RE: The mistake of agriculture (was: evolution and diet)

From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Thu May 22 2003 - 18:09:58 MDT

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    > gts wrote:
    > > "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race"
    > > http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html
    > >
    > > This is an excellent article by Jared Diamond that appeared
    > in Discovery
    > > Magazine in 5/87. According to Diamond, agriculture is the
    > worst mistake in
    > > the history of the human race.
    > >
    > > Diamond acknowledges that the pre-agricultural diet was a
    > healthier diet,
    > > and lists variations on this theme as the first and second
    > of three reasons
    > > for the poor health of early farmers. The third of his
    > three reasons is
    > > indeed increased disease from over-crowding, but he adds
    > parenthetically
    > > that arguments of archeologists who claim this as the only
    > reason are really
    > > just chicken-and-egg arguments, because "crowding
    > encourages agriculture and
    > > vice versa."
    > >
    > > Excerpt from the article:
    > > "There are at least three sets of reasons to explain the
    > findings that
    > > agriculture was bad for health. First, hunter-gatherers
    > enjoyed a varied
    > > diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from
    > one or a few
    > > starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor
    > > nutrition. (today just three high-carbohydrate
    > plants-wheat, rice, and
    > > corn-provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human
    > species, yet
    > > each one is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids
    > essential to life.)
    > > Second, because of dependence on a limited number of crops,
    > farmers ran the
    > > risk of starvation if one crop failed. Finally, the mere fact that
    > > agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded
    > societies, many
    > > of which then carried on trade with other crowded
    > societies, led to the
    > > spread of parasites and infectious disease. (Some
    > archaeologists think it
    > > was the crowding, rather than agriculture, that promoted
    > disease, but this
    > > is a chicken-and-egg argument, because crowding encourages
    > agriculture and
    > > vice versa.) Epidemics couldn't take hold when populations
    > were scattered in
    > > small bands that constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and
    > diarrheal disease
    > > had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic
    > plague the appearance
    > > of large cities."
    >
    > Let's not forget standing armies. Agriculture enabled people
    > to produce
    > more food than they needed to feed themselves alone, enabling
    > the rise of
    > a ruling class that subsisted off other people's work and
    > could force them
    > to work 16-hour days to feed as many boss-class individuals
    > as possible.
    > And of course, the transition to agriculture marks the
    > transition from
    > work to which we are adapted, and which we presumably found
    > fulfilling or
    > at least tolerable, to "work" in the sense of mental-energy-sapping,
    > life-force-draining labor.
    >
    > Is it really worth it to be able to read the Feynman
    > Lectures? I would
    > say yes; your own mileage may vary. Fortunately the dilemna is a
    > temporary one.
    >
    > --
    > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
    > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

    Hunting and gathering was a local maximum; getting out of those is never
    going to be fun. I'm all for it, though.

    Emlyn



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