# Guns, Germs and Steel - Revolutionary? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 21, 2001, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125 "2001-05-21T21:31:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/21 "2001-05-29T07:32:59Z")
I accept the rebuke in part however there are statements here which I believe are problematic. As such I hope you can indulge me in a small, partial rebuttal at [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=72397](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=72397) regarding an item or two > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > \*\*[Moderator watch ON] > > Whoa, there, **Collounsbury**. Personal attacks are **not** allowed in this forum. … ---
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Wind\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Autumn\_Wind\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Wind_Chick)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/22 "2001-05-31T10:47:41Z")
I think it’s worth noting that Diamond himself endorses the idea that different environments can result in different (innate) cognitive abilities. He even goes so far as to say that New Guineans are “probably genetically innately superior to Westerners” in mental ability. (Page 21 of the paperback edition) ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/23 "2001-05-31T11:18:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by OldBroad \* > \*\*I do agree that it is unfortunate that when an academic such as Sagan tries to bring his subject to the masses, he/she is frowned upon by colleagues. Ivory towers are apparently not to be accessible to the rest of us. \*\* Of course. If the unwashed masses understood what they actually DO with their government grants, we might not be so apathetic about the whole thing. Secrecy is the way to being undisturbed. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/24 "2001-05-31T12:14:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by OldBroad \* > \*\*I do agree that it is unfortunate that when an academic such as Sagan tries to bring his subject to the masses, he/she is frowned upon by colleagues. Ivory towers are apparently not to be accessible to the rest of us. \*\* Don’t overlook more mundane motivations. Few academics make much money, and the sight of one of them whom they consider no more capable academically than themselves, and doubtless no more articulate, making a pile of dough for something “dumbed down” must arouse some serious jealousy. ---
**Author:** ![mongrel\_8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@mongrel\_8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mongrel_8)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/25 "2001-05-31T14:43:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Autumn Wind Chick \* > \*\*He even goes so far as to say that New Guineans are “probably genetically innately superior to Westerners” in mental ability. (Page 21 of the paperback edition) > \*\* Why does he believe that if you don’t mind me asking? ---
**Author:** ![roryaxis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8dc957/32.png) [@roryaxis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roryaxis)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/26 "2001-05-31T17:41:30Z")
The major thing that bothered me about Diamond’s book, was that he made a very good case for why the Middle East, or Southwest Asia as some call it, should be at the top of the heap politically and technilogically, but he never actually describes why Europe went on to dominate the world. That shift from the Muslims to the Christians in world domination in roughly the sixteenth century is not actually addressed in GGS. A few point from history that Diamond misses, due to the fact that he’s a biologist, are: 1. the rise of protestantism in the sixteenth century, which put religious responsibility in the hands of the common man, thus weakening the autocratic power of the papacy, thus encouraging individual thought and freedom. 2. the development of the printing press, which increased knowledge available to Europeans, also increasing personal freedom. 3. the rise of the nation state, which also occured during this same period. Only nation states can bring together the massive resources neccesary to wage huge wars, send armies and expaditions across the far flung seas, and things of that nature. Increasing personal freedom, and increasing he power of the nation state, which although they may seem like contradictory ideas, is in my opinion, and I’m not alone on this, why Europe went from back-water middle age fuedalistic wasteland to world domination in only about a hundred years. Diamond misses this and instead talks about what he knows, which is geography and biology. He makes a good case for Eurasian domination, but to explain Europe’s domination you need to read something that includes the human element. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/27 "2001-05-31T18:25:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mongrel\_8 \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Autumn Wind Chick \* > > \*\*He even goes so far as to say that New Guineans are “probably genetically innately superior to Westerners” in mental ability. (Page 21 of the paperback edition) > > \*\* > > Why does he believe that if you don’t mind me asking? \*\* That was an odd item. I’m about halfway through the book and this item did strike as a both a bit of “trying too hard” to buttress his hypothesis that geography etc are the main determinants of cultural hegemony **and at the same time** saying in no uncertain terms (and not tongue in cheek) that, in his opinion, it is possible for one group to be mentally superior to another (ie the New Guineans likely being among the mentally fittest uber-men of the human genome due to natural selection pressures). If he opens this “some human groups are probably mentally superior to others” door (which he does) and then tries to establish that it was just bad (depending on your perspective) geographical luck that some groups (however classified) became technologically more advanced than others I think it works against the power of his argument to some extent. It’s a good book but I think he was being a bit too cute with this swipe at previous innate mental ability categorizations based on race/ethnic group etc. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/28 "2001-05-31T23:37:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by roryaxis \* > A few point from history that Diamond misses, due to the fact that he’s a biologist, are: > > 1. the rise of protestantism in the sixteenth century, which put religious responsibility in the hands of the common man, thus weakening the autocratic power of the papacy, thus encouraging individual thought and freedom. You have to reconcile this statement with the fact that the first two colonial powers. Spain and Portugal, were Catholic. People, especially anti-Catholics, tend to attribute to the pope far more power than he actually has/had. During most of history, he was generally seen as just another member of the ruling class, sometimes fairly powerful, but frequently subordinate to some king or prince. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2001, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125/29 "2001-06-01T03:52:02Z")
Well, Diamond has not actually come out with a declaration of genetic intellectual superiority for the inhabitants of New Guinea. What he notes–and is clear in his indication that he is expressing personal belief based on anecdotal evidence–is that in 33 years of working with the neolithic peoples of New Guinea, _he_ has found that they seem smarter than the typical Western individual, based on his observations of their problem-solving skills. He then goes on to point out how a group that suffers death mainly through hostile actions and accident are more likely to pass on intelligence as a trait (since one has to be smart to avoid being killed) than a person who is sheltered from most mayhem, but who lives in close proximity to many other people (and who, therefore, is selected for their ability to survive the diseases that periodically winnow out the congested masses). The whole discussion lasts less than two pages and basically amounts to saying that ingenuity and intelligence _would_ be selected for in a relatively disease-free environment where skills to secure food or avoid a lethal opponent would be more important than the ability to survive smallpox or measles. Beyond his own anecdotal observation, he makes no claim that anyone has established the superior intelligence of New Guinea natives and he does not at all address the issue of the number of generations that would be required to make an actual difference in general intelligence. Specific statements from those two pages include: > [@](#): > > Sound evidence for the existence of human differences in intelligence that parallel human differences in technology is lacking. > [@](#): > > First, even our cognitive abilities as adults are heavily influenced by the social environment that we experienced during childhood, making it hard to discern any influence of preexisting genetic differences. Second, tests of cognitive ability (like IQ tests) tend to measure cultural learning and not pure innate intelligence, whatever that is. Because of those undoubted effects of childhood environment and learned knowledge on IQ test results, the psychologists’ efforts to date have not succeeded in convincingly establishing the postulated genetic deficiency of nonwhite peoples. > [@](#): > > That is, natural selection promoting genes for intelligence has probably been far more ruthless in New Guinea than in more densely populated, politically complex societies, where natural selection for body chemistry was instead more potent. The last two quotes are the only places where he links the words intelligence and genes or genetics in the same sentence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-germs-and-steel-revolutionary/66125.md?page=1)