If you want to go for popular & controversial books, I’d suggest doing Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man and Murray’s The Bell Curve simultaneously. Dueling bestsellers on the most controversial topic possible. However, I’d recommend keeping it far away from LessWrong if you do.
I agree it would be better to have newer books, but these two seem influential enough still as to be worth tackling—and the fact that science has progressed since then can even be an advantage, because it makes it easier to compare their claims to reality, since we have more data than them. I haven’t actually read either of them, but I’ve heard a lot about each.
I read The Bell Curve (many years ago) and it’s certainly an interesting book.
I suppose before embarking on reading/comparing two books like this (a lot of work!) it would be good to be clear on just what the purpose of the exercise is. It’s not quite clear to me, but anyway.
If you want to go for popular & controversial books, I’d suggest doing Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man and Murray’s The Bell Curve simultaneously. Dueling bestsellers on the most controversial topic possible. However, I’d recommend keeping it far away from LessWrong if you do.
Appreciate the suggestion, but would be afraid of finding myself in some hot water over those two. I might take a closer look in my own time.
They’re quite old books now though; somewhat out of date I expect (though most of the main points are probably still relevant).
I agree it would be better to have newer books, but these two seem influential enough still as to be worth tackling—and the fact that science has progressed since then can even be an advantage, because it makes it easier to compare their claims to reality, since we have more data than them. I haven’t actually read either of them, but I’ve heard a lot about each.
I read The Bell Curve (many years ago) and it’s certainly an interesting book.
I suppose before embarking on reading/comparing two books like this (a lot of work!) it would be good to be clear on just what the purpose of the exercise is. It’s not quite clear to me, but anyway.
Murray has a new book out, Human Diversity, so that may be a good place to start.