This is the response to the reply above; I'm unable to directly respond to a comment that deep. I thought similar things about Charles Murray, and I don't thin

This is the response to the reply above; I'm unable to directly respond to a comment that deep. I thought similar things about Charles Murray, and I don't think that the Human Accomplishment book is without flaws -- it has many. Nonetheless, the whole book is worth reading. Honestly, I think it faces some serious facts on the distribution of impact on civilization. The fact that some cultures, like classical Athens and Elizabethan and Enlightenment England, have had an outsized impact on modern science and civilization, that we have a massive debt to particular thinkers from Europe of the past few centuries, is a fact I think a serious study of great scientists needs to come to terms with. That being said, past contribution is not a good indicator of genetic, racial superiority! We should do well to ask what made those contributions possible, from nurturance, to growth, to self belief, and belief in the idea of progress.