I have often asked myself, What was Jared Diamond thinking when he first learned that everything Easter Island symbolized to him might be wrong? Did the prize-winning, internationally celebrated writer ever look around at the accumulating evidence and think that maybe–just maybe–Easter Island isn’t the best metaphor for ecocide? By all indications, Diamond has not allowed such…Continue Reading…
E. O. Wilson and Jared Diamond have a few things in common. Both are ecologists, popularizers of science, famous best-selling authors, meme creators, and lately, objects of ridicule and academic rage. Let’s recall that Wilson, before he became the bard of biodiversity, had withstood a furious assault on his reputation after the publication in 1975 of…Continue Reading…
I know the climate change debate is emotionally charged, but the ugly politics and paranoid thought processes that flow from it are breathtaking. People have become so blinded by their own sense of righteousness that it often makes rational debate all but impossible. What’s doubly disappointing is when this behavior is exhibited by those who…Continue Reading…
They capture our imagination. They help frame public discourse on important issues. Just one problem: some of our most famous eco-metaphors have not held up to the test of time. At the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, I suggest that some of the more popular ones stick around past their expiration date. Have…Continue Reading…
UPDATE: Some of the information and assertions in this post have been disputed by Jared Diamond here. In 1995, Jared Diamond wrote an article for Discover magazine that began: In just a few centuries, the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral…Continue Reading…
Michael Wilcox, a Stanford University archaeologist, has a new book that takes a fresh look at the Pueblo Revolt. A university press release captures some interesting themes of Wilcox’s post-colonial work in the Southwest, such as this quote directly from his book: Archaeologists and anthropologists have imposed disease, demographic collapse and acculturation as explanations of…Continue Reading…
There’s a fascinating, informative discussion thread on the dynamics of societal collapse over at The Oil Drum, prompted by a very readable 10,000 word essay on the fall of the Roman empire, cleverly entitled, “Peak Civilization.” This is really complicated stuff that the news media utterly fails to convey, preferring instead to focus on single-cause…Continue Reading…
So the battle is joined: “The complaint has no merit at all,” Jared Diamond tells Science magazine in an exclusive interview published today, referring to the $10 million lawsuit filed against him and The New Yorker, for his April 2008 piece on a blood feud in Papua New Guinea. The Science story is only available…Continue Reading…
Hey, quite a spectacle over at Savage Minds, with a bunch of anthros, (apparent) journos and one sculptor/art historian-turned bloodhound ripping each other to shreds. People, people, is that any way to run a truth squad?
The wolf-pack is tearing away at Jared Diamond. Opportunity knocks: part of the reason…is to reclaim some of the ground among general readers lost to “experts” like Jared Diamond. With this series, StinkyJournalism.org and SavageMinds.org seek to capture that wider general audience for writings about anthropology. If the first essay is any indication of what’s…Continue Reading…