Asymmetrical Information

No real comment. I just like the idea of a deadly Llama cavelry. Tee hee.

I know it was just a throw-away, but the Wolf thing is probably wrong. Village dogs (aka pariah dogs) were probably naturally evolved from wolves. We started from those to create domestic dogs. It's extremely unlike humans started the domestication from true wolves. (This is not to say that there wasn't some cross-breeding on occasion.)

While I see your hindsight bias point, and don't myself have sufficient knowledge to refute it, isn't part of the point that the deadly llama cavalry couldn't have existed? Even if Europeans hadn't domesticated horses, llamas are only marginally rideable -- they're just barely strong enough to carry a person, and certainly not the additional weight that a horse can carry as well. While llamas are domesticated, they are simply less useful than horses are for most purposes.

I don't think the long-time point works either. Corn could take an incredibly long time to domesticate becase the undomesticated corn was a least some use -- the domestication happened over the course of centuries of people eating teosinte. Try and apply that to zebras: could a pre-industrial people have maintained an isolated population of dangerous, useless animals for centuries in the hopes that they would become useful in the future? How would they know it was a reasonable investment? How would they afford the surplus to feed them? An animal that couldn't have been domesticated to the point of some usefulness in a generation or so from its wild state can reasonably be called practically undomesticable.

I can't see how any animal could have been domesticated by preindustrial people unless it was at least some use in its natural state. A wolf isn't that far from a dog -- while it's a long way from White Fang to a Shi-Tzu, it's not far at all to get to a malemute, and once you've got the malemute, then you can spend ten thousand years breeding a poodle from it.

His latest opus, COLLAPSE I'm afraid rapidly shows his biases. It is a poorly constructed environmentalist screed. It builds on GCS to postulate environmental damage and limitations on productivity as the primary reason for societal collapse. While this works for really self contained examples like Easter Island, his extensions to Modern day Montana where he lives are total caricatures that completely neglect culture, innovation etc.

It's not like there isn't current research on domesticating a new animal. Russians have been conducting a study for more than 40 years now (which I first read about almost 10 years ago) attempting to domesticate foxes for fur farming. Within a few generations they stop looking like foxes and start looking like dogs, including coloring.

Picture at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0208_050208_foxes.html

Story at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807641/posts

LizardBreath, your logic is somewhat circular. Llamas are not strong enough to carry humans because (for whatever reason) llama domesticators did not concentrate on breeding llamas that could carry humans. Llamas are good for carrying packs so that humans don't have to, which is an example of what early zebra domesticators could have done with them; they didn't have to breed them for centuries until they could get some use out of them. In fact, llamas are probably more useful than horses (or zebras), providing wool as well as milk and meat and (as a bonus) transportation.

Remember that all horses, from Arabians to Shires to ponies were originally bred from something like this.

Here's an interesting article on the ways and times the horse may have been domesticated, remembering always to take Wikipedia entries with some salt.

I stopped reading this book for some of the reasons you mentioned, like arguing against something that pretty much nobody believes. And then there was the moment when the compared modern technological society against the poor non-technological societies. And he wouldn't even grant that it's better to live in a technological society; he hung a lot of weight on how the family is more important in non-tech societies so it works out in the end. Eye roll. He's working from a premise that all cultures work out to some sort of zero, and he'll be damned before he violates that principle. Which casts doubt on the whole argument; it might be fascinating argument, but I felt like Jared went in with the conlcusion solidly in place and worked towards it. That's dishonest.

My logic might be circular with respect to llamas, but I'm not sure that you can say that it was necessarily practical to produce a horse-quality beast of burden out of a llama. Riding llamas isn't a new idea, and presumably people have been breeding llamas to be better steeds for centuries, yet the breeding programs haven't successfully produced llamas that can easily or comfortably carry a person at high speeds or for long distances. Some species are just less plastic than others: look at the difference between domesticated dogs, where the breed differences range from Pekinese to Great Dane, and cats, where the breed differences are mostly a mater of coat color and texture.

With respect to zebras, I think you're simply mistaken. The problem with domesticating zebras isn't that they're particularly ill-suited to being ridden as opposed to carrying packs, it's that they are going to try to kill you. A zebra, as they exist now, isn't a useful steed or a useful pack animal; any domestication program would require maintaining a breeding stock of useless, vicious zebras for long enough to turn them into something that could be made use of.

I heard somewhere (sorry, no link) that the reason we have so many breeds of dog is that one or more of the genes that controls size and shape is easily mutated. I don't know of any other domesticated animals that have such a wide range of appearances. There's a big difference between a daschund and a rottweiler, and though I can't imagine one mounting the other, they are still the same species and could interbreed (perhaps with the help of a test tube, or maybe a stepladder?)

Perhaps the most successfully domesticated animals and plants have genes for docility, size, flavor, strength, quickness, or other valuable traits that are more mutatable than average. Which is a fancy way of saying that I agree with Jane about the importance of luck.

GG&S didn't impress me. Too many palmed cards, not enough useful results. Wright's _Nonzero_ gives a much better explanation of the historical trends than GG&S does. That's a culturally driven theory, looking at the long term benefits of voluntary cooperation (ie, playing non-zero-sum games).

I wrote a more detailed comparison of them on my blog

You have to wonder how hard it would be to domesticate zebras, given that one has been used in place of horses on at least one occasion because it was more trainable. "Mr. Ed", the talking horse of the TV show of the same name, was actually a zebra.
See: http://www.snopes.com/lost/mistered.asp

That snopes page had me confused until I clicked on the "About this page" link.. You did know it was a spoof, right?

Deadly llama cavalry: What an absolute gem! Makes me visualize deadly oxen cavalry (requiring a very sluggish opponent), the chilling donkey cavalry, and the potentiality of swine for something other than bacon.

(Given how incredibly aggressive wild pigs are, it's kind of amazing we wound up domesticating them insead of hunting them to extinction. S'pose it had anything to do with the intelligence of the pig?)

Just looked up dogs and wolves yesterday and from what I read, wolves are not ancestral to dogs. Instead, dogs and wolves have a common ancestor although they still remain, genetically, close enough to interbreed. It also seems that wolves have a natural aversion to humans, which dogs do not. Lucky for dogs that they saw something in hanging out with us instead of mammoths.

I think luck can explain the start of somethig but I'm not sure that luck explains persistant advantage. Some human clan can get lucky and stumble across a stream where there's lots of naturally occurring gold, but unless they are also lucky enough to have a warrior culture they probably won't hang on to that gold for very long. It's probably not surprising, either, how few lottery winnners manage to hang on to their fortunes. I've been told (but don't know) that the vast majority piss it away, leaving their lives unchanged.

Something I've wondered: Why is it that corruption is a way of life in hot countries but
but generally not considered acceptable in cold countries? It seems pretty clear that there's an inverse relationship between corruption and development, but what does the weather have to do with it, exactly?

Why is it that corruption is a way of life in hot countries but
but generally not considered acceptable in cold countries?

Russia's pretty cold. I don't think there's a weather correllation beyond the development level correllation.

I liked GG&S, but it did miss out on culture. How else to explain the fact that the middle east was once the leader in world civilization and is now stuck in the third world? The only logical answer is Islam.

hee hee. Now I want to mod Civ3 to add a 'deadly llama cavalry' unit.

Another point he raised, that may be valid, is that large mammals in other areas evolved longer without humans, making it easier for humans to kill them. The large mammals used for domestication (cows, pigs, ox, horses, llamas, etc.) allowed for greater food production.

Now, this doesn't really account for Africa (though, how appropriate are giraffes, zebras, elephants, etc. for domestication, I allow others to argue), but it does for Australia. I found the argument on east-west direction fairly intriguing, sense crops grown in Mexico wouldn't transfer well to Alberta compared to crops grown in Iraq transfering to Italy.

I didn't really read the book as a theory supplanting cultural differences, but rather one that looked at issues OTHER than cultural differences.

Justin: I'd be tempted to make the propostion more general: Whenever you have a politically-enforced dogma that fights common sense, you're going to put a cork in progress. Early Renaissance Italy was the superpower of its time, a world leader in trade, shipping, banking, art, medicine--you name it. IMHO, the Catholic church played a major role in Italy's subsequent stultification. Evidently Islamic thought stopped evolving at about the same time, causing the Moslem world to miss the Renaissance as well.

LizardBreath: You're certainly right about Russia--it's a great counter-argument to my general observation about a social norm of integrity being driven by climate conditions. Of course that leads to the question of why honesty has traditionally been seen as overarchingly important in places like Scandanavia, Switzerland, Britain, Canada, US and Japan?

Here's a speculation: The miserable winter forced people to live in small groups characerized by mutual interdependence. Lying and stealing were seen as such a threat to group survival that banishment would be the inevitable result--and banishment in those conditions would normally mean death by exposure and starvation. The esteem of the village group then becomes a means of survival, and from that one might be able to derive notions of both honor and shame.

For both Japanese and Swiss people I've known, the need to be seen as honorable -- or at least not dishonorable -- is so strong that there need never be any police. I wonder whether, in the case of Russia, having so many people play the role of police for so long made it unnecessary to hold a group together with the glue of shame and honor.

The Russians, as a culture, obviously have a well-developed sense of guilt. Were that not so, Roskalnikov's madness in Crime and Punishment wouldn't have made any sense to the readers. So why would a Russian not feel guilty about cheating the system (or a visitor) for personal advantage. Indeed, why are crooks so often admired in that country as just being smart?

All right: A bit of an over-generality, but you get the idea. In Britain, when my mother was growing up there, the cops were pretty universally seen as incorruptible paragons of virtue. I suspect the Russian cops -- or whoever has played that role over the years -- have been seen as bullying pigs who were just out to get whatever they could for themselves. Or maybe that was the politicians...

Anyway, the key to the whole thing seems to be the extent to which a society can get by with a minimum of police. Having seen what happens in a major city when the lights go out for a night, it would seem that we have a pretty good mix of cold weather and hot weather peoples in this country.

Never mind deadly llama cavalry.
What about hussars on ostriches and the irresistible charge of the rhinoceros heavy lancers?
:)

Did Hannibal use African or Asian elephants? If African, why didn't more African people use them? If Asian, it lends some substance to the notion that some breeds are just a helluva lot easier to domesticate. Asian elephants are used extensively as work animals, and I am unaware of anybody using African elephants in the same manner.

I've got no use for Jared Diamond, he believes that the rise of agriculture was a catastrophe for humans and the earth as a whole.

Also, he totally looked like a wuss when he was firing that flintlock on the PBS version of GG&S.

Publius:
Re. Russia: imapact of Tartar rule? (Possible similar effects of Mongol and Manchu rule in China?)
More broadly, the influence of "kleptocratic absolutist" govt. somewhat detatched from the social base perhaps tending to produce relatively low levels of broad social trust and reciprocal obligation outside immediate kin/communal groups.
Possible other examples being Moghul India, Bedou/Turkic derived ruling tribal elites in Middle East, Iberian rule over Latin America.

I'm surprised no one mentioned this, but the New World also had potatoes, which the Incas managed to de-toxify (the tubers are now edible, but the roots, stems, leaves etc. are poisonous.)

One of Diamond's theses was that the availability of grain made division of labor possible. It bugged me then that he just dodged the point that potatoes are an excellent crop...and anyone who doubts that can look at the cuisines of the "Old World," including Russia, Ireland, India, and Germany.....

As for the "deadly llama cavalry," Prof. Tabarrok illustrates why it wouldn't be the infantry that were backward: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/08/why_horses_are_.html

My biggest problem with GG&S was the dishonest title & thesis.

After the exciting Inca vs. Conquistador intro, Diamond spends about 2/7th of the book discussing foodstuffs & lifestock (I listened to it on 7 tapes so mentally divide it into 7 parts). He also spends about 1/7th discussing language development. Germs were discussed in detail, but guns & steel had far smaller roles than grains or geography or language develoment.

It's a catchy title - and it's common to have a misleading title as a hook, e.g. Galileo's daughter - but it was still a dishonest thesis & title, so lost respect for the book its dishonest presenting of itself.

Publius, I'm amazed you are getting away with your racist sterotyping. Switzerland, not corrupt? Who collaborated with the Nazis in stealing millions from Jews? Japan? Just 70 years ago, Japan brutalized the Chinese. The list goes on and on. Corruption is human trait, it has nothing to do with climate, which for you is a thinly veiled euphemism for race.

Hannibal's elephants were almost entirely African, with I think a single Indian elephant.

John:
I wouln't write off Publius so readily.
Certainly the Swiss and Japanese were capable of callousness and brutality with regard to "outsiders".
But so are the overwhelming majority of societies in human history. Internal corruption, in relation to fellow "nationals" is not the same as external exploitativeness.

Some spectacularly nasty-to-others cultures are capable of considerable internal cohesion; and are probably all the more effective against external enemies/victims because of it.
Scandinavian Vikings one pre-modern example. I'm no expert in the field, but Incas likely qualify as well.
Or the Dutch; models of citizenship in Holland, formidable defenders of their lands, and ruthless predators overseas.

The question of differing levels of social solidarity is interesting. I don't think an environment-based hypothesis is necessary or particularly useful, but if you want to make one that hardly implies racism.

Diamond draws a distinction between taming animals (capturing and training) and domesticating them (breeding them for human use). Hannibal's elephants were tamed but not domesticated. To this day, Asian elephants used as beasts of burden, etc., are tamed but not domesticated, Diamond says, because of the long maturation time of elephants.

I'm about halfway through the book at present, reading about writing. Here's where the rubber hits the road, for the first time in the book, I think. All the foodstuffs/domesticated animals ideas seem pretty reasonable, including domestication of corn for the reason LizardBreath gave way up the thread (and to belabor his/her point, I might add that I doubt it would've been the FIRST crop native Mesomericans would've tried to domesticate but rather one they shrugged and started on once they realized that plant domestication was even possible and useful, just as we today continue to try to domesticate plants and animals untouched in the past because we know the process). He points out in the preface, IIRC, that he wanted to go as far back as possible to find reasons for some cultures' successes - back long before the cultures themselves even began to arise - because he rejected the notion that there were inherent genetic differences (that mattered in terms of intelligence or inventiveness) between populations, based on his experiences in New Guinea.

But maybe once you lay the groundwork, once you've taken advantage of the raw materials your particular environment provides for domestication, chance steps in. In the writing chapter, he posits only 2-4 independent inventions of writing, with all other written languages coming about as a result of, at minimum, the knowledge that SOMEone near you was recording symbols that corresponded to speech in some way (the knowledge that it can be done, and is worth the effort, which he terms "idea diffusion"). He says that only societies with food production (which must include food storage) could or did build up surpluses sufficient to support "specialists" who didn't contribute to food production at all, such as rulers, soldiers, and scribes, but then why writing arose in only those 2-4 places (Sumer, Mesoamerica, maybe China, maybe Egypt) rather than in every place with a full suite of food production going - that might've been luck, mightn't it?

I anticipate more of the same as I get into his discussions of other technology: he'll continue to tout the head start some peoples had by means of their environmental advantages, and those head starts will add up, and add up, and add up, and when by happy chance the right innovator appears in the right place with all those head starts bringing it to the right time, wham, gunpowder. If the innovator appears too early, maybe s/he never invents what's stuck in his/her brain because the foundation isn't there yet.

I sound deterministic, but what I mean is, genius counts, and geniuses come in all types and with all kinds of limitations.

While Diamond may (or may not, given the criticisms made above) make a compelling case for why Eurasia was able to develop agriculture, animal domestication, and the attendant disease immunity that allowed Eurasia to develop more quickly than Africa, Australia, and the Americas, I find his explanation for why an obscure corner of Eurasia (e.g. Europe) was able to rise up to dominate the world in the last couple of centuries (including domination of other Eurasian powers such as India and China) to be far less compelling. His explanation basically boils down to the fact that Europe had a crinkly coastline which fostered political fragmentation and competition while China's coastline was smooth which facilitated single unitary rule. Such geographical factors may indeed have played a role but it is difficult for me to see how they explain everything.

I forgot to add: back in my paleontology days, I remember discussing eyes. Earliest eyes apparently did little more than perceive light and dark - how could that be useful? Well, as the prof pointed out, it could be useful if every other critter around you couldn't even perceive that. And each successive mutation that improved the efficacy of eyes to perceive things visually would give its owner(s) an advantage over all the other poor slobs who could only see light and dark. IOW, it's useful to remember that you don't have to reach the goal in one fell swoop: even small steps (in domestication, in this case) can convey an advantage.

John F: Very thought-provoking insights, re external application of klepto-cratic absolutist rule, and its possible role in breaking down social trust relationships.

Another exception I've thought of to the "cold weather drives integrity" hypothesis: The Scottish borderlands in the 16th century. According to The Steel Bonnets (Fraser), raiding and the "protection racket" were a way of life -- indeed, the dominant "industry" of its day in that region. Even about 1700, a Scottish hero like Rob Roy MacGregor would be hard to distinguish from a modern-day gangster.

Something that emerges in The Steel bonnets is how farming, tough enough in that rocky land, became less and less productive as the farmers themselves turned to raiding: Why plow and plant if it's just going to be stolen from you anyway?
The esteem in which warrior-bandits were held in the borderland Scotland of 1650 struck me as analogous to what we still see in places like Afghanistan. Toughness and courage are principle social virtues, and plunder is seen as legitimate.

So how did the Scots wind up civilized? The English more or less hammered them into submission (although resentments still seethe today), but something I've found very intriguing is how ingenius the Scots proved to be during the industrial revolution and beyond. Invention after invention after invention have flowed from Scottish minds, and the Scots still tend to value education significantly more than do the English (where pedigree still wins privilege). Maybe the Scots saw industry and technology as a way to get over on the Englishers they tend to regard with contempt.

What this suggests, of course, is that culture must be playing a major role in development and but that cultures can be very adaptable.

As a Swiss citizen, I can assure you that police is needed in Switzerland and that any code of honor is a personal matter, not a universal one. Switzerland is just like any other country, it does have crime and corruption, maybe on a smaller scale, but the Swiss banks are still a safe haven for all sorts of people.

I do think that the superficial abhorrence of corruption stems from Protestantism. One of the main arguments that the Protestant movements, at least the German and the Swiss ones, had with Catholicism, was the selling of indulgences, i.e., you payed a sum of money to absolve you from any sin in the eyes of God! Now that is corruption. So, superficially, corruption is more abhorred in mainly Protestant countries. But it is a human trait and therefore does take place in any of the countries cited.

Kirk Larsen -- You are misinterpreting Diamond's idea. Diamond believes that Europe's terrain - not it's coastline - contributed to political and social diversity, while China's culture evolved over a massive plain stretching thousands of miles, which allowed a more uniform culture and political system to evolve.

Jamie,

wham, gunpowder.

Which happens in China, though Europe winds up conquering China rather than vice versa. The great failing of GG&S is explaining why the western edge of Eurasia came out on top rather than some other part.

Capitaine Janvier: I am aware that there is a very effective Swiss police force, but I also notice that the Swiss self-regulate to a remarkable degree. A small detail: Seeing pedestrians in Zurich wait on the sidewalk for the signal to change, even when no cars are coming and there's not a cop in sight. In New York, we'd just go as soon as there's a break in the traffic. In Rome they just go despite the traffic (and park anywhere they damn please, too).

I've thought about the Protestant connection, too, but it's only partially satisfying (at least in terms of the message being the driver of behavior). There's a big difference between the expected rate of corruption, say, in Catholic Mexico versus Catholic Bavaria. A valid question to me is why the reformation philosophy (Luther, Hus, Calvin) fell on such receptive ears in Switzerland and Scotland, but not, for instance, in Sicily.
And why were Northern Germans willing to put up with Luther's sour pus call to righteousness while Bavarians stuck with papery and pilsner?

Steve Sailer (who definitely DOES believe in the relevance of IQ to differences in productivity) has the following article on Jared Diamond:

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050724_diamond.htm

He covers most of the topics mentioned by commenters. I was especially interested by the fact that a South African domesticated (or just "tamed"?) ostriches "by the millions" in the nineteenth century.

Publius,

The Scots and Swiss had plenty of fighting going on over religion. I believe that Knox thought it proper to persecute Catholics, and I believe that Zwighli institgated a few riots as well.

I would agree that it is difficult to paint Catholic societies as inherintly more corrupt, though it is apparent that this is the case (albeit, comparing South American countries to Western European countries has its own problems). The issue here would be the uniformity of applied justice. I'm tempted to posit that in Bavaria, this was the case (why, I'm not sure. . .), whereas in mafia-influenced Italy, that wasn't the case (noting that organized crime can arise regardless of (ir)religiosity).
This also takes into consideration how applicable the laws are to the favored groups (ie, nobility, members of ethnic, racial or religious groups, etc.). This latter part is probably a huge detriment to Islamic societies, where Muslims have advantages over non-Muslims, in areas such as court testimony. Sharia effectively marginalizes significant portions of the population.

A couple of points re GG&S. It is politically correct (and therefore expedient), but disingenuous and intellectually dishonest of Diamond to rule out genetics out of hand. It's an unpopular notion, but geographically-defined groups differ enough genetically to have their own genetic diseases to which they are peculiarly prone (e.g., Tay-Sachs, familial dysautonomia, beta-thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia), different skeletal structures (viz. forensic pathology and anthropology), different abilities (e.g., Kenyan long distance runners (subscription required, unfortunately), Andean natives ) and (obviously) different appearances. So different groups do differ genetically – no two ways about it, and probably differed even more when groups lived in greater isolation than they do now.

Furthermore, genetics can influence behavior, as is indisputable on consideration of retrievers, pointers, pit bulls, and sheepdogs, whose behavior is clearly not entirely learned. So, as a matter of logic, one cannot exclude genetics as a potential factor in the behavior of humans either. Propensities toward, e.g., cooperation or aggression obviously could affect the rate at which a group of people make progress. (A dog sled pulled by a team of golden retrievers would work fine – just throw a tennis ball out in front of them and hold on (!) – one of pit bulls would probably end up with a single survivor.)

Having said that, collective learned behavior (i.e., culture) beyond question plays a huge role, but that begs the question – what determined the culture in the first place? Some of that is happenstance, similar to why l- but (generally) not d-amino acids are found in biology, and some of it is geography, but the possibility cannot be excluded that some of it results from a non-zero integral over the genetically-influenced behavioral predispositions of that group.

I know many may become apoplectic on reading this, so let me state my point in a single sentence:

The possibility that the collective behavior of groups includes a genetic contribution cannot be excluded on the evidence.

I would appreciate it if any and all taking issue with this post would address that sentence (and let me thank all in advance for not putting words in my mouth).

Now, let the flames begin…

Roger: Doesn't a lot depend on when, exactly, you decide to stop the turning of history's wheel for close examination? If it were 1300 today, it would clear that Mongol supremacy was the fore-ordained natural order of things. Some would say it was superior Mongol genes that resulted in the world's largest empire. Some would say it was the unique geography of planal eastern Eurasia. Others that it was the deadly cavalry of the ponies native to the steppes. (Can't get those llamas out of my head!) Or the technology of the short bow.

Six hundred years from now, America's coming and going might look like a fart in a hurricane next to the grand sweep of Chinese history.

Publius: I wait at red lights, too. I am Swiss, but live in Austria, so I do cross them occasionally. There just is a higher pressure to conform in Switzerland. Your garden must be absolutely well tended and your house spotless. Else there will be talk about you. There aren't that many big cities in Switzerland and they aren't all that big, either. So, you have mostly rural communities regulating their members tightly. That's still ingrained in the Swiss people, even if they live in Zurich.

Now, about Bavaria and all that. There were wars. Continued and brutal wars. Hus and his followers were murdered by the Austrians. And Germany was laid to waste until the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, oh and afterwards, too. However, the Peace of Augsburg did not mean religious freedom, no, whoever ruled a country - and Germany was split into many, many principalities then - also had the say over what religion its people should have. So, if your prince was Catholic, you had to be Catholic too, or leave. The rulers of Bavaria were Catholic and stayed Catholic.

There were Protestants in the Netherlands, as well. They were at war with Spain, also in the 16th century, but won a kind of compromise, one part became Protestant and independent, one stayed Catholic and under Spanish rule. And then there were the Huguenots in France, who were prosecuted under the Catholic kings, also in the 16th and especially in the 17th century. They emigrated into the surrounding Protestant countries, but also as far as North America. So - if the Protestants didn't win the war, the country stayed Catholic. And where Catholic rule was very strong, heretics were prosecuted, emigrated or were killed - burned at the stake - and that's why Sicily and Spain and Portugal and Italy and Austria stayed Catholic. These countries were also linked together, their rulers were related to each other and married each other, etc. Sicily was always either Spanish or Austrian, anyway until much later.

Where there are courts of princes, kings and emperors, there is corruption. Where there are proto-democratic governments, there is corruption, too, surely, but probably less.

Doesn't a lot depend on when, exactly, you decide to stop the turning of history's wheel for close examination? If it were 1300 today, it would clear that Mongol supremacy was the fore-ordained natural order of things.

A minor quibble, to start: by 1300 the Mongol empire was already collapsing. The high point of the Mongol empire was 1259, ending with Mongke's death (not too impressive considering that Genghis Kahn didn't even begin conquering his neighbors until 1210).

But that aside, the Mongols of the time were viewed pretty much for what they were: militarily successful barbarians. People might argue that their *military* success was inevitable, and they'd pretty much be right to do so (G.K. was da man). But they didn't have any cultural success to point to.

Six hundred years from now, America's coming and going might look like a fart in a hurricane next to the grand sweep of Chinese history

Unlikely. In a worst-case scenario we'll end up lumped in with the "grand sweep" of Anglosphere history, which quite frankly makes Chinese history look pretty lame in comparison, accomplishments-wise.

The issue of domestication is something Diamond doesn’t really get to grips with other than saying some animals are suitable and others aren’t. There is a fairly plausible theory around that Diamond was aware of because the book (by Budianky, The Call of the Wild) is in his bibliography, but whether he omitted it for reasons of space or disagreement is not clear.

This theory rests on the notion that domestic animals are juvenile versions of their wild counterparts. This is seen in both shape (dogs look like immature or even feat wolves, wild calves are hornless etc) and also their behaviour (young animals tend to mix with other species including humans without fear and only become afraid when fully grown). So you domesticate animals by selecting for those with juvenile traits which extend into adulthood.

Now where this links in Eurasian dominance is that you will find animals with juvenile traits lingering into adulthood in places where they are extending into new ranges and resources are plentiful. In these instances there are definite advantages to maturing earlier so you can breed faster. This contrasts with places where resources are scarce and a better strategy is to breed slowly and reach maturity more slowly, meaning competition for resources is lessened. The former is Eurasia at the end of the ice age and the latter Africa.

So this theory suggests that humans and animals started extending their range simultaneously as the ice retreated and humans were thus exposed to a range of animals with juvenile traits that could be domesticated. There was no such exposure in Africa and in North America it appears that by the time humans had got into the place the animals had occupied their niches and thus were no longer selecting for juvenile traits.

The mechanism for this was not of course stone age geneticists but rather a simple one of breeding animals that were happy to be around you and killing or driving away those who weren’t. The key point is that there were such animals in Eurasia and were not in Africa.

A previous poster mentioned the Russian fox experience. This was on a fur farm so unlimited food and hence juvenile traits can emerge. What they did was simply start selectively breeding from those foxes that were tamest. Within 5 or 6 generations I believe they started to produce foxes with multi colour coats and which barked, both of which are traits of dogs and fox pups but not adults.

So if this theory is correct, lamas were never going to be domesticable but presumably the Norht American horses would have been if the Indians had got there quite a bit earlier.

Diamond is an idiot. He is a materialistic determinist. When the Polos returned from China one of the things they observed that caused them to be widely disbelieved was that most adult Chinese had all or most of their teeth. This was certainly NOT true in Europe of the time. The Chinese had learned (probably from the Hindus) that if one masticated the twigs of certain plants and used the mashed end to clean your teeth and a pick to clean between them your teeth would not rot. In Europe the Church thought that any intrusion into the body was sacrilege-if G-d hadn't wanted teeth to rot then they wouldn't. That is why dissection of a human corpse was a death penalty offence. Yet the Chinese NEVER invented the germ theory (WHY teeth rot). In the Chinese conceptual universe the questions about causality of this type were NOT QUESTIONS. One could find examples of this type beyond number.

Another obvious example is the Chinese exploration of the East African coast in the (8th? century). The Chinese took NO ethnographic notes, collected NO biological specimans for study, established NO trade relations, etc. Why not? Because China was the "Middle Kingdom", literally the place supended between heaven and earth. In this world view there was NOTHING a barbarian could teach a Chinese and nothing a barbarian had that a Chinese could want. They took some animals to show the Emperor, a few native chiefs kowtowed to the image of the Emperor or his representative and they left. They did not return for 700 years. When the Europeans explored the coast of Africa almost every literate person involved took notes, sketches, samples of plants, animals, minerals, etc. These types of behaivors are culturally determined. They have very little to do with material circumstances. One last thought- the Dutch with 17 million people translate more technical material into Dutch then 360 million people do who speak Arabic do into Arabic-again it is CULTURE.

Wolfs and dogs: The further back in prehistory you go the more wolflike dogs get. The oldest possible dog remains are of an animal 60,000 years old that is so wolflike it is thought in some circles to have been a wolf.

Domesticating zebras: Do a google on the phrase "horse whispering". The last time I did the resulting list included a number of zebra breeder sites. People who breed, train, and sell zebras. We are already domesticating the zebra.

Western Europe: It helps that England and France were unified under one ruler fairly early. The fact that neither country had any serious rival other than the other meant they could focus on their rival. No serious challenge outside a single enemy, and a rivalry with that enemy.

England's defeat at the hands of France meant England would not be engaging in many European adventures. At the same time, England's desire to prevent France from dominating the continent meant England would sponsor and support France's enemies.

At the same time France proved singularly inept when it came to conquering or merely dominating Europe. France provided an incentive for other Western European nations to consolidate their feces, while providing them the time they needed. Between French ineptitude and English interference France lost any chance she might have had to become the successor to Rome.

At the same time it did provide an impetus to both France and England to find any advantage they could over their foe. Advantages other polities adopted since it gave them something to use against France. And later their other neighbors.

Bison: Ask anybody who works with bison and they will tell you that bison are friendly, docile, and dumb. In any intellectual contest between a bison and a rock, bet on the rock. Compared to bison any cow is Albert Einstein.

Llamas: Take a look at the geography and topography or South America. Llamas are high altitude animals. They are found in the Andes. They might have been introduced into the Argentine pampas, but things didn't progress that far before the Spaniards showed up.

Now take a close look at Andean topography. Given the level of social and technological development in the area in pre-columbian times roads were simply not worth people's time. Without roads the ground is simply too rough for primitive wheels. The llama as pack animal is more useful than the llama as a draft animal in such conditions. Given a few centuries at a high population density it's possible things might have changed, but the peoples of the Andes never got those centuries.

Finally, maize: It is possible the necessary mutation that produce what we know call corn occured a lot earlier.

Y'know, I can't help but feel the cause of Diamond's hypothetical Indian cavalrymen might been helped a little bit more *if the American Indians hadn't hunted the horse to extinction in the first place*. :P

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/05/0511_ancienthorses.html

So much for Mr. Diamond's "It was all a matter of luck" hypothesis! ^_~

wham, gunpowder.

Which happens in China, though Europe winds up conquering China rather than vice versa. The great failing of GG&S is explaining why the western edge of Eurasia came out on top rather than some other part.

Diamond attempts to address the "Why not China?" question in his epilogue to the edition I'm reading (I skipped to the back to see how it all came out), and his answer is, in essence, culture. Specifically, he points to a political decision made at court in China, at the time when sea exploration by China could have outstripped European efforts: one isolationist faction was able to stop all exploration (because China was unified - and I take it from the comments of others, though I haven't reached this chapter yet, that Diamond believes China's early unification had to do with its geography), versus in Europe where Columbus, spurned by the Italian court, just hit up Spain instead - and then luck comes into play and the New World is "discovered."

I'm beginning to think that the problem with the book is simply that its scope is overlarge. He seems on firm ground where domestication is concerned. About zebras: we're not "already" domesticating zebras; we're finally domesticating zebras. I'd go right along with Diamond about suitable candidates: hunters/gatherers would select and bring back candidates that already had some characteristics they needed or wanted, and then decide about the worth of a breeding program based on things like the level of effort and time involved in caring for the immature animals/aggressive males/whatever, in the case of animals, and reasonably consistent germination/breeding true/whatever, in the case of plants. Today, knowing how to domesticate (starting with knowing that it can be done at all) and with much technology to assist us, we have leisure to select bad candidates and make the most of them, for purposes early domesticators didn't have or had already served with easier candidates. It's almost a "hobby" now rather than a survival strategy.

But we're not just products of our environment, and that's where his premise gets tenuous (and maybe where the book ought to have stopped?).

Actually, luck is something I mentioned, that Diamond pretty much excludes serendipity or accident from his account. Yet, one of the things that comparative studies of chimpanzee troops in the wild is suggesting is that one of the ways chimp groups diverge culturally from one another has to do with something rather like luck, contingent events which arbitrarily occur in one group rather than another. A chimp who tries something odd that works, which the others imitate. A 'charismatic' senior male who leads in a particular, non-inevitable or predetermined direction. etc. I strongly suggest that this is vastly more true with humans--that some of the things which appear to be large, structured, deterministic differences between societies or communities in human history may depend on very small, accidental or lucky initial divergences. Indeed, I think that's one of the insights that a lot of complexity theory and the idea of "emergence" bring to the table of causality, that very large structural differences can derive from small and effectively randomly divergent initial conditions.

Jamie,

Thanks for the heads up. I read GG&S when it first came out and I'm not sure that epilogue was there. It sounds a lot like what William McNeill says in his fascinating and well-written The PUrsuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force and Society since A.D. 1000 (1982).

Also excellent (and a major source for Diamond) is his Plagues and Peoples (1976).

The diversity of countries and companies in Europe as opposed to China is one of the themes of Nathan Rosenberg' and L.E. Birdzell's How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World (1986), which holds up remarkably well after almost 2 decades.

A question regarding domestication of pack/riding animals: are they believed to have initially been bred for that purpose? Or were they kept as livestock (for food, leather, etc) and then only later, after they'd been somewhat domesticated, used as pack animals?

It seems likely to me that they were first kept as livestock, because that use would have been obvious to people of the time in a way that selective breeding of animals wouldn't. Plus, "if I pen up this animal and feed it today, I can eat it this winter" appeals in a way that "if I pen up this animal and feed it today, a few hundred years from now my distant descendants will have something nice to ride on" doesn't.

Regarding China -- it always seemed to me to be a bit odd to say "China would have been the #1 power in the world if it hadn't turned inwards". It seems to me that China only pulled ahead in the first place because of the Roman Empire's self-inflicted problems. The corruption and collapse of the Roman system would seem to be a much larger setback than what China faced, but it doesn't seem to get the same attention.

The refusal to examine the roles of Christianity and then Protestant Christianity in determining the big economic winners of history is just totally asinine. Christianity may not have created the rule of law, it certainly created the conditions for the rule of law to win over the traditional order in the battle of the memes. Protestant Christianity created individualism - it created the conditions necessary for large numbers of people to look on the world as something that can and should be reshaped to fit their needs. These two things combine to create prosperity. Maybe now that particular cultural stream seems to have run out we're about to get spanked by hypernationalist Maoists but I have a feeling that if some version of the Calvinist fire that has burned under millions of white asses doesn't get resparked under asses of all colors, we're not going to be entering a Chinese-dominated millenium; we're just going to start a long slide back into another Dark Ages. All forms of collectivism are economic disasters and thus far only Protestant Christianity has provided the memes to allow people to pursue their own interests while still maintaining a society.

Protestant Christianity created individualism - it created the conditions necessary for large numbers of people to look on the world as something that can and should be reshaped to fit their needs.

With all due respect to the Protestants, the Greeks were embracing individualism and natural philosophy centuries before the birth of Christ, and the better part of two thousand years before the first Protestants appeared. So, no, Christianity doesn't get credit for those things.

And their embrace was sooooo sucessful at propagating those ideas across a wide area and over a long time. Oh wait, no, it wasn't. It took the military might of other cultures and the religious obsession of still others with crumbly texts to do that.

And their embrace was sooooo sucessful at propagating those ideas across a wide area and over a long time

Well actually, yes, their ideas were propagating quite nicely. Then they were crushed by Christianity, which taught slavish obedience to the One True Way of thinking.

So giving Christianity credit for individualism and human control over nature is something of a sick joke. We'd likely have had democracies and industrial revolutions a hundreds of years earlier if it wasn't for the church's "help".

We'd likely have had democracies and industrial revolutions a hundreds of years earlier if it wasn't for the church's "help".

You're absolutely right, Dan, as demonstrated by the fact that democracy came hundreds of years earlier in non-Christian parts of the world than in Christian parts.

What? It didn't? [Emily Littela voice] Never mind.

You're absolutely right, Dan, as demonstrated by the fact that democracy came hundreds of years earlier in non-Christian parts of the world than in Christian parts

Post hoc fallacy. Democracy came to white people long before it came to blacks, too; does that mean that we developed democracy first because we're white?

I tend to think the intersection of luck and genius has much to do with the independent creation of writing systems, for example, but it would seem that a much larger suite of cultural factors has to be in place before a lasting democracy can arise and spread.

That said, Western-style democracy has to be chalked up to idea diffusion too, since a nascent form of democracy plainly existed, and was known by Western democracy's shining lights to exist, in ancient times. I wonder whether its success in the modern world has anything to do with its ancient origins' also being known by its opponents, or those neutral to it... The Britons, for instance, wouldn't have known diddly about the Athenians, so they'd have had to create democracy independently if it were to exist in their time. Much easier to spread an idea than to have the same idea.

Hannibal's elephants were indeed elephants from Africa (with at least one exception being Indian), but the sources are quite clear that these elephants were smaller than Indian elephants, which confused scholars for a long time. It's now clear that Hannibal's elephants were the now-extinct type known as the North African forest elephant, not the much larger and apparently far more fierce and independent sub-Saharan species.

Dan, Dan, Dan,

I didn't say that democracy came first to Christian nations because they were Christian. I am basically agnostic about that question.

What I tried to do was point out that your theory that Christianity makes democracy come later had to deal with "non-confirming" data.

What I tried to do was point out that your theory that Christianity makes democracy come later had to deal with "non-confirming" data.

What non-conforming data? I said that the Greeks originated concepts like individualism and democracy and the Church suppressed them. The fact that these ideas took even *longer* to come to areas that were never influenced by the Greeks at all in the first place is entirely consistent with my claim.

Justin,

How else to explain the fact that the middle east was once the leader in world civilization and is now stuck in the third world? The only logical answer is Islam.

I believe someone else in this thread also made reference to the question of how much do genetics influence culture and vice versa.

You point to Islam, and I'm sure that you're correct in large part, but consider that Islamic countries have some of the highest consanguinity rates in the world. See here:

Birth incidence of malformations in Egyptian newborns ranges between 1.16 and 3.17%. The frequency of malformations at birth showed that CNS malformations were the most common (9.33/1000). Studies of parental consanguinity in the Egyptian population showed a frequency ranging from 20 to 42%. Parental consanguinity rates in groups of Egyptian patients with various birth defects were high suggesting a high rate of autosomal recessive disorders related to other patterns of inheritance.

Or here:

This study was conducted on 3212 Saudi families to investigate the prevalence of consanguineous marriages. The families were interviewed and the information on the relationship between the husband and wife was obtained. The overall rate of consanguinity shows that 57.7% of the families screened were consanguineous. The most frequent were first cousin marriages (28.4%) followed by distant relative marriages (15.2%) and second cousin marriages (14.6%). The families were grouped according to the province of their origin and the consanguinity rates were calculated accordingly. There were slight differences in the consanguinity rates in the five provinces, which ranged from 52.1% to 67.7%.

I could go on listing all sorts of studies like this but these links should give you some additional information to model into your thesis. If you want more of the same, go to my blog where we blog on this kind of stuff regularly.

How much did Islam institutionalize the practice of cousin marriage when the West was delegitimizing the same practice? Further, the practice of cousin marriage differs between what we see in the West and the kind practiced in the Middle East, in that in the West it is very, very rare to see it practiced across multiple generations where that is a more common cultural practice in the Middle East.

All one needs to do is dig around in PubMED for the effects on cognition from inbreeding and apply the findings to populations.

For those who are uncomfortable with the idea that there are any genetic causes of differential outcomes, perhaps they would be more willing to entertain the hypothesis that cultural practices can, and do, have significant genetic impact on groups.

Culture matters.

Genetics matter.

They can become intertwined.

Jared Diamond used to believe that human bio-diversity was worthy of study, going so far as to advocate more study was needed on ethnic differences in Testis Size, however, with GG&S he created a "Just So" story that purposely avoids powerful explanatory variables so as to appeal to the PC vision of sanitized science.

In response to the animal breeding criticisms, readers may find this study on Fox domestication to be of some interest:

But that wasn't the only change. Breeding foxes to strengthen a single behavioural trait also brought about a wide variety of physical changes seen in many animals that become domesticated.

Their coat colour, used among wild foxes as camouflage, changed. Irregular splotches of white fur appeared in the domesticated foxes. Their ears became floppy, replacing the straight ones of wild foxes. Their tails began to roll, similar to those in some dog breeds. Their tails also became shorter as did their legs. And although the geneticists didn't select for size, the domesticated foxes were slightly longer on average. Their craniums also changed so that the males became somewhat feminized and both sexes became more dog-like.

Reproductive cycles were also affected. The domesticated foxes reach sexual maturity a month earlier than non-domesticated foxes do and give birth to litters that are, on average, one pup larger. Even the brain chemistry among the docile foxes changed. Compared with a control group, their brains contained higher levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter thought to inhibit animals' aggressive behaviour.

"Evidently, selecting foxes for domestication may have triggered profound changes in the mechanisms that regulate their development," writes Trut in her paper. "If our experiments should continue, and if fox pups could be raised and trained the way dog puppies are now, there is no telling what sort of animal they might one day become."

The point I wish to stress is that by selecting for one behavioral trait there are unforeseen evolutionary changes that can result that are completely disparate from the selected trait. There is nothing in human biology which prevents the same process from working on isolated reproductive groups.

If culture shapes reproductive strategies, then the outcomes between groups can result in genetic diversity.

Dan,

Greek democracy had been well suppressed by war, social problems, and the Roman Empire centuries before Constantine's famous conversion make the Roman Catholic Church the official church of the Empire.

It then took democracy well over 1,500 years to have much of a footprint in the world. And the data say that all the early democracies were countries where most of the people called themselves Christians.

Now, this doesn't disprove the idea that Christianity kept democracy back for several centuries. But it certainly isn't confirming data either.

Greek democracy had been well suppressed by war, social problems, and the Roman Empire centuries before Constantine's famous conversion make the Roman Catholic Church the official church of the Empire

I said that Christianity stamped out the ideas of democracy and individualism, not that it stamped out democratic government. I'm well aware that Greece and Rome had ceased being democracies before the church came along. But even under the Roman empire, the philosophical insights of the early philosophers had survived and spread.

In order to grow and prosper, democracy needs (a) a philosophical foundation and (b) a middle class, or at least a trade class of non-aristocracy with enough monetary and/or political power to coerce concessions from the nobility. Christianity, through its enthusiastic support for the system of feudal oppression that followed the collapse of Rome, helped delay that day by at least half a millennium.

On the philosophical front, meanwhile, Christianity taught that it was sinful to even think of disobeying the will of the church. Which wouldn't have been so bad if Christian churches had been preaching that feudalism was bad and democracy was good, but they didn't start doing that consistently until the late 19th century, long after the revolution had been started without them. The truth is that nothing Christ or Paul ever said could be taken as an indication that political self-determination was particularly important. Christ wasn't concerned with who held earthly power, because it wasn't theologically relevant to the fate of their souls. That is the lesson of the "render unto Caesar" story.

Agriculture a disaster? Is Jared Diamond perhaps a member of the secret society called the Straw Men? This group, which features in the wonderful thriller/SF novels of Michael Marshall (latest: The Lonely Dead), believes civilisation to be an unmitigated disaster for the human race, which ought properly to be devoted to its natural calling: wholesale slaughter.

On the philosophical front, meanwhile, Christianity taught that it was sinful to even think of disobeying the will of the church.

True. And hardly different from any official church. But, of course, it didn't work--that whole Protestant Reformation thing with it's idea that "every man is a priest," that every person was supposed to know God individually.

One thing that struck me as kind of ... weird ... about GGS is Diamond's near-deification of the peoples of New Guinea. After stating his thesis that he was trying to disprove the evil racist notion that Euros are genetically superior to (whomever), he then says, essentially, "wow, if not for the accident of living on this crappy island, these New Guineaites would 0wnz us all". It was kind of a jarring start to the book.

If you've read GGS, you should read the unofficial companion volume, Victor Davis Hanson's "Carnage and Culture", where he argues the opposite point: that it is culture, not geography, that decides who gets ahead. Apparently Hanson, who is perhaps the supreme Western Civ apologist active today, read GGS and got, well, pissed off. Hence C&C. (He makes a couple swipes at Diamond, especially when talking about how Cortez started making gunpowder in Mexico City from entirely local materials a mere 1 year after the conquest)

My book club read the two back to back and we've been chewing on them for months now.

True. And hardly different from any official church. But, of course, it didn't work

Well obviously it didn't work *forever*, but it certainly worked for many, many centuries. If it had worked forever we wouldn't even be having this conversation, because I'd have been burned as a heretic years ago. :)

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