6 ms·

Americapox: The Missing Plague (2015)

45 points by rfreytag 11y ago

tomohawk 11y ago
TB was found in pre-Columbian South American human remains, so was in the Americas at some point. Syphilus was brought back from the new world and killed lots of people.
davidw 11y ago
This is basically what a lot of the book Guns Germs & Steel is about. A very interesting read.
- cfcef 11y ago
  The post reads like a (very poorly written) rehash and plagiarism of Diamond...
  - notthemessiah 11y ago
    Perhaps you missed the "Further Reading" section at the top, because it's right there.
    - cfcef 11y ago
      A 'further reading' is not a reference; 'further reading' means 'here are additional sources you might find relevant about material not covered here'. Which of 'Triumph of the City', 'The Ghost Map', and 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' did the stuff about animals come from, if you hadn't already read them? That's right - you don't know! Because he's not giving a reference.
      - TrevorJ 11y ago
        It's a youtube video, not a research paper. I think you are being unnecessarily pedantic.
  - BookmarkSaver 11y ago
    Maybe you should pay more attention to his sources and descriptions.
whitegrape 11y ago
http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-germs-and-steel/ http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-ger...
Tossrock 11y ago
This argument is not very sound. It ignores eg that native Americans had domesticated dogs (like the Hare Indian), the domestication of caribou in the north, the presence of mountain goats and bighorn sheep, etc etc etc. It's like the author thinks the only large mammals in the new world were bison and llamas.
- davidw 11y ago
  Compare and contrast with pigs, chickens, sheep, cattle, horses, dogs, cats, and so on. There were far more in Europe/Asia that lived in close contact with people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals
- BookmarkSaver 11y ago
  Dogs do not provide food and barely add additional energy (except in Arctic conditions). >the presence of mountain goats and bighorn sheep Perhaps you should watch the second part, which is about domestication. He addresses this point in this part (you seem to have missed it) but explores it more in the second. Some animals are not domesticatable (e.g. zebras) despite seeming that they could be. It isn't like he came up with his list of potential targets of domestication off of the top of his head. There's a reason stuff like bears and deer aren't on it. And he only used bison as an example of something that would be profitable if it was domesticated, but it can't be by pre-modern societies.
  - Tossrock 11y ago
    Sorry, I was going off the transcript, not the video. In the transcript he talks specifically about the benefit of the domestication of dogs for old world peoples[1], while ignoring the fact that new world peoples also had domesticated dogs. 1: "With dogs, herding sheep and cattle is easier. Now humans have a buddy to keep an eye on the clothing factory, and the milk and cheeseburger machine, and the plow-puller."
    - BookmarkSaver 11y ago
benzofuran 11y ago
This is basically what Pastwatch: Redemption by Orson Scott Card is about. Bit of sci-fi but that's the general gist - quite a nice read. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H4I4KO/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H4I4KO/
pella 11y ago
Zebra vs Horses (Americapox Part 2) https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo
InclinedPlane 11y ago
I really dislike this style of narrative heavy pop sciency stuff. It's incredibly antithetical to the very principle of science (rigorously prove each and every step in an argument, don't rely on narratives, go where the evidence leads you rather than picking and choosing evidence to back up your pre-existing narrative). CGPGrey really is smart enough that he should know better than to fall into this trap, but it can be oh so tempting. The Guns, Germs, and Steel narrative is an interesting one with some intriguing ideas but it does not stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny well. At best it's a theory, at worst it's a story that people tell because it's interesting and not explicitly completely and utterly ruled out by the facts. The overall theory relies on several key ideas, none of which have been validated scientifically. First the idea that there are more "good domesticable" animals in the old world than the new. Second that it's the domestication of animals which leads primarily to higher rates of endemic diseases. This is one of those ideas that has a bit of truthiness to it (since it's very much true for some diseases like the Flu or SARS) but is nowhere near a sufficiently fleshed out nor sufficiently verified theory. Third, implying that the impact of a disease on a civilization wide basis has only to do with the disease itself and nothing to do with the details of the civilization itself is a casual assumption of the underlying narrative though it is blatantly false. Perhaps enough to completely invalidate the rest of the Guns, Germs, and Steel argument, but since the "argument" is presented as a narrative rather than a scientific theory it doesn't even present anything to be falsified in that regard. On the whole, while there are some decent thoughts in there, the overall narrative is bad history and even worse science. And it's really gut wrenching to see this sort of thing gain so much uncritical attention.
- BookmarkSaver 11y ago
  >Third, implying that the impact of a disease on a civilization wide basis has only to do with the disease itself and nothing to do with the details of the civilization itself is a casual assumption of the underlying narrative though it is blatantly false. What does this even mean? The point about the impact of the disease is that when the Old World and the New World first contacted each other, something like almost 90% of the New World population died out in the subsequent century or so. This has nothing to do with "details of the civilization" and the "casual assumption" is something that is technically untestable but so blatantly obvious that it is basically undeniable.
sgtpepper43 11y ago
Somebody get this guy an editor... or at least a spellcheck.

45 points by rfreytag 11y ago

TB was found in pre-Columbian South American human remains, so was in the Americas at some point. Syphilus was brought back from the new world and killed lots of people.

davidw 11y ago

This is basically what a lot of the book Guns Germs & Steel is about. A very interesting read.

cfcef 11y ago
The post reads like a (very poorly written) rehash and plagiarism of Diamond...
- notthemessiah 11y ago
  Perhaps you missed the "Further Reading" section at the top, because it's right there.
  - cfcef 11y ago
    A 'further reading' is not a reference; 'further reading' means 'here are additional sources you might find relevant about material not covered here'. Which of 'Triumph of the City', 'The Ghost Map', and 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' did the stuff about animals come from, if you hadn't already read them? That's right - you don't know! Because he's not giving a reference.
    - TrevorJ 11y ago
      It's a youtube video, not a research paper. I think you are being unnecessarily pedantic.
- BookmarkSaver 11y ago
  Maybe you should pay more attention to his sources and descriptions.

whitegrape 11y ago

http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-germs-and-steel/ http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-ger...

Tossrock 11y ago

This argument is not very sound. It ignores eg that native Americans had domesticated dogs (like the Hare Indian), the domestication of caribou in the north, the presence of mountain goats and bighorn sheep, etc etc etc. It's like the author thinks the only large mammals in the new world were bison and llamas.

davidw 11y ago
Compare and contrast with pigs, chickens, sheep, cattle, horses, dogs, cats, and so on. There were far more in Europe/Asia that lived in close contact with people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals
BookmarkSaver 11y ago
Dogs do not provide food and barely add additional energy (except in Arctic conditions). >the presence of mountain goats and bighorn sheep Perhaps you should watch the second part, which is about domestication. He addresses this point in this part (you seem to have missed it) but explores it more in the second. Some animals are not domesticatable (e.g. zebras) despite seeming that they could be. It isn't like he came up with his list of potential targets of domestication off of the top of his head. There's a reason stuff like bears and deer aren't on it. And he only used bison as an example of something that would be profitable if it was domesticated, but it can't be by pre-modern societies.
- Tossrock 11y ago
  Sorry, I was going off the transcript, not the video. In the transcript he talks specifically about the benefit of the domestication of dogs for old world peoples[1], while ignoring the fact that new world peoples also had domesticated dogs. 1: "With dogs, herding sheep and cattle is easier. Now humans have a buddy to keep an eye on the clothing factory, and the milk and cheeseburger machine, and the plow-puller."
  - BookmarkSaver 11y ago

benzofuran 11y ago

This is basically what Pastwatch: Redemption by Orson Scott Card is about. Bit of sci-fi but that's the general gist - quite a nice read. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H4I4KO/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H4I4KO/

pella 11y ago

Zebra vs Horses (Americapox Part 2) https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo

InclinedPlane 11y ago

I really dislike this style of narrative heavy pop sciency stuff. It's incredibly antithetical to the very principle of science (rigorously prove each and every step in an argument, don't rely on narratives, go where the evidence leads you rather than picking and choosing evidence to back up your pre-existing narrative). CGPGrey really is smart enough that he should know better than to fall into this trap, but it can be oh so tempting. The Guns, Germs, and Steel narrative is an interesting one with some intriguing ideas but it does not stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny well. At best it's a theory, at worst it's a story that people tell because it's interesting and not explicitly completely and utterly ruled out by the facts. The overall theory relies on several key ideas, none of which have been validated scientifically. First the idea that there are more "good domesticable" animals in the old world than the new. Second that it's the domestication of animals which leads primarily to higher rates of endemic diseases. This is one of those ideas that has a bit of truthiness to it (since it's very much true for some diseases like the Flu or SARS) but is nowhere near a sufficiently fleshed out nor sufficiently verified theory. Third, implying that the impact of a disease on a civilization wide basis has only to do with the disease itself and nothing to do with the details of the civilization itself is a casual assumption of the underlying narrative though it is blatantly false. Perhaps enough to completely invalidate the rest of the Guns, Germs, and Steel argument, but since the "argument" is presented as a narrative rather than a scientific theory it doesn't even present anything to be falsified in that regard. On the whole, while there are some decent thoughts in there, the overall narrative is bad history and even worse science. And it's really gut wrenching to see this sort of thing gain so much uncritical attention.

BookmarkSaver 11y ago
>Third, implying that the impact of a disease on a civilization wide basis has only to do with the disease itself and nothing to do with the details of the civilization itself is a casual assumption of the underlying narrative though it is blatantly false. What does this even mean? The point about the impact of the disease is that when the Old World and the New World first contacted each other, something like almost 90% of the New World population died out in the subsequent century or so. This has nothing to do with "details of the civilization" and the "casual assumption" is something that is technically untestable but so blatantly obvious that it is basically undeniable.

sgtpepper43 11y ago

Somebody get this guy an editor... or at least a spellcheck.