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Arguments against Darwin's theory
Essay on human evolution and cultural evolution
Essay on human evolution and cultural evolution
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Prologue Key Terms/Ideas: Yali’s question: Why did some parts of the world develop and change at a much faster rate than other parts of the world? Why did Europeans end up with all the guns, germs, and steel that enabled them to take over the world? Ultimate Factors: things that were in a place naturally, the environmental factors Proximate Factors: things that were derived or created because of the ultimate factors Key Arguments: The reason Jared Diamond wrote this book was to answer Yali’s question. Yali’s original question was, “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” (14). The author took this question in a more general sense, wishing to find out what factors contributed to certain areas becoming more developed and complex than others. Diamond believes that the answer to this question is not as simple as one might think. He argues that biological differences are not a factor because people living in places like New Guinea are actually smarter than people living in societies where a person survives because they are immune to a disease. In New Guinea, more intelligent people are more likely to survive and people have more active childhoods, making the New Guineans genetically superior to more populated and advanced societies. Because Diamond believes that common theories that try to answer Yali’s question are invalid, he thinks there is no correct common answer to the question and feels the need to write this book. Diamond’s nutshell sentence (sentence that summarizes the whole book) is this: “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among people’s environments, not because of biological differ... ... middle of paper ... ...iple types of plants in them) rather than monoculture as found in the Old World. So, why were we able to completely change and domesticate some crops (like the almond) while others (like the acorn) remain un-domesticated to this day? Well, according to Diamond, oak trees grow slowly, have evolved to become suitable to squirrels, have their bitterness controlled by multiple genes. Critical Analysis: Diamond seems to take an unnecessarily long time getting to the point of his argument. It is almost like Diamond is trying to show off his knowledge rather than get to the point, which makes the book unnecessarily lengthy and boring when it is actually an interesting topic. However, it is probably good that he is backing up his argument with facts. I think that what Diamond is saying is actually pretty interesting, but it would be more convincing if it weren’t so long.
Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer Prize Winning, National Best Selling book Guns, Germs and Steel, summarizes his book by saying the following: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." Guns, Germs and Steel is historical literature that documents Jared Diamond's views on how the world as we know it developed. However, is his thesis that environmental factors contribute so greatly to the development of society and culture valid? Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History is the textbook used for this class and it poses several different accounts of how society and culture developed that differ from Diamond's claims. However, neither Diamond nor Traditions are incorrect. Each poses varying, yet true, accounts of the same historical events. Each text chose to analyze history in a different manner. Not without flaws, Jared Diamond makes many claims throughout his work, and provides numerous examples and evidence to support his theories. In this essay, I will summarize Jared Diamond's accounts of world history and evolution of culture, and compare and contrast it with what I have learned using the textbook for this class.
...the book is not without flaws it is definitely worth taking the time to read. It is incredibly informative and takes a look at the environmental approach in a little different manner. People can relate to the ideas that Diamond is suggesting far easier than the typical “going green” approach. While Diamond is optimistic of the future he admits that there is not that much time to act on what he is saying. By the end of the book, if it is read with an open mind, you truly grasp what Diamond is saying and you realize that the book is worth your time. It is not the traditional environmental work; he is far more realistic in his expectations than most environmentalists. Due to this realism people need to heed his warning and take his fight to heart. Like he said ultimately humans created the problems and humans have the control to solve the problems that we face.
The reason Jared Diamond wrote this book was to answer the question of his political friend Yali, why did some societies like Eurasia were able to develop Guns, Germs, and Steel that were able to dominate major parts of the world, and why New Guinea was not capable of doing this? This question is certainly not a small picture kind of question because it covers a broad realm. Diamond is a book that has tried his best to cover a whole pattern of history, starting from before the Ice Age to the modern period. But Diamond's all-time famous and award-winning book was really successful in explaining the broad question. Such a type of question is critical to gain a stronger understanding of Diamond’s argument and its effect on the field of history.
In the descriptive portions of his book, Phillips was generally on target but lacked depth. Historians would later take exception to his findings, as they are based more upon his personal beliefs concerning race, rather than documented evidence. The author is mainly concerned with the economic ...
I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel in the Fall 2003 based on a recommendation from a friend. Many chapters of the book are truly fascinating, but I had criticisms of the book back then and hold even more now. Chief among these is the preponderance of analysis devoted to Papua New Guinea, as opposed to, say, an explanation of the greatly disparate levels of wealth and development among Eurasian nations. I will therefore attempt to confine this review on the "meat and potatoes" of his book: the dramatic Spanish conquest of the Incas; the impact of continental geography on food production; and finally, the origins of the Eurasian development of guns, germs, and steel. In terms of structure, I will first summarize the book's arguments, then critically assess the book's evidentiary base, and conclude with an analysis of how Guns, Germs, and Steel ultimately helps to address the wealth question.
Polyculture is associated with, but not exclusively limited to, the movement in organic farming (Pollan 144). The main drawback is the work required to maintain the different species being grown. Each plant requires its own growing conditions, so maintenance becomes labor intensive. However, this method of farming greatly increases the biodiversity of the fields which reduces susceptibility to disease and pests, and creates genetically diverse species. Polyculture is very different from monoculture in more ways than simply growing more than one crop. Monoculture is the attempt to control a crop to maximize yield. Polyculture is the acknowledgement of nature’s control and the attempt to grow successful crops through changing the process of growing plants based on the ecological system around them. The people who grew early potatoes on the Andes grew a wide variety of different potato species so that not all of them were likely to susceptible to the same disease (Pollan 131). Pollan’s discussion of these methods leans heavily toward the idea that even though monoculture is simpler and more profitable, it is an inferior method to polyculture that is mainly still in use to feed the capitalistic machine of the global food
The book Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond, starts off with Yali’s question about why some places are more developed and have more resources compared to others. The essence of this book is based on Diamond’s thesis, he claimed: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples ' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves"(Diamond 25). Diamond tries to explain the cultural development of few societies at different places in the world. One of the question he described most vividly is about “Why did wealth and power become distributed as they now are, rather than in some other way? For instance, why weren 't Native Americans, Africans, and Aboriginal Australians
In his well known piece, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond proposes that the differences between populations of different continents is not due to differences in the people, but of the environment. There are, of course innumerable differences to be found among the environments that each continent has to offer, however, Diamond stresses only a few. They include: wild plants and animals native to the area- which affect a society’s surplus thus allowing the society to move beyond their basic need- a group 's ability to travel and/or migrate both intercontinental and to other continents- this would allow for trade and access to other goods, and exposure to alternate philosophies and illness- and the size of the continent and population allowing for more potential inventors, competing societies, and groups to exchange with (Diamond, 1999). Diamond’s theory lends to the concept of how our environment shapes us. It’s the nurture of Nature vs Nurture on the large scale. There are countless things that we cannot control about ourselves, where
Jared Diamond is the author of the Guns, Germs, and Steel. In the book he is making an attempt to answer a question posed by a man named Yali. Yali is a local politician and asked Jared a very simple question on the surface but truly is a hard one to answer. Yali's question is "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had very little cargo of our own." Jared comes up with a thesis in which he explains in depth later
Analysis Introduction This project belongs in the engineering-efficiency category; therefore, it has to fit at least 3 of 4 performance hurdles, which are 1. Impact on EPS; 2.Payback; 3.Discounted cash flow and 4. Internal rate of return. In this article, some of those involved explained and described their opinions; however, professional knowledge may have been lacking.
In summary, Davidson successful traces Africa’s earliest origins and demonstrates that this is a civilization far from having no arts, technology, sophistication and unique culture. Culture and civilization as we know it today can be traced back to Africa, and modern science has verified the early perceptions of Europeans to be wrong. He provides more than adequate evidence of Africa having a history complete with vast and rich civilization, including archaeological finds and specialized interviews with distinguished scholars and philosophers. Despite the fact that society possesses a more positive attitude towards African civilization today in terms of recognition, equality, and acceptance than in the past, negative stereotypes are still acknowledged and modern day racism unfortunately exists. I believe that the existence of Davidson’s work and videos such as Different but Equal are crucial to challenging these stereotypes and discrimination in order to create a more accurate image of Africa and its history. Overall, Davidson proves that the continent of Africa is home to a history that is just as meaningful, comprehensive, and progressive as that of any other civilization in the
With bad geographic location you can have trouble feeding yourself and others also if you can domesticate animals to help that food production grow significantly faster and also if you can provide germs to prevent immunity to smallpox and provide steel to develop resources to build resources and weapons to conquer in war. For agriculture civilizations need the right climate to grow the right crops such as wheat and being able to provide food for others. When civilizations are able to provide food for all others you can develop specialist to try to get domesticated animals to provide faster crop production also domesticated animals can provide food and milk and can use plows. Having domesticated animals can help with germs. A civilization can benefit from immunity because when a civilization is around animals they can build immunity from those animals while other civilizations don't, they can not develop immunity to smallpox. Having steel can benefit a civilization because you can make resources and weapons to conquer a civilization. Why all these topics matter to the question “why is the world so unequal?” because if you do not have all these topics you can’t build a strong civilization and will not advance in the world. For a while people thought is was just race that caused why the world is
interpreted as being caused by genetic or environmental differences among groups? A strong promoter of the belief that there is undoubtedly a racial difference in intelligence is Phillippe Rushton. As a professor of psychology, he argues that there is irrefutable scientific evidence of difference...
For the past sixty-seven years, the citizens of India have embraced their country’s independence all the while seeking to regain their past. Prior to this renewed sense of freedom, India had belonged to the British Empire. From 1858 to 1947, the British government claimed India and its inhabitants as a colonial possession. Before the British Empire laid claim to the vastness of India, the British East India Company helped to oversee the transfer of the Kohinoor Diamond from the Sikh Empire to their motherland in 1851.
This essay is about the effect of Colonialism seen in the book Things Fall Apart. Through out the whole book you can see different impressions on the tribe, many other people, and the relationships between the white man and the black man. "Does the white man understand our custom about land?" "How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart." (Achebe, 17)