Pandora's Seed Chapter Summary

The emergence of agriculture was a major stepping stone in human history. During this birth of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, humans began inhabiting permanent settlements, grow their own crops, and domesticate both plants and animals for food (Weisdorf, 2005). Considering humans have been hunter-gatherers for the majority of their approximately 7 million years of existence, the emergence of agriculture in the Old World only occurring 10,000-5,000 years ago, marks a significant transformation in food sustenance techniques (Weisdorf, 2005). However, this turning point in history is associated with both positive and negative implications. There is much controversy over whether or not the introduction of

The main idea of Howell’s arguments about the Neolithic Revolution is that the adoption of agriculture is beneficial because hunting life makes nature in control of humans. Nature controls the limit on animals and plants. When it reaches its limit in a given place, humans are forced to move to survive. Nature requires humans to spread themselves out across the land and limit the number of people they band themselves with to not use all the natural resources in short amount of time. Moreover, the limited resources cause groups to kill off the young, sick, and elderly to lower the amount of humans exploiting the land. As a result of isolation amongst each other, humans rarely become civilized or social and the sexual division of labour does not change. As a result of agriculture, food is domesticated and grown rather than gathered. Also, humans are able to create civilizations with hundreds of people.

Diamond explains that our worst mistake was the transition from hunter-gathers to farmers. Diamond believes that humans were better off chasing our food rather than planting it due to the consequences that followed after such a dramatic change of life. His reasoning expands further out than one might think of about this subject. He talks about the social changes that were created when agriculture began. Diamond spews empowering points that leave a reader pondering if he is correct. People are only sure of how the world is now but the possibilities are endless on what our world could have been if agriculture had not begun.

According to National Geographic, 40% of the Earth today is farmland—soil being manipulated to feed the 7.6 billion human beings on this world. We have taken over this world like ants swarming to a piece of rotting fruit, without much thought to the organisms that have been on Earth long before us. Our lives may be easier in that we do not have to forge for our food or water anymore, but with the stress of today’s world, was the tradeoff worth the natural land? Willa Cather’s novel, O Pioneers! brings attention to the way we choose to use the land, whether it is in our best interests, the land’s, or both. The characters in O Pioneers! demonstrate how in order to maintain a successful relationship with the land we live on, it is necessary to be able to both adapt to the land and mold it to fit our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Political, economic, and social conditions have often led to turning points that have changed the course of history for nations and people. The Paleolithic Era and Neolithic Revolution was a turning point that changed the orbit of history for mankind. In Documents 1, 2, and 4, they explain life before the Neolithic Revolution and what changed during the period and provide an analysis of results of the revolution. They introduce food supply and settlement, and civilization and trade.

Journal #1. Page 32-“The era of human history when agriculture was the most important of all productive technologies and the foundation for most human societies.”

Natural selection, together with the rules of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel, stand at the basis of modern evolutionary biology.

First Diamond goes over the conquest of the Incas because of superior technology, horses, and even disease. The question then seems to be posed that what can even allow for such a prevailing culture to advance over others to begin with? Then the chapter Farming Power discusses the importance of food production and the benefits that come from that such as a bigger population density and many other societal benefits over hunter-gatherer societies. Diamond then discusses the cultivation of multiple foods, such as wheat and barley in the Fertile Crescent to potatoes in the Andes and coffee in Ethiopia and discussed the advantage that food cultivation gave to cultures. He continues this idea of farming to include the domestication of animals and the technologies developed due to this new alternate lifestyle. Seed crops came next, leading to procurement

One of the greatest revolutions in the history of homo sapiens was the adoption of agriculture, which changed the face of communities at every level of class. Though this change was built upon new ideas and allowed us to provide more food for more people, was it in fact a positive change at the time? Today in 2017, we can all look around and see where the agricultural revolution has gotten us in the long run, but authors such as Yuval Noah Harari (2011) claim that during the infancy of the agricultural revolution, life for the average citizen was often a worse one than that of the common forager. A change in food production created many other changes, such as permanent human settlement, biologically unconventional labor, and a larger population density. This paper explores the pros and cons of the agricultural society and the hunter-gatherer society

More than 50% of the world’s population lives in an area where Malaria is common. The first signs of malaria are fevers, chills, joint pain, vomiting, and anemia, and can lead to a coma or death. Scientist JBS Haldane once suggested that people with sickle cell anemia or thalassemia were naturally resistant to P. Falciparum, the malarial disease. G6PD is an even better naturally evolved protection against malaria. Researchers who studied the relationship of G6PD deficiency and malaria found that children with the G6PD-A- mutation had a resistance twice as strong as normal children to P. Falciparum. That’s because Malaria, like many other diseases, prefer “normal” healthy red blood cells rather than G6PD-deficient blood cells to multiply. Malaria is a delicate virus, and can only thrive is clean red blood cells. The G6PD deficient cells are not only less hospitable to the virus but die early which may disrupt the virus’s lifestyle. At one point in time people recognized that eating fava beans would reduce their body’s hospitability to Malaria, and thus evolved Favism disease which continues to serve the same purpose today. People who are only partially deficient (women) are much better off because not only do they get the malarial protection, but they also can ingest fava beans and medicine safely. This is why people of African and Mediterranean descent continue to develop Favism

The Gene, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee, follows the history of human genetics and its effect on society. The story covers the complete maturation of the gene from Darwin’s original theory of gemmules to our mapping of the entire human genome. Mukherjee vivifies the story of one of the most important scientific discoveries by bringing together science, society, and his own personal experiences. The Gene not only shows us the surprising effects of our genetics on our appearances, health, personalities, and identities, but also demonstrates the dangers tied to this newfound knowledge. It has opened me to an entire world of biology I never existed.

Jared Diamond is a professor of Geography at UCLA and a world traveler. He believes that in the past 13,000 years of human history, agriculture has lead humans to conquer, develop and prosper and therefore cause the rise of civilizations. In 1972 he was in New Guinea when he met a local named Yali who asked him a simple question that took years for Diamond to answer. Yali said “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [goods] and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own”. [Work cited 7] Diamond was profoundly puzzled and couldn’t answer right away. In fact it took him many years to come up with what he thinks is the right answer. ‘Yali’s question’ plays a central role in Professor Diamond’s enquiry into ‘a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years’, leading him into a wide-ranging discussion of the history of human evolution and diversity through a study of migration, socio-economic and cultural adaptation to environmental conditions, and technological diffusion. (Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, p. 22-23)

Development in science field allowed us to achieve a lot of things. One of the most popular science field is genetics and knowledge in genetics has significantly increased, “Compared with the first sequencing effort in 1997, today’s state of the art involves the generation of more than 200 million times more data”, (Hawks, 2013). This remarkable development in science field has a huge impact on archaeological findings too, especially so in helping archaeologists understand human evolution. Although modern genetic research has allowed us to better fully understand human evolution, it has yet

While our idea of technology today is based around machinery and computers, technology could described anything human-made that aims to make the lives and work of humans easier. A prime example of this would be advances in agriculture. Agriculture played a pivotal role in the development of civilizations. Taking away the burden of hunting and gathering, as well as the fear of not having enough to eat, opened civilizations up to having more time to dedicate to other endeavours, such as philosophy. Many of the myths we read describe the agricultural development of different societies. One prime example of this is the tale of “Children of the Sun.” The uncivilized peoples of Earth are taught by the children of Father Sun how to plant and grow seeds, make farming tools and equipment, and irrigate water. Historically speaking, Incan civilizations thrived because of their agricultural advances. They had elaborate irrigation and farming systems, and as a result, always had a surplus of food. This allowed people to be divided into social classes of non-workers, such as noblemen, priests, and artists (Rosenburg, 2006). As such, agriculture was often a central idea in myths. Beyond Inca mythology, we see the importance of agriculture in cultural development in Northern American mythology as well. “The Emergence” describes a strong bond between humans and nature, and describes the sacred importance of crops such as squash, corn, beans, and

Abstract evolution has occurred in humans for millions of years; however, in a modern society many scientists and evolutionists are now debating whether or not it is still occurring, and if it follows the same rules. With all of the new technology humans have created, some experts believe that humans have essentially conquered nature, and no further evolutionary changes will occur. Still, others hold opposing views; some experts believe that evolution is still occurring, but modern societal advancements have changed the rules. These experts say that the changes in evolution are a result of recent medical advancements that allow doctors to perpetuate genes that would not have lasted years ago. Additionally, others maintain that evolution is