The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race Summary

Diamond describes the early parts of human history in a broad scope towards the beginning of the book. He focuses on both the evolution and spread of human beings, arguing that some civilizations had a head start over other ones because of when the period of human evolution took place. He explains how different environments shaped human history through an a example of how populations which inhabited the Polynesian islands developed differently due to the different environments and then by telling the stories about what happened as populations with better geographical advantages encountered more disadvantaged populations in the Americas. Diamond explains the many factors that influenced the historical progression of different societies. Diamond argues how food production was very much a primary factor in the advancement of each society. Societies

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 discovery of agriculture was the first big step toward a civilized life.” (Arthur Keith)

Jared Diamond, in his article, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human race”, explains that the worst mistake that humans made was the decision to change from a hunter gatherer society into an agriculture society. Jared Diamond gives evidence of how switching from an agricultural society was a bad mistake. Many believe that adopting an agricultural society and leaving the hunter gatherer society was the way to a more qualitative and sustainable lifestyle. As Diamond says, it is true that because this society was adopted and evolved because we have longer lifespans and live better now than how people lived back in the old days. But Diamond`s claim that the hunter gatherer society gave humans more benefits individually than what the agricultural society had to offer is agreeable.

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.

Hunter- gatherers was able to consume many variety of foods, such as animals meat, berries, nuts, roots etc which are high in proteins and fiber. Farmers can only consume the crops they grew, which is limited. Additionally, the main commonly crops are rice, corn, and wheat, which is high in carbs and lacked fiber, vitamins, and proteins. As a result, farmers’ diet consists of carbs and fats, but no vitamins or proteins. The second risk is limited crop production. Farmers are easily opened to risk of starvation if their crops fail to grow. The final risk to agriculture is epidemic diseases. Agricultural encouraged farmers to get together in crowded societies in order to trade their crops, which can easily lead to spread of contagious diseases and

The transition from the traditional hunter gatherer societies, in to an agriculture based living system, has allowed humans to increase their population size, putting strains on the Earth’s environment. Agriculture has also brought along with it a decrease in women’s roles in the community, while also bringing about a class system where the wealthy rule, and were the weak and poor obey. As humans began to domesticate more plants and animals, they settled in permanent areas. The Change from hunter gatherer benefited few, but had dire consequences for the earth and groups with in it. One such consequence was the population increase, which has lead to major issues throughout history, and one that has ties to current global issues.

The Neolithic Revolution brought about deep class divisions, which meant that there were social classes during the neolithic revolution. People were divided based on their position in society at that time and these customs have been passed down to human society today. In the article “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” by Jared Diamond, it states “royals enjoyed a better diet...and had better teeth.” Royals or people who were higher up in society were taller and had less cavities, which means they had enough food to eat, and were also eating well. The higher ranking members of societies ate the

From the early prehistoric society until now, we often heard the word “adaptation”, which means the process of changing something or changing our behavior to deal with new situations. The ways people adjust their natural environment varies according to time, place, and tribe. Foraging is common way of adaptation that people uses for most of human history; however because of the population pressure, some people adopt agriculture to fulfill their need. This essay, will discuss the positive and negative aspects of life in hunting and gathering societies compared to the agricultural societies based on Martin Harris’ article “Murders in Eden” and Jared Diamond’s article “The Worst Mistake in the History of Human Race.”

Until the recent year of 1987 people often saw the neolithic age as a glorious turning point that made us the great spices we are today, but Jared diamond a brilliant scientist of his age wrote an article for discover magazine called The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race by Jared diamond which presented a rare idea of the neolithic age being a mistake by our ancestors. He talked about how with agriculture came biased and disease like a real pandora's box. Disease was mostly caused by things like an unhealthy diet, and biased was caused by an unnecessary social classes. A few years ago a blogger and a supporter and student of traditional farming countered Jared diamond’s article with rage due to him believing that everyone was siding with Jared Diamond.Although his argument is sloppy and could not be called a scientific paper. Jared diamond was and is more convincing than Jim Woods in arguing that the neolithic age should be a considered a negative turning point in human history. This is because with agriculture came the faults of humanity such as racism, sexism, biased, etc., the very problems that humanity has been

Whether mistakes are minor and forgotten within a day or so drastic they are remembered for years’ mistakes are one thing members of society all have in common. Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography and Physiology at the University of California, mentions an important mistake in his essay, The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. Diamond discusses agriculture versus the hunter-gatherer method of acquiring food. He exclaims that agriculture is the worst mistake human race has made. Additionally, Diamond introduces two perspectives towards agriculture. A person may take a revisionist standpoint and “advocate revision of a system, theory, etc” (OED). Oppositely, a person may take a progressivist standpoint and become involved in

Prior to living in homes build to with stand the test of time, growing food their food source, and raising animals, humans were nomads who followed their food source around and were hunters and gathers. Although it took many years, from 8000B.C. to 3000B.C. for humans to go from hunters and gathers to a more common day life as we now know it, the result is referred to as the Neolithic Revolution the begins of human civilization. As the people of this time began to settle down and they began to both farm the land and domesticate animals for the better of the community. Along with the development of these communities as for the first time began to create social class among the many different roles they played in their community. Because

In the 1930's, V. Gordon Childe proposed that the shift to food production was one of the two major events in human history that improved the condition of human societies. Childe described the origins of agriculture as a 哲eolithic Revolution.But the shift from hunting and gathering to food production was not as advantageous to humanity as Childe believed. Although there were benefits, there were also serious drawbacks, and humans paid a price for the advantages of agriculture.

What we eat and how we eat are imPortant both nutritionally and culturally. This selection suggests that how we get what we eat-through gathering and hunting versus agriculture, for example-has draThis seemspretty obvious.We all matic consequences. imagine what a struggle it must have been before the We developmentof agricu-lture. think of our ancestors spending their days searching for roots and berries to eat,or out at the crack of dawn, hunting wi.ld animals. isn't In fact, this was not quite the case.Nevertheless, it really better simply to go to the refrigerator, open the door, and reach for a container of milk to pour into a bowl of flaked grain for your regular

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)