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GG&S: I had two separate MDs at a gym off campus and the head of my dept (biomedical informatics) exclaim "that's the best book I ever read!"
by dh997 11y ago
GG&S: I had two separate MDs at a gym off campus and the head of my dept (biomedical informatics) exclaim "that's the best book I ever read!"
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- fsiefken 11y agoAre you referring to Jared Diamonds 'Collapse'?
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoI suspect dh997 was referring to "Guns, Germs, and Steel".
- nwatson 11y agoGG&S == Guns, Germs, & Steel
- soperj 11y agoI would say that he still glosses over some stuff. Like the fact that Bison have been domesticated now.
- armenarmen 11y agoSuccessfully bred by people yes, but domesticated no.
- Houshalter 11y agoAlso helps that they have been interbred with domesticated cattle, and we have tons of tools to do it. Good luck rounding up Bison with just primitive tools.
- soperj 11y agoThey round them up perfectly fine. They just forced them off cliffs instead of into fenced areas. (Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump)
- Houshalter 11y agoThat's not going to domesticate them. You need to put them into a fenced in area for long periods of time, and control the population. Selecting the ones that are the tamest around humans, and killing the ones that are the most aggressive or uncontrollable. The indians could not have accomplished this (easily.)
- soperj 11y agoGo on and tell me why they couldn't?
- Houshalter 11y agoSee the later half of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk Starting about 6:40.
- soperj 11y agoIt's not like the cows weren't domesticated from something similar to a bison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs). Bulls are still be very violent animals. That video also forgets alpacas.
- kqr2 11y agoGGS has received a lot of criticisms from anthropologists. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/what_are_some_of_the_main_anthropological/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/wha... Like Malcolm Gladwell, Jared Diamond is very skilled at weaving a narrative that offers "aha" insight, however, it seems to come at the expense of cherry picking facts and events from history.
- ehudla 11y agoSee this too: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/books/2013/02/jared_diamond_the_world_until_yesterday_anthropologists_are_wary_of_lack.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/books/2013/...
- narrator 11y agoJared Diamond is the king of making money off of people's confirmation biases.
- WalterBright 11y agoFor the opposing viewpoint, see "Triumph of the West" by J.M. Roberts.