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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31013 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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I don't understand how he was ever taken seriously,

I have never met anyone who read the book who thinks that; it is nothing if not carefully argued. Of course, most people who criticize are actually criticizing media misrepresentations of the argument.

I have never met anyone who read the book who thinks that

In addition to what @arjin_ferman, @anti_dan and others have said, I can recommend the review of Kirill Yeskov (biologist and paleontologist, and yes, The Last Ringbearer guy): pencil notes on the margins of Jared Diamond's book. He does think basically that. It should be mostly deepl-translatable.

My comment was re The End of History, not re Guns, Germs and Steel.

Can you recommend some kind of a summarized version of his argument, that does not misrepresent him? "Carefully argued" doesn't do much for me. It's not hard to argue for something carefully, and the result being something that should never have been taken seriously to begin with. Guns, Germs, and Steel would be a good example.

I read it many years ago, but this seems to be pretty good: https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-End-of-History-and-the-Last-Man/plot-summary/

I am curious why you see Guns, Germs and Steel as something not to be taken seriously.

Note, that to me, "not to be taken seriously" implies that it can be summarily disregarded, whereas something that is carefully (and thoroughly, I should have included that as well) might be wrong, but cannot be dismissed, even if it wrong; it must be engaged with. Of course, there are some exceptions, such as works based on clearly erroneous factual premises, but that does not seem to me to describe either Guns, Germs and Steel or The End of History.

It seems to me this world can be divided into people who "really really hate GGS" and everyone else.

I read it many years ago, but this seems to be pretty good: https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-End-of-History-and-the-Last-Man/plot-summary/

Thanks!

Note, that to me, "not to be taken seriously" implies that it can be summarily disregarded, whereas something that is carefully (and thoroughly, I should have included that as well) might be wrong, but cannot be dismissed, even if it wrong; it must be engaged with.

I disagree, this sort of approach is easily hackable by mining scholarly works for whatever data suits your idea and shaping it into a narrative that is trendy with the current zeitgeist, thus ensuring few people will be interested in challenging you to begin with, and the remainder is too intimidated by the sheer magnitude and obscurity of the material you've dug out.

Massive Theories of Nearly Everything belong in the same category as musing of your local pub philosopher until they withstand the test of time, and many challenges from opponents.

You might ask how are you supposed to challenge something without taking it seriously, but at least half of what I meant by "taking seriously" would be something more like "putting on a pedestal". When 4channers were freaking out about what's going on in Wuhan circa 2019, while all the experts were asleep, no one was taking them seriously. You could still engage with their arguments though.

but that does not seem to me to describe either Guns, Germs and Steel

Didn't it spend pages upon pages talking about how lucky Europeans were because they started off with caloric and easy to cultivate crops, and easily tamable animals, only for it to turn out that ancient European plants/animals were about as useful to humans as those anywhere else, and what the authors were comparing were products of generations of artificial selection to wild plants/animals?

I disagree, this sort of approach is easily hackable by mining scholarly works for whatever data suits your idea, shaping it into a narrative that is trendy with the current zeitgeist, thus ensuring few people will be interested in challenging you to begin with, and the remainder is too intimidated by the sheer magnitude and obscurity of the material you've dug out.

Yes, but isn't that a claim that the argument might be wrong, rather than a claim that they must be wrong? It seems to me to be an argument for skepticism, rather than an argument for dismissal out of hand.

Didn't it spend pages upon pages talking about how lucky Europeans were because they started off with caloric and easy to cultivate crops, and easily tamable animals, only for it to turn out that ancient European plants/animals were about as useful to humans as those anywhere else, and what the authors were comparing were products of generations of artificial selection to wild plants/animals?

  1. As a possibly non-relevant aside, the book is about why Eurasia developed more quickly than elsewhere, rather than Europe.

  2. Glancing at my copy of the book, he says: "Experimental studies in which botanists have collected seeds from such natural stands of wild [fertile crescent] cereals, much as as hunter-gatherers must have been doing over 10,000 years ago, show that annual harvests of up to nearly a ton of seeds per hectare can be obtained[.] ... [In contrast,] [c]orn's probable ancestor, a wild plant known as teosinte, ... was less productive in the wild than wild wheat . . ." So he certainly at least tried to compare like with like. In addition, that is only one of three advantages he claims that Eurasian cereal plants had over wild plants elsewhere; the others, he argues, are that they are annuals, and that most are plants that "usually pollinate themselves but are occasionally self-pollinated." I don't know whether either of those attributes can be changed via artificial selection. Re animals, he notes that only 14 of the world's large (100lbs+) herbivorous animals were ever domesticated (including only 13 of 72 in Eurasia) and notes that even modern efforts to domesticate large wild animals other than the "ancient fourteen" that were domesticated failed, and makes arguments why so few have been domesticated.

  3. Most importantly, that is an argument that Diamond is wrong, or that that he overstates his case. But it is not an argument that "no one ever should have taken him seriously," and I note that on the Wikipedia page on the book, Joel Mokyr is cited as saying that "Diamond's view that Eurasia succeeded largely because of a uniquely large stock of domesticable plants is flawed because of the possibility of crop manipulation and selection in the plants of other regions, the drawbacks of an indigenous plant such as sumpweed could have been bred out, Mokyr wrote, since 'all domesticated plants had originally undesirable characteristics' eliminated via 'deliberate and lucky selection mechanisms'", which sounds like the criticism you are citing.* But he is also quoted as saying that the book is "one of the more important contributions to long-term economic history and is simply mandatory to anyone who purports to engage Big Questions in the area of long-term global history". And I will say that one of the strengths of the book is that is explicitly states the assumptions behind its arguments, repeatedly refers to possible weaknesses in supporting evidence, and also repeatedly suggests avenues for future research which might undermine some of its claims.

  • But I note that, re teosinte, Diamond's argument is not that such changes were impossible -- they obviously weren't -- but that they took a very long time (at p. 137), which helps explain why development in the Americas lagged behind development in Eurasia (and, of course, it is the lag that he seeks to explain).

I understand your objection, but I think Diamond's book is one of those that taken as how he states it fits into the not even wrong category. You read the book, and it all sounds very science-y and convincing. But then you think about it again and it occurs to you that, hmm wait a minute, how can you even suppose to think about what a "wild" pig, chicken, horse etc actually is? The fact is the ostensibly wild populations of these things are hopelessly interbred with escaped chickens and horses from the early and current selectively bred populations, and its not easily done determinable when breeding really started.

Then you did down into things like his zebra arguments, and they are just obviously rubbish because there are multiple instances of Europeans going to Africa in the 1800s and early 1900s and remarking on how easy to break zebras are, and it seems his zebra-horse comparison is actually like 180 degrees from what actually was the difficulty level. And then you have to think to yourself, "huh, if he got this super easy thing so wrong, how much else is just him spinning nonsense?" And then even small inquiries indicate yes. And your logical conclusion is delving into the rest is simply a massive waste of time and energy.

I didn't even get to that point - I saw GGS from the outset as an attempt to provide an alternative hypothesis to the HBD explanation, but the only reason you need an alternative hypothesis to the HBD explanation is social pressure. The metaphor that comes to mind is of a child trying to explain why the cookie went missing when you left the room, entirely unaware that you had them on video surveillance the whole time. When you already know the answer, there's very little to be gained from listening to an excuse you know is going to be false beyond laughter (and there were a few great memes shitting on GGS).

Then you did down into things like his zebra arguments, and they are just obviously rubbish because there are multiple instances of Europeans going to Africa in the 1800s and early 1900s and remarking on how easy to break zebras are,

But, breaking an animal is not the same as domesticating an animal. As noted on page 159: "Elephants have been tamed, but never domesticated. Hannibal's elephants were, and Asian work elephants are, just wild elephants that were captured and tamed; they were not bred in captivity. In contrast, a domesticated animal is defined as an animal selectively bred in captivity and thereby modified from its wild ancestors, for use by humans who control the animal's breeding and food supply."

And of course to this day zebras have not been domesticated.

But, breaking an animal is not the same as domesticating an animal.

What is the actual definition of "domestication"? Like, I see this elsewhere in the thread:

Domestication, the process of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into domestic and cultivated forms according to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. The fundamental distinction of domesticated animals and plants from their wild ancestors is that they are created by human labour to meet specific requirements or whims and are adapted to the conditions of continuous care and solicitude people maintain for them.

...But this seems to be a fairly loose definition.

Zebras can be tamed, and they can be bred in captivity, and these can be done in a handful of generations from completely wild animals. Is there a reason to suspect that another two or three hundred generations of selective breeding would not render them completely domesticated?

Diamond observes that certain species were not domesticated, despite being very similar to species in other areas which were domesticated. He concludes that the species which were not domesticated were therefore harder to domesticate. This might make sense if domestication was pursued equally effectively in all the areas in question, but what evidence do we have that this was the case? What separates Diamond's thesis from a post-hoc rule that all the animals that were domesticated were therefore the easiest to domesticate, and the animals that were not couldn't have been? If zebras are harder to domesticate than horses, but easier than wild boar, doesn't that invalidate his thesis?

He concludes that the species which were not domesticated were therefore harder to domesticate.

No, he makes an argument re why that was the case. His argument might be wrong, but it indeed an argument. He does not simply conclude that they were undomesticable from the mere fact that they were not domesticated.

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Sure that is a story. But being breakable is easily translatable to domestication so long as breeding isn't a problem. There is no evidence that, for example, Bison or zebras don't breed when put into fences.

If livestock is breakable + breedable, it is maximally easy to domesticate, so long as you have a long timespan outlook. Pigs are seemingly unbreakable and were still domesticated. Under the Diamond theory of the world, pigs would be an order of magnitude harder to domesticate than zebras.

Sure that is a story.

It isn't a story. It is the definition he uses, and very much the standard one

Pigs are seemingly unbreakable and were still domesticated.

You are the one who brought up breakability as a criterion, not Diamond, nor I. It sure seems to me that if pigs are unbreakable yet domesticated, then the natural conclusion is that breakability is not required for domestication. And breaking a horse "refers to the process used by humans to get horses to let themselves be ridden or harnessed." What does that have to do with how humans use pigs? Or chickens? Or most other domestic animals?

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There is no evidence that, for example, Bison or zebras don't breed when put into fences.

Not only that, there's evidence that they do (NSFW). We've been breeding them in captivity for how long now?

And of course to this day zebras have not been domesticated.

This probably highlights my issue with GGS the best. Why would you say that without checking first? Why would Diamond?

I did check. Did you?

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Why are you ignoring the rest of the definition of "domesticate"? And, your very source s headlined, "Zebra breeding tough" and says "The striped equines are still wild animals at heart." And here is an article about that guy from 2021 which says, "Unlike Watusis, which have been domesticated for thousands of years, zebras are still very feral."

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Glancing at my copy of the book, he says: "Experimental studies in which botanists have collected seeds from such natural stands of wild [fertile crescent] cereals, much as as hunter-gatherers must have been doing over 10,000 years ago, show that annual harvests of up to nearly a ton of seeds per hectare can be obtained[.] ... [In contrast,] [c]orn's probable ancestor, a wild plant known as teosinte, ... was less productive in the wild than wild wheat . . ." So he certainly at least tried to compare like with like.

It has been ages since I read the book, so I might be conflating a bunch of things, and it's also been quite long time since I heard the counter arguments. Does he name any of these studies? Wheat outcompeting corn is unintuitive right off the bat.

Yes, but isn't that a claim that the argument might be wrong, rather than a claim that they must be wrong? It seems to me to be an argument for skepticism, rather than an argument for dismissal out of hand.

I edited some things in so maybe you missed it when you wrote your response, but I disagree with your definition of "taken seriously". Like I said Channers schizzoing out about COVID weren't taken seriously, even though they were right, and were making arguments that should have been addressed.

Does he name any of these studies? Wheat outcompeting corn is unintuitive right off the bat

I don't see the study; as is unfortunately common in popular works, the book does not have standard endnotes or footnotes. But, the comparison is not between wheat and corn, but between teosinte and wild wheat, and teosinte ears were apparently very small, as he discusses. Note also that even today, wheat has much more protein, and more of most other nutrients, than does corn.

but I disagree with your definition of "taken seriously". Like I said Channers schizzoing out about COVID weren't taken seriously, even though they were right, and were making arguments that should have been addressed.

Well, it sounds to me that we are agreeing about the dangers of dismissing arguments out of hand.

But, the comparison is not between wheat and corn, but between teosinte and wild wheat, and teosinte ears were apparently very small, as he discusses. Note also that even today, wheat has much more protein, and more of most other nutrients, than does corn.

roystgnr points out that's not really an apropriate comparison either.

I remember there was some autistic alt-righter that took the whole thing apart, I think I can find the link if you want. Trying to criticize a book of this size going purely off years-old memories probably isn't going to work out.

Well, it sounds to me that we are agreeing about the dangers of dismissing arguments out of hand.

Let's put it this way: I'm in favor of putting beloved-by-the-establishment pop-sci authors of Theories Of Everything on the same level as 4channers, and pub philosophers, whichever way you want to equalize them. If you're game for that, than we're in agreement.

I'm in favor of putting beloved-by-the-establishment pop-sci authors of Theories Of Everything on the same level as 4channers, and pub philosophers,

Well, if the 4channer and pub philosopher assembles as much evidence as Diamond did, sure. But I don’t see the point in summarily dismissing an argument simply because it is a theory of everything, nor because it is beloved by the establishment. Not to mention that that leaves no bottom rung for theories of everything written by journalists.

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Wheat outcompeting corn is unintuitive right off the bat.

Wild wheat outcompeting teosinte seems plausible. Wheat's ancestors look like slightly stunted wheat; maize's ancestors look like they're barely even the same plant.

But that makes sense when looking 10,000 years ago. Native Americans managed to domesticate teosinte anyway, and by 6,000 years ago (when Eurasia hadn't yet quite figured out that whole "writing" thing, so they hardly had an insuperable head start on civilization) you'd think it would have become an advantage.

There's an interesting hypothesis (postdating Diamond? I think I loaned out my GGS copy a decade ago and never ended up getting it back...) that potatoes (even better nutritionally than corn) might not have been an advantage for civilization in particular because "leave it in the ground until you need it" doesn't reward the sorts of planning and storage and trading and so forth that lead to large scale social organization ... but maize is the same sort of "harvest it in season and dry it and store it" crop as the Old World grains. Potatoes are also a problem because in between all the good New World regions for growing potatoes are thousand-mile stretches of lousy regions for growing potatoes (Diamond does talk about the ease of spreading crops East-West along climate isoclines, rather than North-South), but maize at least can be grown over a contiguous area stretching a continent and a half, and it was.

There's an interesting hypothesis (postdating Diamond? I think I loaned out my GGS copy a decade ago and never ended up getting it back...) that potatoes (even better nutritionally than corn) might not have been an advantage for civilization in particular because "leave it in the ground until you need it" doesn't reward the sorts of planning and storage and trading and so forth that lead to large scale social organization ... but maize is the same sort of "harvest it in season and dry it and store it" crop as the Old World grains.

Sounds like a hypothesis mentioned in James Scott's Against the Grain. (Although, weren't potatoes a staple on the famously centralized Inca empire? I might be wrong)

They were. (though apparently they could be preserved by poor-man's freeze-drying in the cold mountains, via an Incan staple food "chuño"?) I don't recall any other ancient place potatoes were a staple, either. They didn't make it to North America from South America directly, they made it via Europe.

I don't understand the Inca Empire at all. If I were to name obstacles to their growth, "their food plants were too awesome" would be low on the list, way behind "their territory was a thousand mile strip of poorly navigable mountains and their best boats were rafts".

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