I'm just going to let anthropologist Barbara King do my talking: Even if Diamond makes mistakes — and he does — might his taking on big questions for large numbers of readers do more good than harm? Science writer John Horgan blogged on Monday, for instance, that "Diamond challenges the kneejerk sense of superiority of those of us in WEIRD societies." That's no small thing. And finally: Where, at least since 1982 and Eric Wolf's Europe and the People Without History, are the "big books" in which we anthropologists do a better job than Diamond? Back to me: Wade Davis might be the only anthropologist that really has the right to openly criticize Diamond's popular anthropology writings. Until anthropologists step up and popularize their own subject, they shouldn't be so critical. And I'm not being a hypocrite. I'm an anthropologist that is desperately trying to popularize a subject that needs it more than any other in academia.
I doubt it. When you're writing for a popular audience, you're writing for an audience that wants to make up their mind about a particular subject based on your book. They're not likely to weigh it against other points of view, if for no other reason than that they're not likely to invest time in exploring those other points of view. After all, if they were interested enough in the subject to really explore it, they'd be reading about it already, and reaching out to them wouldn't do much to popularize the topic. Naturally, there will always be a few people who progress from a popular text to a more extensive exploration of the topic, but for everyone else, the topic will tend toward fixation. Which only makes it more difficult for the next writer who happens to be presenting a better substantiated argument. If you want to get right down to it, popularization isn't a monolith. Some writers are attempting to popularize the current state of knowledge about a subject in order to bring it to a wider swath of the population. Others are attempting to popularize their pet theory in order to sway a general audience who doesn't know the subject well enough to treat it as provisional or even dubious. After all, in any society where scientific research depends at least in part on public funding, popularization is a pathway to money.might his taking on big questions for large numbers of readers do more good than harm?
What good is our research when nobody has any clue what we do or what we discover about our species? Great biology research is popularized. Great astronomy research gets popularized. Great physics research gets popularized. etc. Anthropology is a subject that teaches us about what it means to be human. People should know and understand what our subject has to offer. And the best minds in our subject should be communicating that knowledge to the public, instead of continually barricading themselves within ivory towers and periodically criticizing well-meaning intellectuals like Jared Diamond that are trying to teach the world about human development.
I don't think I've ever met anyone in my anthropology department that likes Jared Diamond's writings. This article says exactly why: "the shallowness of the arguments, and it is this characteristic of Diamond's writings that drives anthropologists to distraction". His conclusions and arguing points are just too shallow to be really good, thorough anthropological examinations.