Social Geography, Mon 2/27 - Fri 3/3
This comment thread is for questions or comments for Dr. Pirani's Social Geography class for the week above. Sign your comments with your first name and last initial, unattributed comments will be ignored or deleted.
Note: Dr. Pirani is out sick for Tues. 2/28. I will collect your exams on Thursday. Make sure to read Chapter 10, Spacious Skies and Tilted Axes, and I will assign Exercise 6 in class on Thursday to be completed over the weekend.
Note: Dr. Pirani is out sick for Tues. 2/28. I will collect your exams on Thursday. Make sure to read Chapter 10, Spacious Skies and Tilted Axes, and I will assign Exercise 6 in class on Thursday to be completed over the weekend.
posted by The Professor at 8:55 AM
36 Comments:
Dr. Pirani is very confusing!
Exercise # 6 please repeat the question for our assignment due for Tuesday March 7, 2006.
Hi everybody, this is Dr. Pirani. Your assignment is to post comments in this thread about our reading for Tuesday, Chapter 11: Lethal Gift of Livestock. I'd like you to identify the key question the chapter is addressing, how the chapter resolves that question, and at least one other issue brought up in the chapter that you found partucularly interesting.
Also, respond to other student comments where applicable. If you feel you can add to or clarify something someone says, do so. If you think someone has confused an issue or posted something that is just plain wrong, say so. Be nice, though!
The proximate factor of epedemic diseases was derived from the domesticated animal and human contact.The Eurasians close contact with these animals led to the kill off of the Pacific islanders, Aboriginal Australians, Khoians of South Africa, and the Native Americans of the America's.The importance of these lethal microbes was one of the factors that made it so easy for the Europeans to conquer the world's hunter-gatherers. I thought "Cat Scratch Fever," was a Rock-n-Roll song.
The chapter discussed what a disease was and different types and where they came from. It also looked to answer why some microbes evolved to make people sick, while most species didn't make people sick. One question however had my particular interest. Why did the rise of agriculture launch the evolution of our crowd infectious diseses? It answers: One reason is that agriculture sustains much higer human population densities that does the hunting-gathering lifestyle.
I was wondering about the exchange of disease from domesticated animals and humans and why disease did not mutate to kill off those who gained resistance. This occurrence is seen today so what's the difference?
This chapter focused on the the development and progression of diseases throughout the world. It establishes that humans caught most diseases from interaction with domesticated animals. Eurasians being the most advanced in domesticating animals were able to build up a resistance to diseases over a time. This is something that other civilizations couldn't do, because they made minimal advances in domestication. This is why it was so easy for Europeans to conquer
The chapter gave the was the start of the ultimate factors of humans animals, and diseases.
Food production is not the proximate cause of differences in social development. What proximate causes flow from food production?
There are certain factors that arise out of food production such as: domestication of species, many suitable wild species, technology, and large stratified societies.
Food production is not the proximate cause of social development but is the ultimate cause. The proximate causes are domestication of animals and plants, climate, terrain, the advancement of technology, and the axes of the major continents.
I honestly don't know why food production is not a proximate cause.
Food production is not the proximate cause but it is the ultimate cause. the proximate cause are germs, domestication of plants and the advancement of technology.
Food production isn't the proximate cause.
The types of crops that ended up with.
1.Farmer power
2.Technology
3.Food Storage
Food production is not the proximate cause of differences in social development. Food production is the cause of germs, literacy, technology, and centralized government.
Food production is the ultimate not the proximate cause here are the proximate causes stemming from the ultimate cause of food production. Food production leads to denser populations which leads to more people that can be used for different specialized tasks. In essence the society that can produce more food will have more advances in proximate causes.
The proximate factors that develop from food production led to large and dense societies, which led to epidemic disease from their acquaintence with domesticated animals.
Food production controlls who has food and who can grow it. Also there is the need for food for everyone and people use food as building block for power and prestige, and to form government and socities.
Food production falls not under the proximate cause umbrella but under the ultimate factors. Food production is the start of the long list of proximate factors such as political organization, ocean-going ships, epidemic diseases, and mush more.
food production is the ultimate cause of not the prximate cause of societal advantages over another. The food production is an ultimate factor because of the food builds surplus and the then the society can develope speacialist and armies....so on...
not mush but much more. sorry about that.
I would say no it is not a proximate cause. In medieval times lords governed the lands thats the king alloted them. On the lands the peasents worked and farmed the land. The food their produce feed the soldiers,lords,kings,and etc..eventually more land would be needed to support the growing population so the king would invade neighboring lands in search of new area's claim as his own and repeat the process.
Why did germs from Europe decimate Native Americans and not visa versa?
Because of proxilate factors.
The germs decimated the Native Americans and not the Europeans beacuase the Europeans had built up a resistant to most of the diseases, through natural selction. Natural selection changes our gene frequencies from generation to generation.
The reason why germs from Europe wiped out Americans is that Europeans centuries before had domesticated animals, which lead to the contraction of diseases. Due to this Europeans over time were able to develop a resistance to these diseases. Americans did not domesticate at the level of the Europeans and failed to develop a resistance.
The germs in europe were more advanced than the germs of america. Why because in europe the germs probably mutated several times due to the constant exchange between people in europe. think about the flu, you can't have the same flu again but you can have the flu again. But in america's germs weren't that widespread and probably the europeans immune system probably could fight them off better than the native americans.
The germs from Europe killed off the Indians and not other people was because their immune systems were strong enough to handle the germs. Their were always different strains that affected people in different ways. Some antibodies were is some people which fought off a lot of germs while others did not have the same advantage.
The germs killed many Native Americans and not Europeans is due to the fact that one of the slaves had the small pox disease on the ship.
because the native americans did not domesticate many animals and one of the one animals they did domesticate the lama did not live in large packs limiting the spread of the disese from the animal to animal. Usually the infedted animals would not come into contact with the other small flocks but die off ,reducing the animal human cross transmition of the diseases
I would say the ultimate answer is that Eurasia is the only continent with an east/west axis. The east/west axis allowed people in Eurasia to "see" if you will across the globe or travel, explore, and attempt to colonize other people. I also believe Native Americans had a whole different way of thinking anyway, so even if Native Americans we the only ones to have an east/west axis like Eurasia, they may have not felt the need to "explore" as the Europeans did.
The Europeans had encountered more germs because of their domestication of animals and their constant travels to other lands. The Native Americans were stationary, they did not domesticate a lot of different animals and did not migrate and because of this they did not contain a lot of germs so when they encountered the Europeans they did not have immune system to fight the germs.
I would say that the spend of infectious diseases influenced the Native people more so than Europeans due to exposure to disease and domestication. Native people were not exposed to livestock that harvested infectious diseases such as cattle, pigs, and dogs. Europeans build up a resistance while Native Americans suffered.
The farmers in Europe were sedentary and lived with the domesticated animals and also in their own sewage. The germs that infected these farmers either killed them or they survived and became inmmuned. Once immune, they could transfer these germs to people who had never been infected, particularly the Native Americans.
The great germ exchange was not equal because Europe had much more domesticated animals. In fact, if you look at Table 9.2 on page 162 you would see that Eurasia has the largest “Percentage of candidates domesticated”. With is Eurasia had a chance to have closer contact with a larger number of animals. The Americas had a very low percent of “Percentage of candidates domesticated” and they failed to domesticate social animals.
The germs wer able to kill of the Europeans because their systems were more prone to germs because of the domestication of different animals. The Europeans couldn't keep still so the traveled to other lands where their immune system wasn't able handle all the germs, while native americans didn't do alot of domestication so they never had a real chance to come in contact with many germs.
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