Talk:Jared Diamond

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[edit] Evolutionary biologist

I tried to post the link in the article history but it truncated. I will link to the Scientific American article, instead. In the article, Michael Shermer refers to Diamond as an evolutionary biolgist. According to the Edge Foundation, Diamond's field work includes "...17 expeditions to New Guinea and neighboring islands, to study ecology and evolution of birds; rediscovery of New Guinea's long-lost goldenfronted bowerbird; other field projects in North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia." [1] --Viriditas | Talk 23:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)


---Diamond isn't an opponet of 'genetic arguments to account for racial differences'. He's an opponent of explaing the relative sophisication achieved by the races via arguments of genetic racial superiority. The previous wording suggested that Diamond's didn't think genes played any difference in racial varaiance at all. Clearly, Diamond is aware that skin color and other racial-specific features (nose shape, type of hair, general body size) are caused by genes. I may have made a run-on sentence, however. 69.250.25.213

---Regarding "Ethnic differences: Variation in human testis size": Diamond's 1986 commentary in Nature was not an "early work"-- he has papers going back to at least 1966 (Science 151:1102-1104). The only trait for which there was a trend from high to low in frequency among Africans, Caucasians, and East Asians was dizygotic twinning rate. Diamond speculated that dizygotic twinning rate might be correlated with testis size and female hormone levels, but noted that data were insufficient to address the question. It doesn't seem to me that Diamond's commentary is in the least contradictory to his later work, nor does it have an important bearing on his more recent books. The whole sentence would not survive a proper rewrite of the article. 131.210.4.95 28 xi.2005

[edit] Photograph

Is it acceptable to scan a photo from my copy of a book?

Probably not as it is copyrighted.Bkkeim2000 23:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Can we take a photograph from flickr.com? There are a couple of suitable ones there, e.g. [2], which has the Creative Commons "non-commercial attribution" license. -- Ngio 11:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Guns, Germs and Steel

The description is far too truncated and does damage to the sense of his arguments. For one, nowhere does he say advanced civilization which overtook simpler ones only arose in Eurasia. That would be an absurd claim. The article leaves out any of the major mechanics he describes which gave certain regions developmental advantages over others.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dutchsatyr (talk • contribs) 19:01, 4 July 2006.

There is a separate article on Guns, Germs, and Steel, so the description here should not be very lengthy. -- bcasterline • talk 22:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Bibliography

I have been an avid reader of Discover magazine since the early 80's, and I recall Diamond as a frequent contributor to the magazine, so I was surprised when only three of his articles were listed. This bibliography is incomplete, but I am unsure of the proper procedure to do so. Am I correct in assuming Wikipedia uses APA style? --William Moates 18:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Speaks a dozen languages?

The miscellaneous section says that Diamond speaks a dozen languages. I find this extremely hard to believe. Is it more accurate to say he has a familiarity with a dozen languages? This information needs to be cited. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.12.16.176 (talk) 00:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

Yeah, that kind of caught my eye, too! Maybe some people have a real facility for language, or start learning several when they’re very young and that really helps them start developing the skill. In any case, this is the kind of thing that I also agree would be good to include a citation. FriendlyRiverOtter 05:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
It is not odd at all, though it is slightly unusual for the average human. If I were to learn Manx Gaelic to an excellent level of fluency, it would be extremely simple at that point to learn Irish and Scottish forms of Gaelic. This is a generic rule that can be applied to other language families; Italianate, Germanic, and so on.
Another point to consider is that it is not our place to judge his claim. This is an encyclopaedia, not a debate forum. At best, it is appropriate to cite sources for and against his reputed facility for learning and using languages.
75.180.34.240 05:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Gaelic is not a language family, so it's not valid to compare it with the Romance or Germanic language families. I speak English and I certainly didn't find it "extremely simple" to learn German; I doubt a French speaker would find it simple to learn, say, Romanian or Portuguese either. We really need to know what those 12 languages of Diamond's are for the claim to have any meaning at all. Lfh 15:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Manx, Scottish, and Irish would best be described as three dialects of Gaelic, comparable to the multitude of dialects of Italian. As for the language famillies issue, I can attest that fluent French speakers have an advantage learning Spanish and Italian, and from what I know of those two languages, I expect that they would confer even greater advantages to anyone who speaks one and seeks to learn the other. To respond to the initial comment, I think Mr. Diamond's academic career demonstrates that he is a very intelligent man, lending plausability to the claim that he speaks 12 langauges. NorthernNerd (talk) 02:16, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] We typically lived in very small groups

“Bands are the tiniest societies, consisting typically of 5 to 80 people, most or all of them close relatives by birth or by marriage. In effect, a band is an extended family or several related extended families.” (GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL: THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES, Jared Diamond, New York, London: Norton, page 267.)

Jared divides human societies into four main categories: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. And bands are how we lived for most of human history, pretty much the entire time we were hunters-gatherers. As I understand it, we have been just as smart as we are right now for at least the last 150,000 years, we just lived differently. FriendlyRiverOtter 05:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography order

It is weird to read the bibliography in reverse chronological order. I am going to change it to reverse reverse chronological order. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 11:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "New Melanesian"

The article states he can speak "New Melanesian". AS far as I know there is no such language. What is this referring to? --86.148.57.131 (talk) 03:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Judging by the text accompanying the appendix titled Neo-melanesian in one easy lesson in The Rise and Fall of the Third Chinpanzee, it should refer to a creole language that is the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.98.3 (talk) 19:17, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, a quick search suggests that the correct link appears to be Tok Pisin. I have updated the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.98.3 (talk) 19:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Erased some old non-article related discussions

There were some discussions of opinions and personal viewpoints which were not related to improving the article and they were several months old so I deleted them. Vloxul (talk) 08:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] factual errors

Why is there no mention of the factual errors and ambiguity in "guns germs and steel"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.179.120.240 (talk) 04:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism about his comments about Easter Island in "Collapse"

A book by Dr. Benny Peiser details how Diamond greatly exaggerated the "collapse" of Easter Island in the 17th century. Something to look into perhaps? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.114.110 (talk) 06:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism?

This guy certainly has his critics. Can we compile some basic general criticisms of his thought and methodology and organize it into a criticism section? Right now, this article is head-over-heels for this guy.72.78.159.73 (talk) 07:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi 72.78.159.73. You could try constructing such a section here first, or at least bring together information you've found here. An alternative approach might be to add any criticism to the appropriate section of the main article. Because it separates subjects and criticism of them, creating a separate criticism section is often less effective than noting dissent at the relevant subsection. Just my two cents. Cheers, --Plumbago (talk) 07:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)