Americapox: The Missing Plague (2015)
cgpgrey.com
cgpgrey.com
Syphilus was brought back from the new world and killed lots of people.
>the presence of mountain goats and bighorn sheep
Perhaps you should watch the second part, which is about domestication. He addresses this point in this part (you seem to have missed it) but explores it more in the second. Some animals are not domesticatable (e.g. zebras) despite seeming that they could be. It isn't like he came up with his list of potential targets of domestication off of the top of his head. There's a reason stuff like bears and deer aren't on it. And he only used bison as an example of something that would be profitable if it was domesticated, but it can't be by pre-modern societies.
1: "With dogs, herding sheep and cattle is easier. Now humans have a buddy to keep an eye on the clothing factory, and the milk and cheeseburger machine, and the plow-puller."
The Guns, Germs, and Steel narrative is an interesting one with some intriguing ideas but it does not stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny well. At best it's a theory, at worst it's a story that people tell because it's interesting and not explicitly completely and utterly ruled out by the facts.
The overall theory relies on several key ideas, none of which have been validated scientifically. First the idea that there are more "good domesticable" animals in the old world than the new. Second that it's the domestication of animals which leads primarily to higher rates of endemic diseases. This is one of those ideas that has a bit of truthiness to it (since it's very much true for some diseases like the Flu or SARS) but is nowhere near a sufficiently fleshed out nor sufficiently verified theory. Third, implying that the impact of a disease on a civilization wide basis has only to do with the disease itself and nothing to do with the details of the civilization itself is a casual assumption of the underlying narrative though it is blatantly false. Perhaps enough to completely invalidate the rest of the Guns, Germs, and Steel argument, but since the "argument" is presented as a narrative rather than a scientific theory it doesn't even present anything to be falsified in that regard.
On the whole, while there are some decent thoughts in there, the overall narrative is bad history and even worse science. And it's really gut wrenching to see this sort of thing gain so much uncritical attention.
What does this even mean? The point about the impact of the disease is that when the Old World and the New World first contacted each other, something like almost 90% of the New World population died out in the subsequent century or so. This has nothing to do with "details of the civilization" and the "casual assumption" is something that is technically untestable but so blatantly obvious that it is basically undeniable.
There is no such thing as "basically undeniable" in science; only "unproven" and "backed by so much evidence in specific context as to be considered proven in specific context". And even if it's the latter, it can still be completely wrong outside of that context.
>Good science does not accept "blatantly obvious" as any kind of proof. Reasoning alone just gets you hypotheses.
If accepting the idea that a 90% population reduction was a pivotal factor in the balance of New/Old World power is simply an "unprovable hypothesis", then sociology might as well be ignored.
Maybe instead of latching onto the fact that I used words that are unpleasantly unscientific and pretending that my statement is bunk, you should actually examine the claim that I was making out to be "blatantly obvious". Because it is. Semantics will not change that. Getting high and mighty about what is "good science" or not regarding this claim is just nonsense objections made because you didn't like my wording.
True. Now: Why did that happen, rather than 90% of the Old World population dying out? Well, because the Old World had nastier illnesses, pre-contact, to pass on to the New World. And why did it have those, without them destroying the Old World? I think that's what InclinedPlane is getting at. For "the details of the civilization itself", you might think about housing, sanitation, diet, proximity of animals, practice of medicine...
That's true of many other diseases as well, from the Flu to measles to smallpox. The spread of disease, it's lethality, and it's impact on society and civilization as a whole are all dependent on factors beyond the characteristics of the disease itself. Just as today the lethality and impact of cholera on society is very different in, say, Canada versus Mozambique.
Yes, we know that there was a massive die off of indigenous populations in the Americas (and Australia) that occurred in large part due to diseases spread from the old world. The idea that the mere existence of certain diseases was sufficient to doom those populations to the fate they had is what is called a "theory". Diamond and CGPGrey, and others, treat it as some incontrovertible fact. It relies on the fatality rate and spread of diseases being unconnected with technology, society, culture, etc. And it relies on the assumption that certain death tolls will necessarily lead to civilizational collapse. Both theories have numerous counter-examples.
I also think it's inarguable that people had domesticated more animals in the Old World. The Old World had cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, cats, dogs, falcons, horses, oxen, camels, turkeys, just to name a few. The New World had dogs and llamas... and honestly I'm drawing a blank for more than that. I'm sure there were other ones, but there was nothing equivalent to horses. Whether there were more "good domesticable" animals or not is irrevelant-- we know for a fact that not as many animals were domesticated.
I also disagree that domesticable animals are "key" to Diamond's theory. A larger and more dense population can just support more diseases. It's simple mathematics-- if a disease that kills its hosts can't spread before its hosts die, it dies out. It's the same reason why half a pound of uranium might go critical, but a few molecules won't. The reaction (disease) cannot sustain itself without a certain density. This is also the idea behind "herd immunity."
Third, implying that the impact of a disease on a civilization wide basis has only to do with the disease itself and nothing to do with the details of the civilization itself is a casual assumption of the underlying narrative though it is blatantly false.
You can use as many $10 words as you want, but I'm pretty sure wiping out 90% of the people in any civilization will have a catastrophic effect. Remember that the Black Death in Europe "only" killed 1/3 of the population.