Book on Genius Out.

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 23 Oct 03 | GARY ROSEN

[sbw123]

The Best and Brightest Charles Murray tries to quantify "Human Achievement."

BY GARY ROSEN Thursday, October 23, 2003 12:01 a.m.

In our age of overused superlatives, none stands in greater need of rehabilitation than "genius," a title that Leonardo now shares with such eminences as Warren Buffett and Eminem. Charles Murray's rough-and-ready test is whether an individual's work makes us ask, in wonder, "How can a human being have done that?" But he doesn't stop there. Incorrigible social scientist that he is, Mr. Murray wants to prove that supreme excellence actually exists in the arts and sciences. The result is "Human Accomplishment," a systematic effort to rate and rank the likes of Aristotle, Mozart and Einstein and to describe the conditions that have allowed them to flourish. Much of this brick of a book is devoted to explaining, in tiresome detail, just how Mr. Murray goes about quantifying the seemingly unquantifiable. His trick is to consult the experts--or, rather, to distill usable numbers from their encyclopedias, anthologies, general histories and biographical dictionaries. An individual making an appearance in at least 50% of the selected sources for a given field wins the label "significant figure." By Mr. Murray's reckoning, there have been 4,002 such "people who matter" in the period 800 B.C. to 1950. Each member of this Pantheon gets an "index score" on a 100-point scale, based on how much attention--pages, column inches, etc.--he receives in the specialist literature.

[Cicero]

As the article seems to suggest, the key cultural requirements, other than enough wealth to allow a leisure class who aren't working at the plow, are freedom and a sense of purpose.

For most of recent history, those elements have been provided by Christianity. These ideas came down from Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, but it was Christianity that incorporated them.

Most significant for science, for instance, is the concept of the Logos, whether or not a particular scientist knows the theological term. That is, God is reasonable, and He made the world reasonable and made men reasonable so they could understand it. For Christians, as in the opening of John's Gospel, the Logos is Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity. "In the beginning was the Word."

[patton]

Does Wolfram mention Al Jabar?

[patton]

Johannes Keppler. He own the next farm over in upstate NY, when I was a kid. Shot me in the fundamental with rocksalt, once.

[patton]

You know, I had that same problem...

[Andy Ross]

You're not interested in discussing your comments on Newton's supposed theft?

Andrew

[ASA Vet]

Shot me in the fundamental with rocksalt, once

Bet that smarted!

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

"And that is good for the top end, too."

No, I don't think so. The bright kids have always found a way to learn- I was bored in school, but I read LOTS of books, on eveything from Astronomy to Zoology on my own.

The problem now is that expectations have dropped so low that kids are being given "A's" for really mediocre work- and the textbooks are just pablum (I have looked through several, and they are eally dumbed-down, with lots of nice pictures and big print- are the kids all suffering from ADD AND presbyopia?????

My particular gripe is the "multiple-guess" test (and "objective" testing in general). It;'s good for the lazy teachers and "students", but does not really advance understanding of a subject.

Remember essay exams? Or a sheet full of physics problems and instructions to "show all work"? Hard to fake your way through those.

I was in Special Forces, and spent lots of time teaching various subjects to the people we worked with (you might be surprised just how wide a range of subject matter that encompasses- I once taught the elements of plane trigonometry to innumerate Laotian montagnards- they did quite well, by the way).

The exams were rigorous, believe me.

[patton]

No, not really. I am old, but not old enough to have been there.

And I think you missed the humor in my "except for that whole calculas thing" comment.

Sorry, next time I will use a tag.

[patton]

I taught trig in a prison, once...you gotta see the humor in life. What did Einstein say, "The world surprises me every day..."

[patton]

"Sometimes, dead is better..."

[hosepipe]

Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.- Albert Einstein

"We know less than 1/1,000,000th of a percent about anything." - Albert Einstein

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."- Albert Einstein

[patton]

I used to take a book to school with me of a mornin', and read it before the day was done. I was really bored.

[Hank Rearden]

Wile E. Coyote: Super Genius.

[patton]

You know what all SF'ers have in common? Really high IQ's. I would bet your team averaqed a GT of 135 or better.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

It took a 115 to even apply same as for OCS.- I took the screening tests with 25 others, and I was the only one in that group who passed. True story. A lot of them flunked the "Critical Decision Test", because they couldn't figure out that the FIRST PHRASE in each "situation" was really a mission statement- and all answers had to be directed at accomplishing that specific mission. And these were not dummies.

When I got onto an "A"-Team, I found out quickly that there are people MUCH smarter than I am! The liberal elitists will scoff, but getting onto an "A"-team was probably MUCH more difficult than getting into Harvard at that time.

Staying alive was even harder.

[patton]

On the other hand, my GT was 155 - so I had the sense to tell the recruiter from 1SFOGD to buzz off (COL).

LOL. I would probably score a 95 today - too many years in the five-sided funny farm.

[RightWhale]

Imagine being stuck on a becalmed sailing ship for weeks with nothing to read but a 1997 Mechanics Illustrated.

[patton]

Do I get tools with that? I am sure I could come up with an alternate propulsion source - especially given the propensity of MI to use graphic enticements...

[RightWhale]

Okay, so maybe an old MI wouldn't be so bad after all. You'd probably have a fresh water condenser and a paddle/oar system rigged up and be on your way in short order.

[patton]

See, you take the salt water and put it in a black plastic bag in the sun...