Talk:Human Accomplishment

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[edit] Mathematical accomplishment

I have heard that Murray's book says that new discoveries in mathematics have declined since 1900. That is utter nonsense; only an illiterate would say such a thing. Is that actually in Murray's book? Michael Hardy 01:06, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The closest to such a thing I can find is pg. 313 of the hardcover edition, where he says:
  1. "The golden age of mathematics ocurred earlier than for any other scientific inventory, over the late 1500s to the end of the 1600s. A short list of the names explain why: Pascal, Fermat, Cavalieri, Descartes, Wallis, Huygens, Barrow, Leibniz, the first Bernouillis, and Newton, who discovered, among much else, logarithms, analytic geomerty, probability theory, and the calculus."
  2. "A lesser but notable period of acheivement came in the early 1800s, led by Gauss, but with a distinguished body..... After mid-19C, all the measures of accomplishment in mathematics, including those based on events, trailed off through the 1950 cutoff."
(Numbered list in the original). Personally, I find such a result to be fairly plausible. I don't know of any figures between 1850-1950 who really rival "Pascal, Fermat, Cavalieri, Descartes, Wallis, Huygens, Barrow, Leibniz, the first Bernouillis, and Newton". --maru (talk) contribs 20:05, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Probably nobody rivals Newton. But there has been far more new discovery in mathematics since 1900 the before. Is Murray trying to deny that? --Michael Hardy 19:26, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Looks like he's saying that between 1900-1950 accomplishment has declined; he deliberately cuts off all his inventorying at that point (so as to avoid overvaluing contemporary work), so that says nothing about work between 1950-2006. I'm not so sure he's right about the overall progress, though as I have said, I think I agree with his point about individuals. --maru (talk) contribs 23:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scores

Archimedes is inferior to Fibonacci??? --Michael Hardy 17:09, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Not by my reading. Looking through the appendix for the mathematical inventory, they both have index scores of 33. --maru (talk) contribs 20:05, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Christian/Western POV

"Murray explains his finding that the West produced almost all scientific progress by reference to Christianity's emphasis on human intelligence as a gift from God."
That's a pretty obvious instance of ethnocentrism. I would bet that Asians often assert that "the East" has produced almost all scientific progress, citing such contributions as algebra, zero, gunpowder, writing, the Russian invention of the intercontinental ballistic missile, the many remarkable advancements in electronics to come from Japan in the later 20th century, and civilization itself thousands of years ago in what is now the "middle east". To call Murray's conclusion a "finding" makes it seem as though it's an objective fact that has been discovered. I haven't read his book, so I can't critique this article much beyond that. But the article should not embrace his conclusions wholeheartedly, or else it will simply become an echo of his own point of view. --Mr. Billion 19:41, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Russians are European. --Jugbo 04:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Musicians

There was no music before Monteverdi? What about the massive achievements of Josquin, Palestrina, Machaut, Ockeghem? That list really presents a 19th-century POV. It made me laugh out loud. Those who carried the Franco-Flemish style to the rest of Europe, and who invented the art of counterpoint, are the ones who made the later achievements possible. Is this guy for real? What sources is he using? --Antandrus (talk) 23:38, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps I am simply unusually ignorant of music, but I haven't heard of a single one of those people listed in your second sentence. --maru (talk) contribs 07:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

yeah it is prettty dumb not to know who palestrina was

[edit] Murray a Philistine

Is there such a category? This books seems the definition of the term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Editor437 (talk • contribs) 23:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)