[ExI] Eurocentric Bias in Human Achievement

[Harvey Newstrom]

On Tuesday 05 August 2008 11:18:25 Lee Corbin wrote:
> > [Murray] only looked at European histories and concluded
> > that Europeans were the most important figures in history.
>
> No, he did not make such a claim! He lists dozens of Chinese
> and Japanese contributors to human achievement alone. And
> breakthroughs from many cultures, not to mention amazingly
> long lists of Indian or Arabic breakthroughs. The Europeans
> were simply by far the most *numerous* contributors.

Even given your "correction", my point still stands.  Restated, Murray only 
looked at European histories and concluded that Europeans were the most 
*numerous* figures in history.  It still seems contrived, and is a standard 
criticism of his work.

> > What do you think would have happened if he only read
> > Oriental or only Middle Eastern histories?  No matter how
> > much he claims to have "corrected" the data, it still comes
> > from one culture only, biasing the results toward that culture.
>
> What histories?  Exactly which ones do you have in mind?

Chinese writing predates western writing by a couple of thousand years.  If 
you want to count those documents, then Chinese outnumber Europeans just by 
the sheer number of references.  But that seems to be a very contrived 
statistical measure.

> To avoid
> the problem of cultural chauvinism within the Western world, I selected
> sources balanced among the major Western countries (along with other
> precautions discussed in the book). For non- Western countries, the most
> direct way to sidestep this problem was to prepare independent inventories.

Does this seem valid to you?  He only used existing Western sources and 
created his own non-Western sources?  Then he referenced his own inventories 
as sources for his own reserach?

> Music was restricted to the West.

Does anybody believe that there are no historical music references outside of 
the West?

> Although it lists two hundred (!) translators of the first edition,
> ---every single one of them Japanese---easily ninety-eight percent
> of the mathematical achievement is attributed to Europeans
> (or westerners in general).

Japanese vs. Eurpoean?  What about Arabic?  There are reasons that all 
mathematics in the world is done with Arabic numerals?  They contributed 
little to nothing to mathematics?

> > I cannot imagine that you are unaware of the controversies
> > surrounding Murray and his methods, including this book.
>
> Of course I am *VERY* aware of the controversy over
> one small part of "The Bell Curve" (the small chapter that
> talked about race differences and that got everyone so
> excited, but is *not* at all the main theme of the book).

You keep diverting the conversation back to The Bell Curve.  I'm not talking 
about that.  I'm talking about "Human Achievement" and the controversy 
surrounding it.

> But *no*, I am *not* aware of criticism of "Human Achievement".
> And it doesn't look like Wikipedia is either. You must help if you can.
>
> > Go Google it for yourself if you are unaware of the negative
> > peer review and criticism that this book has received.
>
> I tried!  Just after I read your post, I tried, and then tonight putting
> "Charles Murray Eurocentrism" in google yielded no negative reviews in the
> entire first two pages of links!  In fact, of the links shown were (I don't
> recommend them)

Try googling "Charles Murray" "Human Achievement" flaws.
 - or -
Try looking at Amazon negative reviews of the book.

It's not a big deal for me.  But just the concept of counting encyclopedia 
pages to estimate worth seems sophomoric to me.  This just isn't a scientific 
method.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
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