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Trivers , Wilson , , and especially Weinrich have considered various versions of the possibility that homosexuals may, at some time in history, have been functionally equivalent to sterile workers, foregoing personal reproduction the better to care for other relatives. According to this latter idea, homosexuality represents an 'alternative male tactic' for obtaining matings with females. In a society with harem defence by dominant males, a male who is known to be homosexual is more likely to be tolerated by a dominant male than a known heterosexual male, and an otherwise subordinate male may be able, by virtue of this, to obtain clandestine copulations with females. But I raise the 'sneaky male' hypothesis not as a plausible possibility so much as a way of dramatizing how easy and inconclusive it is to dream up explanations of this kind Lewontin, , used the same didactic trick in discussing apparent homosexuality in Drosophila. The main point I wish to make is quite different and much more important. It is again the point about how we characterize the phenotypic feature that we are trying to explain. Homosexuality is, of course, a problem for Darwinians only if there is a genetic component to the difference between homosexual and heterosexual individuals. While the evidence is controversial Weinrich , let us assume for the sake of argument that this is the case. Now the question arises, what does it mean to say there is a genetic component to the difference, in common parlance that there is a gene or genes 'for' homosexuality? It is a fundamental truism, of logic more than of genetics, that the phenotypic 'effect' of a gene is a concept that has meaning only if the context of environmental influences is specified, environment being understood to include all the other genes in the genome. A gene 'for' A in environment X may well turn out to be a gene for B in environment Y. It is simply meaningless to speak of an absolute, context-free, phenotypic effect of a given gene. Even if there are genes which, in today's environment, produce a homosexual phenotype, this does not mean that in another environment, say that of our Pleistocene ancestors, they would have had the same phenotypic effect. A gene for homosexuality in our modern environment might have been a gene for something utterly different in the Pleistocene. So, we have the possibility of a special kind of 'time-lag effect' here. It may be that the phenotype which we are trying to explain did not even exist in some earlier environment, even though the gene did then exist. Don't you think? Nov 29, Scott rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fic , history. If you've read Guns, Germs and Steel or Collapse you know what to expect from Jared Diamond- a blizzard of fascinating facts, insights and theories that will spark tens of conversations among your like minded friends and colleagues. If you're in the mood for an interesting and informative info-dump you've come to the right book. Diamond explores high and low, illuminating research ranging from comparisons of genitalia size There's reason why 'Hung like a Gorilla' is not a popular phrase and the theories behind these differences, the possible reasons behind Homo Sapiens' sudden technological leap beyond our early origins and our cousins the Neanderthals, and finally a discussion of the threats to our existence that Diamond later devoted Collapse to. Diamond weaves his own experiences working with remote tribes in Papua New Guinea into the narrative and I that found this aspect of his storytelling balances the more fact heavy sections well. I learned a great deal from this book about the evolution of my own body, and the ways that the human form could indicate social and behavioral traits to a neutral observer Diamond uses the example of Aliens viewing our species for the first time. Diamond makes these learnings both accessible and interesting and I experienced a number of out-loud-wow-science exclamation moments while reading this book. If you're at all interested in evolutionary theory and our genetic proximity to our forest-dwelling relatives, you should read this book. If you're still uncertain that we're related to chimpanzees and gorillas, you too, should read it I guarantee you'll be convinced we should have been inviting Bonzo and Harambe to our family barbecues. If you're really, really certain we aren't related to 'apes' and you aren't interested in being convinced otherwise View all 3 comments. This is a wonderful book by a great author. In fact, I prefer this book to the other books that I've read by Jared Diamond. It is entertaining, informative, and every page is interesting. The book covers a vast range of topics, such as how are humans qualitatively different from other animals, why do men do stupid things to impress women, why do people practice adultery, why do humans practice genocide, how did languages evolve, why do some people become addicted to drugs, why do humans produce This is a wonderful book by a great author. The book covers a vast range of topics, such as how are humans qualitatively different from other animals, why do men do stupid things to impress women, why do people practice adultery, why do humans practice genocide, how did languages evolve, why do some people become addicted to drugs, why do humans produce art, and why do humans age. The book ends with the ecological harm humans have done to the planet not just recently, but in ancient times as well , and the extinctions of species that we cause. Diamond shows how none of these activities are unique to humans; each activity has some analog in animal behavior, as well. Like Diamond's other books, there is plenty of speculation here. He makes sweeping generalizations that are not always held up by documented facts. But Diamond's enthusiasm rings loud and clear, and his speculations always sound reasonable, at least to me. May 19, SJ Loria rated it it was ok. Funny that I read this book in Mexico, a country where more people believe in creation than evolution. For the record, I think we evolved from apes. For the record, that doesn't bother me in the least. I am going to do two things, first, I will talk about what I learned from this book, secondly I am going to go on a rant about anthropology. While this book was interesting, there were parts where the author stepped far beyond his area of expertise, leading to some very weak chapters. Further, this Funny that I read this book in Mexico, a country where more people believe in creation than evolution. Further, this was written almost 20 years ago, and it is simply amazing how quickly scientific knowledge has advanced. Some parts were outdated, which I found remarkable. Scientific facts seem to have a very quick expiration date. This book details defining characters of human society - symbolic language, art, agriculture, war, drug abuse and environmental destruction - and presents our evolutionary precursors to these traits. He covers some excellently, and others with not as much conviction. He begins by discussing the unique aspects of the human body both genetically and our life cycle. This part was quite interesting. I learned that we share a whopping It was interesting to see how our prolonged life cycle and the unique characteristic of females menopause has influenced human life. Those two things allowed us to transmit lots of information because old folks would be the story tellers and survival experts when shit hit the fan and allowed women to also live a bit after having children. It's quite dangerous to have children, let us recall. So menopause was a great thing for women, evolutionarily speaking. Interesting to learn that genetic changes took thousands of years to develop, but once they developed than cultural evolution exploded and since has outpaced biological evolution. Evolution slowly brought us to the place where we had the tools to really start running with it. One thing that stands out from this book is that a large part of our progress was heavily dependant on the environment and our genes. Rarely do we stop and thank water for being there, or acknowledge how certain geographical features shaped us as humans. Perhaps we should do this more often. At points, the author stepped outside of his area of expertise to strengthen his argument via other disciplines. I admire the approach and feel it's best to cover one subject through as many routes of knowledge as possible. The tricky thing is, you just have to make good arguments in those other fields. There were two chapters which I shook my head more often than I nodded it, they covered art and astronomy. The author, in discussing what makes humans unique tries to find precedent in other animals as to how this evolved in humans. Art proves tricky. Art, which I would define as the soul expressing itself in reality, is a uniquely human endeavor. Diamond makes the claim that chimpanzees and elephants have produced art in captivity. He quotes an abstract expressionist painter and critic and a psychologist as his authorities. However, the issue is that other animal art is not a spontaneous creation. They were provided the tools in captivity, it's much more likely that they pick up paintbrush and smoosh paint to gain the approval of their handlers and earn extra attention than it is an undeniable expression of their soul. Also, the category of "art" that Diamond holds up as his "see, they can produce art" in fact defines itself as "anti-figurative aesthetic," meaning art that tries to look like nothing in order to symbolize emotion. So yes, chimps splashing paint fits into this very specific category, but that doesn't make it art outside of that interpretation. Show me more realistic art, art that holds the mirror to reality with a bit more clarity and then show me another animal spontaneously producing that, then we'll talk. This author simply does not understand art, which is fine, but which also means you should steer far clear of it while making a case. However, the chapter that blew my mind more than any other was one chapter on our place within the universe. This chapter came from left field, was almost entirely speculative and had very little to do with the central thesis. I have no idea why the editor didn't cut it. Suddenly he begins to explain the immense size of the universe, accurately. Then he suddenly declares that there are no planets that can support life incorrect , we're the only one with life speculative , period. I was shocked, and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt only because we have learned very much about the abundance of habitable planets in the universe since The crappy part is he tries to present it all as factual, when in reality just his first stand of evidence was. What the hell. Now, time to rant, this book embodied a perspective on life that I am coming to disdain - anthropology, or 21st century intellectualized racial awwwing at the primitive people who are just so interesting! Primitive people make great facebook photo albums. Let me explain. The author did a lot of research on New Guinea, and talks extensively about it. Due to the terrain, there were many different societies who lived close to one another but remained isolated. Each pocked was a unique culture, with unique traditions and all that. For example, apparently round them parts the cool thing to do is wear basically a codpeice or penis stick. Some tribes painted them yellow, some green, some had flowers, some feathers, dudes had multiple and some were special occasion ones, etc. You getting the picture if so what color is your penis stick, haha? Lots of penis sticks, no shoes, native instruments, so cute right? None of the influence from evil modern society and satan incarnate aka the white man. Only within the last 40 years or so did these tribes begin to modernize, trade, get modern goods and all. The author fondly recalls one of his strolls through the jungle back in the good old days where he came up to a tribe banging on drums and they were so amazed to see him, a white man. About 20 years later he goes back to visit the tribe, with I'm sure his notebooks to do "observations" on them, fancy camera, maybe a computer, etc and to his horror hears them listening to pop music and sees a few wearing Reeboks. Gasp, they were so much cuter, so much more useful to the purpose of my research paper, when they didn't have Reeboks. What I find appalling about this perspective is it completely ignores the desires of the native people and it ignores the benefits that one is able to obtain from modern society. The very system that allowed the author to think in this way, be educated, and write a book is the one he wants to hold back from cultures because he would rather see the variety of penis ornaments. What if these people want to be modernized? Is it such a horrible thing that they learn about medicine and their infant mortality rate plummets? Is it a bad thing that their life expectancy is over 40 now? What if they want to wear Nikes? Is it such a bad thing to see a world map, understand it's a big place, learn that there are about 7 billion other humans out there? What I simply do not understand about the "awww, look at and study the primitive people" perspective is the lack of consideration for the desires, wishes, or well being of the culture in question. It's like they feel guilty about being white and going to good prep schools. So they'll write academic papers about those cute jungle people, and take photos and all that, but it's like they want that to remain the way it is. Don't modernize, I just got grant money to study you! It's like their vacation from reality, and I think it's frankly insulting to the people being photographed and studied as if they were animals. Anyway, I thought this book was going to be excellent, instead it was average. Perhaps a new edition would really go a long way in improving it. I learned some interesting statistics, but am not very inspired to continue reading Diamond. It has also proved possible to work out a calibration between genetic distance and elapsed time, and thereby get an approximate answer to the question of when we and chimps split apart from our common ancestor. That turns out to be somewhere around seven million years ago, give or take a few million years. If our code instead makes distinctions based on our superior intelligence, social relationships, and capacity for feeling pain, then it becomes difficult to defend an all or nothing code that draws a line between all humans and all animals. It may at first seem paradoxical that Cro-Magnons prevailed over the more muscular Neanderthals, but weaponry rather than strength would have been decisive. Similarly, it's not gorillas that are now threatening to exterminate humans in central Africa, but vice versa. People with huge muscles require lots of food, and they thereby gain no advantage if slimmer, smarter people can use tools to do the same work. After the leap, cultural development no longer depended on genetic change. Despite negligible changes in our anatomy, there has been far more cultural evolution in the past forty thousand years than in the millions of years before. The rhythm method would be terrific for gorillas and most other mammal species, but not for us. In no species besides humans has the purpose of copulation become so unrelated to conception, or the rhythm method so unsuited for contraception. The distinction is based on interbreeding under normal circumstances,: members of the same species may interbreed normally if given the opportunity, while members of different species don't. It also rests on the biological advantage of menopause and increased investment in self-repair. Whether those biological adaptations developed especially at the time of the great leap forward or earlier, they rank among the life-history changes that permitted the rise of the third chimpanzee to humanity. These killers persist only in societies of crowded, malnourished, sedentary people constantly reinfected by each other and by their own sewage. Why should a male advertise such an impediment, and why should a female like it? Zahavi's theory goes to the heart of this paradox. According to his theory, those deleterious structures and behaviors constitute valid indicators that the animal is being honest in its claim of superiority, precisely because those traits themselves impose handicaps. Continents differed in the resources on which civilization depended - especially in the wild animal and plan species that proved useful for domestication. To spread out of this zone, they have to develop new varieties with different climate tolerances. A glance at the map of the old world shows how species could shift long distances without encountering a change of climate. That's where all subsequent steppe invaders of Europe, like the Mongols, stopped. To spread further, steppe society had to adopt to the forested landscape of western Europe - by adopting intense agricultural or by taking over existing European societies and hybridizing with their peoples. Most of the genes of the resulting hybrid societies may have been the genes of old europe. If this reasoning is correct, then anthropologist's traditional emphasis on "man the hunter" as the driving force of human evolution might be valid after all - with the difference that we ourselves were our own prey as well as the predator that forced us into group living. View all 4 comments. Mar 30, Stuart rated it it was amazing Shelves: technology-science , favorites , history-non-fiction , anthropology-evolution. Having been on a evolutionary biology and history trip of late, I couldn't resist revisiting this classic by Jared Diamond. Part One Just Another Species of Big Mammal focuses on the evolutions of primates and the split between apes and monkeys and the further splits down the line between gorillas, chimpanzees, and finally homo habilus, homo erectus, and homo sapiens. This is Having been on a evolutionary biology and history trip of late, I couldn't resist revisiting this classic by Jared Diamond. It posits that the development of language triggered the Great Leap Forward that gave homo sapiens the edge against the larger, stronger Neanderthals in the struggle for survival, especially in their ability to collaborate in hunting and communicate complex plans and concepts. It dives into the previously taboo subject of the potential evolutionary rationale for adultery, as a means for males to spread their genes as far as possibly, while on the flip side women mothers seek a stable mate to provide sustenance for themselves and their children in a monogamous relationship, and the inevitable friction this causes in modern couples. It also discusses the seeming evolutionary disadvantages of humans vs other animals: female menopause, having only babies at a time and only after reaching the teenage years, and living beyond a reproductive age. The answers are thought-provoking and well extrapolated. Part Three Uniquely Human discusses the development of human language; the animal origins of art and its function in modern humans; the mixed blessings of adopting a sedentary, agrarian lifestyle rather than being roving hunter-gatherers; why human beings exhibit the seemingly self-destructive behavior of smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking drugs; and how likely we are to be alone in the universe. Here he discusses how the domestication of native edible grains and animals such as horses, pigs, cows, and sheep provided the nutrition and energy for Eurasian peoples to conquer and dominate other societies that lacked advanced weapons like guns and cannons, lacked horses to form cavalry, which afforded a massive advantage in warfare, and also the proximity to domesticated animals also exposed Eurasians to myriad animal diseases that then allowed them to develop immunities that New World people lacked, leading to disastrous epidemics after contact. This section also details the spread and dominance of Indo-European languages over other languages, which reflected the population movements over the past few millennia. It also contains one of the most disturbing chapters in modern human history, the systematic extermination of the aboriginal blacks of Tasmania by Australian white settlers, and the various religious and cultural superiority beliefs that allowed them to justify genocide. The actual excuses provided for hunting down and killing natives that were viewed as barely human is pretty stomach-turning from a modern perspective, but is detailed without holding back. He then expands on the long and repeated ethnic genocides in human history during the and periods. Diamond details in lucid and unblinking details the numerous waves of extinctions that have happened on the Earth over many eras including the dinosaurs, and then the waves of extinctions directly caused by the explosion in global human population and our destruction of animal habitats and spread across the planet. It also talks about our ability to destroy ourselves overnight via nuclear holocaust, and how on our present path we are likely to exhaust our resources and multiply till the point of ecological collapse. Again, if all students could read this book, they would have a greater sense of urgency that we need to change the path of human civilization if we want to avoid disaster and collapse. Recommended reading for evolutionary biology and historical anthropology: 1. The Human Instinct - Kenneth R. Worse, his conclusions shouldn't be trusted. That's bad science which he hides fairly well behind parts of conflicting views. That's a shame. I'll put more comments after the various sections. Table of Contents Prologue Diamond hit a sore spot with me almost immediately when he wrote " When Darwin intimated in that we had evolved from apes Darwin never wrote or intimated any such thing! He wrote that we must have had a common ancestor. I know Diamond does, though. He then shows how much we differ from other hominids including Neanderthals, but that also shows the age of this book. He sets an interesting lens to look through. He set my teeth on edge by using 'theory' rather than 'hypothesis'. If he's going to argue with science, he should be using the correct terms. All really interesting, but I think he left out a lot to make his point. I'm not well enough informed to really pin down most of it. It just felt that way until I noticed that he was strictly arguing phenotypic evolution rather than the selfish gene theory. Since they inherit through the paternal line, this was a big deal. M13 is 21, light years away, so our message couldn't reach them until 23,AD, but he never mentions that awkward fact. The impression I've had that he's cherry-picking to make his points is confirmed. He completely destroyed any remaining credibility he had. He's quite pessimistic about us, even writing at one point something about 'modern nuclear warfare' leaving the impression we've dropped nuclear bombs fairly often while I'm shocked that only 2 have ever been deployed. For instance, in 20 years after this book was published. Lately I've read several articles that push that a lot earlier, probably at least twice as long ago which doesn't help his argument, although I haven't read a better one for the large mammal extermination. The same happened in Australia, too. Epilogue: Nothing Learned, and Everything Forgotten? He writes We do not need novel, still-to-be invented technologies to solve our problems. We just need more governments to do many more of the same obvious things that some governments are already doing in some cases. Again, I don't entirely agree. A LOT of problems would be solved if we had something that produced portable, high power as the internal combustion engine does. Of course, this book was written before they became a big deal. Very well narrated. I wouldn't bother reading it as there are many other books out there, but it's not a complete waste of time. Just don't drink his Kool Aid. Feb 13, James rated it really liked it Shelves: history , culture-and- politics , general-science-math-technology , psychology , reference , regional , death-dying-killing-bereavement , arts , environment-and-earth- sciences , animals. I'm giving it four stars instead of five only because from the vantage of its age shows, mainly in the absence of some information learned since it was written about the Neanderthals and the similar but then-unknown Denisovan people - specifically, the presence of small amounts of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in the modern human gene pool - and in the absence of that knowledge, the author makes some assumptions about our history with those other peoples that are incomplete at be Excellent. I'm giving it four stars instead of five only because from the vantage of its age shows, mainly in the absence of some information learned since it was written about the Neanderthals and the similar but then-unknown Denisovan people - specifically, the presence of small amounts of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in the modern human gene pool - and in the absence of that knowledge, the author makes some assumptions about our history with those other peoples that are incomplete at best; but the book is impressive in its accurate anticipation of the situations of the present and probable future. The title is based on our very close genetic links with the two species normally called chimpanzees, i. Any other species as closely related to those two as we are would be recognized as simply a third type of chimpanzee by naturalists, hence the title. But this book is not only about our species, but about the environments that have shaped us and how we in turn began shaping the rest of the natural world, usually unintentionally but no less powerfully, once our numbers and technology made that possible, starting with humankind's probable role in the mass extinctions of large animals wherever we showed up and continuing through today's problems of climate change, overfishing and -hunting, introduction of invasive species, and habitat encroachment. The threat of nuclear war is in there, but Diamond accurately predicted that it would become less likely as the catastrophic consequences of environmental devastation grew more visible and irreversible. Informative, thought-provoking, often funny - I recommend this strongly to anyone interested in human history and prehistory and our relationships with the places and the other life forms on our planet. View all 10 comments. Mar 16, John rated it really liked it. Jared Diamond should be required reading. He has influenced my view of humanity and history more than probably anyone except maybe a history professor in college, where I was a history minor. No, I think I Diamond has influenced me more. I bought and read the book immediately and was even more blown away. Both of them were also mind-blowing and insightful. In fact 3C read a bit like an abridged version of the other three books combined. The next time I recommend Diamond to a friend, I think I will recommend 3C because it is a great overview of his works. I was particularly struck by the chapters on language, both animal languages that are only beginning to be unraveled, as well as the information on human languages. The book also contains a striking chapter about genocide. It was a tough chapter to read and teetered on the edge of being overwhelmingly depressing to me. Humans have a long history of killing each other on a massive scale. Besides his incredible insight, I appreciate Diamond for a number of other reasons. First off I find his writing reachable. Although he often talks about some very complex and specific things, he does a brilliant job of making it understandable to a layperson. He also pulls no punches; he seems to have a very realistic view of humanity, good and bad. He is quick to point out inconsistencies, discrimination and arrogance, including his own. He preaches without ever feeling preachy. He also has a fun sense of humor and appreciates irony as it regularly occurs in life. I would be dumber and my life less full if I had not discovered Jared Diamond. And much to my joy he has a new book coming out in mere weeks! View 1 comment. Diamond patiently explains what that means and explores what makes us human. People say that humanity is differentiated by the use of tools and language, but also by murder and genocide. Actually the animal kingdom has examples of rudimentary tools, complex language, murder and genocide. Perhaps it is the degree to which we indulge that makes us human - no bonobo or aardvaark has a red button where, by pushing it, they could obliterate whole cities. No penguin or gazelle lives in as diverse a range of habitats as humanity, nor do they bend nature to its will in quite the same way as we do. So what does make us human. Diamond makes the case that language of increasing complexity and abstractness this is a word? An interesting book, and thought provoking. I marked it down because I did not find this as compelling as the other books I have read by him. Perhaps this is because he invokes many of the same themes as other books, and I have lost the thrill of the new as far as Diamond is concerned. Must catch up with this. Feb 03, Gendou rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction , biology , science. Jared Diamond is a mostly sensible anthropologist. However, he's a lousy evolutionary biologist. For example, he presents multiple theories of the reason for homo sapiens concealed ovulation. These are presented with false balance i. Some have laughably low plausibility, in my opinion. He should have done the research and presented the reader with the likely truth, not a list of mostly bad ideas. THe Third Chimpanzee: the evolution and future of the human animal. As it turned out, writing The Third Chimpanzee defined a crossroads in my life: a shift from writing technical articles on narrow subjects, destined to be read by just a handful of academic experts, to writing books on big subjects, aimed both at experts and at the general public. Buy The Third Chimpanzee. Then in came a phone call that changed my life. The awards were made to me and to two dozen other people in the belief that we had something unusual to contribute to the world, and that five years of freedom might encourage and permit us to contribute more effectively. Instead of being elated by this unexpected good fortune, I found myself depressed for the only time in my life. It took me a week to realize why. The award was in effect a statement: Jared, the MacArthur judges think that you could contribute more to the world than an understanding of gallbladders and New Guinea birds; you haven't been living up to your potential; what are you going to do about it? I realized that I didn't have to give up gallbladders, New Guinea birds, or my university teaching job,. The magazine articles that I had written between and , and the public's response to them, had convinced me that I enjoyed writing for the public and that the public enjoyed my writing. I could contribute far more to the world by weaving together and explaining information drawn from geography, history, science, languages, and music than I could by making new discoveries about narrow technical subjects. But my background and my ongoing technical research weren't wasted, because they gave me the scientific outlook and much of the technical background for weaving together geography and those other subjects. To succeed, a book about science for the public has to please two audiences. First, it has to be interesting and understandable to the general public; my childhood range of interests, my mother's influence, and my school's training in how to write had equipped me to address that first audience. Here the argument is that civilizations sometimes get caught up in internal superiority contests, and deplete the environment to such an extent that they may never recover. Examples include Easter Island and the ruins of Petra , both of which were the result of deforestation resulting in desertification, according to Diamond. The question of why some civilizations collapse and others survive is the main theme of Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed A contemporary review of the work by Frans de Waal was published by the New York Times March, , who praises the wit and breadth of the author's approach to the subject matter. He notes there is an emphasis on linguistic diversity by the author, and endorses the virtue of his inclusion and comparison of historic or far-fetched speculation on origins in hominids. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Retrieved The New York Times. Books by Jared Diamond. Jared Diamond bibliography. Evolutionary biology portal Primates portal. Categories : non-fiction books English-language books Human evolution books Works by Jared Diamond. Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from January All articles needing additional references. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. The Third Chimpanzee Summary | SuperSummary

The awards were made to me and to two dozen other people in the belief that we had something unusual to contribute to the world, and that five years of freedom might encourage and permit us to contribute more effectively. Instead of being elated by this unexpected good fortune, I found myself depressed for the only time in my life. It took me a week to realize why. The award was in effect a statement: Jared, the MacArthur judges think that you could contribute more to the world than an understanding of gallbladders and New Guinea birds; you haven't been living up to your potential; what are you going to do about it? I realized that I didn't have to give up gallbladders, New Guinea birds, or my university teaching job,. The magazine articles that I had written between and , and the public's response to them, had convinced me that I enjoyed writing for the public and that the public enjoyed my writing. I could contribute far more to the world by weaving together and explaining information drawn from geography, history, science, languages, and music than I could by making new discoveries about narrow technical subjects. But my background and my ongoing technical research weren't wasted, because they gave me the scientific outlook and much of the technical background for weaving together geography and those other subjects. To succeed, a book about science for the public has to please two audiences. First, it has to be interesting and understandable to the general public; my childhood range of interests, my mother's influence, and my school's training in how to write had equipped me to address that first audience. Second, the book has to pass technical critical appraisal by scientists expert in the book's various subjects. The only way that I could hope to satisfy that second audience was by discussing those subjects at length with those experts, and by asking them to read and correct my drafts. I had already found, in writing magazine articles, that most scientists whom I asked to help me in understanding their work were pleased to do so, pleased to meet someone else sharing their enthusiasm for their specialty, and generous with their time and knowledge. I began writing The Third Chimpanzee during the years of my MacArthur Fellowship, completed the manuscript's draft just before the end of my fellowship term in , and published it in We routinely draw a fundamental distinction between humans and animals. Humans write, read, talk, and build telescopes and bombs; no animal does any of those things. The first two chapters of The Third Chimpanzee suggest what those decisive small differences might be. Obviously, at least some of those differences involve our brains, which are four times larger than those of chimpanzees. Also frequently discussed is our upright posture, freeing up our hands for using tools. Less often discussed is our distinctive sexuality, which occupies the next five chapters of The Third Chimpanzee. Adult humans are approximately as big as adult chimpanzees, and smaller than adult gorillas and orang-utans. We seem to have the broadest vocabulary of all animals. Humans create the largest impact on the environment. We, and only we, have the ability to completely wipe ourselves from the face of the Earth. With his exploration of our similarities to the rest of the animal kingdom, Dr, Diamond has hope that we can learn. That we are able to see our similarities as well as our distinctiveness and embrace our true position in the universe. As the third chimpanzee. Looking at our psychological development as individuals, it seems to mirror the journey the human race has taken in its own understanding of our place in the universe. Starting out we are the end all and be all of existence. The sun rises and sets for us and about us. Later, some of us at least, come to realize that there are others and they are just as important as we are. The world does not revolve around us but we interact with a much larger world. If we are very lucky we discover that we really see some of these others as more important than ourselves. So important their continued existence is worth more to us than anything — including our own. These are the people we claim to love, honor, revere and cherish. If, as Dr. Then, perhaps, we will see this connection does not diminish us but broadens who we are as both species and individual. We can see that as a unique part of a greater whole we have a duty and a responsibility to think beyond our selfishness to the greater good. 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Not even a great ape but just another in a long line of upright standing mammal? He asks it not with metaphysics or theology but with biology , geography and social science. He questions our unique construction, the places we live and how we interact; both inter-species and intra-species, and which of these key components that can be measured may — or may not — either separately or in combination be the key that makes us human. Diamond expounds on the questions asked in this book. In Guns, Germs and Steel he concentrates on the geography of why human society, Western Eurasian society in particular, has spread across the globe. What was it that allowed European technology to flourish while African and American societies were hindered in their progress. Utilizing geography he demonstrates it was not any inherent superiority in the Europeans themselves but rather a quirk of good geographic luck. The wide open plains and steppe of Europe and Central Asia allowed the development of agriculture and animal husbandry ; and hence advanced society, sooner in Eurasia. Likewise the sweeping continent allowed technological advances as well as disease to spread easily. Thus providing faster distribution of knowledge and immunity to a wider array of illness. Collapse focuses on the social and environmental impact of the human species on both itself and the the world in which we live. Diamond demonstrates human beings often act shortsightedly. We fail to see or wantonly ignore the damage we are responsible for until it is to late. Often the damage takes a long time to accrue; as in the fertile crescent or Petra , once the breadbasket of the Middle East. It can also happen within a few generations, as on small South Pacific islands; where the new human arrivals use up scarce resources. The effects of human intervention, either ignored or mistaken, often last long after those who caused the damage have moved on or perished. Diamond dedicates this book to, who at the time were small boys, his two young sons. With each exploration he shows we are not unique. Other animals use some form of language; tool use, while not wide spread, is there with other animals, even beyond primates. Even our use of drugs to our own detriment is not unique, and the trait we most abhor, the purposefully killing of another is practiced by other creatures as well. It seems we are different not in kind but only in quantity to the rest of the animal kingdom. We seem to have the broadest vocabulary of all animals. Humans create the largest impact on the environment. We, and only we, have the ability to completely wipe ourselves from the face of the Earth. With his exploration of our similarities to the rest of the animal kingdom, Dr, Diamond has hope that we can learn. Also, long-lasting contact with domesticated animals of agricultural populations permits greater resistance to disease, which is another reason why contact among geographically separated cultures — mostly agricultural versus hunter-gatherer societies — often leads to extinction of the latter through devastating infections. The process of first contact between differing civilizations is examined through the descriptions of Papua New Guinea highlanders, who were first visited half a century back. Historically, Diamond argues such contacts between widely differing populations have very frequently culminated in the extinction of the disadvantaged groups like many Native American tribes, the Tasmanians , etc. There is a long list of genocides in history. The question of why some civilisations conquered others is the main theme of Diamond's later book Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13, years Here the argument is that civilizations sometimes get caught up in internal superiority contests, and deplete the environment to such an extent that they may never recover. Examples include Easter Island and the ruins of Petra , both of which were the result of deforestation resulting in desertification, according to Diamond. The question of why some civilizations collapse and others survive is the main theme of Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed A contemporary review of the work by Frans de Waal was published by the New York Times March, , who praises the wit and breadth of the author's approach to the subject matter. He notes there is an emphasis on linguistic diversity by the author, and endorses the virtue of his inclusion and comparison of historic or far-fetched speculation on origins in hominids. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Retrieved The New York Times. Books by Jared Diamond. Jared Diamond bibliography. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Includes bibliographical references p. Just another species of big mammal. A tale of three chimps -- The great leap forward -- pt. An animal with a strange life cycle. The evolution of human sexuality -- The science of adultery -- How we pick our mates and sex partners -- Sexual selection, and the origin of human races -- Why do we grow old and die? Uniquely human. Bridges to human language -- Animal origins of art -- Agriculture's mixed blessings -- Why do we smoke, drink, and use dangerous drugs? World conquerors.

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond

The crappy part is he tries to present it all as factual, when in reality just his first stand of evidence was. What the hell. Now, time to rant, this book embodied a perspective on life that I am coming to disdain - anthropology, or 21st century intellectualized racial awwwing at the primitive people who are just so interesting! Primitive people make great facebook photo albums. Let me explain. The author did a lot of research on New Guinea, and talks extensively about it. Due to the terrain, there were many different societies who lived close to one another but remained isolated. Each pocked was a unique culture, with unique traditions and all that. For example, apparently round them parts the cool thing to do is wear basically a codpeice or penis stick. Some tribes painted them yellow, some green, some had flowers, some feathers, dudes had multiple and some were special occasion ones, etc. You getting the picture if so what color is your penis stick, haha? Lots of penis sticks, no shoes, native instruments, so cute right? None of the influence from evil modern society and satan incarnate aka the white man. Only within the last 40 years or so did these tribes begin to modernize, trade, get modern goods and all. The author fondly recalls one of his strolls through the jungle back in the good old days where he came up to a tribe banging on drums and they were so amazed to see him, a white man. About 20 years later he goes back to visit the tribe, with I'm sure his notebooks to do "observations" on them, fancy camera, maybe a computer, etc and to his horror hears them listening to pop music and sees a few wearing Reeboks. Gasp, they were so much cuter, so much more useful to the purpose of my research paper, when they didn't have Reeboks. What I find appalling about this perspective is it completely ignores the desires of the native people and it ignores the benefits that one is able to obtain from modern society. The very system that allowed the author to think in this way, be educated, and write a book is the one he wants to hold back from cultures because he would rather see the variety of penis ornaments. What if these people want to be modernized? Is it such a horrible thing that they learn about medicine and their infant mortality rate plummets? Is it a bad thing that their life expectancy is over 40 now? What if they want to wear Nikes? Is it such a bad thing to see a world map, understand it's a big place, learn that there are about 7 billion other humans out there? What I simply do not understand about the "awww, look at and study the primitive people" perspective is the lack of consideration for the desires, wishes, or well being of the culture in question. It's like they feel guilty about being white and going to good prep schools. So they'll write academic papers about those cute jungle people, and take photos and all that, but it's like they want that to remain the way it is. Don't modernize, I just got grant money to study you! It's like their vacation from reality, and I think it's frankly insulting to the people being photographed and studied as if they were animals. Anyway, I thought this book was going to be excellent, instead it was average. Perhaps a new edition would really go a long way in improving it. I learned some interesting statistics, but am not very inspired to continue reading Diamond. It has also proved possible to work out a calibration between genetic distance and elapsed time, and thereby get an approximate answer to the question of when we and chimps split apart from our common ancestor. That turns out to be somewhere around seven million years ago, give or take a few million years. If our code instead makes distinctions based on our superior intelligence, social relationships, and capacity for feeling pain, then it becomes difficult to defend an all or nothing code that draws a line between all humans and all animals. It may at first seem paradoxical that Cro-Magnons prevailed over the more muscular Neanderthals, but weaponry rather than strength would have been decisive. Similarly, it's not gorillas that are now threatening to exterminate humans in central Africa, but vice versa. People with huge muscles require lots of food, and they thereby gain no advantage if slimmer, smarter people can use tools to do the same work. After the leap, cultural development no longer depended on genetic change. Despite negligible changes in our anatomy, there has been far more cultural evolution in the past forty thousand years than in the millions of years before. The rhythm method would be terrific for gorillas and most other mammal species, but not for us. In no species besides humans has the purpose of copulation become so unrelated to conception, or the rhythm method so unsuited for contraception. The distinction is based on interbreeding under normal circumstances,: members of the same species may interbreed normally if given the opportunity, while members of different species don't. It also rests on the biological advantage of menopause and increased investment in self-repair. Whether those biological adaptations developed especially at the time of the great leap forward or earlier, they rank among the life-history changes that permitted the rise of the third chimpanzee to humanity. These killers persist only in societies of crowded, malnourished, sedentary people constantly reinfected by each other and by their own sewage. Why should a male advertise such an impediment, and why should a female like it? Zahavi's theory goes to the heart of this paradox. According to his theory, those deleterious structures and behaviors constitute valid indicators that the animal is being honest in its claim of superiority, precisely because those traits themselves impose handicaps. Continents differed in the resources on which civilization depended - especially in the wild animal and plan species that proved useful for domestication. To spread out of this zone, they have to develop new varieties with different climate tolerances. A glance at the map of the old world shows how species could shift long distances without encountering a change of climate. That's where all subsequent steppe invaders of Europe, like the Mongols, stopped. To spread further, steppe society had to adopt to the forested landscape of western Europe - by adopting intense agricultural or by taking over existing European societies and hybridizing with their peoples. Most of the genes of the resulting hybrid societies may have been the genes of old europe. If this reasoning is correct, then anthropologist's traditional emphasis on "man the hunter" as the driving force of human evolution might be valid after all - with the difference that we ourselves were our own prey as well as the predator that forced us into group living. View all 4 comments. Mar 30, Stuart rated it it was amazing Shelves: technology-science , favorites , history-non-fiction , anthropology-evolution. Having been on a evolutionary biology and history trip of late, I couldn't resist revisiting this classic by Jared Diamond. Part One Just Another Species of Big Mammal focuses on the evolutions of primates and the split between apes and monkeys and the further splits down the line between gorillas, chimpanzees, and finally homo habilus, homo erectus, and homo sapiens. This is Having been on a evolutionary biology and history trip of late, I couldn't resist revisiting this classic by Jared Diamond. It posits that the development of language triggered the Great Leap Forward that gave homo sapiens the edge against the larger, stronger Neanderthals in the struggle for survival, especially in their ability to collaborate in hunting and communicate complex plans and concepts. It dives into the previously taboo subject of the potential evolutionary rationale for adultery, as a means for males to spread their genes as far as possibly, while on the flip side women mothers seek a stable mate to provide sustenance for themselves and their children in a monogamous relationship, and the inevitable friction this causes in modern couples. It also discusses the seeming evolutionary disadvantages of humans vs other animals: female menopause, having only babies at a time and only after reaching the teenage years, and living beyond a reproductive age. The answers are thought-provoking and well extrapolated. Part Three Uniquely Human discusses the development of human language; the animal origins of art and its function in modern humans; the mixed blessings of adopting a sedentary, agrarian lifestyle rather than being roving hunter-gatherers; why human beings exhibit the seemingly self-destructive behavior of smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking drugs; and how likely we are to be alone in the universe. Here he discusses how the domestication of native edible grains and animals such as horses, pigs, cows, and sheep provided the nutrition and energy for Eurasian peoples to conquer and dominate other societies that lacked advanced weapons like guns and cannons, lacked horses to form cavalry, which afforded a massive advantage in warfare, and also the proximity to domesticated animals also exposed Eurasians to myriad animal diseases that then allowed them to develop immunities that New World people lacked, leading to disastrous epidemics after contact. This section also details the spread and dominance of Indo-European languages over other languages, which reflected the population movements over the past few millennia. It also contains one of the most disturbing chapters in modern human history, the systematic extermination of the aboriginal blacks of Tasmania by Australian white settlers, and the various religious and cultural superiority beliefs that allowed them to justify genocide. The actual excuses provided for hunting down and killing natives that were viewed as barely human is pretty stomach-turning from a modern perspective, but is detailed without holding back. He then expands on the long and repeated ethnic genocides in human history during the and periods. Diamond details in lucid and unblinking details the numerous waves of extinctions that have happened on the Earth over many eras including the dinosaurs, and then the waves of extinctions directly caused by the explosion in global human population and our destruction of animal habitats and spread across the planet. It also talks about our ability to destroy ourselves overnight via nuclear holocaust, and how on our present path we are likely to exhaust our resources and multiply till the point of ecological collapse. Again, if all students could read this book, they would have a greater sense of urgency that we need to change the path of human civilization if we want to avoid disaster and collapse. Recommended reading for evolutionary biology and historical anthropology: 1. The Human Instinct - Kenneth R. Worse, his conclusions shouldn't be trusted. That's bad science which he hides fairly well behind parts of conflicting views. That's a shame. I'll put more comments after the various sections. Table of Contents Prologue Diamond hit a sore spot with me almost immediately when he wrote " When Darwin intimated in that we had evolved from apes Darwin never wrote or intimated any such thing! He wrote that we must have had a common ancestor. I know Diamond does, though. He then shows how much we differ from other hominids including Neanderthals, but that also shows the age of this book. He sets an interesting lens to look through. He set my teeth on edge by using 'theory' rather than 'hypothesis'. If he's going to argue with science, he should be using the correct terms. All really interesting, but I think he left out a lot to make his point. I'm not well enough informed to really pin down most of it. It just felt that way until I noticed that he was strictly arguing phenotypic evolution rather than the selfish gene theory. Since they inherit through the paternal line, this was a big deal. M13 is 21, light years away, so our message couldn't reach them until 23,AD, but he never mentions that awkward fact. The impression I've had that he's cherry-picking to make his points is confirmed. He completely destroyed any remaining credibility he had. He's quite pessimistic about us, even writing at one point something about 'modern nuclear warfare' leaving the impression we've dropped nuclear bombs fairly often while I'm shocked that only 2 have ever been deployed. For instance, in 20 years after this book was published. Lately I've read several articles that push that a lot earlier, probably at least twice as long ago which doesn't help his argument, although I haven't read a better one for the large mammal extermination. The same happened in Australia, too. Epilogue: Nothing Learned, and Everything Forgotten? He writes We do not need novel, still-to-be invented technologies to solve our problems. We just need more governments to do many more of the same obvious things that some governments are already doing in some cases. Again, I don't entirely agree. A LOT of problems would be solved if we had something that produced portable, high power as the internal combustion engine does. Of course, this book was written before they became a big deal. Very well narrated. I wouldn't bother reading it as there are many other books out there, but it's not a complete waste of time. Just don't drink his Kool Aid. Feb 13, James rated it really liked it Shelves: history , culture-and-politics , general-science-math-technology , psychology , reference , regional , death-dying-killing-bereavement , arts , environment-and-earth-sciences , animals. I'm giving it four stars instead of five only because from the vantage of its age shows, mainly in the absence of some information learned since it was written about the Neanderthals and the similar but then- unknown Denisovan people - specifically, the presence of small amounts of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in the modern human gene pool - and in the absence of that knowledge, the author makes some assumptions about our history with those other peoples that are incomplete at be Excellent. I'm giving it four stars instead of five only because from the vantage of its age shows, mainly in the absence of some information learned since it was written about the Neanderthals and the similar but then-unknown Denisovan people - specifically, the presence of small amounts of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in the modern human gene pool - and in the absence of that knowledge, the author makes some assumptions about our history with those other peoples that are incomplete at best; but the book is impressive in its accurate anticipation of the situations of the present and probable future. The title is based on our very close genetic links with the two species normally called chimpanzees, i. Any other species as closely related to those two as we are would be recognized as simply a third type of chimpanzee by naturalists, hence the title. But this book is not only about our species, but about the environments that have shaped us and how we in turn began shaping the rest of the natural world, usually unintentionally but no less powerfully, once our numbers and technology made that possible, starting with humankind's probable role in the mass extinctions of large animals wherever we showed up and continuing through today's problems of climate change, overfishing and -hunting, introduction of invasive species, and habitat encroachment. The threat of nuclear war is in there, but Diamond accurately predicted that it would become less likely as the catastrophic consequences of environmental devastation grew more visible and irreversible. Informative, thought-provoking, often funny - I recommend this strongly to anyone interested in human history and prehistory and our relationships with the places and the other life forms on our planet. View all 10 comments. Mar 16, John rated it really liked it. Jared Diamond should be required reading. He has influenced my view of humanity and history more than probably anyone except maybe a history professor in college, where I was a history minor. No, I think I Diamond has influenced me more. I bought and read the book immediately and was even more blown away. Both of them were also mind-blowing and insightful. In fact 3C read a bit like an abridged version of the other three books combined. The next time I recommend Diamond to a friend, I think I will recommend 3C because it is a great overview of his works. I was particularly struck by the chapters on language, both animal languages that are only beginning to be unraveled, as well as the information on human languages. The book also contains a striking chapter about genocide. It was a tough chapter to read and teetered on the edge of being overwhelmingly depressing to me. Humans have a long history of killing each other on a massive scale. Besides his incredible insight, I appreciate Diamond for a number of other reasons. First off I find his writing reachable. Although he often talks about some very complex and specific things, he does a brilliant job of making it understandable to a layperson. He also pulls no punches; he seems to have a very realistic view of humanity, good and bad. He is quick to point out inconsistencies, discrimination and arrogance, including his own. He preaches without ever feeling preachy. He also has a fun sense of humor and appreciates irony as it regularly occurs in life. I would be dumber and my life less full if I had not discovered Jared Diamond. And much to my joy he has a new book coming out in mere weeks! View 1 comment. Diamond patiently explains what that means and explores what makes us human. People say that humanity is differentiated by the use of tools and language, but also by murder and genocide. Actually the animal kingdom has examples of rudimentary tools, complex language, murder and genocide. Perhaps it is the degree to which we indulge that makes us human - no bonobo or aardvaark has a red button where, by pushing it, they could obliterate whole cities. No penguin or gazelle lives in as diverse a range of habitats as humanity, nor do they bend nature to its will in quite the same way as we do. So what does make us human. Diamond makes the case that language of increasing complexity and abstractness this is a word? An interesting book, and thought provoking. I marked it down because I did not find this as compelling as the other books I have read by him. Perhaps this is because he invokes many of the same themes as other books, and I have lost the thrill of the new as far as Diamond is concerned. Must catch up with this. Feb 03, Gendou rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction , biology , science. Jared Diamond is a mostly sensible anthropologist. However, he's a lousy evolutionary biologist. For example, he presents multiple theories of the reason for homo sapiens concealed ovulation. These are presented with false balance i. Some have laughably low plausibility, in my opinion. He should have done the research and presented the reader with the likely truth, not a list of mostly bad ideas. Worst of al Jared Diamond is a mostly sensible anthropologist. Worst of all, he presents issues of natural and sexual selection from the species and even the group point of view. Group selection isn't a thing. Individual selection isn't a thing. Gene selection is the only thing. Come on, man! Read some Dawkins! There's yet more false balance and lack of scientific scruples when discussing skin pigmentation. And race. And aging. He also has this cooky theory that drug and alcohol addiction is a sort of "status symbol" of fitness gone amok. I think this is bogus. Heroin isn't sexy. Alcohol and tobacco can be sexy when they make you look older and thus allowed to legally buy it. But drug addiction didn't evolve in humans. All animal that has a basal-ganglia-to-limbic loop can become addicted. Our propensity to become drug and alcohol addicted stems only from our access to drugs and alcohol. While I'm picking knits, he claims that the ancient practice of taking an alcoholic beverage as enema would bypass the liver. It actually bypasses the stomach, wherein enzymes would begin to break down the alcohol. Ethanol delivered into the blood stream via the lower gastrointestinal tract goes strait into the blood but does eventually arrive at the liver. Safe to say, it's not advised. For some reason, hopefully not a personal one, he insists on calling the Drake equation the "Greene Bank Formula" which nobody else does. Diamond seems perplexed by the question, where are all the flying saucers? This is essentially the Fermi Paradox. The answer Drake himself gave me when I posed the question to him at a SETI convention in is that space travel is expensive. ET isn't going to visit us in a flying saucer. They'll send robotic probes, and maybe even colonize multiple star systems. But they won't waste time abducting cows. Diamond doesn't adequately illustrate the degree to which we've barely started looking for SETI signals. He claims we've looked, but the silence is deafening. This is just wrong. We've not looked at a millionth of the stars in the milky way at all, and looked at no single star for longer than a year. SETI will take immense patience. He uses the wood pecker to make some point about how convergent evolution may not be universal, implying that radio capable civilizations might be super duper rare. This is bogus. Convergent evolution is not intimidate. But you better believe that a hundred million years from now, something will be picking bugs out of trees. Maybe descendants of birds. Maybe not. But something will fill the niche. Diamond dedicates the last chapter to anthropogenic mass extinction without using the word "Holocene", which I found strange. He suggests that humans might be dead men walking, that we're all doomed like the Easter Island civilization. But Easter Island had people on it when it was re-discovered. Small population, but humans didn't go extinct on Easter Island. I think Diamond plays the doom and gloom card to heavily. There is plenty to say about how we can conserve biodiversity. He talks about some conservation efforts in Indonesia. But it's clear he's playing the Silent Spring card. Probably a great political tool, just not very skeptical. May 20, Bonnie rated it liked it Shelves: nonfiction. I've read Diamond's Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel and had never heard of this book before, so when I saw it at the bookstore I picked it up because I thought it was his new book. It wasn't. It was his first book, and it shows. Why is Sex Fun? My problem with this book, besides the fact that I'd r I've read Diamond's Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel and had never heard of this book before, so when I saw it at the bookstore I picked it up because I thought it was his new book. My problem with this book, besides the fact that I'd read some of it before, was that while most of his arguments were interesting, some weren't convincing. He sometimes kinda relied on personal anecdotes--mostly from his New Guinea friends--and broad generalizations instead of facts. He states that "Now, let's test my theory To be fair, he also mentions Native American tribes that used drug enemas, but still. That entire chapter seemed like a 10th grade paper: lots of suppositions, little to concretly back it up. The book did bring up ideas I'd never thought about before, and made me feel less special as a human being, but I'd still say just read Diamond's later, better books and skip this one. Oct 26, Ericka Clouther rated it it was amazing Shelves: nonfiction , science , biology , antiracism , environment , own-read , 0-own , food , author-male , s. This book was both very interesting and entertaining. It precedes Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's a little out-of-date. For example, our ancestor Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals co-existed approximately , years ago. New research shows that many modern humans contain a little Neanderthal DNA showing that This book was both very interesting and entertaining. New research shows that many modern humans contain a little Neanderthal DNA showing that there was interbreeding, whereas Diamond was pretty sure that there was basically no interbreeding. The title of this book comes from the fact that chimpanzees and pygmy chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than chimps are to gorillas. Thus, especially from the perspective of chimps, humans are a third chimp. Fun topics include the emergence of language in humans, male penis and testes size, sexual selection, adultery, racial variation due to sexual selection not natural selection, aging, menopause as an adaptive solution to childbirth, the arts, agriculture and animal domestication, drug use, the question of intelligent alien life, genocide, and extinction. It didn't always feel like it was well-organized or related but it was all very interesting. Personally, I don't think the menopause explanation makes a lot of sense. It seems like if you weren't well-suited to give birth to your partner's baby, a first or second birth would kill you. At the rate of a baby every 4 years from ages , you'd be up to 6 births before menopause. Instead, menopause seems to make grandmothers more available to tend to their grandchildren instead of having more babies of their own think prehistoric Michelle Duggars. Feb 18, Bart Everson rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Homo spaiens. I first became aware of Jared Diamond while having lunch in Tampere in the summer of I was there in Finland for a conference, and one of my lunch companions was raving about Guns, Germs, and Steel. A quick glance at other reviews indicates that's his most revered book; it seems to be an expansion of a single chapter in The Third Chimpanzee. Indeed many if not all of his subsequent books seem to expand on themes he first addressed here. That says a lot about the scope and ambition of Third I first became aware of Jared Diamond while having lunch in Tampere in the summer of That says a lot about the scope and ambition of Third Chimpanzee. I was drawn to this book because of its focus on human origins. This is a subject about which I knew little, and I learned plenty here, which was gratifying. But I was surprised by how much more I found here, everything from ruminations on extraterrestrial life to an examination of genocide. Diamond takes aim at the biggest questions of human existence, and attempts to explicate them with passion and honesty. Occasionally his reach exceeds his grasp, occasionally he doesn't seem to deliver the goods he promises — but only very occasionally. And honestly, if he's half-right about half the issues he takes on, it's still an impressive effort. I found his outlining of the questions at least as valuable as the answers he provides. Utterly fascinating. Dec 28, Dov Zeller rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction , sciency-naturish. This one is a bit dated and he goes off on some not terribly impressive tangents. But also a lot of interesting stuff. Dec 13, Jamie rated it really liked it Shelves: science-evolution , history , science. Jared Diamond has an amazing talent for connecting facts one after the other, leading to surprising insights. We learn interesting facts about human reproduction, some of which are still not clearly understood, about things like why ovulation in human females produces no outward physical changes in their appearance, why they are fertile for only a few days each month, why sex is done in private, and why women experience menopause. Individually, these are just facts that we all know, but most of us never thought about linking them together into into a narrative that explains how biology and cultural selection reinforce one another. Remove any one of these characteristics and modern society would probably be very different. Language is a remarkable subject, and, once again, Diamond provides interesting observations. For instance vervet monkeys have a small number of words for different kinds of threats. That these are truly words, not just vocalizations like prairie dogs make, is shown by the fact that they can use them to purposely deceive rival troops. Diamond has some good observations about the transition of humans from hunter gatherers to pastoralists and farmers. The transition from a nomadic to a settled lifestyle was not necessarily a healthy choice. Archaeological evidence show that hunter gatherers worked less than farmers, were healthier, and lived a more egalitarian lifestyle. Yuval Noah Harari, in his recent book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind , expands on this topic in greater detail and with more recent scholarship. The author makes a point about the domestication of plants that he would develop more fully in Guns, Germs, and Steel , and it is one of the key concepts that he would use to try to answer the question: why did science and technology develop in the West rather than somewhere else? One reason was that Europe and Asia found their dominant societies oriented on an east-west axis, while in South American it was north-south. The east-west one allowed plants to move easily across the continent, introducing better nourishment and leading to larger populations. North-south would require long and painstaking generations acclimatizing plants from cooler environments to equatorial heat, and back again to cooler climates in order for them to make it to the Northern Hemisphere. The accident of east-west geography granted European and Asian societies an advantage that none of the other cultures could overcome. We have wiped out many many species and there is no reason to believe we will show greater caution in the future than we did in the past. The book was published in based on earlier research, so, while it is still interesting and informative, science has moved on and some of what he says is out of date. With that in mind, however, this is an excellent book for someone looking for an understanding of human social, biological, and cultural evolution. Aug 28, Sheng Peng rated it did not like it. I will show below why I think Jared doesn't know what he is talking about, why he is an abysmal science writer, and why he is as much of a drama queen as Gladwell. Firstly, most people would put this book on the "evolutionary biology" shelf. So Jared better know something about evolution and biology. He does. But not nearly enough. For example, I noticed at least five times where he had used group selection, by which a gene propagates because it's beneficial to the group rather than to the indivi I will show below why I think Jared doesn't know what he is talking about, why he is an abysmal science writer, and why he is as much of a drama queen as Gladwell. For example, I noticed at least five times where he had used group selection, by which a gene propagates because it's beneficial to the group rather than to the individual, to explain some evolved traits. It's quite wrong. I get it that it's easy to fall for this unless being constantly on the guard. But he fell for it more than five times. Maybe he didn't get it how natural selection really works after all. Considering the book was published in the 90s, when group theory had been out of favor for decades and was becoming pretty much as laughable as Lamarckism. Oh Jared, quo vadis? Secondly, he is a really annoying smart alec. It was the worst when he used Zahavi's handicap principle to explain drug addictions of people. The theory could work very well for why peacocks have big showy tails and male deers have big antlers. But it's really stretching to say that people are showing off their health when doing hard drugs. When I was reading it, page after page, I was like this was so implausible there's no way he actually believed what he wrote. And lo and behold, he proved me correct himself! On the last page of that not so short of a chapter, he admitted his explanations didn't really work for our case and that's actually what made us uniquely human. Then why have you just wasted dozens of good pages on this nonsense. This is a ridiculous level of pedantry. To have the balls to waste the reader's time and trees like this on an irrelevant theory that obviously does not explain the question proposed. And later, he literally flipped out when listing the risks we were running when beaming radio signals to potential alien overlords out there. I think it's a valid concern and caution is warranted. But I don't think the concern could only be conveyed to the reader by showing your lid literally flying off as you are tying and head banging on desk and all. Did you forget to take your pills again, Jared? Obviously, this is all my opinion, but I judge Jared to be a frivolous pulp science writer. Avoid if you want true intellectual stimulation. Jun 28, simon aloyts rated it really liked it. But he should have. It was excellent. I breezed through this book with nary a trip to Wikipedia unlike GGS, which sent me there virtually every day. And yet I still learned a ton. Diamond points out that the Native New Worlders, far from respecting nature, precipitated the largest wave of extinction in human history. Or to kill a wooly mammoth, feast for 2 days and then leave the rest to rot? About as respectful as trading Manhattan Island for some beads. At least now the species-killers get to keep our gambling money. What did the giant ground sloth get? Mar 04, Zuberino rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction , science , evolution , genetics , language , neanderthal , cro-magnon , anthropology. If I could have a brain transplant, I'd choose to have Jared Diamond's. Loved the whole book! If you have a curious bent, it will blow the doors of your mind wide open. Loved loved loved the disquisition on the Kurgan hypothesis - brilliant to find out where the two disparate languages that I speak came from! Apr 06, Kara Babcock rated it liked it Shelves: history , read , own , science , non-fiction. His subsequent three popular science books all have their origins in this one; I began with Guns, Germs, and Steel and then read Collapse. So reading The Third Chimpanzee was sort of like getting a summary of those two books, plus the one I haven't read yet. Thus, I sought out to determine if the latter books suffered because they were too long an exploration of Diamo As I began reading The Third Chimpanzee , a little voice in my head told me that I should stop reading books by Jared Diamond. Thus, I sought out to determine if the latter books suffered because they were too long an exploration of Diamond's ideas, or if they are superior to his original formulation of arguments concerning those three subjects. The shocking answer will soon be revealed! Caveat: parts of this book are now dated, as it was written nearly twenty years ago. Hence, while I usually find Harper's "P. My reaction to this book is probably the most mixed reaction I've had to any of Diamond's books thus far. As the aforementioned "P. However, it's important that the reader remember that Diamond isn't a geneticist, astronomer, anthropologist, etc. And sometimes, he overreaches himself when attempting to apply his considerable life experience to his arguments. Oh, and he also tries to be witty and. In Part One, Diamond begins by examining how we differ from our closest relatives. There's a fancy chart that shows the estimated dates of evolutionary divergence from common ancestors gibbons and orangutans split off earlier, then gorillas, then chimpanzees and humans finally went their separate ways around 7 million years ago. Still, the human genome and chimp genome are 98 per cent similar, and Diamond argues that this is enough of a similarity that humanity should constitute the "third chimpanzee. This is the "teaser" part of the book, in which Diamond whets our appetite for details he'll later reveal. He also makes a one-off attempt to plead for the cessation of medical experimentation on chimpanzees, implying that because we are—in his view—of the same genus, it's just as bad as experimenting on humans. Regardless of one's views on the subject, Diamond raises an interesting point. Next, Diamond looks at humans' anomalous "life cycle" compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, particularly primates. Humans are the only primates in which the women go through menopause and cease being fertile. Chimpanzee males have larger testicles than human males because chimpanzee males mate so frequently they need the extra sperm, but most couplings last only seconds! I've always been interested in how our different sexual characteristics have helped humanity rise to its present status on the planet, so I loved this part of the book. Furthermore, unlike some later parts, Diamond remains on firm ground when he seeks evolutionary explanations for human sexual behaviour. That ground becomes progressively shakier in Part Three, perhaps the worst of the five parts to Diamond's book. Here, he examines aspects of human society that are uniquely developed—the two most notable examples are art and drug abuse. Unfortunately, Diamond over-extends his attempts to explain these behaviours purely from an evolutionary perspective. Is this because evolution can't solely explain them? Or is this merely a failure on Diamond's part as thinker? It's a little of both, in my opinion: Diamond is great at synthesizing disparate sources of information to create a compelling thesis; unfortunately, as he does so, he tends to get somewhat reductionist in his perspective. While his argument is not wrong, it is at the very least incomplete, which still makes it flawed. I was annoyed when, in the chapter on extraterrestrial life, Diamond began to explain why it's not necessarily likely that an advanced species would develop radio: You might object that I'm being too stringent in looking for early precursors of radios themselves, when I should instead look for just the two qualities necessary to make radios: intelligence and mechanical dexterity. But the situation there is little more encouraging. Based on the very recent evolutionary experience of our own species, we arrogantly assume intelligence and dexterity to be the best way of taking over the world, and to have evolved inevitably. Now, I actually agree with the latter part of that quotation. The fact that, on Earth, so far humans are the only form of life to have developed what we term "intelligence" indicates it may not be the only path to global domination. After all, prior to their extinction, the dinosaurs ruled the Earth, and they were certainly dumb by our standards. Still, Diamond is short-sighted; he wrongly assumes that intelligence or dexterity are prerequisites to leveraging radio. They're prerequisites in the invention and construction of mechanical radio transmitters and receivers, sure. Just as many species have independently evolved eyes to see visual light and some species can see into other spectrums , what's to stop a species on another planet from evolving a radio transceiver organ? Perhaps the absence of any such creature on Earth would make such an evolutionary development unlikely, at least on Earth-like planets. However, not every habitable planet has to be exactly Earth-like. Maybe there exists conditions on another planet where the evolution of biological radio makes sense. This is a totally hypothetical, spontaneous scenario, but I hope it demonstrates my problem with Diamond's reasoning. The awards were made to me and to two dozen other people in the belief that we had something unusual to contribute to the world, and that five years of freedom might encourage and permit us to contribute more effectively. Instead of being elated by this unexpected good fortune, I found myself depressed for the only time in my life. It took me a week to realize why. The award was in effect a statement: Jared, the MacArthur judges think that you could contribute more to the world than an understanding of gallbladders and New Guinea birds; you haven't been living up to your potential; what are you going to do about it? I realized that I didn't have to give up gallbladders, New Guinea birds, or my university teaching job,. The magazine articles that I had written between and , and the public's response to them, had convinced me that I enjoyed writing for the public and that the public enjoyed my writing. I could contribute far more to the world by weaving together and explaining information drawn from geography, history, science, languages, and music than I could by making new discoveries about narrow technical subjects. But my background and my ongoing technical research weren't wasted, because they gave me the scientific outlook and much of the technical background for weaving together geography and those other subjects. To succeed, a book about science for the public has to please two audiences. First, it has to be interesting and understandable to the general public; my childhood range of interests, my mother's influence, and my school's training in how to write had equipped me to address that first audience. Second, the book has to pass technical critical appraisal by scientists expert in the book's various subjects. The only way that I could hope to satisfy that second audience was by discussing those subjects at length with those experts, and by asking them to read and correct my drafts. I had already found, in writing magazine articles, that most scientists whom I asked to help me in understanding their work were pleased to do so, pleased to meet someone else sharing their enthusiasm for their specialty, and generous with their time and knowledge. I began writing The Third Chimpanzee during the years of my MacArthur Fellowship, completed the manuscript's draft just before the end of my fellowship term in , and published it in We routinely draw a fundamental distinction between humans and animals. Humans write, read, talk, and build telescopes and bombs; no animal does any of those things. The first two chapters of The Third Chimpanzee suggest what those decisive small differences might be. Obviously, at least some of those differences involve our brains, which are four times larger than those of chimpanzees. Also frequently discussed is our upright posture, freeing up our hands for using tools. Less often discussed is our distinctive sexuality, which occupies the next five chapters of The Third Chimpanzee. Adult humans are approximately as big as adult chimpanzees, and smaller than adult gorillas and orang-utans.

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