Jared Diamond is a scientist and an author with a controversial, if not unpopular opinion about the influence of agriculture on our society. In his essay, Diamond begins his case against agriculture by first pointing out some of the ostensibly positive aspects that have been attributed to it by the progressives. The professed advantages include diet that is varied and plentiful, tools, material goods, and healthy, long and secure lives (Diamond). However, Diamond argues that we shouldn't take these benefits at their face value.
Paleopathologists are able to examine some of these assertions by looking at signs of disease in the remains of ancient peoples. We now know that near the end of the ice ages, hunter-gatherers from Greece and Turkey had been taller than their modern counterparts (Diamond). Indian skeletons that were excavated from burial mounds in the Illinois and Ohio river valleys show the effects of shift from hunter-gatherer culture to maize farming; the remains show that these pioneering farmers had a wide range of health problems that were unfamiliar to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them. Diamond argues that hunter-gatherers had a much more varied diet than early farmers, that those farmers often depended on one crop and were at risk of starvation if that crop failed, and that crowding encouraged by agriculture eventually led to the spreading of infectious diseases.
Finally, perhaps the biggest and most relevant pitfalls of agriculture are the introduction of class divisions and gender inequality. Unlike farming populations, hunter-gatherers weren't incentivized to store food, which rendered the creation of a class who would steal supplies from others impossible. Today, the U.S.A. along with other developed countries import valuable resources from countries riddled with poverty. As for the gender inequality, Diamond gives an example of New Guinea farming communities, where women are treated as mules—forced to carry heavy loads while men walk empty-handed (Diamond). Calling the shift to agriculture, „the worst mistake in human history“, Diamond blames it for the myriad of problems our society faces today.
Works Cited
Diamond, Jared. "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race." Discover 01 May 1999: n. pag. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.
