4 ms·

Jared Diamond is not an expert. He's a pop culture writer. If you want to explore the other side to that old essay, try this: https://www.google.com/search?q=

Jared Diamond is not an expert. He's a pop culture writer. If you want to explore the other side to that old essay, try this: https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Worst+Mistake+in+the+History+of+the+Human+Race+refutation https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Worst+Mistake+in+the+His...

Nomentatus 9y ago
He's a physiologist, who moved to other disciplines, with a touch of anthropology. There are no experts-on-everything-human, of course, so that'll probably have to do for now. One can imagine better combinations for such a synthetic interdisciplinary topic, I agree - but there weren't a lot of other volunteers. Academia likes narrow specialists. No need to falsely disparage him as a self-appointed writer whose only credential is popularity, it isn't true. "After graduating from Cambridge, Diamond returned to Harvard as a Junior Fellow until 1965, and, in 1968, became a professor of physiology at UCLA Medical School. While in his twenties he developed a second, parallel, career in ornithology and ecology, specialising in New Guinea and nearby islands." - Wikipedia
- dogruck 9y ago
  I'm not convinced by that call to authority. For example, what about Larry Summers? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers Do you dispute his position on women in science? Or, should we take his position as correct for the same reasons that you list. I did not say his only credit was popularity. I said he's a pop-writer, as opposed to, say, a peer reviewed expert in the domain. In any case, my primary request is that people consider the long list of refutations to the claims in his mass-market publications.
  - Shorel 9y ago
    It should not be a call to authority. The only thing that matters are the individual arguments he exposes in the books, not the fact he's not an expert. And history has also shown some experts can be wrong when the paradigm change of new ideas is too big. However, and I say this is particularly important: all refutations I have read about his work focus on some particular detail, they are of the type: 'this number is wrong'. Of course it can be, he's speculating. And that's the easy part to fix! Just change the number in his argument with the correct one. Be constructive. But I have never read a refutation that says: 'this line of reasoning is wrong'. In fact, his work has been cited as an inspiration for 'Sapiens', which is a current best seller and it follows the same modus operandi.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      If you're genuinely curious in reading a refutation, then you should read through the 10-year-old HN discussion linked above. Or, try googling. For example, here is a relevant discussion on NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/01/14/169374400/why-does-jared-diamond-make-anthropologists-so-mad http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/01/14/169374400/why-do...

Nomentatus 9y ago

He's a physiologist, who moved to other disciplines, with a touch of anthropology. There are no experts-on-everything-human, of course, so that'll probably have to do for now. One can imagine better combinations for such a synthetic interdisciplinary topic, I agree - but there weren't a lot of other volunteers. Academia likes narrow specialists. No need to falsely disparage him as a self-appointed writer whose only credential is popularity, it isn't true. "After graduating from Cambridge, Diamond returned to Harvard as a Junior Fellow until 1965, and, in 1968, became a professor of physiology at UCLA Medical School. While in his twenties he developed a second, parallel, career in ornithology and ecology, specialising in New Guinea and nearby islands." - Wikipedia

dogruck 9y ago
I'm not convinced by that call to authority. For example, what about Larry Summers? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers Do you dispute his position on women in science? Or, should we take his position as correct for the same reasons that you list. I did not say his only credit was popularity. I said he's a pop-writer, as opposed to, say, a peer reviewed expert in the domain. In any case, my primary request is that people consider the long list of refutations to the claims in his mass-market publications.
- Shorel 9y ago
  It should not be a call to authority. The only thing that matters are the individual arguments he exposes in the books, not the fact he's not an expert. And history has also shown some experts can be wrong when the paradigm change of new ideas is too big. However, and I say this is particularly important: all refutations I have read about his work focus on some particular detail, they are of the type: 'this number is wrong'. Of course it can be, he's speculating. And that's the easy part to fix! Just change the number in his argument with the correct one. Be constructive. But I have never read a refutation that says: 'this line of reasoning is wrong'. In fact, his work has been cited as an inspiration for 'Sapiens', which is a current best seller and it follows the same modus operandi.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    If you're genuinely curious in reading a refutation, then you should read through the 10-year-old HN discussion linked above. Or, try googling. For example, here is a relevant discussion on NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/01/14/169374400/why-does-jared-diamond-make-anthropologists-so-mad http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/01/14/169374400/why-do...