552 



AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



terest, as it enables us to compare with more 

 or less accuracy men of science working in 

 diverse directions. 



The order, grades and probable errors of 

 the fifty who stand first are given to illustrate 

 the method. We can thus say that the work 

 of a certain physicist is equal in value to the 

 work of a certain zoologist, or that a certain 

 chemist has one chance in four of being as 

 competent as a certain pathologist, a result 

 that would not be possible by direct compari- 

 son. The various factors which limit the ex- 

 actness of the method should be kept in mind, 

 but we have at least the beginning of a method 

 which with further effort can be made more 

 accurate. Similar methods can be applied to 

 comparing the value of performance in fields 

 even more diverse than the several sciences. 



-to 



104 



FIG. 2. Distribution of the thousand men of 

 science. 



In the accompanying curve which is based 

 on substantially the same figures as are given 

 in Table III., except that a man is given a 

 position only in the science in which he stands 

 the highest is shown the distribution of the 

 thousand men of science. The 1,000 scientific 

 men are divided into ten groups, the range of 

 eminence or merit covered by each hundred 

 being proportional to the space it occupies on 

 the axis of the abscissas, and the number of 

 each degree of ability being proportional to 

 the ordinates. The range of merit covered 

 by each hundred becomes smaller and there 

 are more of each degree of merit as we pass 



from the first to the second hundred and so 

 on for the first five hundred, after which the 

 differences become very small. The first hun- 

 dred men of science cover a range of merit 

 about equal to that of the second and third 

 hundreds together, and this again is very 

 nearly equal to the range covered by the re- 

 maining seven hundred. The average differ- 

 ences between the men in the first hundred are 

 about twice as great as between the men in 

 the second and third hundreds, and about 

 seven times as great as between the men in the 

 remaining groups. Or the differences among 

 the first hundred are almost exactly ten times 

 as great as among the last five hundred, who 

 differ but little among themselves. It would 

 be desirable to compare this distribution with 

 that of the normal probability integral and 

 with the salaries paid to scientific men, but 

 the data are not as yet at hand. 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



From a conventional point of view the dis- 

 tribution of men of science would not be 

 regarded as a psychological problem, perhaps 

 not even as a scientific problem. But in re- 4 

 cent years the distribution of plants and ani- 

 mals has received increasing attention in bot- 

 any and zoology, and apart from its perti- 

 nence as a correct description of the world in 

 which we live, it has proved, on the one hand, 

 to have certain practical applications, and, on 

 the other hand, to throw light on certain 

 general problems of heredity and evolution. 

 Similar results may accrue from a scientific 

 study of the distribution of human ability 

 and performance. 



The birthplace and the present residence of 

 the thousand leading men of science of the 

 United States are shown on the table on 

 page 554, the divisions used being those of the 

 census. Figures are given separately for the 

 five hundred (I.-V.) who are more distin- 

 guished and for the five hundred (VL-X.) 

 whose reputations are less, followed by the 

 totals and their number per million of the 

 ^population. As the average age of the scien- 

 tific men is about 45 years, their birth rate 



