[ExI] Eurocentric Bias in Human Achievement

[Lee Corbin]

Harvey writes

> [Lee quotes Murray]
> 
>> 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 research?

If there are other inventories, no one seems to be mentioning them. 
What else was he to do (if in fact that's how it came about)? For
quite a number of the world's nations, I'll wager, more is known
from the investigations and research of the (relatively wealthy)
Western anthropological and history departments than is known
in the oral histories of the locals. In many other countries, e.g.
Islamic ones, the penetration of religious viewpoint is so pervasive
into what historical literature that does exist, as to make those 
sources unreliable---not, again, that western scholars haven't 
attempted to verify those records. (Consider for example, the
ongoing efforts to try to find historical validity in the Old Testament,
and not with much success.)

>> Music was restricted to the West.
> 
> Does anybody believe that there are no historical music references outside of 
> the West?

Murray did more than restrict it just to the West. He excluded
almost all the music and musical figures from before the 
Renaissance. I'm sure you see why.  And believe me, it was
*not* because of a bias against Roman, medieval, Greek, or
Nordic music.

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

Of course the contributions of the great Arab mathematician Al-Kwarizmi
were noted in the book. But the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics
(compiled by Japanese scholars) gives half a page or so to Arab mathematics
out of a total of 1720 pages. It does list the contributions of Al-Battani
(trigonometry discoveries) and Omar Khayyam, whose math (investigations
of cubic equations) was almost as impressive as his poetry. But the real
problem there was that Muslim society closed down on academic research
after about 1000 or so, because there is something about Islam that gives
religious fundamentalists the upper hand. (In other words, *their* Galileos
were not only persecuted, but banned, nearly forgotten, and---above all---
prevented from inspiring followers.)
 
It even turns out that the "Arabic" numerals were really a Hindu invention.

>> 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.

I will.  Thanks!

> - or -
> Try looking at Amazon negative reviews of the book.

Of the five editorial reviews, one is negative and four are positive.

I haven't looked at all the customer reviews, but so far all I see
is rhetoric. No one is rising to Murray's challenge to provide
any evidence that there is a significant body of ignored non-
European accomplishment out there. He does demand, however,
that two provisos be met: (from, again, 
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.17821,filter.all/pub_detail.asp )

    But what is really at issue is whether historians of science and
    technology in the last half-century are aware of the non-Western
    record-and it is clear that they are. Europeans used the works of
    the great Arab scholar-scientists of a millennium ago as the
    foundations for European science (which is why so many Arab
    scholars are known by their Latinized names). The great works of
    Indian mathematicians have long since been translated and
    incorporated into the history of mathematics, just as the works of
    Chinese naturalists and astronomers have been translated and
    incorporated into the narratives of those fields.

    In recognizing how thoroughly non-Western science and technology
    have been explored, let's also give credit where credit is due: By
    and large, it has not been Asian or Arab scholars, fighting for
    recognition against Western indifference, who were responsible for
    piecing together the record of accomplishment by non-Western
    cultures, but Westerners themselves. Imperialists they may have
    been, but one of the byproducts of that imperialism was a large
    cadre of Continental, British, and American scholars who,
    fascinated by the exotic civilizations of Arabia and East Asia, set
    about uncovering evidence of their accomplishments that inheritors
    of those civilizations had themselves neglected. Joseph Needham's
    seven-volume history of Chinese science and technology is a case in
    point. Another is George Sarton's Introduction to the History of
    Science, five large volumes published from 1927 to 1948, all of
    which are devoted to science before the end of the fourteenth
    century-including meticulous accounts of scientific accomplishment
    in the Arab world, India, and China.

    Of the remaining ways in which one could attenuate the 97-percent
    proportion I assign to both significant figures and significant
    events in the sciences, my proposition is that none work. I attach
    two provisos to that claim: First, attempts to add new events to
    the non-Western roster must consist of discoveries, inventions, and
    other forms of "firsts." No fair adding the first Indian suspension
    bridge to a catalog of Indian technology if suspension bridges were
    already in use elsewhere.

    The other proviso is that the rules for inclusion of a person or
    event must be applied evenly. If one augments the inventory of
    non-Western accomplishment by going to Joseph Needham's
    seven-volume account of Chinese science and technology, one must
    also augment the inventory of Western accomplishment by going to
    comparably detailed histories dealing with German science (for
    example)-in other words, no fair using the naked eye to search for
    Western accomplishments and a microscope to search for non-Western
    ones.

    If one observes these two constraints, the Western dominance of
    people and events cannot be reduced more than fractionally. For
    every new non-Western person or event that is added to the list,
    dozens of new entries qualify for the Western list, and the
    relative proportions assigned to the West and the non-West do not
    change. The differential may become even more extreme, because the
    reservoir of Western scientific accomplishment that did not qualify
    for the inventories is so immense.

Lee