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[kaijyuu]

So I just learned that Sean Hannity is a comic book superhero.

[penguinofhonor]

I'm going to have to pirate that somehow. It's too ridiculous to not be read.

[Furtuka]

Penguin thread seems to have been inexplicably locked?

[kaijyuu]

Wasn't me that did it D:

[Aklyon]

Ah well. Twas fun.

[penguinofhonor]

No bannings or anything, though, so yay there! We had our fun, everyone got some new avatars, nobody got hurt. That's the best I could ask for.

[GlyphGryph]

Definitely a mystery though. Huh.

But yeah, I got to make a ton of stuff, and it spawned quite a few wonderful little side tangents so I'm I'm fine with it being closed.

[Lord Dullard]

Probably it was a little too similar to some of the more spammy VN threads for Toady's taste. I wouldn't know for sure, because I never participated in such things back then, but... that would be my best guess. I suppose an explanation would be nice but it's not really that important, TBH.

[Flying Dice]

Eh, that was good timing. Felt like we were starting to beat a dead -hem- horse.

[jc6036]

So the penguins are ending now?

*jc put's his leopard seal avatar in a felt lined case, protecting it for later use*

Was a good run. No idea who VN is though. I guess I just have'nt been here long enough.

[kaijyuu]

VN = Various Nonsense. It was a forum from long before my time, filled with, well, various nonsense.

[Furtuka]

VN is the Legendary Lost Subforum, sunken in the waves of time eons ago, as punishment for breaking the law as set down by The Great Toad.

[jc6036]

VN = Various Nonsense. It was a forum from long before my time, filled with, well, various nonsense.

That's nice to know. I guess.

[FearfulJesuit]

Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel may be one of the most overrated and uninformed books in the social sciences ever written. Diamond's historical analysis is considerable in regard to the differences in human development over time and place; however, his explanations as to why these vast differences occured is superficial at best. It is obvious that the author is searching for causes that fit into his theory, yet are nothing more than loosely related correlations. Clearly, the author has set out to explain away the differences in human development as a result of anything but intelligence. His ideology of and unspoken belief in equality of races will not allow him to assert anything that suggests that intelligence plays any role in the monumental differences in human development that span centuries and even millenia across the globe. He rests his arguments on many claims that are absurd. He does not even address the work of other accomplished academics that contradict his entire theory, such as Richard Lynn's IQ and Global Inequality or Herrnstein's The Bell Curve. Challenging the work of other academics is critical to establishing credibility of any scientific work and this proves that Diamond is a pseudo-scientist afraid of criticism.

In the first few chapters, Diamond dismisses IQ tests as outside the realm of science without any explanation whatsoever. Nevermind that no evidence exists to disprove the validity of IQ tests, that IQ tests have consistently shown comparable results across time, countries, cultures, and methods, even when adjusting for cultural differences. I guess his liberal philosophies place him too far up the righteous tower to bother countering the one thing that undermines the entire foundation of his work. Instead, he makes the outrageous claim that indigenous cultures are superior to European cultures, given that they are more 'aware of their surroundings', whatever that means. I hardly think that peoples who had no written languages, no paper or printing press, no means to disseminate or accumulate knowledge, no methods of exploration or discovery, and no understanding of science or technology are much aware of their surroundings in any respect. Typical of leftist social scientists, these kinds of unproven claims make Diamond come across as 'worshipping the other', putting the cultures of the indigenous on an untouchable pedestal while at the same time despising the cultures that made the knowledge and publication of this book even possible.

Most of Diamond's claims are easily disproven by anyone with a rudimentary background in history and social science or even a basic notion of logic and reason. Diamond asserts that differences in geography and climate mostly accounted for the divergences in development. It was these conditions, he argues, that allowed for fertile soil, harvesting of crops which necessitated the arrival of domesticated animals, and the creation of technologies that facilitated these functions, the most obvious being the wheel. Apparently, those cultures that evolved out of hot, arrid climates such as the Middle East, Africa, parts of South America, and Australia had no means to develop agricultural practices which was largely a foundation for building more complex, political societies. This is all an interesting correlation but hardly causation. Here Diamond shines in his depiction of how societies diverged, but his failure to comprehend obvious outstanding examples is where he comes up short. For one, white Europeans have adapted to all hostile environments known to man. From the deserts of Nevada and Southwestern United States to the Australian outback to Antarctica and the North Pole, Europeans have mastered these geographies and produced some of the richest societies on Earth there where the indigenous populations had produced absolutely nothing. Why the limitations of environment and geography were easily overcome by Europeans but not others is not adequately explained by Diamond. He only delves into the applications of technologies as a mechanism for adapting to various terrains, while never getting to the real origin of why those technologies and tools were discovered and applied in the first place: intelligence.

The other obvious counterargument to Diamond's pseudo-science is the lack of development of Native Americans despite occupying some of the most arable land on Earth for thousands of years. North America is bursting with resources, metals, and indigenous domestic animals of all kinds, and yet the natives never even invented the wheel. This completely contradicts Diamond's theory, which if held up to any serious academic scrutiny by credible scientists, would never even approach the authority of publication. The obvious conclusion is that the environment is not an obstacle to an intelligent race. Searching for 'a better way of doing things' is not universal among races. Had the different races been equally intelligent, there would not be a gap in human development that spans hundreds of years, especially now during an age of globalism.

One of my favorite examples from the book, which Diamond regards as illustrative of how the application of technology influenced European expansion, comes from his analysis of the Battle of Cajamarca in 1532. Here Diamond attempts to show that the application of various metals resulting in swords and shields, combined with the domestication of the horse, allowed 169 Spaniards to vanquish an army of 80,000 natives in South America. To be sure, the superior technology and advantage of horses aided in their victory. Which all came about because of European's fertile soil and access to trade, etc. the author claims. Yet there have been numerous cases throughout history where less advanced armies have defeated superior enemies, such as the Picts defeat of the Romans or the Russian defeat of Germany. In the case of the Spaniards being outnumbered nearly 500 to 1, superior technology was certainly not the cause of their victory. Rather, superior intelligence combined with tactics, strategy, and organization were more important factors.

Like most social scientists in the unapproachable high towers of academics, Diamond subscribes to the underlying philosophy that all things being equal, the same results would have occured no matter what race or cultures had possession of greater means which is completely false. An England full of Africans is still England. A Mexico full of Guatemalans is still Mexico. The world's population is just interchangable. Had Africans or Australian aborigines the proper conditions, it would have been they who sailed to Europe and exported their cultures rather than the other way around. Yet Diamond can't even see the obvious: all over the world, where Europeans settled in large numbers, prosperity and quality of life followed, along with continous progress in technology and economic growth. Today, wherever large numbers of those from developing nations congregate, the opposite occurs in nearly every single case in every developed country despite equal opportunity. Clearly, it is intelligence that results in these differences in development, not some accident of origin in geographic relation to resources. The question should be why did Europeans develop the advantages in the first place despite similar geographic obstacles, not why did those advantages contribute to developmental differences.

If you're looking for a good history of human development, industry, and technology, this book may be for you. If you're looking for credible, solid science proving how the differences in prosperity and development across the globe came to exist - why Africans live in mud huts while Europeans fly to the moon - then you are in for serious disappointment.

[Skyrunner]

So many errors, cannot address them all xD