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science
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- Einstein (94)
- His Life and Universe
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By Walter Isaacson -
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- A Brief History of Time (793)
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By Stephen Hawking -
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- Rocks of Ages (11)
- Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
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By Stephen Jay Gould -
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- The Mismeasure of Man (44)
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By Stephen Jay Gould -
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- Origins (3)
- The Emergence and Evolution of Our Species and Its Possible Future
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By Roger Lewin, Richard Leakey -
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- The Dragons of Eden (46)
- Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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By Carl Sagan -
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- Genome (95)
- The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
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By Matt Ridley -
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- Driving Mr. Albert (10)
- A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain
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By Michael Paterniti -
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- Galileo's Daughter (76)
- An Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love
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By Dava Sobel -
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- COSMOS (181)
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By Carl Sagan -
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- The World without Us (151)
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By Alan Weisman -
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- Big Bang (51)
- The Origin of the Universe
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By Simon Singh -
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- I Have Landed (15)
- The End of a Beginning in Natural History
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By Stephen Jay Gould -
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- The Planets (27)
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By Dava Sobel -
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- Our Posthuman Future (18)
- Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution
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By Francis Fukuyama -
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The Mismeasure of Man
Our world is a poorer place without the insight of the late Stephen Jay Gould.
This book is a concise history and reaction to how past and present societies have attempted to measure the intellect of the individual.
Early scientists believed that the size of the brain was the key to inte ... (continue)
Our world is a poorer place without the insight of the late Stephen Jay Gould.
This book is a concise history and reaction to how past and present societies have attempted to measure the intellect of the individual.
Early scientists believed that the size of the brain was the key to intelligence and measured the cranial cavities of skulls from across the continents. Grape seed (!) was poured into the brain cavity and counted. The findings devastated the prejudiced Anglo scientists who found that the African skulls were much larger. But they soon "proved" the intellectual superiority of the white man by being more selective of the skulls they used in their study.
Today, society continues to try to place a numerical value on each human being to determine if he/she will succeed in a particular school or at a particular job. We've replaced the number of the grape seed with the scores of pencil and paper tests.
Gould explains that the human personality is much too complex to be measured by a few clever tests and warns us of the jeopardy we invite upon ourselves if we continue down this narrow path.