Jared Diamond

[Lord Baal]

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[Pangur Bán]

Arguments from authority. Yawn. You might try responding to the many unaddressed points in this very thread before persisting in this doomed argument.

Don't wish to disturb your slumber, but that response tells me you might be out of your depth here. No, not 'argument from authority', but heuristic to help guide you through a challenging world that is academia. Believe it or not, professional academics spending a career researching things can become more thoughtful and knowledgeable than randomers on gaming forums. Strange, but true.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Of course it isn't a one year event - but his focus is more so on the overgrazing of land, overfocus on hunting of seal, over-use of animal husbandry, etc. and the conjunction of the environmental effects during the little ice age.

But to examine the Little Ice Age's effect on Greenland... you sort of have to look at the Inuit populations of Greenland during the LIA which Diamond doesn't even examine. He assumes mass starvation, freezing, and even conflict ended the Norse abruptly [while ignoring the gradual decline prior]. Of course it isn't a one time event, but then again Diamond ignores the fact that Greenland had actually gone through nearly similar events to the LIA locally in the 11th and 12th centuries and population remained relatively stable throughout Norse Greenland [meaning not only had the Norse survived throughout actually at times worse eras of freezing in Greenland during their settlement, but they thrived then] and makes him view the LIA in particular as a one time final catastrophic final blow event, further detracting from his "5 factors".

Not sure what to say to this. No, he isn't exhaustive with his evidence, but he explores a plausible case. Irrespective of his flaws, he did show that culture explains why the Inuit survived the era but the Norse didn't. Do you really disagree with that?

 

[Plotinus]

Don't wish to disturb your slumber, but that response tells me you might be out of your depth here. No, not 'argument from authority', but heuristic to help guide you through a challenging world that is academia. Believe it or not, professional academics spending a career researching things can become more thoughtful and knowledgeable than randomers on gaming forums. Strange, but true.

I'm broadly on your side when it comes to Diamond - at least Guns, Germs, and Steel, not having read his others - but I think Crezth is right here. Speaking as a professional academic I can say that it is indeed perfectly possible for eminent professors to write books that are full of badly researched nonsense, particularly when (a) they're writing for a popular market, which means the book proposal will be subject to a much less academically stringent review than one for an academic market would be; and (b) they're writing on a subject that isn't their own, which means there's no guarantee of solid background knowledge on the part of the author. Just look at Richard Dawkins. Both of these circumstances apply to Diamond. That doesn't mean we should dismiss what he says but it does mean that we can't assume it's reasonable just because it's in a book by a famous academic.

 

[Lord Baal]

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[Pangur Bán]

I'm broadly on your side when it comes to Diamond - at least Guns, Germs, and Steel, not having read his others - but I think Crezth is right here. Speaking as a professional academic I can say that it is indeed perfectly possible for eminent professors to write books that are full of badly researched nonsense, particularly when (a) they're writing for a popular market, which means the book proposal will be subject to a much less academically stringent review than one for an academic market would be; and (b) they're writing on a subject that isn't their own, which means there's no guarantee of solid background knowledge on the part of the author. Just look at Richard Dawkins. Both of these circumstances apply to Diamond. That doesn't mean we should dismiss what he says but it does mean that we can't assume it's reasonable just because it's in a book by a famous academic.

Did you check out what a heuristic is? Of course it's possible and as you say it happens, but the picture of JD being wrong on every point is very unlikely (ignoring the fact that it isn't true). Crezth is misguided because he doesn't really understand how unlikely it is (his model for such things is likely drawn from parallels in his own life), so pointing this out is helpful to him whether he or anyone else here appreciates it at this very moment.

 

[Lord Baal]

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[Pangur Bán]

Can only respond to the text in front of me. But you're right, I should have said 'did you note my use of the term heuristic'.

 

[Crezth]

Don't wish to disturb your slumber, but that response tells me you might be out of your depth here. No, not 'argument from authority', but heuristic to help guide you through a challenging world that is academia. Believe it or not, professional academics spending a career researching things can become more thoughtful and knowledgeable than randomers on gaming forums. Strange, but true.

I'm a systems engineer and well aware of what a heuristic is. I was merely suggesting that you'd do better to reply to the criticisms levied against him, rather than urge us to accept his every word based on the fact that he's a professor, and therefore it's "very unlikely" that he's wrong.

 

[Pangur Bán]

I'm a systems engineer and well aware of what a heuristic is. I was merely suggesting that you'd do better to reply to the criticisms levied against him, rather than urge us to accept his every word based on the fact that he's a professor, and therefore it's "very unlikely" that he's wrong.

If you were suggesting that (which of course you weren't), it'd be pretty pointless since no-one is actually urging that. But after all my posts complaining about people who can't distinguish what people say and their own fantasy straw men, I've got a feeling you won't be getting that any time soon.

In any case, I've lodged nearly 50 posts balancing this thread. Some of you may dislike me for this, some people may think I am deluded, some people may have thought I added some important points, but in any case I think I've done my bit. If we all read JD ourselves and his critics and his responses, we'll all come to reasonable conclusions about his work. It's very unlikely that any informed reader will think him either a prophet or a phony --but that the debate tends to be pushed in that direction in forums like this tells us a lot about how debate takes place in our society. The same diseases of polemical caricaturing, strawmanning, and so on that spoil some of this thread also spoil popular politics and lead to mutual animosity, misunderstanding, and ideological fragmentation across the political spectrum. The age of the internet seemed like it would expose the average person to more viewpoints and ideas than s/he could ever have previously encountered, but it seems that most people (including myself) cope with this by sliding whatever opinion they actually come across into a small number of pre-existing dualistic argument sets with little specific reference to whatever's said; or by relying on the most prominent opinions around, prominent usually because they specialize in such techniques of polemic and simplification and thus gain popularity and patronage. These in turn become models for others, who employ their techniques and exacerbate the problem.

If we all could pause and make appropriate allowance for what people actually say rather than generating generic polemic responses--here and elsewhere--it will do the world so much good!

 

[Crezth]

If you* were suggesting that [his status as an expert puts him beyond critique] (which of course you weren't), it'd be pretty pointless since no-one is actually urging that. But after all my posts complaining about people who can't distinguish what people say and their own fantasy straw men, I've got a feeling you won't be getting that any time soon.

I beg your pardon?

Believe it or not, professional academics spending a career researching things can become more thoughtful and knowledgeable than randomers on gaming forums. Strange, but true.

JD isn't 'wrong' on every point, or even on most points. Before repeating such claims, ask yourself how plausible it is that a tenured American professor would go into print being 'wrong on every point'. Surely if some guys on a gamer forum, most of whom haven't read his work, can 'see' the 'wrongness', he would ... no?

Stand by your own statements, you coward.

Moderator Action: Infracted for flaming. Name-calling isn't acceptable here.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Pangur Bán]

I beg your pardon?

Stand by your own statements, you coward.

All I can say is 1) you're putting two and two together and getting twelve and 2) re-read my plea above.

 

[Crezth]

The recesses of your mind must be a dark, dank place where logic goes to perish painfully.

 

[Lord Baal]

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[Murky]

I don't get why people have so a big problem with Diamond's work. Watch the PBS documentary on Guns, Germs, and Steel. He explains it in such a way that combined with the film, things start to make sense. As for Collapse, I haven't read it. I do believe that if you overshoot your resources then suffer some long term disaster then your civilization is much more likel to collapse. We currently seem to be heading in that direction with population/industrialization overshoot and ecological disaster. Most of the people with any real power seem to be doing nothing about it or some cases, what they are doing is making the problem worse.

 

[PhroX]

I don't get why people have so a big problem with Diamond's work. Watch the PBS documentary on Guns, Germs, and Steel. He explains it in such a way that combined with the film, things start to make sense. As for Collapse, I haven't read it. I do believe that if you overshoot your resources then suffer some long term disaster then your civilization is much more likel to collapse. We currently seem to be heading in that direction with population/industrialization overshoot and ecological disaster. Most of the people with any real power seem to be doing nothing about it or some cases, what they are doing is making the problem worse.

The problem with Collapse is that, as people have pointed out in this thread, however reasonable the basic premise might sound, all of the examples used are flawed and most of them are outright wrong, and as such the book completely fails to demonstrate that premise.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Your plea above is simply a case of "oh crap, I'm wrong, um, can't we all just get along?" *sound of car speeding away* As Crezth said, either defend your own words, or own up to being mistaken.

I'm happy to be mistaken, but where is that?

 

[Lord Baal]

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[Pangur Bán]

If you can't see it when Crezth quote it, why would you see it when I quote it?

You need to read it or think about it more carefully I'm afraid, and also read my above plea too(your post is exhibiting the features I talk about there).

 

[Lord Baal]

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