Germs. Guns. and Steel.

1. What are the commonly espoused answers to "Yali's question," and how does Jared Diamond address and refute each of them?

    Some common answers are that there is a biological difference between people, political and economic development, also technology. Jared Diamond proves that these could be false by comparing White immigrants in Australia who became literate, had metal tools, food production to Aborigines who were hunter/gatherers.

2. Why does Diamond hypothesize that New Guineans might be, on the average, "smarter" than Westerners?

    Diamond hypothesized that New Guineans might be smarter than westerners because of how little New Guineans rely on other people or their government to supply them with their necessities. New Guineans are self sustaining while, westerners on average, are not.

3. Why is it important to differentiate between proximate and ultimate causes?

    It’s important to differentiate between proximate and ultimate causes because the proximate is the little stuff that keeps building up the ultimate cause. The ultimate is the all mighty in a way.

4. Do you find some of Diamond's methodologies more compelling than others? Which, and why?

5. What is the importance of the order of the chapters? Why, for example, is "Collision at Cajamarca"—which describes events that occur thousands of years after those described in the subsequent chapters—placed where it is?

    It is placed where it is because each part answers Yali’s question in a way where each chapter adds on or compliments the previous one and the next.

6. How are Polynesian Islands "an experiment of history"? What conclusions does Diamond draw from their history?

    Polynesian Islands are “an experiment of history” because the trends that they came up with such as, economic specialization, social complexity, and material products, were what the world started to do. The conclusions that he draws are the same categories that came from all over the world. It was the starting point. The Polynesians were reliant on stone tools, while South America was getting into precious metal.

7. How does Diamond challenge our assumptions about the transition from hunter-gathering to farming?

    There are two key assumptions that Diamond wanted to point out. He wanted to show people that people don’t just chose to be hunter and gatherers. It was the area and the time where it took place. Also I believe that Nomadic hunters was another one. Lea brought up a good point, (well what Diamond said) It was how people lived. When enough area had enough space and resources to live and prosper were provided was when farming became what it is.

8. How is farming an "auto-catalytic" process? How does this account for the great disparities in societies, as well as for the possibilities of parallel evolution?
    Farming is an auto-catalytic process because it’s the making of a  mass supply of food and making different kinds. This causes more people to eat, more people to be born.  But when creating food or any product, things adapt and eat it. This accounts for disparities in societies by, creating diseases or ‘super bugs’, the ones that have already adapted and spread disease or cause the food to be not edible. Which then leads to starvation.

9. Why did almonds prove domesticable while acorns were not? What significance does this have?

    Almonds were domesticable because they had only one thing of dna that made them unedible, while that bad dna has more in the acorn. The significance of that is that well it’s harder to find stuff to eat. For example...I don’t think there are any almonds in maine, while there are more acorns. So that makes less of a resource for food.

10. How does Diamond explain the fact that domesticable American apples and grapes were not domesticated until the arrival of Europeans?

    The apples and grapes weren’t from America until the Europeans because of the climate. There is no way that Natives would know how to plant those or have them grow under the right conditions because they weren’t a native plant.

11. What were the advantages enjoyed by the Fertile Crescent that allowed it to be the earliest site of development for most of the building blocks of civilization? How does Diamond explain the fact that it was nevertheless Europe and not Southwest Asia that ended up spreading its culture to the rest of the world?

Well climate was a major factor. It allowed the food to grow well. The crescent contains flora which helped with pollination. Diamond said that Southwest Asia didn’t end up spreading its culture to the world because like Lea said, the communication was terrible.

*****12. How does Diamond refute the argument that the failure to domesticate certain animals arose from cultural differences? What does the modern failure to domesticate, for example, the eland suggest about the reasons why some peoples independently developed domestic animals and others did not?

    Diamond disproved that argument because he said that domestication of animals, when given the opportunity, it has been going on for years. Well house animals are a good example because they were just easy to tame, while some are not.

13. What is the importance of the "Anna Karenina principle"?
   
    The important of the “anna karenina principle” is it’s the reason why few animals were able to be domesticated. There are 6 reasons why: Diet, Growth, Problems of Captive Breeding, Disposition, Common Panic Attacks, Social Order.

14. How does comparing mutations help one trace the spread of agriculture?

    It helps to trace because you can compare where exactly a food was genetically altered, how it flourished, the conditions it endured, and what the difference actually was. It shows how different societies managed to grow the same crop, but with different techniques and style.

15. How does civilization lead to epidemics?

    Civilization leads to epidemics through evolution and adaptation. As people get more inventive and stronger, so does the world around them. Creation and curiosity is what creates epidemics because that’s what opens the door to widespread disease and other nasty germs. With a society that has never had an outbreak, their immune systems aren’t up to par and well, they would just die.

16. How does Diamond's theory that invention is, in fact, the mother of necessity bear upon the traditional "heroic" model of invention?

    Invention, the mother of necessity goes with ‘heroic’ invention because in 1942 was the start of the manhattan project. The United States needed to create an atomic bomb. This bomb was a necessity to end the war. It was a heroic invention because it was used in combat.

17. According to Diamond, how does religion evolve along with increasingly complex societies?
    Well I know that from previous knowledge that government has a huge part in religion. Whether it be forced or not. As people become more advanced and more populated so does that religion and the amount of faith.

18. How is linguistic evidence used to draw conclusions about the spread of peoples in China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Africa?

    This is one that I didn’t get. But Lea said that you can’t borrow or take another place’s language. To add on to that, these places are not in the same region, there are in different settings and an environment. For language to travel it would have to be in a close area. That’s why usually, Americans first language is English, and Italian natives, speak Italian.

19. What is the significance of the differing outcomes of Austronesian expansion in Indonesia and New Guinea?

The significance is that the Austronesians were way better off they produced food and were advanced in technology. Then the Indonesians were occupied by them. Then the Portuguese came and then the English because they wouldn’t have that. The indonesians were better off when the English came because of their production of food.

   

20. How does Diamond explain China's striking unity and Europe's persistent disunity? What consequences do these conditions have for world history?

    Well basically, China has one language. Europe on the other hand speaks many different languages and has different cultures within regions. This makes for problems throughout world history because Europe wasn’t as unified, while the Chinese were basically uniform and refined. (Also China is

21. How does Diamond refute the charge that Australia is proof that differences in the fates of human societies are a matter of people and not environment? In what other areas of the world could Diamond's argument be used?

    You can live in any environment it’s just harder in some. He says that Australian people could have chosen to do other things for gathering resources, like hunting. Other areas of the world could be Egypt because of hot, dry days, and cold nights.

22. What aspects of Diamond's evidence do lay readers have to take on faith? Which aspects are explained?

    Quite honestly, I never doubted that Diamond wasn’t making stuff up because one, he has a huge bibliography in the back, the book is so long, and that everything is proven and almost disproven. He explained why the book is called Germs, Guns, and Steel.

23. Diamond offers two tribes, the Chimbu and the Daribi, as examples of differing receptivities to innovation. Do you think he would accept larger, continent-wide differences in receptivity? Why or why not? How problematic might cultural factors prove for Diamond's arguments?

    I would think that he would accept the differences because he wrote a whole book just trying to answer Yali’s question. I think just a little, cultures are all different and won’t always go by what Diamond has said.

24. How, throughout the book, does Diamond address the issues he discusses in the last few pages of his final chapter, when he proposes a science of human history?

    Diamond, throughout the book, showed that he was a person, just trying to answer Yali’s question. He knew that he didn’t have all the answers. By using “I” throughout this book, you know that it’s only his look at things. Also when he proposes Human history he knew that there was no way that he could fit all the possible answers.