Quantifying Human Achievement

As far as I know author Charles Murray is the only author who has to attempted to quantify human accomplishment and genius in the arts and sciences between 800 B.C. and 1950.

Given the incalculable amount of lost texts throughout the ages from civilizations like Sumeria,  the Minoans, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Greece, Rome etc., it makes the exercise seem almost futile.

Meh. Someone has to do it.

Murray took on the monumental analytical task in Bill James-esque fashion of explaining in about 500 pages his method and process as to how he arrived at a list of about (according to my count) 3391 significant figures in history.

How did the West become the titan among all civilizations? Specifically, how did it come to be dominated by but a mere four to seven nations?

It's a thoroughly invigorating journey, if one is predisposed to believe that all accomplishments are subjective and relative, it may be an eye popper indeed.

Based on his index of significant rosters, I simply broke down (much of which is already done in the book) the statistics by percentages. I was especially curious to see how countries did against each other. See it as "winning percentage" or "OPS" type of thing.

Just a small note, while Murray separates Rome and Italy (after all, though it's one civilization they can be viewed as two different entities. Some great Romans, like Seneca for instance, were from Spain),  I grouped them together. Similarly, one I suppose, can keep Scotland and England separate but for our sake here they fall under Britain.

Let's begin.

In total numbers these are the nations that contributed the most significant figures:

1) Britain 549
2) France 548
3) Germany 538
4) Italy/Rome 453
5) United States 304
6) Austria-Hungary 118
7) Russia 116
8) Netherlands 101
9) Spain 83
10) Belgium 82
11) Switzerland 68
12) Sweden 43
13) Denmark 37

The rest is followed by Bohemia/Czech/Slovakia, the Balkans Norway, Portugal, Finland, Iceland. Note: If we tally up Bohemia/Czech/Slo. it would put them in 12th but it was considered independent in the book. Also, the Low Countries include both Belgium and the Netherlands. If we add the two, it places them as high as 6th. For most of the centuries, Italy and Germany weren't unified states marked by powerful kingdoms, city-states and principalities.

That all being accounted for, 72% of all European major figures come from the "Big Four." It shoots to 80% when you include the Austrian-Hungarian empire, the Netherlands and Russia.

In this light, now is a good time to mention the book does consider two other things: The first is the country in which major events took place (dominated again by the big four) and also plots where the origins (not where they worked or grew up) of significant figures come from. The major European regions are Ile de France, Southeast England, Tuscany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Venetia, Southwest England, Switzerland, Lowland Scotland, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Baden-Wurttemberg, Norteast Austria, the Italian Papal States, and Brandenburg. The major region for the United States, not surprisingly, is New England. America is still a work in progress.

Now each figure was assigned a number (anywhere from 1 to 100 depending how often they had been cited by sources and importance). For example.Newton was assigned 100 while Rutherford 89 who came in second.

I was interested to see was the average score per nation in the 12 categories: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Mathematics, Medicine, Physics, Technology, Art, Music, Literature, Philosophy.

Here they are:

Poland 21
Ancient Greece 21
Italy 15
Switzerland 15
Germany 14
France 14
Hungary 14
Netherlands 14
Britain 13 (Scotland 14)
Croatia 13
Denmark 12
Canada 11
USA 10
Sweden 10
Russia 10
Ireland 10
Austria 10

Surprised to see Poland top the list? So much for all those Pollack jokes. Impressive this may be, it's worth keeping in mind Poles were represented in just eight of the 12 categories. Ancient Greece made 10 of the 12.

Another example of a country cracking a decent score - Croatia - came from a sample of just three categories as they weren't represented in the others. Canada was represented in seven of the 12 and the USA 10. So while Canada scored slightly higher, the United States did produce more spread across more disciplines.

Only five countries scored in all categories: Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy - who outscored the previous four.

Next I looked at were Top 20 (240 figures) in each category.

In total numbers:

Germany 46
Britain 42
France 34
Italy/Rome 32
Ancient Greece 13
United States 10
Scotland 10
Netherlands 9
Sweden 7
Switzerland 7
Russia 4
Poland 4

Notice the significant drop off after the big four. Poland in particular seems to have taken a hit from the previous list. Percentage wise Germany led at 19% followed by Britain 18%, France 14%, Italy 13%.

Finally, which country had the most figures scoring 100?

Britain 4
Italy 2
Germany 2
France 2
Ancient Greece, Scotland, Switzerland, Austria 1

There you go.

***

Quick word on the concentration of where Western achievement took place. Notice it pretty much happened in five countries including Britain. Makes sense since information tends to spread about best in tight spaces. There didn't seem to be too much of an issue when it came to the sharing of knowledge between Continental Europe and Britain.

Which brought me back to a point made in Soccernomics. In attempting to explain why England seemingly under performed as compared to other big soccer nations, the authors concluded that in fact, England was performing well given its resources and circumstances. One of those circumstances said to handicap them was geography. Notably they were cut off from all the major tactical and philosophical (and dietary) advamcents stemming from Continental Europe.

Different story from what was discovered in our exercise above right? How could it have not been an issue in 12 major categories but was so in soccer? When one reads about soccer history it becomes clear geography is not the only reason. It was less of an obstacle to success and more of an issue Britain's parochialism as it willingly closed itself off to the rest of Europe. They just didn't believe they could learn from the likes of the Continentals.

It took Britain a long time to catch up if it did at all. It didn't seem to be the case when they were clobbered by Germany at the 2010 World Cup.