The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee
Page 46
Further readings on Pleistocene and Early Recent cases of extinction are given under Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen. In addition, Storrs Olson reviews the extinction of island birds in an article ‘Extinction on islands: man as a catastrophe’, pp. 50–53 of Conservation for the Twenty-first Century, edited by David Western and Mary Pearl (Oxford University Press, New York, 1989). Ian Atkinson’s article on pp. 54–75 of the same book, ‘Introduced animals and extinctions’, summarizes the havoc wrought by rats and other pests.
Epilogue
Nothing Learned, and Everything Forgotten?
Many excellent books discuss the present and future of the extinction crisis and the other crises now facing humanity, their causes, and what to do about them. Among them are the following:
John J. Berger, Restoring the Earth: How Americans are Working to Renew our Damaged Environment (Knopf, New York, 1985); editor, Environmental Restoration: Science and Strategies for Restoring the Earth (Island Press, Washington DC, 1990).
John Cairns, Jnr, Rehabilitating Damaged Ecosystems (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 1988); with K.L. Dickson and E.E. Herricks, Recovery and Restoration of Damaged Ecosystems (University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1977).
Anne and Paul Ehrlich, Extinction (Random House, New York, 1981); Earth (Franklin Watts, New York, 1987); The Population Explosion (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1990); Healing Earth (Addison Wesley, New York, 1991).
Paul Ehrlich et al, The Cold and the Dark (Norton, New York, 1984).
D. Furguson and N. Furguson, Sacred Cows at the Public Trough (Maverick Publications, Bend, Oregon, 1983).
Suzanne Head and Robert Heinzman, editors, Lessons of the Rainforest (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990).
Jeffrey A. McNeely, Economics and Biological Diversity (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland, 1988); Jeffrey A. McNeely et al, Conserving the World’s Biological Diversity (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland, 1990).
Norman Myers, Conversion of Tropical Moist Forests (National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, 1980); Gaia: an Atlas of Planet Management (Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1984); The Primary Source (Norton, New York, 1985).
Michael Oppenheimer and Robert Boyle, Dead Heat: the Race against the Greenhouse Effect (Basic Books, New York, 1990).
Walter V. Reid and Kenton R. Miller, Keeping Options Alive: the Scientific Basis for Conserving Biodiversity (World Resources Institute, Washington DC, 1989).
Sharon L. Roan, Ozone Crisis: the Fifteen-Year Evolution of a Sudden Global Emergency (Wiley, New York, 1989).
Robin Russell Jones and Tom Wigley, editors, Ozone Depletion: Health and Environmental Consequences (Wiley, New York, 1989).
Steven H. Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century?, second edition (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990).
Michael E. Soulé, editor, Conservation Biology: the Science of Scarcity and Diversity (Sinauer, Sunderland, Massachusetts, 1986).
John Terborgh, Where Have All the Birds Gone? (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990).
E.O. Wilson, Biophilia (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984); editor, Biodiversity (National Academy Press, Washington DC, 1988).
Finally, readers interested enough to want to pursue further readings may also want suggestions about what to do to reduce the risk that our children’s generation will become extinct. As I explain in the text, the average citizen can do a good deal, both by being active politically and by giving even modest amounts of money to conservation organizations. Here are the names and addresses of a few of the best-known and largest such organizations, among the many that are worthy of support:
World Wide Fund for Nature, Panda House, Weyside Park, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 1XR, UK.
Greenpeace, 30–1 Islington Green, London, N1 8XE, UK.
International Council for Bird Preservation, 32 Cambridge Road, Girton, Cambridge, CB3 OPJ, UK.
International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Avenue du Mont-Blanc, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland.
Friends of the Earth, 26–28 Underwood Street, London, N1 7JQ, UK.
Conservation Foundation, Lowther Lodge, 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR, UK.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a pleasure for me to acknowledge the contributions of many people to this book. My parents and my teachers at Roxbury Latin School taught me how to pursue interests along many lines simultaneously. My debt to my many New Guinean friends will be obvious from the frequency with which I cite their experiences. I owe an equal debt to my many scientist friends and professional colleagues, who patiently explained the subtleties of their subjects and read my drafts. Earlier versions of most of the chapters appeared as articles in Discover magazine and in Natural History magazine. I have been fortunate to have as my editors Leon Jaroff, Fred Golden, Gil Rogin, Paul Hoffman, and Marc Zabludoff at Discover, Alan Ternes and Ellen Goldensohn at Natural History, Thomas Miller at HarperCollins Publishers, Neil Belton at Hutchinson Radius Publishers, and my wife Marie Cohen.
JARED M. DIAMOND
Los Angeles
January 1991
INDEX
The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.
Aborigines 254–5
Adams, John Quincy (US President) 277
addiction 183
adultery 72–83
laws 80
advertisements for toxic drugs 174–6
African Genesis (Robert Ardrey) 33
Africans, Middle Stone Age 38–40
ageing 54, 106–19
agriculture 122, 123–4, 163–72
and Indo-European languages 241
Ahlquist, Jon 16
alarm calls, fake 131
Alexander, Richard (biologist) 68
Algeria, massacres 259
Alice Springs, massacre 254
American Indians see Indians, American
American leaders, Indian policies of 277–8
Americas
colonization by Indians 304–8
European conquest 213
extinctions 295
Anasazi people 297, 302
Anatolian language 236
Andersson, Malte (biologist) 102
animal rights movements 24
animals
communication 126–36
domestication 215–16, 242
experiments on 24–6
humans as 1
murders by 261–2
tameability 215–16
wars 261
Anthony, David (archaeologist) 242
ants,
agriculture 164
leaf-cutter 165
apes 13–14
art 155
artificial languages 134
ethical status 23–6
and humans, taxonomy 16–26
life-cycle 50
social organisation 58–9
variation 97
archaeology, value of 302
Archbold Expedition (Third) 202–3
Ardrey, Robert 33
arranged marriages 90
art 123
and agriculture 170–1
and animals 152–62
of Cro-Magnons 42
and sexual selection 159–60
Arthur, G. (governor of Tasmania) 252
artistic diversity, first contact 209
astrapia birds of paradise 103
Athens 301
Aurignacian culture 45
Australia 250–5
European conquest 213
extinctions 295–6
Australopithecus spp. 29–30
Austronesian languages 240–1
automobiles, optimization 111
aye-aye (primate) 191–2
Bachman’s warbler 316
balance of nature 280
/>
barbarians vs Greeks 267
Barbary macaques 74
battle-cruisers 112
Betancourt, Julio (paleobiologist) 297
Bickerton, Derek (linguist) 143–4, 145
bird songs 154
dialects 132
birds
colonies 77–9
extinctions 315
flightless, in New Zealand 287
taxonomy 15–16
birds of paradise, sexual selection 103
Bismarck, Otto von 332
blindness, wilful 303
‘blitzkrieg’ theory (Paul Martin) 307–11
body shape and social organisation 59–62
body size 60 (fig), 61 (fig)
bowerbirds 123, 156–8
Brass’s friarbird 316
Brazil
genocide 259
massacres of Indians 273
breast size 61 (fig)
British Ornithologists’ Union 204
Broughton, William (Archdeacon of Australia) 252–3
Bulletin, The 255
Burley, Nancy (sociobiologist) 69
Bushmen 166–7
buxom redhead theory 90
Byzantine Empire 300
California, Indians 166
captivity, breeding in 216
Carolina parakeet 315
Catholic Church, Roman 65
Centinela Ridge (Ecuador) 317
cereals 219
Châtelperronian culture 45
Chaco Canyon 297
chemical abuse 122, 124, 173
Cheney, Dorothy 128
childbirth, danger 116
child-rearing 50, 57–8
‘Chinese whispers’ (‘telephone’) 208
Chomsky, Noam 145
cichlid fishes 23
circumcision, female 81
civilisations
effects of geography 214
effects of plants 218
longevity 194
cladistics 20–1
class divisions and agriculture 169–71
climate and skin colour 99–101
clothing 41
Clovis people 306
population growth 308
Cobern, Patricia 255
common vs pygmy chimpanzees 18
communication 123
of animals 126–36
sexual selection, chemical abuse 176
competition 199–200
Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur 118–19
concentration camp survivors 273–4
Connolly & Anderson, First Contact 208–9
conservation in Indonesia 331
convergent evolution 187
copulation see sexual intercourse
corn 219
correlation coefficients in sexual selection 86
coyotes vs wolves 28
creationism 1, 186
Creeping Man, The Adventure of the (Conan Doyle) 118–19
creole languages 138–40, 143
Crete, extinction 295
Cro-Magnons 40–5, 329
vs Neanderthals 44
sexual selection and art 160
culture 5
homogenization 211–12
customs, effect of first contact 210
Cyprus, extinctions 295
Dani people of Grand Valley 206
Darwin, Charles, on origin of racial variation 96, 101
de Kooning, Willem (artist) 152
death 54, 106–19
deforestation 296–7
desaparecidos (disappeared ones) 264
dialects 231
and bird songs 132
Diamond, Joshua and Max (author’s sons) 3, 265
dichotomy, ‘us’ and ‘them’ 267
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) 286
disease and agriculture 168–9
DNA
comparison between humans and apes 16–26
function 21
hybridization 15
dodo 281
domestication of animals 215–16
and Indo-European languages 242
drug abuse 173
dusky seaside sparrow 315
Dwyer, Michael (gold-hunter) 205
eagle, New Zealand 288, 290
Easter Island 296–7
ecological suicide 282
ecology 280
education 57
egrets, great, on Hog Island 77–8
eland, hunting 39
elephant birds 293
emperors of T’ang Dynasty 81
Encyclopaedia Britannica 187
endangered species 25, 320
enemas, ritual 181–2
energy expenditure 113
environment
holocaust 313
human assault 5–6
environmentalism
modern 330
of pre-industrial peoples 286
ethical status of apes 23–6
European conquest of Americas and Australia 213
evolution
convergent 187
and game theory 110
time scale 19–20
exobiology 186
experiments on animals and humans 24–6
explanations, proximate vs ultimate 107–8
exterminations
of American Indians 269
of species by other species 280–1
of Tasmanians 252
extinction 280–4, 295–6, 313–14
of birds 315
in Hawaii 291
in Malaysia 317
mass 318–23
in New Zealand 287
in Polynesia 291
rats and 290
ripple effects 322
extramarital sex 53, 71–83, 85
extraterrestrial intelligence 184–95
fable, proto-Indo-European 248–9
fake alarm calls 131
Falconer, Steven 299
Fall, Patricia 299
family tree, evolutionary 13
famine and agriculture 168–9
fathers, role 58
female circumcision 81
Figueiredo Report, Indian massacres 273
final solutions to power struggles 260
Finno-Ugric languages 239–40
First Contact (Bob Connolly & Robin Anderson) 208
first contacts 202–12
flightless birds in New Zealand 287
Flinders Island 253
food of hunter-gatherers 166–7
Foré language 137, 210
Foré people 84, 207
fossil evidence, lack 14
Franklin, Benjamin 277
game theory 74, 76–7
and evolution 110
genetic blueprint for language 145–7
genetic clocks, molecular 14
genetic differences between types 10
genetics, molecular 2, 12–23
genitalia, size 62
genocide 250–78
in ancient history 265
definition 255–9
motivation 259
by neglect 257
provocation 259
psychological effects 272
and United Nations 272
Gentry, Alwyn (botanist) 317–19
geographic distribution of humans 198–9
geographic variation 203
and natural selection 98
geography 223–4
effects on civilisations 214
Germanic languages 147
gerontology 117
giant land tortoises 293
gibbons 13, 17–18
variation 97
Gimbutas, Marija (archaeologist) 245
glottochronology 237
Golden Age 285
Goodall, Jane 262
gorillas
murder by 262
variation 97
grammar 135, 136
creation 144–7
universal 145–7
Grand Cayman Isl
and 317–19
Grand Valley (New Guinea) 202
great auk 315
Great Leap Forward 27–48, 328
Green Bank formula 186
group cohesion and art 160
habitats, destruction 322
haemoglobin 19, 21
Haldane, J.B.S., on civilisation 214
handicaps 178
Harrington’s mountain goat 307
Harrison, W.H. (US President) 277–8
Hawaii
creolization 143–4
extinctions 291
Haydn, F.J., and Rebecca Schröter 162
Haynes, Vance (archaeologist) 306
healing of wounds 109
height, historical changes 168
Henderson Island 291–2
herbivory 192
Herodotus, experiment of Psammeticus 138
herons 77–8
herring gulls in Lake Michigan 78
Heyerdahl, Thor (explorer) 296
Hittite language 236, 242
Hog Island study 77–8
Holmes, Sherlock 118–19
holocausts
environmental 313
future 313–14
Homo erectus 29–32
Homo habilis 29
‘honour and shame’ 81
Horowitz, Irving (sociologist) 256
horses 216–17
domestication and origin of Indo-European languages 242
houses 41
Hrdy, Sarah (sociobiologist) 68
humans
as animals 1
and apes, taxonomy 16–26
concealment of ovulation 65; 66–9
experiments on 24
geographic distribution 198–9
Great Leap Forward 27–48
life-cycle 4, 50–119
longevity 115–16
low fertility 65
sexual selection 103–5
sexuality 56
hunter-gatherer lifestyle 164, 166
hunting 32, 33–4
big-game 32, 33–4, 41
of bison 306–7