Comments on: More Quantification of Greatness

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:40:11 +0000

Looks like you need to get Bastiat’s the Law.

I’m reminded of this because Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” just came on the radio.

…yes I’m listening to the radio at work. Hard Rock and free-market research go hand in hand.

By: Greg Forster

Greg Forster — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:09:39 +0000

Ryan: I almost didn’t include Wealth of Nations because the part that is really “great” is such a small percentage of the whole – which is also why few people actually read it today. But then, that would have introduced some major selection bias – if we’re testing Beam’s assertion that Great Books are prohibitively long, it would hardly be fair to exclude a book on grounds that nobody reads it because it’s prohibitively long!

While we’re on the subject of what’s excluded, I had meant to record in the original post that I excluded Marx and Nietzsche because I don’t consider their books to be great. Certainly they are historically influential, but then, so was Mein Kampf.

Jeff: As I mentioned in my last thread, I only include the books that happen to be on my bookshelf, both because trying to include all Great Books would take too much time (I didn’t want to be sitting here for hours pouring over the question of which books are Great) and also in order to avoid increasing selection bias. As it happens, these are the books I found on my bookshelf. My wife has a bunch of Russian books on her shelf, if that’s any consolation.

By: Great Links Curriculum, Volume 1 - World Premiere! — Education for the Aughts - American School Issues and Analysis

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:21:34 +0000

[...] “Quantifying Greatness” – Greg Forster debunks an unfounded gripe about the Great Books. [...]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:51:35 +0000

I notice you failed to include anything Russian in the mix. A little Tolstoy or Dostoevsky would pretty much ruin the curve.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:01:29 +0000

I feel obliged to point out that, though we all have a copy of it, no economist actually reads Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations–that would just be ridiculous, after all.