Overly dramatic, kinda simplified, I think they missed some of the best anecdotes (although they may yet show up in episode two, which seems to be about colonization). Specifically, I was thinking about the Maori discovery of the Chatham Islands and the subsequent overthrow of this Maoriori nation 500 years later. Same people, but a different climate led to different societies. (It’s in the book).
I was a bit underwhelmed.
Both you and Exapno Mapcase are, of course, correct. John T - I’m not interested in a Great Debate, but that is the premise of the book; arguing otherwise is missing the point. You are welcome to disagree with that premise, but yours is a misinterpretation.
I really enjoyed the book and am looking forward the series.
The book is in my top ten. When I read it I thought there was alot of glossing over or omitting entirely that aspect of civiliation that didn’t fit his theory. I had my suspicions then that were confirmed by his latest book “Collapse.” He’s got an ax that wants a good grinding, no doubt. I thought the show was a weak substitute for the book.
Well, I’ve seen you repeat this argument, so I’m probably safe in guessing that you will not be moved by reason or anything else.
But to anyone who reads the book on his own terms, Diamond’s point here is not to seriously argue that the New Guineans are smarter than everyone else, but that (1) “intelligence” is a murky concept and can be based on differing standards (his argument about the New Guineans demonstrates a definition of intelligence based on another standard) and, (2) “intelligence” is not a valid explanation for differences in technological advancement between societies.
He goes into his description by pointing out that from one point of view (namely his) the kind of skill and knowledge exhibited by New Guineans does make them seem smarter from a particular point of view.
By repeatedly inssiting that Diamond is merely taking a racist position that New Guineans are smarter than Europeans you are obstinately ignoring the existence of things such as irony, argument by counter example, and devil’s advocacy.
If such things just don’t exist in your world, then what a small world it is.
I always thought that, from a historical perspective, Diamond was a bit deterministic in his thesis. That is, he reasons from the fact that Europeans succeeded to the point that anyone with those advantages would succeed which leaves a lot to be desired from a historical research position. I know my attempting such arguments got me slapped down in grad school (History - Developing World with a focus on Africa and Latin America, for what that’s worth).
Plus, the overall tone of the thing irritated me. But I’m sure that’s coming from my general distate for Diamond from interviews and other things he’s written.
He seems to be a smart guy and a talented writer. But too often I feel he lets his root beliefs intrude on his writing making his historical work more like op-ed pieces than real research.
Hey, I remember reading that Discovery article when I was in high school! I didn’t know it was Jared Diamond. Anyway, I liked the article as well as its overall tone. I mean, obviously, we arent’ going to give up farming, but I was fascinated and pleased by the way he approached the questions he asked in that article.
Some of the posts in this thread remind me of a story I read about Vietnam.
An American GI went into a hootch and found a footstool that was ingeniusly assembled from interlocking pieces of bamboo. He was so impressed by the workmanship that he showed it to the other guys in his squad. Their reaction? “The gooks made it that way ‘cause they’re too fuckin’ dumb to make nails!”
Sometimes you just can’t change a person’s prejudices.
(a) You did? Other than this thread, I am completely unaware that I have ever posted anything in regards to the book - which, given my length of stay here, might be due to my lack of memory. Cite, please?
(b) Here’s what I said:
Perhaps not the most clear sentence in the history of the SDMB, for, which if you took from it that I’m calling him a “racist” (even though I categorically denied such a thing, but whatever), I apologize. The point I was trying to make is that in that section (which, again, is not the main theses of the book) he argues against applying genetic/racial theories and then proceeds to do exactly that. I do think we all could agree that the book would’ve been better off without portions of his prologue.
To clarify: I’m not making the point that Diamond is taking a racist position, rather that he started with a conclusion and then looked for evidence that corroborated it. I’m not a scientist, but this isn’t how the Method was explained to me.
I’m surprised that, over 80 years after physics got rid of determinism, that so many people want to work determinism into the social sciences, which are far more chaotic than physics on the macro level. The “small world” you accuse me of living in is Diamonds for he is the one who is taking the human element out of human development.
Er…
should read…
“… corroborated it, while dismissing any evidence to the contrary.” The original sentence, as written, is how the the SM works initially. :o
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, he didn’t cover why the US became such a superpower vs. Europe. Has he ever written articles about his theories on this?
What exactly did you find objectionable about that article? It seemed to be fairly well researched and he made a compelling case for his position. Besides, I think it’s pretty well accepted today by most modern scientists that his basic thesis is true. Sure, there was a tiny chapter at the end that seemed a bit of political showboating but apart from that, I thought it was an excellent article.
It’s the overall tone of the piece and the use of emotionally weighted words that show Diamond’s lack of objectivity when it comes to humanity.
While I’m certainly aware of the position (and not in a spot to refute it) that our hunter-gatherer ancestors worked fewer hours to attain their food and shelter than we 21st century moderns Diamond appears to take that measure and only that measure as being a worthy stick to measure success.
It is clear to me that Diamond subscribes to the romantic notion of the ‘noble savage’ being happier and more contented in nature. And, in a word, that’s crap.
Take this sentence: ‘While the case for the progressivist view seems overwhelming, it’s hard to prove. How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming? Until recently, archaeologists had to resort to indirect tests, whose results (surprisingly) failed to support the progressivist view. Here’s one example of an indirect test: Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, “Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?”’
In short, when confronted with the Philosophy 101 question of ‘Which is better, a contented pig or a discontented Socrates?’ Diamond posits that a contented pig, unaware of the wider world of art, technology and all the other developments of soi-disant civilization is by definition happier than someone who moves in a wider world because, through greater breadth of knowledge, is aware of what is lacking in his life.
While I could certainly posit that the bushman in the quoted paragraph is happy is ignorant happiness a worthy goal? I’d suppose that’s a matter of opinion.
What utterly is clear is that Diamond doesn’t consider lowered infant mortality, greater average longevity, greater diversity of opportunity, modern medicine and so forth to be worth much of anything in his standards of ‘happiness’ or ‘worth’.
And that’s just plain foolish. What role to our intelligence at all if it’s not plumbing the depths of the world and how it’s made and behaves?
Let’s take a look at this statement: “As for the claim that agriculture encouraged the flowering of art by providing us with leisure time, modern hunter-gatherers have at least as much free time as do farmers. The whole emphasis on leisure time as a critical factor seems to me misguided. Gorillas have had ample free time to build their own Parthenon, had they wanted to.”
Is he really equating gorillas with humanity here? Or is he just making a bald assertion to support his point even though knowing it’s a fallacy and counting on getting away with it? By contrasting leisure time for primitive humans with gorillas Diamond indicates that he is either 1) an idiot or 2) disingenous in the extreme.
He’s a smart guy. I think he’s disingenuous. Let’s not forget that earlier is this very essay Diamond cites the joy of spending fewer hours at food gathering as an advantage hunter-gatherers had. So in one section he’s citing fewer work hours (and therefore enjoying greater leisure hours) as a plus while later he disparages an emphasis on leisure time. Fah.
Towards the end he begins comparing the diet, lifespan, etc of post-adoption of agriculture humans to pre-adoption of agriculture humans. He indicates shorter life expectancy, less varied diet, etc for post-adoption of agriculture humans. But again he’s disingenuous. By comparing those people JUST post AOA to those PRE AOA (damned if I’m typing that a million times) he fails to view it as a societal INVESTMENT in AOA.
Could he really posit that people TODAY, even in the developing world, suffer, by and large, from these same issues? Shortness of average lifespan? Shortness of food? Compared to today those pre AOA folks look like the poor cousins. Should we run into them we would end up having concerts and having dumb celebrities organize benefits for them.
I don’t dispute that there are problems in the world today. War, political corruption, economic and environmental dislocations…hell, just plain evil, for that matter. But positing that our problems stem from ‘civiliation’ and the adoption of agriculture while picking and choosing your arguments and failing to demonstrate data contrary to your thesis strikes me as either writing at the college freshman level or intellectually dishonest (whether intentional or not) at worst.
Either way it’s Sunday supplement material and no form of academic writing.
In short, as a historian, Diamond makes a damn fine professor of physiology.
Can you cite a well-established sociological or cultural fact that would contradict Diamond’s work?
Though I don’t have my copy in front of me, as I recall he does go into this in some detail. The largest potential rival for renaissance Europe was China, and in the late 1400s just as European exploration and colonization to the Americas was about to ramp up, the government in charge of China (larger and better organized than any European government) became isolationist and essentially blew its chance to dominate the globe.
It seems I confused you with another Doper who said some very similar things the last time the subject of Diamond came up. It seemed so familiar that I assumed you were the same person without looking it up (apparently it was Rune).
Actually, no. You yourself later on stated that he used several measures including:
These are all factors that he considered through the course of the article as well as issues to do with diesese (living with animals makes you sick) and social issues such as inequality.
No, he’s never mentioned anything about “happiness”. In fact, the world “happy” does not appear anywhere in his essay, probably very intentionally. He is arguing whether the agriculturialists were “worse off” and that has a fairly agreed upon, scientific metric for which it can be tested. In short, would the average hunter gatherer have an easier time surviving vs the average agriculturalist?
[QUOTE}
What utterly is clear is that Diamond doesn’t consider lowered infant mortality, greater average longevity, greater diversity of opportunity, modern medicine and so forth to be worth much of anything in his standards of ‘happiness’ or ‘worth’.
And that’s just plain foolish. What role to our intelligence at all if it’s not plumbing the depths of the world and how it’s made and behaves?
[/QUOTE]
You seemed to have misunderstood the thrust of his arguments. His basic thesis was that agriculturalists had precisely higher infant mortality, lower longevity, less diversity of opportunity (born a peasant, die a peasant) and so on.
Again, you seem to be drastically misunderstanding his point. His basic argument is:
Your reading motivations in something that isn’t there. Not once in his essay (except at the very end) did he make any value judgements about the goodness of leisure time.
What societal investment? Do you really think people people plunked themselves down in the Tigris valley because they wanted their ancestors 6000 years later to be able to enjoy internet porn and orange juice from concentrate? In fact, other anthropologists (although not Diamond as far as I’m aware) have claimed that it took till 1850 for the average living standard of the west to surpass the average living standard of HGs. Do you really think these people were so far sighted? It’s a happy coincidence that Agriculture has lead to the drastically improved living standards in the west today but that has nothing to do with it. In fact, I think I see what your problem with the piece is. You think Diamond is trying to say “Hunting is better, lets all go back to hunting and ignore civilisation”. He’s not saying anything like that, instead he’s asking “Why did traditional HGs decided to switch to agriculture based on the circumstances at that time”.
Of course not. That’s just stupid.
SE Minnesota is showing it and the Twin Cities metro area isn’t?!?!?
I get Wisconsin TV stations.
Brian
IIRC, in the book he says the geography of Europe (lots of undulations on the coasts for good harbors, plenty of mountains and rivers for geographic borders) led to the development of many nation-states, who got plenty of practice beating up on each other to get good at war. The waring drove technology forward, exposed them to lots of diseases, and competitions between nation states led to the explorations that resulted in “discovering” the New World. He contrasts this with China, which became a rather homogenous empire (though I read in the NY Times about many hundreds of mutually incomprehensible dialects) with defined natural borders, making it easy for it to withdraw from the world.
Lumpy–I saw it on TPT2 last night at 9 PM.
I don’t see it as any more deterministic than, say, the weather or evolution. Things happen when the conditions (natural resources and societal characteristics) are right for them to happen. They don’t happen because one group of people is somehow “better” than another.