Author | Charles Murray |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Psychology, sociology, economics |
Published | 2020 |
Publisher | Twelve (an imprint of Hachette Book Group) |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print, e-book |
Pages | 528 pp |
ISBN | 978-1538744017 |
OCLC | 1135894646 |
304.5 | |
LC Class | GN365.9 .M87 2020 |
Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class is a 2020 non-fiction book written by the American political scientist Charles Murray, co-author of the book The Bell Curve . In the book, Murray argues against the scientific consensus that race is a social construct, as well as other orthodoxies such as the view that gender is a social construct, and class is a function of privilege. [1]
Writing for The New Republic , Alex Shephard described Human Diversity as an example of the "juggernaut" of conservative publishing. According to Shephard, claims of cancel culture and political correctness were used by the publisher Twelve (a division of Hachette) as a justification for publishing Murray, despite his "lack of scientific credentials and a penchant for relying on dubious sources". [2] Shephard also quoted science journalist Angela Saini who told him that "we should really have left this behind by now". [2]
In the National Review , journalist Robert VerBruggen called the book an "excellent primer for the uninitiated" while noting that it can be "pretty boring for those already familiar with the topics it covers" and also saying that Murray should've dealt more thoroughly with research "showing that environments do matter, sometimes a lot". [3]
In The New York Times , literary critic Parul Sehgal criticizes Murray for not addressing the role of the environment further, ignoring information in genetics that might weaken his arguments, ignoring information contradicting his views on gender, and inconsistencies. As an example of Murray ignoring contradictory information, she cites a study to show that sexism is the culprit as to why women have not branched into more male dominated fields, rather than differences between the sexes. [1]
Psychologist Douglas K. Detterman, reviewing the book in the journal Intelligence , agreed with Murray, and hoped "that there will be relatively little negative reaction to Human Diversity." [4]
Science writer Philip Ball, reviewing the book for New Statesman , criticized the book for Murray's misplaced confidence in the alleged differences between male and female brains. Ball also says that Murray's claim that there is a natural predominance of men in STEM "is deluded" because it flies in the face of "masses of evidence" that women face discrimination in the sciences. Ball also criticizes Murray's discussion of race because he tries to redefine it as a "cluster of SNP variants". Ball points out that not only are SNP clusters silent on behavioural differences, but also that these clusters can be applied at all levels — between traditional populations of different cities, for example. [5]
John Philippe Rushton was a Canadian psychologist and author. He taught at the University of Western Ontario until the early 1990s, and became known to the general public during the 1980s and 1990s for research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and other purported racial correlations.
Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close kinship relations. By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits, and then later to national affiliations. Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning. The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life is a 1994 book by the psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and the political scientist Charles Murray in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and that it is a better predictor of many personal outcomes, including financial income, job performance, birth out of wedlock, and involvement in crime than are an individual's parental socioeconomic status. They also argue that those with high intelligence, the "cognitive elite", are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence, and that this separation is a source of social division within the United States.
Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's perceived personal characteristics, such as political affiliation, sex, gender, gender identity, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language, nationality, culture, complexion, beauty, height, body weight, occupation, wealth, education, criminality, sport-team affiliation, music tastes or other perceived characteristics.
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Charles Alan Murray is an American political scientist. He is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
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Intelligence is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal of psychology that covers research on intelligence and psychometrics. It is published by Elsevier and is the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research. The journal was established in 1977 by Douglas K. Detterman. The editor-in-chief is Richard J. Haier.
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Occupational segregation is the distribution of workers across and within occupations, based upon demographic characteristics, most often gender. Other types of occupational segregation include racial and ethnicity segregation, and sexual orientation segregation. These demographic characteristics often intersect. While a job refers to an actual position in a firm or industry, an occupation represents a group of similar jobs that require similar skill requirements and duties. Many occupations are segregated within themselves because of the differing jobs, but this is difficult to detect in terms of occupational data. Occupational segregation compares different groups and their occupations within the context of the entire labor force. The value or prestige of the jobs are typically not factored into the measurements.
Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference is a 2010 book by Cordelia Fine, written to debunk the idea that men and women are hardwired with different interests. The author criticizes claimed evidence of the existence of innate biological differences between men and women's minds as being faulty and exaggerated, and while taking a position of agnosticism with respect to inherent differences relating to interest/skill in "understanding the world" versus "understanding people", reviews literature demonstrating how cultural and societal beliefs contribute to sex differences.
The Sexual Brain is a 1993 book about brain mechanisms involved in sexual behavior and feelings, and related topics such as sexual orientation, by the neuroscientist Simon LeVay. The book was praised as a well-written work on science. However, some reviewers pointed out factual errors, and stated that LeVay failed to prove that homosexuality has a biological basis.
A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History is a 2014 book by Nicholas Wade, a British writer, journalist, and former science and health editor for The New York Times. In the book, Wade argues that human evolution has been "recent, copious and regional" and that this has important implications for social sciences. The book has been widely denounced by the scientific community for misrepresenting research into human population genetics.
Myriam Gurba Serrano is an American author, editor, and visual artist.
Ghachar Ghochar is a 2013 psychological drama novella written by Kannada author Vivek Shanbhag and was translated into English by Srinath Perur. Set in Bangalore, the book is about an unnamed narrator who reminisces about his dysfunctional family's rags to riches story which results in troubling behavioural changes in each of them. The title is a made-up phrase, invented by the narrator's wife and her brother, which means "tangled up beyond repair".
Mouthful of Birds is a short story collection by Samanta Schweblin. Originally published in Spanish, it was translated into English by Megan McDowell in 2019. The stories feature uncanny plot twists and unexpected endings.
Human genetic clustering refers to patterns of relative genetic similarity among human individuals and populations, as well as the wide range of scientific and statistical methods used to study this aspect of human genetic variation.