This link has been bookmarked by 8 people . It was first bookmarked on 12 May 2007, by Mike Wesch.
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25 Nov 15
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07 Oct 15
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Most tropical root and tuber crops had problems spreading to regions that were cold or seasonally dry, but many of these crops, too, adapted quite nicely: think of the potato. Diamond's error here is to treat natural determinants of plant ecology as somehow determinants of human ecology. That is not good science
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Diffusion is also stressed by Diamond as having been a significant factor in early world history, and some of his points are valid. But when, in various arguments, he posits natural environmental barriers as causes of non-diffusion, or of slow diffusion, he makes numerous mistakes. Some of these (as in the matter of north-south crop movements, just discussed) are factual errors about the environment. Other errors are grounded in a serious failure to understand how culture influences diffusion.[6] Two examples deserve to be mentioned.
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Why then, should they give up this mode of subsistence and adopt agriculture? Diamond simply assumes that they would have done so had it not been for environmental barriers. Of course, parts of Australia are moist enough to support farming. But these regions, says Diamond, did not become agricultural because of their isolation from farming peoples outside of Australia. The logic here is murky. Diamond notes that Macassarese traded with Australians in the northwest, near modern Darwin, but he believes that the Macassarese (famous sailors) could not have sailed to the Cape York Peninsula, where tropical crops could have been grown. Moreover, Cape York Peninsula is separated from New Guinea by the narrow Torres Strait, with several stepping- stone islands nearly connecting the two landmasses. Why did not the Australians around Cape York adopt the agriculture practiced by New Guineans? Again: isolation. Diamond finds barriers to (north-south) diffusion that just did not exist. Probably Australians chose not to adopt agriculture because they managed quite well without it...
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11 Sep 13
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01 Oct 07
Heikki WileniusReview essay on J. Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel"
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12 May 07
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