This is a new series, but also a continuation of our reading of Godel, Escher, Bach. But we're doing a new book: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.
Today we will go over the Prologue, and we will do one chapter a week.
I encourage this to be slow blogging - the very opposite of "breaking". I will leave this on my hot list for a week, so comment any time during the week.
When we get near the end of GGS, I'll start a poll for the next book
Ground rules: I expect vigorous discussion. But I expect civil discussion. A sign I saw in a restaurant said
Be nice or leave
If you want to have a flame war, go elsewhere, please.
Chapter 1 is a "whirlwind tour of human history .... until 11,000 BC". Others will know much more about this than I do, but here are some questions and comments to get us going.
- How do we decide when we became "human"? Was Homo Erectus human? Neanderthals? Cro-Magnon? Why? It is increasingly difficult to name traits that humans have and no other species has. Mark Twain said "man is the only animal that blushes ... or needs to"; Douglas Adams said that humans assume they are smarter than dolphins because we have tools, fire, industry and so on, while dolphins just play in the water and eat fish.... but dolphins think they are smarter, for the same reason!
More seriously one trait that only humans seem to have is the ability to throw things.
- JD says that Homo Erectus was "more than an ape, but much less than a modern human". This presumes the incorrect idea that evolution is teleological. Evolution is not a tree, reaching skyward, but a bush, expanding outward.
- How do we know what ancient artifacts were used for? Were the cave paintings necessarily "art" as we mean it? Were the ostrich shell beads necessarily jewelry?
Why would art be hidden in inaccessible caves?
- JD posits a "great leap forward" starting around 50,000 years ago. But was this a "leap" or simply a slow acceleration?
- JD makes a big point of showing that humans seem to be associated with the extinction of lots of other species - not just modern humans, either.
- How did early humans survive in inhospitable climes? We were in Siberia by 20,000 BC. How did we not freeze?
- JD makes the point that Timor and Tanimbar are not visible from Australia, so they must have been reached without foreknowledge that they were there. But are they visible from a point that is visible from Australia?