From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Apr 17 2003 - 16:36:14 MDT
> Jared Diamond disagrees with you.
I haven't read his books so I took a glance at the reviews of _The Third
Chimpanzee_ at amazon.com. The first review contains this interesting
passage:
"Having read the book _Ishmael_, by Daniel Quinn, a few years ago, I wonder
if Diamond's thinking could actually be improved by being combined with
Quinn's. Diamond suggests that, when prehistoric societies drove certain
animals to extinction, they were acting out a human tendency to be
destructive to our local environments that is simply horribly intensified
today. Quinn suggests that some of those prehistoric societies were not
particularly more destructive than other animals, and for the same reasons;
while other, more civilized societies had the tendency to be destructive
because of their cultures' inclinations, and passed this tendency on to us,
their cultural descendants."
This comment is interesting to me for two reasons: first, I would disagree
adamantly with Diamond if he really suggests in his books that the hunting
of animals to extinction was a "destructive tendency" of hungry paleolithic
peoples who didn't know better, and second because I'm inclined to agree
with Daniel Quinn who believes civilized societies have often tended to be
more destructive than prehistoric societies.
Quinn by the way is popular among serious paleodiet purists who in some
cases try to make it a life-style as much as a diet.
-gts
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