THE ALL-TIME GREATS.(The Talk of the Town)(party celebrates book by Charles Murray, 'Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950')

Roger Hertog, the vice-chairman of Alliance Capital, the chairman of the Manhattan Institute, and the moneybags behind the New York Sun, opened up his Fifth Avenue apartment the other night for a party to celebrate the publication of a new book by Charles Murray, entitled "Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950." Halfway through the evening, Hertog asked for a few moments of quiet from his guests--Norman Podhoretz, Michael Barone, and other conservative eminences--in order to say a few bonhomous words about the accomplishments of the guest of honor. One of the things about Charles Murray's books, Hertog announced, is that they are almost all wrong. At least, that's what the guests at the back of the room thought they heard him say, which provoked perplexed mutterings and wary smiles until it was ascertained, from a listener with keener hearing, that what Hertog had actually said is that the books are almost all long.

Murray is certainly accustomed to having his books described as all wrong. His previous book, "The Bell Curve" (1994), which he co-wrote with Richard J. Herrnstein, contended, among other things, that inferior scores on standardized intelligence tests by blacks in America, and the consequent low economic standing of African-Americans, were due in significant measure to hereditary factors rather than environmental ones, and that spending on welfare was a waste of time and money. It sparked outrage, much debunking, and an armload of "Bell Curve" spinoffs ("The Bell Curve Wars"; "The Bell Curve Debate"; "Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined"). It also sold nearly four hundred thousand copies.

Murray and his publisher, HarperCollins, are surely hoping that "Human Accomplishment" might turn out to be equally controversial, although the argument of the new book, which Murray originally wanted to call "Truth and Beauty," is somewhat less incendiary. Murray has coined a new expression, the Lotka Curve, to describe a statistical pattern based upon the research of an obscure American-Hungarian mathematician and demographer, which, he argues, provides an objective measure of human excellence that is applicable not only in spheres of endeavor such as baseball but in areas of creativity and thought, where subjective judgment is more typically thought to hold sway. The Lotka Curve, Murray admitted at the party, is unlikely to gain the currency achieved by his earlier title. "Someone pointed out to me that Latka is a character in 'Taxi,' and someone else pointed out that ...