
The agricultural revolution that wasn't - ascertain
http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-agricultural-revolution-that-wasnt.html
======
slurry
And...three posts down on the author's homepage we get to race and IQ, then a
little further down a cross-post deal with Unz Review. HBD-curious at best. I
take his musings on Austronesians with a consequent grain of salt.

I think the key is here:

"The Austronesian advantage seems to have been threefold: (1) a more flexible
and innovative approach; (2) a less present-oriented time orientation that
extended further into the past and the future; and (3) a less individualistic
approach to life that made collective goods and goals more possible."

First of all, these three traits are even less in evidence from the
archaeological record than the alleged farming practices he is criticizing.
Flexible and innovative is basically meaningless. The second one ("present-
oriented") in particular is a staple of Austrian-economics-type diatribes
against the poor (especially black poor), so it is likely to be a back-
projection of present day arguments rather than a genuine window on the past.

But anyway, none of the three points are given any significant support - just
a short handwaving paragraph each.

"Couldn't have been agriculture" \- I can go along with that - "must have been
racial superiority of this particular type" EDIT: those are my paraphrases,
not direct quotes - that is a step too far. It's too far not so much because
arguing racial superiority is wrong (although it is) but because the evidence
adduced is flimsy and does not support it.

~~~
dang
_" must have been racial superiority of this particular type"_

The article does not contain that phrase. Please don't use quotation marks on
HN when you are not quoting.

It's particularly bad to put words in someone else's mouth when the words are
so inflammatory.

~~~
_delirium
I think it's pretty clear from context that it was a paraphrase, especially
since the phrase "must have been X of this particular type" is clearly a
template phrase. It's a fairly common English construction; "oh won't someone
please think of the children" in quotes as a response to an article doesn't
imply that the article linked actually contains that phrase.

However at least the comments here are no stupider than the HN norm, when it
comes to non-programming scientific topics. The frontpage right now contains
two pseudoscientific bullshit stories: something from The Atlantic about
"Toxins That Threaten Our Brains" (that's a verbatim quote), and this run-of-
the-mill evo-psych bullshit.

~~~
slurry
I think it's a legit point. If I had to do it again I would have used italics.

