Source: Diamond, Jared. 1987. The worst mistake in the history of the
human race. Discover 8(5):64-66.
Jared Diamond, a professor in the Department
of Physiology at UCLA Medical School, gives his opinion about the effects of
agriculture on mankind. He begins by presenting the "progressivist
perspective" that he learned as a student. It includes the rationale that
agriculture was adopted for its labor
efficiency and reduced time commitment. He admits that agriculture has now
given us a greater amount and variety of food, better tools and goods, longer
and healthier lives, and new energy sources. However, Diamond presents a number
of negative features that he feels were born with the introduction of
agriculture. Paleopathologists have noted a
nearly 50% increase in enamel defects after the adoption of agriculture,
indicating malnutrition and iron-deficiency anemia. There was also a rise in
bone lesions indicitive of infectious diseases and spine problems. The skeletal
record of prehistoric Greece and Turkey shows a change of height that began
with the adoption of agriculture. Prior to agriculture, the average height was
5'9" for men and 5'5" for women. By 3000 B.C. the average was
5'3" for men and 5' for women. In classical times, heights slowly begin to
rise again, but today Greeks and Turks have still not reached the average
height of their hunter-gatherer predecessors. He believes that agriculture was
bad for health for the following reasons: (a) farmers gained almost all their
calories from a few starchy crops, (b) dependence on small number of crops
increased possibility of starvation, and (c) people crowded together in
permanent settlements led to spread of epidemic diseases. Diamond feels that
farming also brought about class divisions and inequality between the sexes.
Class divisions arose as a result of the non-producing elite setting itself
above the poorer producers of the food. Inequality between the sexes occurred
when women were pressured to produce more children in order to gain more help in
producing food. Women also became beasts of burden with the adoption of
agriculture. He concludes, "Forced to choose between limiting population
or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with
starvation, warfare, and tyranny." Diamond, rather skeptical, suggests two
possibilites for the future. Hunger may one day overcome us all. The other
outcome, though doubtful to Diamond, is that achievement will overtake all the
problems that we have thus far encountered, and the adoption of agriculture
will turn out to be a true success.
Abstract author: Carol A. Kingston, 15
October 1996.
SUSAG Abstracts: Go back to the
SUSAG Abstracts search page.