Jared+Diamond

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Jared Diamond~

__Jared Diamond, born in 1937, is a professor of geography at the University of California in Los Angeles. He has written many books, including //The Third Chimpanzee,// a book about his thoughts and discoveries on evolution. His works and studies on evolution and geography have had a huge role on the way we see the theory of evolution today in general. He is known today as "America's best known geographer".__



Jared Diamond's Book, //The Third Chimpanzee (1991),// is all about evolution and his discoveries on the matter. The idea behind the title is that is some outside life form or alien were to visit our planet, they would see humans as a third species of chimpanzee. The talks about what makes us different from chimpanzees, and why we have evolved. Diamond believes that the reason that things evolve relies heavily on their geographic surroundings. He believe that more favorable geographic location is the reason for more and less advanced cultures today. In his book, //Guns, Germs, and Steel,// He talks about how based on geography, you can understand why different ancient civilizations were conquered by others. He believes strongly in the term "survival of the fittest", and that geography decides just who the "fittest" are.

Many scientists believe that the move from hunter-gatherers to a more leisurely life of agriculture was a big step in the civilization of early peoples. But Diamond has another idea. He thinks that this change was not necessarily for the better. Early hunter-gatherers lived in small groups and were more independent. He believes that the transition to agricultural lifestyles was one to peasantry and toil. According to recent calculations, the primitive hunter-gatherers weren't working and hunting all day like we had previously thought. In fact, these peoples would have had several hours of relaxation each day. Diamond also found something interesting about the heights of people living different lifestyles. In //The Third Chimpanzee,// he writes: > "One straightforward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Many modern cases illustrate how improved childhood nutrition leads to taller adults: for instance, we stoop to pass through doorways of medieval castles built for a shorter, malnourished population. Paleopathologists studying ancient skeletons from Greece and Turkey found a striking parallel. The average height of hunter-gatherers in that region toward the end of the Ice Age was a generous five feet ten inches for men, five feet six inches for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, reaching by 4000 B.C. a low value of only five feet three for men, five feet one for women. By classical times, heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the heights of their healthy hunter-gatherer ancestors." [p. 186] Jared Diamond has also done a lot of work on the field. He doesn't //just// write books. Diamond has been on 22 expeditions to New Guinea and its neighboring islands to study ecology and the evolution of birds. he has also conducted other field projects in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. He has taken part in projects for the Indonesian government and the World Wildlife Fund.



WORKS CITED Blades, M. (n.d.). Daily Kos: Romney got his book so wrong that Jared Diamond doubts he even read it. //Daily Kos :: News Community Action//. Retrieved January 17, 2013, from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/02/1116039/-Romney-got-his-book-so-wrong-that-Jared-Diamond-doubts-he-even-read-it

Diamond: The Third Chimpanzee - Scienticity. (n.d.). //Scienticity//. Retrieved January 17, 2013, from http://scienticity.net/wiki/Diamond:_The_Third_Chimpanzee

Jared Diamond, Geographer Information, Facts, News, Photos -- National Geographic. (n.d.). //National Geographic - Inspiring People to Care About the Planet Since 1888//. Retrieved January 17, 2013, from http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/jared-diamond/

Rudolph the Brown-Nose Hominid: Were Homo Sapiens Bred to Be Submissive? | TheDopamineProject.org. (n.d.). //TheDopamineProject.org | Better Living Through Dopamine Awareness//. Retrieved January 17, 2013, from http://dopamineproject.org/2012/07/rudolph-the-brown-nose-hominid-were-homo-sapiens-bred-to-be-submissive/