Guns, Germs on Page 20,

Guns, Germs

On page 20, Jared Diamond claims that "From the very beginning of my work with New Guineans, they impressed me as being on the average more intelligent, more alert, more expressive...than the average European or American is." The author substantiates his claim with two main reasons. First, Diamond refers to genetics, noting that "natural selection promoting genes for intelligence has probably been far more ruthless in New Guinea than in more densely populated, politically complex societies, (p. 21). Europeans have been living in "densely populated societies with central governments, police and judiciaries" in which "infectious epidemic diseases" were the major cause of death (p. 20-21). Surviving an infectious disease requires the right blood type or genes, and not intelligence. Any survivor of an epidemic would pass on his or her genes to the next generation, causing genetic evolution in that society to be based on disease immunity rather than on intelligence.

In contrast, "murder, chronic warfare accidents, and problems in procuring food" were the main causes of death in traditional New Guinean society. Surviving these threats inherently demands intelligence. Mainly intelligent survivors passed on their genes to the next generation in New Guinea, creating on the whole a gene pool favoring intelligence over disease resistance.

A second reason why Diamond asserts that New Guineans are more intelligent than their European counterparts is related to lifestyle habits. As the author notes, North American children spend much of their time being passively entertained by radio, television, and movies (p. 21). New Guinean children, on the other hand, "have virtually no such opportunities for passive entertainment" and as a result become more intelligently responsive to their environment (p. 21). Diamond backs up his claim by stating that "Almost all studies of child development emphasize the role of childhood stimulation and activity in promoting mental development, and stress the irreversible mental stunting associated with reduced childhood stimulation," (p. 21). Thus, Diamond's observations regarding superior intelligence among New Guineans is due to a combination of genetic and socio-cognitive factors.

3. Proximate causes can obscure the real reasons for why some societies conquer others. Looking deeper into geographical history helps reveal the ultimate causes for why some civilizations became sedentary, tied to animal domestication and agriculture, and organized around a central government. Proximate causes are meaningful but provide only superficial explanations for the differences between societies in different parts of the world. It is important to differentiate between the two, to understand why the proximate causes arose in the first place.

The presence of guns, germs, and steel in Europe were "directly responsible for European conquests," (p. 23). However, stopping at these proximate causes as valid answers to Yali's question fails to address the overarching question of why those proximate causes arose in the first place: why Europeans developed guns, germs, and steel instead of Africans or Native Americans. Not investigating ultimate causes leaves a "big intellectual gap," according to the author (p. 24). As Diamond points out, everything worked in Africa's favor during the early stages of human evolution because Africans had a head start. A closer examination of the forces that helped shape the evolution of human societies shows that geography points to the ultimate causes and the ultimate answers to Yali's question.

7. Jared Diamond dispels commonly-held assumptions about the linear transition from hunting-gathering to farming. As Diamond points out, hunter-gatherer societies possess advantages over sedentary civilizations. In particular, Diamond points out that hunter-gatherer societies are less prone to developing disease epidemics because living in close proximity to domesticated animals gives rise to disease in humans. Hunter-gather societies are also less population dense. Population density in itself can lead to problems. For instance, sedentary living makes labor specialization possible, which also gives rise to class stratification and the evolution of "kings and bureaucrats," (Diamond p. 89). Hunter-gatherer societies are egalitarian by contrast.

Furthermore, Diamond challenges assumptions about the transition from hunting-gathering to farming by pointing out that most of the world's farmers are poor and not necessarily any better off than hunter-gatherers (p. 105). Many hunter-gather societies resisted plant and animal domestication: showing that sedentary living is not necessarily desirable. Geographically productive, abundant areas of the planet also make hunting-gathering the logical, most sensible choice.

9. Wild almonds contain cyanide: a person can die from eating only a few dozen of them (Diamond, p. 114). They taste bitter due to the presence of amygdalin, the precursor to cyanide. The chemical serves as a defense mechanism for the almond, deterring animals (and people) from eating them and better ensuring the propagation of the almond plant because the nut is its seed. As Diamond points out, if animals feasted indiscriminately on almonds they would minimize the chances that the plant would propagate itself.

However, "occasional individual almond trees have a mutation in a single gene that prevents them from synthesizing the bitter-tasting amygdalin," (p. 118). In the wild those non-bitter almond trees would die out because birds feast on their seeds before they can sprout. Children of early farmers, though, might have gladly munched on some of the sweet almonds and brought the seeds back to their parents. Any sweet almonds that were thrown aside or purposely planted would enjoy the benefits of cultivation.

The story of the oak is different even though like almonds, most wild acorns are bitter. Acorns are not poisonous, contain valuable nutrients, and the occasional oak tree produces acorns low in tannins and pleasant to eat. However, oak trees "have three strikes against them," (Diamond p. 129). First, it takes at least a decade for an acorn to mature into a tree that produces more nuts. Almond trees reach maturity in just a few years. Second, squirrels dominate the acorn market. Any seeds squirrels miss grow into oak trees, and "we humans didn't stand a chance of selecting oaks for the acorns that we wanted," (p. 129). Squirrels are fast to gather and hoard acorns. Humans have a much better chance at finding sweet wild almonds than sweet wild acorns. Third, cultivating oak trees for food is impossible because planting a sweet acorn will not yield a sweet acorn oak tree. Bitterness in oak trees is due to a multitude of genes, not a single gene as it is in almonds.