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One of his ideas is that the development of agriculture was "the worst mistake in the history of the human race"[0] contra the popular belief that agriculture i

One of his ideas is that the development of agriculture was "the worst mistake in the history of the human race"[0] contra the popular belief that agriculture improved food yields and freed people up to spend time developing science, technology and art -- and could therefore be considered one of the greatest achievements in the history of the human race. I'm not saying that his argument is wrong, but it definitely runs against the prevailing wisdom. Similarly "Collapse" (the idea that the success or failure of societies is predictable) and "Guns, Germs and Steel" (the advantages of old-world people over new-world people in the 1500s were due to the influence of geography and climate, not inherent superiorities). Maybe those things are obvious to you, but I don't think they're obvious to most people. [0] http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race#.UlZhK8a_H64 http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in...

paganel 13y ago
> Guns, Germs and Steel" (the advantages of old-world people over new-world people in the 1500s were due to the influence of geography and climate, not inherent superiorities). I'm too lazy to look for the actual references, but in one form or another climate-related arguments for the "superiority" of Europeans were made in the late 1700s and in the 1800s (and towards the end of the 1800s a more racist undertone emerged, but that's another story). Something like "one can only be productive in a temperate climate", while those poor souls that have to live at the Tropics will never become industrious peoples. What's funny is that way earlier than that, the early Greeks were saying that their dry climate was perfect for talking about philosophy and related stuff, and that a more "humid" climate would have been against that (I'm thinking about Heraclitus, mainly).
- crntaylor 13y ago
  My recollection is that Diamond's argument is slightly different. He argues that the east-west orientation of Eurasia meant that societies were more easily able to expand, because you experience relatively little climate variation moving along parallels than you do moving up and down meridians, which you are forced to do when you expand in a north-south oriented continent like America or Africa. Similarly Eurasia had a wider variety of indigenous grains suitable for cultivation, and more large mammals suitable for domestication, and these could be taken with a population when the migrated (because of the aforementioned east-west orientation). These advantages meant that populations were able to increase more rapidly, which necessitated an earlier development of agriculture, which lead to further productivity gains as improving food yields meant that people could spend more time developing more advanced technology. The increased population densities had two further advantages - firstly, it meant that wars were more frequent, so Eurasians developed more advanced weaponry (the "guns" and "steel" of the title). Secondly, evolutionary pressures selected for resistance to diseases that could spread easily in crowded environments (the "germs"). So it's a little bit more subtle than just "our climate is inherently better for deep philosophical thoughts" or "our climate means that we are more productive workers".
  - onebaddude 13y ago
    >So it's a little bit more subtle than just "our climate is inherently better for deep philosophical thoughts" or "our climate means that we are more productive workers". Precisely. The people here are ripping on the author's simplified theories by presenting even more simplified versions of the arguments.
- anon1385 13y ago
  It's usually called environmental determinism and is something no modern anthropologist or geographer really wants to be associated with (as much as a modern biologist would want to be associated with eugenics or phrenology). GGS did cause some despair among academics, as century old discredited ideas were presented as science to the public. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2008.00265.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2008.... The popularity of the work Guns, germs and steel (GGS) has served to bring the question of human–environment connections once again to the forefront of popular thought. We assert that the recent success of GGS represents both a persistence of environmental determinist logic and a contemporary trend that privileges the environment as the primary influence on human–environment relationships. […] The book is found to mirror earlier environmental determinism by failing to take into account many of the advances in human–environmental thought since the early twentieth century. Its popular success suggests the pitfalls of failures to acknowledge the complex, intertwined and indivisible relationship that exists among humans and their environment. Furthermore, there is evidence that the environmental determinism espoused in GGS has caught the attention of international development policymakers potentially influencing future outlays of aid and assistance to the developing world. These conclusions raise cautionary flags against repeating past theoretical mistakes by accepting simplistic, causal explanations based largely on a deterministic conception of the natural environment.
  - crntaylor 13y ago
    This paper is really interesting - thanks. Some of my archaeologist friends have criticised Diamond's books for being too simplistic and using outdated techniques (even when they were written in the 80s and 90s) but I had never really figured out why they were wrong before.
    - route66 13y ago
      http://digitaljournal.com/article/302333 http://digitaljournal.com/article/302333 discusses limitations of Diamond's approach, http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-germs-and-steel/ http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-ger... mentions where the GGS approach to explain history falls short, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/03/ggs http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/03/ggs makes an interesting note of framing in GGS.
- Brakenshire 13y ago
  > I'm too lazy to look for the actual references, but in one form or another climate-related arguments for the "superiority" of Europeans were made in the late 1700s and in the 1800s (and towards the end of the 1800s a more racist undertone emerged, but that's another story). Something like "one can only be productive in a temperate climate", while those poor souls that have to live at the Tropics will never become industrious peoples. To be fair, the GGS arguments are about explaining the origins of different rates of development, and not giving a rationalization for continued supremacy. For instance, one of his major arguments was that the New World had few domesticated draught animals. That ceases to be of any relevance with modern transportation, or indeed modern industry. He is talking about why some countries got a headstart, not trying to establish some firmly rooted 'natural order'.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    The argument actually was that the extreme area offered by Europe and Asia being situated along a large e-w oriented latitude offered both a wide variety of domesticated plant species as well as a greater area to grow them. So a crop domesticated in W Europe could much more easily be traded as there are more markets and arable land. Africa, oriented N-S has a huge variation in climates from the Med in the North through the Serengheti, the sahel, the savannah, tropical rainforests, the veldt, and etc. A lot more micro-climates that make transferring crops to a different area problematic. There were some other reasons but this was the basis of his geographical argument.
mtts 13y ago
Ok, I see where you're coming from. But I disagree that this puts Jared Diamond in the same category as the other three. I think the fact that he is, for the most part, not wrong, clearly sets him apart from Gladwell, Lehrer and Freakonomics. Dumping too much data on your readers to ram home the point you're making may be tedious to read, but it's not reprehensible the way twisting and stretching the truth to appear original and profound is.
Evgeny 13y ago
One of his ideas is that the development of agriculture was "the worst mistake in the history of the human race"[0] contra the popular belief that agriculture improved food yields and freed people up to spend time developing science, technology and art Both arguments appear to have some truth. Agriculture at early stages led to worse health, caused inequality, people started living in larger groups which helped diseases to spread. Time to develop science and art came later, and was not available to an average person for a long time anyway - up to 95% population was working in agriculture until relatively recent times (I don't have the reference for this number though).
JackFr 13y ago
The bigger problem with "the worst mistake in the history of the human race" is that it ascribes a meaning and purpose to human existence. That is, there can be no mistake if there is no goal. What is the goal or purpose of human existence? There are many answers to that question, some more defensible than others, but there is no "scientific" answer to it.

paganel 13y ago

> Guns, Germs and Steel" (the advantages of old-world people over new-world people in the 1500s were due to the influence of geography and climate, not inherent superiorities). I'm too lazy to look for the actual references, but in one form or another climate-related arguments for the "superiority" of Europeans were made in the late 1700s and in the 1800s (and towards the end of the 1800s a more racist undertone emerged, but that's another story). Something like "one can only be productive in a temperate climate", while those poor souls that have to live at the Tropics will never become industrious peoples. What's funny is that way earlier than that, the early Greeks were saying that their dry climate was perfect for talking about philosophy and related stuff, and that a more "humid" climate would have been against that (I'm thinking about Heraclitus, mainly).

crntaylor 13y ago
My recollection is that Diamond's argument is slightly different. He argues that the east-west orientation of Eurasia meant that societies were more easily able to expand, because you experience relatively little climate variation moving along parallels than you do moving up and down meridians, which you are forced to do when you expand in a north-south oriented continent like America or Africa. Similarly Eurasia had a wider variety of indigenous grains suitable for cultivation, and more large mammals suitable for domestication, and these could be taken with a population when the migrated (because of the aforementioned east-west orientation). These advantages meant that populations were able to increase more rapidly, which necessitated an earlier development of agriculture, which lead to further productivity gains as improving food yields meant that people could spend more time developing more advanced technology. The increased population densities had two further advantages - firstly, it meant that wars were more frequent, so Eurasians developed more advanced weaponry (the "guns" and "steel" of the title). Secondly, evolutionary pressures selected for resistance to diseases that could spread easily in crowded environments (the "germs"). So it's a little bit more subtle than just "our climate is inherently better for deep philosophical thoughts" or "our climate means that we are more productive workers".
- onebaddude 13y ago
  >So it's a little bit more subtle than just "our climate is inherently better for deep philosophical thoughts" or "our climate means that we are more productive workers". Precisely. The people here are ripping on the author's simplified theories by presenting even more simplified versions of the arguments.
anon1385 13y ago
It's usually called environmental determinism and is something no modern anthropologist or geographer really wants to be associated with (as much as a modern biologist would want to be associated with eugenics or phrenology). GGS did cause some despair among academics, as century old discredited ideas were presented as science to the public. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2008.00265.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2008.... The popularity of the work Guns, germs and steel (GGS) has served to bring the question of human–environment connections once again to the forefront of popular thought. We assert that the recent success of GGS represents both a persistence of environmental determinist logic and a contemporary trend that privileges the environment as the primary influence on human–environment relationships. […] The book is found to mirror earlier environmental determinism by failing to take into account many of the advances in human–environmental thought since the early twentieth century. Its popular success suggests the pitfalls of failures to acknowledge the complex, intertwined and indivisible relationship that exists among humans and their environment. Furthermore, there is evidence that the environmental determinism espoused in GGS has caught the attention of international development policymakers potentially influencing future outlays of aid and assistance to the developing world. These conclusions raise cautionary flags against repeating past theoretical mistakes by accepting simplistic, causal explanations based largely on a deterministic conception of the natural environment.
- crntaylor 13y ago
  This paper is really interesting - thanks. Some of my archaeologist friends have criticised Diamond's books for being too simplistic and using outdated techniques (even when they were written in the 80s and 90s) but I had never really figured out why they were wrong before.
  - route66 13y ago
    http://digitaljournal.com/article/302333 http://digitaljournal.com/article/302333 discusses limitations of Diamond's approach, http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-germs-and-steel/ http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-ger... mentions where the GGS approach to explain history falls short, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/03/ggs http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/03/ggs makes an interesting note of framing in GGS.
Brakenshire 13y ago
> I'm too lazy to look for the actual references, but in one form or another climate-related arguments for the "superiority" of Europeans were made in the late 1700s and in the 1800s (and towards the end of the 1800s a more racist undertone emerged, but that's another story). Something like "one can only be productive in a temperate climate", while those poor souls that have to live at the Tropics will never become industrious peoples. To be fair, the GGS arguments are about explaining the origins of different rates of development, and not giving a rationalization for continued supremacy. For instance, one of his major arguments was that the New World had few domesticated draught animals. That ceases to be of any relevance with modern transportation, or indeed modern industry. He is talking about why some countries got a headstart, not trying to establish some firmly rooted 'natural order'.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  The argument actually was that the extreme area offered by Europe and Asia being situated along a large e-w oriented latitude offered both a wide variety of domesticated plant species as well as a greater area to grow them. So a crop domesticated in W Europe could much more easily be traded as there are more markets and arable land. Africa, oriented N-S has a huge variation in climates from the Med in the North through the Serengheti, the sahel, the savannah, tropical rainforests, the veldt, and etc. A lot more micro-climates that make transferring crops to a different area problematic. There were some other reasons but this was the basis of his geographical argument.

mtts 13y ago

Ok, I see where you're coming from. But I disagree that this puts Jared Diamond in the same category as the other three. I think the fact that he is, for the most part, not wrong, clearly sets him apart from Gladwell, Lehrer and Freakonomics. Dumping too much data on your readers to ram home the point you're making may be tedious to read, but it's not reprehensible the way twisting and stretching the truth to appear original and profound is.

Evgeny 13y ago

JackFr 13y ago

The bigger problem with "the worst mistake in the history of the human race" is that it ascribes a meaning and purpose to human existence. That is, there can be no mistake if there is no goal. What is the goal or purpose of human existence? There are many answers to that question, some more defensible than others, but there is no "scientific" answer to it.