, simultaneously with the ratification of Thomism, with its dual emphasis on faith and reason, by the most important cultural force in the West, the Roman Catholic Church. Of overarching importance to great achievements in any culture, Murray argues, are the sense that life has purpose and belief in ideals of beauty, truth, and goodness. This book probably won't get Murray in as much hot water as The Bell Curve (1994) did. Then again, with its speculations that the rate of great achievements has slowed since 1800 and that the arts are in a very bad way, maybe it will."
The Tech Law journal in a review criticized the claim that there has been a decline: "In short, Murray's statistical methods are thorough and objective up to the point where he argues that innovation is on the decline. Then, he manipulates his data."[1]
References
External links
- Cato Institute Book Forum (RealVideo) (RealAudio), 1-hour lecture that Murray gave discussing his book Human Accomplishment, and some of the response to it.
- American Conservative – book review
- Q&A with Charles Murray on Human Accomplishment, Steve Sailer.
- book review in journal Evolutionary Psychology
- "Of human accomplishment", Denis Dutton
- Book Review: Human Accomplishment, by Charles Murray, Tech Law Journal