The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race Summary

Farming also lead to bouts of malnutrition. On page 3, Standage states, "According to the archaeological evidence, farmers

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

All throughout history, humans have come up with innovations that have brought both positive and negative changes to the way people live. This all started around 10,000 BCE, when people developed agriculture. The first nomads started off by moving from place to place, hunting and gathering food… but as people developed agriculture, they saved a lot more time. After agriculture developed, the humans learned many things such as farming and taming wild animals for their own use. This time in history was called the Neolithic Revolution… which lasted about 6,000 years, until 4,000 BCE. The big change in the way people got their food and how they lived, resulted to positive and negative changes of human innovations of the Neolithic Revolution. So,

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.

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.”

health. Hunter-gatherers have a varied diet, however, early farmers gained poor nutrition and cheap calories. In addition, farmers ran the risk of starvation due to the dependence on crops. Diamond states that agriculture encouraged the creation of civilizations, which then led to the spread of infectious diseases and parasites that can seriously jeopardize our health. Social inequality between deep class divisions came out of agriculture as well. According to research on skeletons from ancient times, royals had better diets than the commoners due to the fact that they were a few inches taller and had better teeth than them. Thus, Jared Diamond supports his claim that agriculture was a terrible mistake made in human history due to inequality, bad health, and a difference in lifestyles between hunter-gatherers and

Jared diamond, an author, thought that the neolithic era was the worst thing that ever happened to humans. He thinks agriculture was bad. Diamond thought that agriculture created diseases. He thought that people in the neolithic era were too unhealthy. There are a ton of reasons that he thinks that the neolithic era was bad. Most of the things that he said in the article are wrong. Agriculture was good, the paleolithic people had diseases, the people in the neolithic era were healthier in different ways.

In "The Worst Mistake In Human History?" written by Jared Diamond, there are many valid points to prove that agriculture was the wrong step to grow into. One example that Diamond provided was that agriculture divided people into specific classes, the higher class such as the kings, and the lower classes such as peasants. The kings in these agricultural societies received better care and better food than others, but in a hunter-gatherers group, there would be no king or because they live off of what they gather and hunt each day. The text states, "They live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day. Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others," This is a good thing because

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

I found “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” by Jared Diamond to be quite thought evoking. This article explains the “what ifs” of humans keeping the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to this day, and why Diamond believes that to have been the better option. While he goes on to make convincing arguments towards keeping the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, I commend him for also taking a professional approach in mentioning reasons why people would prefer the agricultural lifestyle we have today due to reasons such as “having to do less work, having more time for leisure and art, etc.”. David has set up a solid basis for arguing, which I believe to be quite beneficial in being able to see as many point of views as possible.

Mr. Diamond believes the adoption of agriculture was the worst mistake in human history. The technologies used in this article are not only the

Due to the fact that it has been universal for twelve-thousand years, the majority of people do not recognize the effects that agriculture had on, not only human prosperity, but on societal norms. The Neolithic Revolution, or the emergence of agriculture, in 10,000 BCE caused the materialization of a social hierarchy in preliminary communities.     Before agriculture, people were predominantly focused on foraging. However, this  ceased when agriculture, and all its changes, flooded into early societies. Ian Kuijt remarks, “...complexity creates resource stress-resource stress does not create complexity”, meaning that as job specialization was introduced due to lack of hunter-gatherer notions, social hierarchies became increasingly complicated (23).

I believe that moving from hunting and gathering to farming wasn't a mistake. There was a lot of downsides about farming, but there was also a lot of downsides to hunting and gathering. Why I believe that agriculture was a positive decision, was because this decision lead to many more that has shaped our history today. Farming started about 10,000 years ago while hunting and gathering was still the way of life at this time. Farming lead to amazing things some including, Job specialization, population intensification, surplus food, and domestication of animals.

An anthropologist once referred to the domestication of animals and the cultivation of plants as “the worse mistake in the history of the human race.” He has given many examples to support his claim. The anthropologist starts off by saying that those who remained hunter-gatherers had more leisure time to socialize, etc. Overall, hunter-gathering was considered more enjoyable than farming. Farming was also considered to be more work in the grand scheme of things. Although, you will be more productive in farming when you measure how much food was produced per acre of land. However, if you look at the amount produced per hour, you will find that the hunter-gathering way is more effective. Hunter-gathering also was healthier than early farming.

On the subject of potential crop loss there are several variables, which influence drought and plant disease resulting in a loss of crops.