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The seminal work on this tendency we humans have to classify and rank each other is Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The
by timoth3y 8y ago
The seminal work on this tendency we humans have to classify and rank each other is Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man
If you have a chance, it's worth a read. It's on my list of the top ten most important books I've ever read and it permanently altered the way I think about the way we think about ourselves.
- profalseidol 8y agoChecked one of the praise review: https://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=PAQ.053.0286A https://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=PAQ.053.0286A Sounds good. My bookmark folder grows.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- haihaibye 8y agohttps://www.nature.com/articles/474419a https://www.nature.com/articles/474419a Also, you can measure skulls of different population groups with MRIs and other modern tech, and they vary.
- mr_overalls 8y agoAs a fan of Gould, I was very disappointed to see that it's likely he committed scientific fraud in service of his political convictions.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoIronically, Gould's thesis was that the practice of science is politically biased.
- starbeast 8y agoThat sounds interesting, I'll add that to my order list. What came to mind for me around this topic, was Edward Said's 'Orientalism'. Is an amazing critique.
- ignoramous 8y agoTangential: I am curious to know the other 9 books. Can you, please?
- emiliobumachar 8y agoThere might not be an actual list, it's a common idiom. A way to say "I won't spend the effort to classify it precisely, but it definitely wouldn't be below 10th place."
- timoth3y 8y agoI confess I don't have a literal list of ten books, but there is a small handful of books that shifted my way of thinking. A simple list of these books would require a great deal of explanation. None of them are generally considered "great works" and almost never make such lists. Some, like "Zigler on Selling" just came to me when I really needed it, and it ended up changing the trajectory of my life.