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  Why Societies Collapse? – Jared Diamond (2003)

  February 28, 2012 at 1:22 pm / Human Nature, Video

  Jared Diamond examines how societies collapse in a five-point framework: [1] Impact on environment, [2] Climate change, [3] Relations with friendly neighbors, [4] Relations with unfriendly neighbors, [5] Perception and resolution of environmental problems. Diamond is the author of  a Pulitzer prize winner book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, published in 1997. He seeks to explain Eurasian hegemony throughout history. Using evidence from ecology, archaeology, genetics, linguistics, and distinct historical case studies, he argues that the differences in social structure and technology among human societies do […]

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  The Botany of Desire – Michael Pollan – PBS (2009)

  February 15, 2012 at 10:40 pm / Evolution, Human Nature, PBS Nature, Video

  Domestication is a defining feature of recent human evolution. In animals first trait selected by humans was behavior. In plants harvestability through selection of non-shattering seeds was the first trait of domestication. Plant domestication paved the way to agriculture which enabled highly specialized sedentary human societies. Domesticated plants differ from their wild ancestors in distinct ways that can be categorized under a term called as the domestication syndrome. Domestication syndrome includes reduced shattering of seeds (seeds don’t separate from the […]

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