>Pseudo-science dressed in rhetorical tricks and reasonable statistics. Very appealing premise, of understanding human accomplishment in arts and sciences over the past 3.5 millenia, and what causes it. Hides a political agenda (far right), many logical and statistical fallacies, personal belief sold as fact, instances of sexism and racism unsupported by evidence but offered as truth, etc. Requires careful reading and training to debunk, which makes this book insidious.

>Details follow when I'll have the time, but, for now:

>1/ The author uses garbage as input, that is, space given in Western encyclopedias to various figures and events in arts and sciences. If this sounds just fine, then you are missing (1) that some concepts get more space than others of possibly equal importance, (2) that some people/events get more space than others of possibly equal importance, (3) that Western encyclopedias copy much from each other, (4) that space given is not the same as a balanced judgment on the importance of a concept/person/event, (5) that a balanced judgment is not known to be possible.

>2/ The author gives us garbage as output, with plenty of incorrect expertise at play. Scatter plots? Perhaps choropleth maps. Grouping by period? Very good, just don't compare periods of 200 years with another of 150 years, only to conclude the latter has fewer samples (and, from this, that the human civilization is in decline).

>3/ Confusing correlation with causality, over and over again.

>4/ Circularity galore. The Western white males are über alles, because they are, because they are, because they just are, ok?

>5/ Inconsistent arguments. For example, the author first argues it's the Christians who are so over-superior that it's not even worth doscussing anyone else (but he does discuss a couple of elses, as it turns out, women and a certain minority in thw US), then concludes the Jewish group, since legal emancipation, has outperformed relatively to its demographic (the author estimated high quality achievements are about 15 times more likely to appear than the <1% population size would let us predict). So perhaps this is a prominent counterexample to the author's claim it's the Christian religion who is the engine of crearivity and proven genius. Alas, the author continues, this Jewish achievement onky demonstrates how well Christianity empowers others to excel!? With such friends, Christianity, who needs enemies?

>6/ The author chooses an end cut-off point in the period surveyed here, 1950, convenient for someone who does not want to give credit to anyone but ancient achievers and Western Christian white males (the author goes through many hoops to disparage the demographic alternatives). After 1950, of course, we have the black and women emancipation in the US, the rise of Japan and China in science, the rise of India and Brazil in technology, the cold war race also in arts and sciences between US and Russia (and their satellites), more recently rights goven to LGBTQ, etc. But, even with a cutoff in 1950, it seems brazen to exclude jazz and other minority music originating in modern form in the US (how can one ignore Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin from a genius list around 1950s?!), to ignore computer science (and the geniuses kick starting it and letting it do its job in World War II and just after), to forget the geniuses powering the mulți-disciplinary Manhattan Project, etc. Just convenient forgetfulness, and nonsense surveying of history.

>7/ Many predictions offered by the author have already been invalidated. Women? Plenty to mention in the genius range. A woman played a significant part in the discovery of the DNA, regardless of whether Watson says otherwise. A woman invented CRISPR, regardless of the theft of her idea. Demise of the Western culture? We'll have to wait some more; and the rise of the bottom resulting in a more global share of ideas and fame seems beneficial. Death of science? Forget the deepening of existing work, computational sciences (which use computers as instruments to collect and analyze, and more recently to control and even to suggest) have led to discoveries that we could not have envisioned before. If anything ironic for the author's view of life, the Human Genome Project, which did not exist as a possibility in the 1950s, has led to some interesting invalidation of the notion that a single gene can clearly be linked with superior achievement in science or art.

>8/ The author overextended the claims, entering areas he knows too little about or where new theories invalidate his claims. For example, and it's one of the many pertaining to this book, we know much more now about the evolution of technology and science, to still believe it's heroic figures working alone - - the author is adamant this is the leading process and the only one that matters (see circular arguments, earlier). See books on the cyclotron, astrophysics, and The Nature of Technology for counters.

>Ok, enough time spent on this nonsense. It's shoody science and garbage data.

>Указываю тебе на место.

>что ты и есть маргинал

>"вашаъ иллиадаъ этоъ каллъ"