Collapse: Based on the Book by Jared Diamond

[Bakustra]

I've read Collapse, thank you. Diamond focuses on the lack of fish as support for his argument, and for his thesis that cultural reasons were the defining factor behind the collapse of the colonies. The subtitle itself is "How Societies Choose or Fail to Succeed." But let's get this down to brass tacks. If the Norse in Greenland had indeed altered their way of life to imitate that of the Inuit, the colony would still have failed and they would have been subsumed into Inuit civilization. So they didn't choose to fail or succeed- all their choices would have ended in failure. They could have abandoned everything and joined the Inuit. They could have left. They could have died. Probably all of these were followed, in the end, by different people, and all of them end in the destruction of the colony. So that's why it's a poor example of the idea that choice is important to survival, and culture influences these choices.

You appear to be making Diamond's argument more reasonable for him. A commendable effort, but his arguments are his arguments, and they depend on a "mysterious absence of fish" to work. His argument, in fact, is that they willfully avoided eating fish, indeed almost on the level of a taboo. His chief support for this was a lack of fishbones and fishhooks. Well, further digging has uncovered fishbones. The idea that such preferences were societal may be workable, but I suspect simple economics and human factors- when all you have for the next nine weeks is fish, then beef and pork become very valuable and savory indeed. The same applies to many societies- do Americans have a cultural preference for veal and duck, or are these valuable because of scarcity and taste?

This applies to high status- the richer ate better throughout most of history, and of course you were going to give the priest the fattened calf if he was dining with you. There's not really a need to declare a specific cultural preference when economics provides a valid explanation. Snobbery also could have contributed too.

Fishbones are very quick to decay, and are also often eaten by domestic animals. Their absence should not have been taken as proof of anything. But a study of carbon-14 content, apart from conclusive evidence that the Norse survived at least until 1415, shows a steady increase in the percentage of marine content in the diet, not the sudden leap you imply. The study, in pdf form, can be found here. The only person after 1200 to not get a plurality of their diet from the sea is a bishop, who probably came from Norway and thus had a more terrestrial diet. While they cannot determine the percentage of fish as opposed to seal alone, the Norse did adapt, and so Diamond is wrong.

[Broomstick]

But let's get this down to brass tacks. If the Norse in Greenland had indeed altered their way of life to imitate that of the Inuit, the colony would still have failed and they would have been subsumed into Inuit civilization.

What, you couldn't have had a tribe of tall, pale-skinned, bond/red headed people speaking a European language existing side-by-side with dark skinned, dark haired, short people speaking a North American language? At their peak the Norse colony had several thousand people, certainly large enough to constitute a tribe.

Yes, they might have been absorbed by the Inuit. Or they might have formed their own group of Arctic-adapted people that, while sharing some characteristics with the local Inuit, might have also remained ethnically distinct.

Well, we can't run controlled experiments on groups of people, we can't re-run Norse Greenland and see if something different results.

You appear to be making Diamond's argument more reasonable for him. A commendable effort

Thank you - I did say I was playing devil's advocate.

but his arguments are his arguments, and they depend on a "mysterious absence of fish" to work. His argument, in fact, is that they willfully avoided eating fish, indeed almost on the level of a taboo. His chief support for this was a lack of fishbones and fishhooks. Well, further digging has uncovered fishbones.

Yes - FURTHER digging. At the time he wrote Collapse that evidence had not yet been discovered. At that time there was a notable lack of fish-bone evidence, wasn't there?

Of course, someone trained in archaeology and forensics who was also familiar with Greenland might have come up with alternative explanations, even given them more weight. Personally, I'd be happy if some such expert wrote a book about the matter accessible to the general pubic, which would be better than speculations by someone outside that field. Alas, few scientists seem capable of writing popular books. I am a rare layperson who occasionally manages to trudge through a peer-reviewed journal, but I am very much the exception to the rule.

The biggest problem with "popular science" is that typically there is no dissenting opinion before the public, so they take the word of whomever they last read as gospel.

The idea that such preferences were societal may be workable, but I suspect simple economics and human factors- when all you have for the next nine weeks is fish, then beef and pork become very valuable and savory indeed. The same applies to many societies- do Americans have a cultural preference for veal and duck, or are these valuable because of scarcity and taste?

Actually, in prior generations veal was not valued and was inexpensive - it was considered almost trash and eaten mainly thrifty farm families. I'm not sure when it acquired greater prestige. Duck... well, in the US duck is seen as a game animal, something the frontiersmen and poor country bumpkins hunted for dinner. Middle class and urban people might eat duck now an again, but steak was the higher value food, always. Except, perhaps, in Chinatown, which was an ethnic enclave. Generations of Americans have known duck only filtered through Chinese-American restaurants.

I've known people in the US who look down on deer/venison as well, for similar reason - only uncouth country bumpkins need to hunt for their dinner! Nevermind that venison used to grace the tables of royalty in Europe.

Of course, I'm speaking of the middle-class - the very wealthy also liked to hunt, but they did it for amusement rather than to feed the family like the poor folk did.

Food and culture interact in some very interesting ways. Why is horsemeat considered suitable for human consumption in Europe, yet genuinely is taboo in the US, to the point that it is actually outlawed in many places. Why is that? (That would be interesting to speculate upon, and I have my own theory, but I don't want to derail the discussion at this point). After all, isn't American culture largely European in origin? Why would it deviate in regards to that animal?

This applies to high status- the richer ate better throughout most of history, and of course you were going to give the priest the fattened calf if he was dining with you. There's not really a need to declare a specific cultural preference when economics provides a valid explanation. Snobbery also could have contributed too.

And aren't all those cultural attributes? Aren't those customs? Aren't those tied in with food choices and resource allocations?

In Japan certain types of fish are high status in a way fish never is in the west. A single bluefin tuna being sold for over $100,000 is amazing to Americans, it seems unbelievable. In the US tuna (aside from sushi varieties, which have only gained wide acceptance since the 1980's) is a cheap fish, usually found in cans, and often smothered with something else (such as mayonnaise) to disguise the flavor. And this is all driven by culture, down to how the fish is handled after catching to either preserve fresh and subtle flavors to to slam it into a can to preserve it as long as possible. Americans will stop eating tuna due to concerns about mercury contamination or fears dolphins are being slaughtered along with the fish - the Japanese seem willing to ignore bycatch of any sort in pursuit of fewer and fewer bluefin, without any apparent concern for maintaining the fishery so future generations can also eat them. These differences in attitude have real effects in the real world.

Fishbones are very quick to decay, and are also often eaten by domestic animals. Their absence should not have been taken as proof of anything.

And that's a legitimate criticism. I'm sure a typical arctic archeologist would note that immediately. Of course, Diamond is not an arctic anything, his professional field of expertise is in New Guinea birds. That sort of mistake is a hazard of attempting to talk outside of your expertise. I don't know, maybe he should have qualified his statement "Lack of fish bones make me think this, but if there's an alternative explanation that might change my viewpoint." The downside of course is that this only confuses the average fucking stupid reader.

While they cannot determine the percentage of fish as opposed to seal alone, the Norse did adapt, and so Diamond is wrong.

I still think you're trying to hammer this into a binary system of yes/no, right/wrong. Couldn't it be argued that the Norse didn't adapt enough - they clearly did change over time, but not fast enough and not to the degree required for survival? Perhaps they could have retained European style dwellings if they had adopted Inuit kayaks and hunting techniques. Maybe they could have retained some farming practices if they had entirely given up domestic land animals (other than, say, dogs and cats) and got all their meat from the sea. We don't know.

[Thanas]

Back to the OP: Diamond has the misfortune that starting with Delbrück, the discipline of history has evolved very much in favor of detailed models. Historians as a whole distrust large-scale models, especially ones that try to explain humanity from the beginning to the end. He might have fared better had the tried to develop his model on one particular nation alone. For example, one can explain the rise of the USA far better with a single model than the rise of Europe, for the variations just become too much.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/posting.php?mode=post&f=52

What?

The idea that the Norse prefered land to sea based meat is based on two things:

1) trash heaps or middens - for the first several hundred years of the colony kitchen waste was composed largely of land-based food items, like cattle, sheep, goats, and even the occasional pig. Yes, a few fish and seal bones show up, but they are distinct MINORITY of trash. This would seem to indicate that the Norse liked their meat on the hoof, not on the fin.

Here's another thing - the higher the status of the farm/homestead, the less seafood in the midden. Chieftans' homes have almost none. Farms known to be poor or on marginal land had more. There is at least one farm from the "middle settlement" that had NO bones of domestic animals at all, just fish and seals. There was also a lack of European made items such as worked tools, which would seem to indicate poverty. It was also one of the first areas abandoned.

That's all consistent with seafood being lower status than land-based foods.

No, it may just be that fish bones were given to farm animals to eat, like pigs who in history have eaten a lot of those things. Pigs were high status animals (but don't you go construing that fish were low status from that) and would be owned by the richest people - and eat their fish bones. And of course the more successful farms would have less fish bones anyway - because they would eat a larger percentage of grain, which would give - after investments - higher yields than fish. Again, not indicative of status per se, more indicative of whether a settlement diversifies its food structure or not.




Now, this still doesn't mean "fish" - in fact, most of the midden remains are seal bones. Even at the end, it seems the Norse preferred something else over fish. They certainly ate fish, but it was never a mainstay of their diet.[/quote]

A lot of explanations for that - the Inuit might have had better access to fishing grounds and defended those etc. No real proof for choice.

Again, they did not abandon fish so much as prefer to eat something other than fish.

No, all we have so far is that they diversified their intake of other food, which is actually smart economic strategy and has got nothing to do with status (except for explaining the abscence of fish bones in the chieftain's house).

Then explain why there is so little physical evidence of fish in their trash. Even when they did switch to a sea-based diet they seemed to prefer seals to fish.

Bakustra dealt with that.

Why? I don't know. "Cultural preference" doesn't seem outrageous to me. Yes, they were Norse, from Iceland and Norway, but that doesn't mean they were absolutely identical to people in those places, especially not after a couple hundred years of being a separate colony.

This is highly unlikely, simply because the Norse were not a culture that abandoned tried and true methods. If they did so, it was because they yielded higher results for less risk.

Yes, but if you're going to dispute his conclusions I personally think it would have been better to attack his suppositions and conclusions about the Mayans rather than the Greenland Norse.

Unlike some people who claim to be experts in everything and really are at none, I prefer to keep arguing to topics I know of.

Diamond is going out on a limb by saying "cultural preference, the Norse preferred goat to cod" but I don't see anyone else supplying a definitive answer.

Whatever the reason they died out was, it certainly was not due to cultural preferences and everybody who was even the slightest bit familiar with Norse culture should know that the image of quickly-adapting norse that appears everywhere else does not mesh with "ideological dunderheads".

As it is, Diamond chose to ride roughshot over contradicting theories and adopted one that suited his model best.

What, you couldn't have had a tribe of tall, pale-skinned, bond/red headed people speaking a European language existing side-by-side with dark skinned, dark haired, short people speaking a North American language? At their peak the Norse colony had several thousand people, certainly large enough to constitute a tribe.

No, you could not. Not unless the Inuit were interested in peaceful coexistence, which according to all reports, they were not.

Yes, they might have been absorbed by the Inuit. Or they might have formed their own group of Arctic-adapted people that, while sharing some characteristics with the local Inuit, might have also remained ethnically distinct.

This is pie-in-the-sky think that has no basis in scientific discussion nor does it deserve serious consideration unless you can present some evidence.

Yes - FURTHER digging. At the time he wrote Collapse that evidence had not yet been discovered. At that time there was a notable lack of fish-bone evidence, wasn't there?

Maybe, maybe not. Nevertheless, if he had floated his theory before a scientific audience (which is the proper way to do it) he would have found support or not. Had he probably just phoned a single professor of norse history or done any reading beyond a superficial level he would have found that every source talks about the norse readily adapting to both local cultures and lifestyles. And that should have given him pause. So either he did not do basic research or he chose to ignore it, which is even worse.

Personally, I'd be happy if some such expert wrote a book about the matter accessible to the general pubic, which would be better than speculations by someone outside that field. Alas, few scientists seem capable of writing popular books.

The reason for that is that popular books require certainty. You rarely achieve that as a historian. So whatever "value" popular histories might have are not enhanced by having experts write them, as said experts would be really bad at writing popular books precisely because making a cheap buck is not at the forefront of their thoughts. Scientific accuracy is.

That sort of mistake is a hazard of attempting to talk outside of your expertise. I don't know, maybe he should have qualified his statement "Lack of fish bones make me think this, but if there's an alternative explanation that might change my viewpoint." The downside of course is that this only confuses the average fucking stupid reader.

I do not think that is a valid defence. Diamond clearly wanted to write a big history of everything that he wanted to market to historians as well, or at least the book was announced as such.

I still think you're trying to hammer this into a binary system of yes/no, right/wrong. Couldn't it be argued that the Norse didn't adapt enough - they clearly did change over time, but not fast enough and not to the degree required for survival? Perhaps they could have retained European style dwellings if they had adopted Inuit kayaks and hunting techniques. Maybe they could have retained some farming practices if they had entirely given up domestic land animals (other than, say, dogs and cats) and got all their meat from the sea. We don't know.

The only thing we can conclude from the evidence is that the land got worse, the inuit got more aggressive (possibly as result of climate change as well) and that the colony could not survive any longer. Anything else is just idle speculation with no basis in fact.

Really, we have norse diets already consisting of nearly 100% fish. How more could they have adapted? Especially with the Inuit attacking them. Abandoning their dwellings leaves them open to attack, as does adopting Inuit techniques (which they most likely adopted anyway, seeing as how they adopted local techniques everywhere else they lived).

[Bakustra]

In order to adopt Inuit practices, they would have to be absorbed into the Inuit tribes. How else are they supposed to learn how to hunt and live in the Inuit way? Trial and error would almost certainly have wiped them out before producing valuable results. French fur traders actively sought out natives to learn from, just as another real-world example. It seems unlikely that they would have been able to remain apart from everybody else, seeing as they would have to merge with them in order to gain the necessary survival skills. Remaining free from intermarriage and maintaining their separate language would be counterproductive to learning from the Inuit. In essence, that would be ascribing the Vikings a concern about intermarriage on the level of modern white supremacists! Hardly likely. Even a more reasonable interpretation would be to suddenly morph the settlers into the Scandinavian equivalent of Orthodox Jews, without any real way to maintain the literacy that was essential to retaining a Jewish identity in Europe and Asia. That is the problem with Diamond's argument, at its core: it makes the Vikings out to have been utter idiots. This is assuming that the Inuit don't kill them outright, of course.

Again, Diamond's argument is the one I am criticizing. His is dependent on a lack of fish; but we see the percentage of fish steadily increases as time goes on. His argument falls apart, because we can see that the Norse did adapt and did shift from farming and herding to hunting and fishing over time. They may not have shifted completely, or they may have been absorbed into Inuit groups and vanished from the face of history beyond genetic markers, but they did shift, and that torpedoes his theory.

The idea that people of high status generally eat better is not a cultural attribute worth noting except in the very broadest sense. If it is shared by essentially every society that has a formal differentiation of status, is it really noteworthy?

The Norse retaining fixed settlements while adopting Inuit ways in others is problematic, as many of the Inuit groups were reliant on being mobile to allow them to pack up and move when necessary. Of course, the method of seal hunting that the Norse used is very similar to that of the Inuit, which is a further nail in the coffin of the rigidity proposal. The culture was probably very syncretic by the end of the colony, and further syncretism would only be possible by abandoning the last vestiges of tradition Norse culture.

[Thanas]

In order to adopt Inuit practices, they would have to be absorbed into the Inuit tribes. How else are they supposed to learn how to hunt and live in the Inuit way?

I don't doubt they traded with the Inuit at the start and then captured/bought a few of them as slaves. Standard norse practice. Or they simply observed them.

I am wholly in agreement with you, but learning how to fish the Inuit way (which is still not proven superior to the norse net way, btw) does not require absorption per se.

[Bakustra]

In order to adopt Inuit practices, they would have to be absorbed into the Inuit tribes. How else are they supposed to learn how to hunt and live in the Inuit way?

I don't doubt they traded with the Inuit at the start and then captured/bought a few of them as slaves. Standard norse practice. Or they simply observed them.

I am wholly in agreement with you, but learning how to fish the Inuit way (which is still not proven superior to the norse net way, btw) does not require absorption per se.

I'm talking about the whole shebang of adoption though, like Broomstick was with the Mandan-scenario she proposed. They certainly could adopt Inuit fishing and the other basic methods from observation, (in fact, it's quite possible they adopted the Inuit style of seal hunting, at least superficially) but things like building igloos would have been forgotten by the time of the end of the settlement, and they probably had too few people to capture slaves anymore. So by the time they would have potentially been desperate enough to adopt Inuit methods wholesale, they would have to essentially merge with the Inuit to survive.

[Broomstick]

Yes, but if you're going to dispute his conclusions I personally think it would have been better to attack his suppositions and conclusions about the Mayans rather than the Greenland Norse.

Unlike some people who claim to be experts in everything and really are at none, I prefer to keep arguing to topics I know of.

There is actually a reason I say that. To someone ignorant of the nuances of Norse history and culture his argument about Greenland makes some sense. It may be inaccurate and cherry-picked but there is still some sort of consistency to his argument. His argument about the Maya lacked that, it really did seem to be reaching far too much for my taste. If it doesn't hold together convincingly in at least a superficial manner I can't buy the conclusion. One doesn't have to be an expert or knowledgeable about details to do that.

No, you could not. Not unless the Inuit were interested in peaceful coexistence, which according to all reports, they were not.

I'm not convinced the Norse were interested in peaceful co-existence, either - both parties happily attacked the other when it suited them. But the Inuit didn't show up in Greenland just to conquer the Norse, they showed up to exploit areas that were uninhabited. The Norse only had three settlements at the most, and while they certainly hunted on other parts of the island most of it was open to the Inuit without competition. If the Norse had kept up their numbers and kept themselves armed at least of the level of their neighbors it could have been a stalemate had things been different. It's not like the Norse were pacifists. Adversarial tribes have co-existed side by side in other places, wipe-outs don't seem to occur unless one group suddenly gains an upper hand or one group suffers a major set back. The Greenland Norse certainly were having setbacks towards the end. I don't know if it was actually the case, but it wouldn't surprise me if attacks on the Norse increased as their numbers declined.

Yes, they might have been absorbed by the Inuit. Or they might have formed their own group of Arctic-adapted people that, while sharing some characteristics with the local Inuit, might have also remained ethnically distinct.

This is pie-in-the-sky think that has no basis in scientific discussion nor does it deserve serious consideration unless you can present some evidence.

You can't provide evidence for something that didn't happen, can you? I'm still curious if there could be a plausible scenario where things played out that way, whether science approves of my daydreaming or not. That is, after all, how people come to write alternate-history novels.

Yes - FURTHER digging. At the time he wrote Collapse that evidence had not yet been discovered. At that time there was a notable lack of fish-bone evidence, wasn't there?

Maybe, maybe not. Nevertheless, if he had floated his theory before a scientific audience (which is the proper way to do it) he would have found support or not. Had he probably just phoned a single professor of norse history or done any reading beyond a superficial level he would have found that every source talks about the norse readily adapting to both local cultures and lifestyles. And that should have given him pause. So either he did not do basic research or he chose to ignore it, which is even worse.

The problem with floating a book idea in front of a "scientific audience" is that they overwhelmingly have the attitude that no one else should ever say anything about their topic because no one else is qualified - yet they will not speak to the public themselves. Most scientists are quite snobbish and arrogant in that regard Because no one outside of their specialty can have perfect understanding they won't even attempt to communicate to the public and insist no one else does either. Yet there is a hunger out there for information, that's why a book like Collapse sells. Then the scientists bitch because someone else dared to speak when they refused to do so.

Which does not excuse Diamond failing to do as much research as he could. As to whether or not he attempted to contact people with expertise in these areas I can't say, I'm not personally acquainted with his methods. On the other hand, I have already mentioned that some of his sources have spoken out in public against him, which is why I did state earlier that anything he says would need independent verification before I would accept it.

Personally, I'd be happy if some such expert wrote a book about the matter accessible to the general pubic, which would be better than speculations by someone outside that field. Alas, few scientists seem capable of writing popular books.

The reason for that is that popular books require certainty. You rarely achieve that as a historian. So whatever "value" popular histories might have are not enhanced by having experts write them, as said experts would be really bad at writing popular books precisely because making a cheap buck is not at the forefront of their thoughts. Scientific accuracy is.

What, historians don't need to pay bills or eat? Yes, yes, I know they get paid for their work, but while a cheap buck may not be their main motivation in life money is tempting, especially if one has a family to raise. I applaud the integrity of historians who refuse to write shitty books to suck money out of the public, but I find it hard to believe that no one in the community is incapable of writing a good book for the public, or would refuse money earned by a successful book. Well, maybe I'm wrong on that, but I would still really like to see accurate books on such topics. Given how historians are I would expect them to stay within their particular area of expertise rather than attempt a global overview like Diamond, but I for one would very much be interested in a book about Norse Greenland written by an authority in the subject.

Well, if historians won't attempt to communicate with the general public then why are they surprised the public remains ignorant? History is seen as useless by a lot of people because they don't see any results from it, and whenever someone in the sciences writes a book aimed at the layperson his or her colleagues seem to attacks with a vitriol that looks a lot like professional jealousy to an outsider - whether or not it actually is, or if it's a reaction to the necessity of simplifying somethings so the lay audience isn't overwhelmed, or if it's something else I can't personally say.

I do know that in some scientific fields there is some pretty intense competition and in-fighting, the politics can get ugly. I'm sure some of the heat comes from one party thinking the other party is simply wrong, but, of course, that is why scientists look for evidence, to back up (or disprove) their hypotheses.

The end result is, of course, that someone like Diamond - who IS willing to walk out on a limb and talk to the public - winds up speaking for the historians. Then, because the public has little other obvious source of information they tend to believe Diamond and he has a bestseller on his hands. Short of historians trying to write accessible books for the general public I don't see a solution to that problem.

I do not think that is a valid defence. Diamond clearly wanted to write a big history of everything that he wanted to market to historians as well, or at least the book was announced as such.

Of course, some or most of that might well have been marketing on the part of the publisher.

I still think you're trying to hammer this into a binary system of yes/no, right/wrong. Couldn't it be argued that the Norse didn't adapt enough - they clearly did change over time, but not fast enough and not to the degree required for survival? Perhaps they could have retained European style dwellings if they had adopted Inuit kayaks and hunting techniques. Maybe they could have retained some farming practices if they had entirely given up domestic land animals (other than, say, dogs and cats) and got all their meat from the sea. We don't know.

The only thing we can conclude from the evidence is that the land got worse, the inuit got more aggressive (possibly as result of climate change as well) and that the colony could not survive any longer. Anything else is just idle speculation with no basis in fact.

Except I know darn well that the people who study Norse Greenland DO have theories of their own, even if they don't publicize them. Science exists in a context because it's done by people who have cultures and opinions of their own. It's ridiculous to put forth the notion that people are just observing raw facts without trying to figure why things happened the way they did. You even did it yourself, with you parenthetical statement about the Inuit possibly getting more aggressive due to climate change. Maybe they got more aggressive because the Norse looked like a softer target and were no longer able to defend themselves as effectively due to shrinking numbers. I don't think its beyond the possible to write a book accessible to the average reader (note I said reader, which already implies a different level of sophistication than the average slack-jawed naked ape) that first discusses the actual known facts then discusses what might have happened while making it very clear that such things are speculation and not proven. I even think it's possible to make such a book interesting. I also think that, lacking certainty it probably won't be a bestseller, but, oh well.

[Thanas]

Broomstick, you might want to read up on the troubles the Spaniards had in colonizing the americas and how many expeditions they lost. The tales are quite horrific.

You can't provide evidence for something that didn't happen, can you? I'm still curious if there could be a plausible scenario where things played out that way, whether science approves of my daydreaming or not. That is, after all, how people come to write alternate-history novels.

And it is also the reason I try to stay away from them as they give me headaches.

The problem with floating a book idea in front of a "scientific audience" is that they overwhelmingly have the attitude that no one else should ever say anything about their topic because no one else is qualified - yet they will not speak to the public themselves. Most scientists are quite snobbish and arrogant in that regard.

BS. I know that at least five processors have been consulted by magazine writers alone in the past two years. I was even present at such a consultation. It is trivially easy and commonplace for a magazine writer to pick up a phone and call an expert to float a theory. Heck, I even received such a call asking me for input.

Because no one outside of their specialty can have perfect understanding they won't even attempt to communicate to the public and insist no one else does either. Yet there is a hunger out there for information, that's why a book like Collapse sells. Then the scientists bitch because someone else dared to speak when they refused to do so.

ITT Broomstick reveals her prejudices about scientists. I do not know whether I should be offended or astonished at the suggestion that in the age of contact info widely published on websites together with the area of expertise a phone-call is out of the question.

What, you think I told the reporter to go screw himself because he was not an expert?

What, historians don't need to pay bills or eat? Yes, yes, I know they get paid for their work, but while a cheap buck may not be their main motivation in life money is tempting, especially if one has a family to raise. I applaud the integrity of historians who refuse to write shitty books to suck money out of the public, but I find it hard to believe that no one in the community is incapable of writing a good book for the public, or would refuse money earned by a successful book.

English and American historians often do, which is a reason why the anglo-saxon tradition of history is sometimes looked down upon (that and not being as precise in their language as they could be). The problem is that the line between scholarly work and popular work becomes blurry. Also, it takes a lot of work to write a book, several years mostly. Especially young historians however need that time to get a reputation and a paying position. If you want to change that, create more jobs for historians.

History is seen as useless by a lot of people because they don't see any results from it, and whenever someone in the sciences writes a book aimed at the layperson his or her colleagues seem to attacks with a vitriol that looks a lot like professional jealousy to an outsider - whether or not it actually is, or if it's a reaction to the necessity of simplifying somethings so the lay audience isn't overwhelmed, or if it's something else I can't personally say.

The problem is the general public is ignorant. If I got students at my uni who study history, but have never read Cicero or Caesar, do not know who Cicero is and cannot name a single Imperial law of Rome.... unless public education as a whole does a better job, I do not see the general level of ignorance changing.

Short of historians trying to write accessible books for the general public I don't see a solution to that problem.

I know a few historians who tried writing accessible books. They got outsold by the more sensationalist books who were willing to make more outlandish claims. There is a reason why the Da Vinci code is a bestseller, while the King of Korfu remains hidden in obscurity.

You even did it yourself, with you parenthetical statement about the Inuit possibly getting more aggressive due to climate change. Maybe they got more aggressive because the Norse looked like a softer target and were no longer able to defend themselves as effectively due to shrinking numbers. I don't think its beyond the possible to write a book accessible to the average reader (note I said reader, which already implies a different level of sophistication than the average slack-jawed naked ape) that first discusses the actual known facts then discusses what might have happened while making it very clear that such things are speculation and not proven. I even think it's possible to make such a book interesting. I also think that, lacking certainty it probably won't be a bestseller, but, oh well.

I floated a theory, which does not translate into me writing a book and putting my name and reputation behind it.

[Broomstick]

Broomstick, you might want to read up on the troubles the Spaniards had in colonizing the americas and how many expeditions they lost. The tales are quite horrific.

The North American expeditions lost a lot of people, too. The one most likely to be known to the Americans is the colony of Roanoke, Virginia, which vanished entirely between one supply ship docking and the next. Speculations have abounded for centuries but still no definitive answer.

Some of the known fates of European explorers and colonists are, as you put it "quite horrific".

You can't provide evidence for something that didn't happen, can you? I'm still curious if there could be a plausible scenario where things played out that way, whether science approves of my daydreaming or not. That is, after all, how people come to write alternate-history novels.

And it is also the reason I try to stay away from them as they give me headaches.

It being 3 am when I wrote that I neglected to mention that, of course, most alternate history novels are sold as FICTION and I have the good sense not to make inaccurate personal ramblings public.

As soon as Diamond puts forth a book he claims is NON-fiction he opens himself up to criticism of a different sort than that given to, say, the Draka novels.

The problem with floating a book idea in front of a "scientific audience" is that they overwhelmingly have the attitude that no one else should ever say anything about their topic because no one else is qualified - yet they will not speak to the public themselves. Most scientists are quite snobbish and arrogant in that regard.

BS. I know that at least five processors have been consulted by magazine writers alone in the past two years. I was even present at such a consultation. It is trivially easy and commonplace for a magazine writer to pick up a phone and call an expert to float a theory. Heck, I even received such a call asking me for input.

Perhaps it is because my experience is with scientists in a different area than history. I did work for scientists and doctors for over 10 years, all of which were regularly published in peer-reviewed journals, and I had contact with quite a few others who collaborated on projects. We certainly had some people willing to talk to reporters, but most of them didn't want to, and a couple absolutely could not be trusted to speak to reporters without making the whole group look bad. One of them used to get angry at me for actually attempting to read the articles in the journals I got for him at the library - I didn't have the background to understand it, I wasn't properly educated, I shouldn't even try because I would just get confused and misunderstand. Well, yeah, I didn't understand everything but I still tried. Not good enough for him - as far as he was concerned if you didn't have at least a master's level education in the subject you shouldn't even attempt to read about it.

So, yes, personal experience may be biasing me somewhat. Certainly, I wasn't impressed by the conduct of many researchers I encountered in the medical sciences.

Because no one outside of their specialty can have perfect understanding they won't even attempt to communicate to the public and insist no one else does either. Yet there is a hunger out there for information, that's why a book like Collapse sells. Then the scientists bitch because someone else dared to speak when they refused to do so.

ITT Broomstick reveals her prejudices about scientists. I do not know whether I should be offended or astonished at the suggestion that in the age of contact info widely published on websites together with the area of expertise a phone-call is out of the question.

See above comments. It may be that the area of science I have seen working up close and personal is different from your area. I sure would like to think so. I don't want to derail this thread with specific examples from my past, but really, at least in the medical area, there are some real bastards and assholes out there.

What, you think I told the reporter to go screw himself because he was not an expert?

Personally, given your patience here on SD.net, I don't think you would do that. However I HAVE seen scientists do that exact thing, berating reporters and telling them they have no business writing about a subject they don't understand and that would be completely incomprehensible to their readers.

Of course, said scientist would then get extremely pissy when the article appears saying "XXX expert would not comment on ABC". Well, jackass, you HAD your opportunity, but when you call a reporter a dumb cunt you're lucky that neutral level of comment is ALL you got. (And yes, one one occasion one of our scientists DID call a reporter a "dumb cunt". Nice going, dickhead - she only worked for a major news agency, thanks a lot.) After that, I got to screen dickhead's calls so reporters were referred elsewhere and that wouldn't happen again.

Maybe you just hang out with a better quality of scientist than I got to, I dunno. I'm just a dumb layperson, after all.

English and American historians often do, which is a reason why the anglo-saxon tradition of history is sometimes looked down upon (that and not being as precise in their language as they could be). The problem is that the line between scholarly work and popular work becomes blurry. Also, it takes a lot of work to write a book, several years mostly. Especially young historians however need that time to get a reputation and a paying position. If you want to change that, create more jobs for historians.

I would happily put more historians to work - I'll get to it right after I achieve control of the world. Well, OK, one or two other items first, but really, I think historians are more valuable than people realize, and the older I get the more I think that.

Such book writing would best be done by highly established and/or retired historians who would have the depth of experience to do the job. Wouldn't suggest newly minted historians attempt it. Seems to be it's a job where experience really counts.

The problem is the general public is ignorant.

Yes, I think I suggested that with my "fucking stupid general reader" comment...

Short of historians trying to write accessible books for the general public I don't see a solution to that problem.

I know a few historians who tried writing accessible books. They got outsold by the more sensationalist books who were willing to make more outlandish claims. There is a reason why the Da Vinci code is a bestseller, while the King of Korfu remains hidden in obscurity.

Alas, as I said, such quality books would not be bestsellers....

[Thanas]

I've been thinking this over and what history would need is a professorship like Dawkins has - an expert whose sole job it is to make things accessible to the public.

Sadly, I do not see that happening simply because the funding is not there. History departments are chronically underfunded, with a university counting itself lucky if it can get the government to fund a replacement for people retiring. Sometimes, when the subject is not "hip" enough, the institute will get axed by the government.

The problem is that the priority of funding first goes to the natural sciences, then the hard sciences and finally to the soft sciences. This is the case at pretty much every school I know - history and soft sciences teach the majority of students, but the majority of funding goes to the hard sciences. Of course, they have to pay for labs etc, but guess how much of the student's tuition actually goes to the soft sciences? I'd be surprised if history students got as much as ten% of their tuition money directly funneled back to them via tutors, professorships etc.


In that climate, it is better to spend the money on "real" professors who will keep the subject alive and continue to do research instead of spending it on the idea I outlined above.

[Broomstick]

Upon reflection, it occurs to me that there may be considerable difference between my experience with people working in medical science and someone such as yourself, Thanas. Medical research results can lead to enormous sums of money if they convince people to adopt procedures or pharmaceuticals as standard care, revenue streams into not only millions but BILLIONS of dollars. (If I recall correctly, the sum spent on epoetin, for example, a drug used for anemia occurring in end stage renal disease and some cancers in the US alone is in excess of 2 billion USD per year). Not to mention that it does truly involve matters of life and death on occasion. Perhaps those factors increase the stress level involved and account for some of the bad behavior I've seen. While history is certainly important, I find it hard to conceive of a situation where conflicting historical theories will result in present loss of limb or life, or where millions of dollars would be at stake regarding whose theory gained favor.

[Spoonist]

I find it hard to conceive of a situation where conflicting historical theories will result in present loss of limb or life, or where millions of dollars would be at stake regarding whose theory gained favor.

Since you have left the topic and are theorizing generally on history I'll put in a response here.

I can see plenty loss of life and money due to faulty history being publicly available while accurate history is obscure at best. Now mind you its not the direct way as it is in medicine nor as larhe an impact.

Take china's & japan's recent hizzy fit for instance, its based on politics sure but those politics rest on faulty history. Where japan's denial of misconduct in WWII can not be ignored.

Or the turkish denial of the armenian genocide.

[Simon_Jester]

Another problem is that in the medical community there's a small army of journalists who like to publish stuff saying "cure for cancer is nigh!" because that sells. But the cumulative effect of that is disillusionment with the medical community, because they make some little discovery and the news reporters freak out and act like the scientists promised them the moon. After the public hears "major cancer breakthrough!" five hundred times they're liable to become suspicious, and that suspicion can fall on the scientists rather than the journalists responsible for it.

History has other problems, but it might (MIGHT!) not have that one to the same extent, with its practicioners finding that every person who interviews them always distorts what they say in the same predictable ways.

If that is true, it would explain some of the difference.

[PainRack]

I've read Collapse, thank you. Diamond focuses on the lack of fish as support for his argument, and for his thesis that cultural reasons were the defining factor behind the collapse of the colonies. The subtitle itself is "How Societies Choose or Fail to Succeed." But let's get this down to brass tacks. If the Norse in Greenland had indeed altered their way of life to imitate that of the Inuit, the colony would still have failed and they would have been subsumed into Inuit civilization. So they didn't choose to fail or succeed- all their choices would have ended in failure. They could have abandoned everything and joined the Inuit. They could have left. They could have died. Probably all of these were followed, in the end, by different people, and all of them end in the destruction of the colony. So that's why it's a poor example of the idea that choice is important to survival, and culture influences these choices.

Collapse is different from Guns, Germs and Steel in the sense that it isn't preaching a grand, overall arching theory of history.
The opening of the book was in looking at how societies chose to fail. Indeed, a short paragraph stated that he wasn't looking at examples where war/etc caused the destruction of society.

The book was essentially an environmental book that chose to examine what happened when societal decisions combined with changes in the environment caused the society to collapse. As such, shouldn't a better rebutal be how important such environmental concerns truly were or is Diamond over-reaching in an attempt to give a grand arch to the importance of environemntalism?

You appear to be making Diamond's argument more reasonable for him. A commendable effort, but his arguments are his arguments, and they depend on a "mysterious absence of fish" to work. His argument, in fact, is that they willfully avoided eating fish, indeed almost on the level of a taboo. His chief support for this was a lack of fishbones and fishhooks. Well, further digging has uncovered fishbones. The idea that such preferences were societal may be workable, but I suspect simple economics and human factors- when all you have for the next nine weeks is fish, then beef and pork become very valuable and savory indeed. The same applies to many societies- do Americans have a cultural preference for veal and duck, or are these valuable because of scarcity and taste?

No. His argument is based on the assumption that the Vikings didn't get enough food and resources to sustain their colony and this was sparked by cultural reasons. Hence, when physical conditions such as the cutting off of trade/resources with the homelands, the small amount of support provided to Greenland imposed by the tech and hostility with the Inuits, sparked partially by the Vikings own culture caused his collapse. His argument was they were immediate, the "ultimate" cause was the Vikings didn't adapt successfully to the new changes/challenges and the most important reason why was the way their society worked.

Fishbones are very quick to decay, and are also often eaten by domestic animals. Their absence should not have been taken as proof of anything. But a study of carbon-14 content, apart from conclusive evidence that the Norse survived at least until 1415, shows a steady increase in the percentage of marine content in the diet, not the sudden leap you imply. The study, in pdf form, can be found here. The only person after 1200 to not get a plurality of their diet from the sea is a bishop, who probably came from Norway and thus had a more terrestrial diet. While they cannot determine the percentage of fish as opposed to seal alone, the Norse did adapt, and so Diamond is wrong.

Except this had no bearing whatsoever on Diamond book. Diamond ALREADY stated that the Vikings relied heavily on seal, and the division between seal and other meats were economic/social status. What HIS argument is that the Vikings got caught in an environmental failure when the climate changed, worsening their ability to grow food. Their culture which had sparked a war with the Inuits blocked access to the seal routes, and the failing farms had refugees who moved into the richer farms and then overloaded said resources.

Scarcity of resources was his facts and he argued that the way the Viking invested those resources were sparked by cultural/societal concerns. Hence, the investment of "scarce" metal into churches.

I'm not saying Diamond is right, but it would be appropiate to actually engage the right argument.