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VI er helt tydeligt en art chimpanse. VI har over 98% af generne tilfælles med de andre to arter. Del 1 handler om vores arts historie de seneste millioner af år, Del 2 handler om ændringerne i livsstil, så vi hjælper børnene lang tid efter at de er vænnet fra. Del 3 handler om de kulturelle ændringer der adskiller os fra dyrene: sprog, kunst, teknologi og landbrug. Del 4 handler om den dårlige vane med at slå anderledes grupper af mennesker ihjel. Del 5 handler om den dårlige vane med at ødelægge vores livsgrundlag ved at overforbruge resourcer. Epilogen handler om det foruroligende i at vores evne til at ødelægge altid aldrig har været større end nu.
Forfatteren er uddannet fysiolog, men med stor interesse for fugle og natur. Et studie af Ny Guinea fik ham til at samle tråde til denne bog. Indtil for nylig var de enkelte stammer dødeligt fjendtlige overfor hinanden og det er sikkert en udmærket model af verden i forhistorisk tid. Genetisk og kropsligt er det pudsigt at udviklingen af det moderne menneske er sket gradvist over lang tid, men først for ca 40.000 år siden begynder en udvikling at kunne spores i de redskaber menneskene bruger. Er det kultur eller er der nogle få gener, der trigger denne udvikling. Til at finde ud af hvor langt der er mellem to dna-strenge er der en primitiv proces, hvor man blander dem og ser på smeltepunktssænkning. Nu om stunder er dna-sekventiering blevet så hurtigt og billigt at man bare bruger det i stedet. Han bruger en del sider på at etablere et udviklingsstamtræ for mennesker og aber, Og så overvejer han at det er problematisk at udrydde aber, der egentlig burde være anbragt i homo grenen af udviklingstræet. Og hvad med medicinske forsøg?
Lidt overvejelser om forskellene mellem mennesker og andre dyr skyldes gener, og i så fald hvilke? Vi har været homo sapiens længe, men på et tidspunkt gik udviklingen pludseligt meget stærkt? Men hvornår og hvorfor? Han har levet sammen med moderne stammer, der er jægere og samlere, og det er ret sikkert at de ikke fanger ret store dyr ret tit. Neandertalerne bredte sig ikke og praktiserede ikke handel. Homo sapiens derimod handler og bytter ting og sager. Neandertalerne forsvandt da Cro Magnon folkene dukkede op. Udkonkurreret eller udraderet? Sprog er måske forklaringen på succes? Det er svært at sige "gå to kilometer, drej til højre ved det store træ og læg dig på lur ved vandhullet" med tegnsprog.
Vi har en meget anderledes livscyklus end andre dyr og aber. Vi bliver meget gamle, vi passer børnene til længe efter at de er vænnet fra og vi er nogenlunde monogame. Mændene har et meget stort kønslem og små testikler. Kvinderne har store bryster også uden at have født. Men hvorfor? Der er mange teorier.
Sidespring og utroskab er også ganske udbredt (han nævner undersøgelser der viser ca 10% uægte børn!). Mormoner og flerkoneri. Partnervalg er også et emne. Han er biolog, så sammenligninger med fugle og andre dyr ligger lige for.
Selektion og evolution. Levealder (hvorfor bliver vi ikke fx 200 år). Reperationsomkostninger, hvornår sætter man det første afkom i verden? Forfatteren er lidt nedtrykt over at det ser ud til at vores designlevetid passer med at næsten alle dele er slidt ned.
Uden sprog, intet der ligner vores nuværende civilisation. Men dyr har også lyde og noget, der ligner sprog, så hvad er forskellen? Grammatik? Pidgins og Creoles. Og et glimrende eksempel på Neo-Melanesisk: Kam insait = Come inside. Olgeta samting = Altogether something, osv.
Kunst. Fx en malende elefant.
Landbrug. Det er jo fint at vi kan brødføde os selv, men det giver også hurtigt store byer, hvor sygdomme kan florere, som ellers ville brænde sig selv ud i tyndere befolkede egne.
Alkohol, tobak og narkotika er også et særkende for mennesker. Det er et signal, der ikke kan fakes: Jeg tør gøre noget farligt. Lidt som rige mennesker, der køber en dyr bil bare for at vise at de har masser af penge. Han referer også til en Maya skik med lavementer med alkohol, tobak og andre stoffer. Det går lige i blodet og udenom leveren. Smart ide!
Nicher som spætter, eller drøvtyggere, viser at det ikke er alle muligheder, der bliver grebet. Australien har ikke spætter. Og gad vide om intelligens har overlevelsesværdi?
Første kontakt med stenalderfolk. Den sidste var i Ny Guinea, hvor jungle og trælse bjerge gjorde det umuligt at nå ind i landet før i 1938, hvor Richard Archbold med massiv brug af bærere og logistik nåede ind i hvad han troede var ubeboet land, men hvor der boede 50000 mennesker. Foré folket og deres Kuru sygdom. Masser af isolerede smågrupper med hver deres sprog.
Husdyrbrug. Heste som krigsvåben.
Finland, finsk, finsk-urgiske sprog.
Folkedrab og masseudryddelser. Tasmanerne som eksempel. Hvordan definerer man genocide? Mekanismerne bagved. Fx Hitler der påstod at invasionen af Polen var selvforsvar.
Hvad med fremtiden? Det er faktisk lykkedes for andre dyr end mennesker at overforbruge resourcer i en grad, så de endte med at uddø. Er det skæbnen, der venter på os?
Moa-fuglen og mange andre arter blev udryddet af Maorierne, så det er ikke bare vesterlændige, der har dræbergenet. Påskeøen. Mellemøsten, Grækenland, alle er eksempler på økologiske katastrofer.
Menneskets indtog i Amerika og udryddelsen af megafaunaen. Clovis folket.
Moderne tiders masseudryddelse af arter. En økologisk krise er helt klart under opsejling og eneste spørgsmål er om det er vores børn eller børnebørn, der bliver ofre, hvis ikke vi gør nogle af de helt indlysende ting, der kan bremse den. Der er masser af grunde til pessimisme "Nothing learned, and everything forgotten!". Men faktisk er han en forsigtig optimist og ser tegn på bedring.
Bogen rummer en hel del ideer som han siden har foldet ud i andre og bedre bøger.
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Science. Nonfiction. HTML: The Development of an Extraordinary SpeciesWe human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet -- having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art -- while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize--winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world . . . and the means to irrevocably destroy it..… (more)
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It is sort of interesting to see that he didn't have much of the over-arching theory yet re why some societies (continents, civilizations) developed so fast because of the tools and domesticated animals they had. Here, there's more emphasis on why humans came out ahead of some of our close brethern but not a lot more.
I'm slightly interested to see how he updated this in 2006, but doubt it's an essential for any library. One interesting thing: He was wondering where the next genocide would be and notes those by the Tutsi of the Hutu in Burundi in the 1972 and by Hutu of of the Tutsi in Rwanda in the 1960s. How often do you see those two precursors brought up? Of course the Serbian cleansing of Muslims was to come soon. His point is that there have always been mass murder of "the other"--not possible to miss for someone who has spent time in New Guinea. Genocide didn't surface in the modern day, any more than humans' extinction of animals did (see, for example, the Maoris' rapid extinction of so much of NZ's fauna). For the most part, though, the book is rather superficial and wanting in anthropological and historical underpinnings, especially for areas of the world beyond ANZ-Pacific and North America.
Very early on Diamond sets his stall. He's not interested in intricate molecular insights, but an overarching evolutionary basis for human lifecycle and behaviour. Sometimes he digresses, like when he talks for no obvious purpose about how the relatively large size of the male
Ageing, bizarrely in my view, is described as many unconnected factors (deteriorating eyesight and smell, weaker bones, failing heart) converging over time so that they fail optimally around the same time. Why maintain one feature when others are failing? More likely, shortening telomeres at the ends of our chromosomes cause most if not all these conditions. The notion that one underlying cause can be expressed in many different ways is dismissed offhandedly.
Big game hunting leading to cooperation exaggerated when it comes to why humans developed as they did. If hunting important, rather because
Good chapter on perils of agriculture. Humans chose cheap calories vs limiting population growth. Diamond clearly things that latter option would have been better, but it would have been nice if he had discussed that particular trade-off a little more.
First contact with modern world will soon end, and that will mean fewer experiments in how to organize human society.
Europe very linguistically homogenous.
Savage hunt for and killing of original inhabitants in Australia introduces the long history of human genocide. The difference now is that we have become powerful enough to extinct the human race.
Flirts with how traditional societies may have been better places to live, but does not come clearly out. Emphasizes the benefits of modern societies less than what he came to do in The world until yesterday. It is interesting how all the subsequent books Guns, Germs and Steel (1997), Collapse (2005) and The World Until Yesterday (2012) are contained as subchapters in this book.
As always, Diamond presents his ideas in a simple, convincing way, easy for a layman to believe... I liked how he went "out on a limb" and gave his speculations in addition to recognized facts.
One thing which I didn't like (or agree with) was his awful pessimism concerning the possibility of humans ever meeting extra-terrestrial beings. His main argument seemed to be the inevitable extinction of the human race, whereas I tend to believe in people. We will survive!
You may well disagree with some (or much) of what is written here, but it is an interesting and thought provoking read and raises vital questions about what it is to be human and how we relate to one another and the world.
I picked this book up on a lark when I was in an airport. It didn’t really capture my attention at first. I found myself constantly in contention with the idea in evolution that everything has to have a ‘why’. The reasoning is--I believe--that every trait of
My opinion of vegetarianism is that it’s a sad fact of life that man is a carnivore and everybody should just get over it already.
Somewhere along the scale from bacteria to humans, we have to decide where killing becomes murder, and eating becomes cannibalism. Most people draw those lines between humans and all other species. However, quite a few people are vegetarians, unwilling to eat any animal (yet willing to eat plants). And an increasingly vocal minority, belonging to the animal-rights movement, object to medical experiments on animals—or at least on certain animals. That movement is especially exercised about research on cats and dogs and primates, less concerned about mice, and generally silent about insects and bacteria.
Isn’t this guy a hoot? He points a finger at the hypocrites who just aren’t thinking things through. They’re acting on their emotions, not reason.
Diamond goes through some convoluted arguments to support his views. He tries to justify the Great Leap in biological terms. I can’t still believe that it could have happened without divine intervention. Also he goes on and on about how human DNA is only 1.6% different than chimpanzee BUT didn’t Sapolosky make it clear that genes react to environment and you can’t separate them?
I really liked his holistic approach to history. Many disciplines focus on what they know. Only someone educated in an interdisciplinary way could fuse various ideas to come up with multi-approach explanations of why things happened the way they did.
His ascertain that aging was from multiple causes and that looking for the ONE root of entropy was a wild goose chase made a lot of sense to me. Again, here is an evil perpetrated in the pretext of simplification.
When trying to uncover the purpose of art in evolution Diamond wrote;
“Animals with leisure time can channel it into more lavish signals to outdo the next guy….Those behaviors may then come to serve other purposes such as…channeling neurotic energy(a problem for us…).”
Definitely an entertaining read.
Diamond's aim is
The book's first section briefly documents our genetic history - our divergence from a proto-chimp ancestor, and the development of homo sapiens over about six million years (homo erectus, homo habilis etc). Diamond is always keen to draw out the political implications of his science, and suggests that if we were to label chimps as "homo troglodytes" rather than "pan troglodytes", we might make different ethical decisions about their treatment. I found this first section all too-brief - I'd have liked to see a lot more detail on the biological commonalities and differences between humans and chimps.
The second section reviews the human life-cycle, particulary our sexuality - why are we monogamous? How do we choose mates? What can sexual selection suggest about human races? This draws heavily on comparisons and contrasts with other animal species and I found it all interesting.
The third section covers the evolution of things that might seem "uniquely human" - language, art, agriculture, drug use - and traces animal precursors to see whether we really are as unique as we think. I found all of this to be far too brief - a whole book on this area would have been interesting. I did find sympathy with Diamond's argument that the development of agriculture was as much a curse as a blessing (being the source of the apparatus for political oppression). There are strong similarities here to the ideas of radicals like John Zerzan who has expanded on the same theme.
The next section enters the territory of "Guns, Germs and Steel", discussing how much of human history has been determined by geographical and biological accident e.g. the difficulty in migrating crops across continents with a strong north-south axis (Africa and America) leading to a slower pace of development. This section also asks why the human race seems to be prone to genocide, again with a strong political slant.
The final section covers extinction - both analysing the countless past extinctions of other species that humans have caused, and the implications for our own future.
Throughout, the book's willingness to spell out political implications is very welcome. I also appreciated the extent to which the content draws on Diamond's own extensive work in New Guinea. On the downside, there are just too many ideas here, and it would be nice to see them all explored at greater length - although of course that's exactly what the author has since done in other books.
For instance, he proposes
His accounts are generally broadminded – more so than other later works. Thus he excuses the past as a period of our ignorance. Yet this excuse cannot hold for the present which looks like a period of irresponsible neglect of the environment. His message is that we must learn from the clear evidence of our earlier errors. Indeed it seems that the world may be losing as many as 17 species of biota every hour. It should concern us that we do not really know what the consequences of any of these losses will be. Nonetheless he concludes that this is a time for repair not despair.
From 1992, this book's scholarship is occasionally dated already. That's my fault for not reading it earlier. I do like his tone and accessibility.
By the last 100 pages of the book I became frustrated, however. As long as the book was actually doing what was expected of it and comparing us to chimps and explaining our evolution, I was content, but once it switched to how we were destroying our environment, it became less of "this is why we do what we do" to "this is how the demise of the world will come about." There wasn't even really a connection to humans beyond that we killed things. I'm not saying it wasn't well written, but it simply wasn't as mind-catching the way the first 200 pages were.
Definitely worth the read for the amazing revelations put forward about human nature and the ways of some animals. I know that I will forever have friends check the lengths of their middle fingers against their spouses from this point onward.
Much of the early book delved into evolutionary science but the author couldn't help but to slide back into subject matter from previous books (i.e. Guns, Germs, and Steel), with some evolutionary parallels. After reading this book, I was struck with the notion that humans (modern and ancient) are more alike than we often think. Overall, this was a great read; informative and entertaining.
The third chimpanzee. The evolution and future of the human animal is very much a book of the pessimistic 1970s and 1980s, a period in which people believed that the desctruction of the world and the end of the human race by nuclear obliteration was imminent. The structure of the book, as also the title suggest, reflects this belief. The book aims to describe the beginnings of mankind and its end.
Describing the evolution and devlopment of humanity on such a large scale also means that the book is not much more than a primer, and the author must be a mere layman in many of the field he touches upon in the book. Chapters about the prehistory of man, evolutionary biology and the development of language are superficial and sketchy. Particularly the chapters about the devlopment of modern man out of a succession of generations of hominids now shows the weakness of the book, in that many new discoveries leading to new insight have been made over the past 25 years. The portrayal of Neaderthal man in the book by Diamond is still very much the image of the uncultured brute that circulated in the 1980s. New finds or evidence that Neanderthals had a sense of artistic expression are not evidenced in the book. New DNA research also clearly establishes the presence of Neanderthal DNA in the DNA of modern man. Diamond's conclusions that interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthal man is unlikely because no fossil remains of such offspring have been found is simply an argument that is too weak.
The third chimpanzee. The evolution and future of the human animal is now merely of interest for some snippets of information and facts which may startle, less than develop real insight. For example, the closeness of man to chimpanzee is cleverly demonstrated, although the evidence leans heavily on the importance of quantity rather than quality of difference.
This might be my favourite Diamond book. I think the closer look at other
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Omslaget viser en tænksom chimpanse
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Side 150: Kam insait long stua bilong mepela - stua bilong salim olgeta samting -
Mipela I-ken helpim yu long kisim wanem samting yu laikim bikpela na liklik long gutpela prais.
Side 150: Come inside long store belong me-fellow - store belong sellim altogether something - me-fellow can helpim you long catchim what-name something you likim, big-fellow na liklik, long good-fellow price.
Side 150: Come into our store - a store for selling everything - we can help you get whatever you want, big and small, at a good price.
Side 194: It was an extremely unlikely fluke that we developed radios at all, and more of a fluke that we developed them before we developed the technology that could end us in a slow stew or fast bang. While Earth's history thus offers little hope that radio civilizations exist elsewhere, it also suggests that any that might exist are short-lived. Other intelligent civilizations that rose elsewhere probably reversed their own progress overnight, just as we now risk doing.
Side 194: We're very lucky that that's so. I find it mind-boggling that the astronomers now eager to spend a hundred million dollars on the search for extraterrestrial life have never thought seriously about the most obvious question: what would happen if we found it, or if it found us. The astronomers tacitly assume that we and the little green monsters would welcome each other and settle down to fascinating conversations. Here again, our own experience on Earth offers useful guidance. We've already discovered two species that are very intelligent but technically less advanced than we are - the common chimpanzee and pygmy chimpanzee. Has our response been to sit down and try to communicate with them? Of course not. Instead we shoot them, dissect them, cut off their hands for trophies, put them on exhibit in cases, inject them with AIDS virus as a medical experiment, and destroy or take over their habitats. That response was predictable, because human explorers who discovered technically less advanced humans also regularly responded by shooting them, decimating their populations with new diseases, and destroying or taking over their habitats.
Side 201: While Jane Goodall described males of one group of common chimps gradually killing off individuals of the neighbouring group an usurping their territory, those chimps had no means to kill chimps of a more remote group, nor to exterminate all chimps (including themselves). Thus, xenophobic murder has innumerable animal
precursors, but only we have developed it to the point of threatening to bring about our fall as a species. Threatening our own existence has now joined art and language as a human hallmark.
Side 303: I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
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