
Americapox: The Missing Plague (2015) - rfreytag
http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/americapox
======
tomohawk
TB was found in pre-Columbian South American human remains, so was in the
Americas at some point.

Syphilus was brought back from the new world and killed lots of people.

------
Tossrock
This argument is not very sound. It ignores eg that native Americans had
domesticated dogs (like the Hare Indian), the domestication of caribou in the
north, the presence of mountain goats and bighorn sheep, etc etc etc. It's
like the author thinks the only large mammals in the new world were bison and
llamas.

~~~
BookmarkSaver
Dogs do not provide food and barely add additional energy (except in Arctic
conditions).

>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.

~~~
Tossrock
Sorry, I was going off the transcript, not the video. In the transcript he
talks specifically about the benefit of the domestication of dogs for old
world peoples[1], while ignoring the fact that new world peoples also had
domesticated dogs.

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."

~~~
BookmarkSaver
That is technically true, but (1) this labor isn't hugely impactful or
population enabling and (2) in this case it is being used as an amplifier for
other domestication efforts, and without already having other domesticatable
animals around you are only getting sled pulling (limited to the Arctic),
hunting (helpful, but nothing compared to agriculture), and "plow-pulling"
(which seems of dubious value).

------
whitegrape
[http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-
ger...](http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-germs-and-
steel/)

------
davidw
This is basically what a lot of the book Guns Germs & Steel is about. A very
interesting read.

~~~
cfcef
The post reads like a (very poorly written) rehash and plagiarism of
Diamond...

~~~
notthemessiah
Perhaps you missed the "Further Reading" section at the top, because it's
right there.

~~~
cfcef
A 'further reading' is not a reference; 'further reading' means 'here are
additional sources you might find relevant about material not covered here'.
Which of 'Triumph of the City', 'The Ghost Map', and 'Guns, Germs, and Steel'
did the stuff about animals come from, if you hadn't already read them? That's
right - you don't know! _Because he 's not giving a reference._

~~~
TrevorJ
It's a youtube video, not a research paper. I think you are being
unnecessarily pedantic.

------
pella
Zebra vs Horses (Americapox Part 2)

[https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo](https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo)

------
InclinedPlane
I really dislike this style of narrative heavy pop sciency stuff. It's
incredibly antithetical to the very principle of science (rigorously prove
each and every step in an argument, don't rely on narratives, go where the
evidence leads you rather than picking and choosing evidence to back up your
pre-existing narrative). CGPGrey really is smart enough that he should know
better than to fall into this trap, but it can be oh so tempting.

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.

~~~
BookmarkSaver
>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.

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.

~~~
TheRealPomax
Good science does not accept "blatantly obvious" as any kind of proof.
Reasoning alone just gets you hypotheses. Good science then rules most of them
out based on evidence. And if we can't get that evidence because it's lost in
history, then too bad: it'll have to stay unprovable hypotheses.

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.

~~~
BookmarkSaver
The extrapolation you are making here is that historical studies are
essentially pointless. For most of history we have a few rock scratchings or a
one sentence accounts of major figures doing something. The bar for almost
everything accepted as "historical fact" is far below the "blatantly obvious"
statement that I threw out there.

>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.

------
benzofuran
This is basically what Pastwatch: Redemption by Orson Scott Card is about. Bit
of sci-fi but that's the general gist - quite a nice read.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H4I4KO/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H4I4KO/)

------
sgtpepper43
Somebody get this guy an editor... or at least a spellcheck.

