Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond
Born	Jared Mason Diamond (1937-09-10) September 10, 1937 Boston, Massachusetts
Residence	United States
Citizenship	American
Fields	Physiology Biophysics Ornithology Environmentalism History Ecology Geography Evolutionary Biology Anthropology
Institutions	University of California, Los Angeles
Alma mater	Harvard College University of Cambridge
Thesis	Concentrating activity of the gall-bladder (1961)
Notable awards	Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science (1997) Royal Society Prize for Science Books (1992, 1998 & 2006) Pulitzer Prize (1998) National Medal of Science (1999)

Jared Mason Diamond (born September 10, 1937) is an American scientist and author best known for his popular science books The Third Chimpanzee (1991), Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005). Originally trained in physiology, Diamond's work is known for drawing from a variety of fields, and he is currently Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has been described as "America’s best-known geographer".

Education

Diamond was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Bessarabian Jewish family. His father Louis K. Diamond was a physician and his mother Flora Kaplan a teacher, musician, and linguist. He attended the Roxbury Latin School and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College in 1958 and a PhD on the physiology and biophysics of membranes in the gall bladder from the University of Cambridge in 1961.

Biography

After graduating from Cambridge, Diamond returned to Harvard as a Junior Fellow until 1965, and, in 1968, became Professor of Physiology at UCLA Medical School. While in his twenties he developed a second, parallel, career in ornithology and ecology, specialising in New Guinea and nearby islands. Later, in his fifties, Diamond developed a third career in environmental history and became Professor of Geography at UCLA, his current position. He won the National Medal of Science in 1999 and Westfield State University granted him an honorary doctorate in 2009.

Diamond is married to Marie Diamond (née Marie Nabel Cohen), granddaughter of Polish politician Edward Werner. They have twin sons, born in 1987.

Diamond originally specialized in salt absorption in the gall bladder. He has also published scholarly works in the fields of ecology and ornithology, but is arguably best known for authoring a number of popular-science books combining topics from diverse fields other than those he has formally studied. Because of this diversity Diamond has been described as a polymath.

Work

Diamond's first popular book, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (1991), examined human evolution and its relevance to the modern world, incorporating evidence from anthropology, evolutionary biology, genetics, ecology, and linguistics. It was well received by critics and won the 1992 Rhône-Poulenc Prize for Science Books and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 1997, he followed this up with Why is Sex Fun?, which focused in on the evolution of human sexuality, again drawing from anthropology, ecology, and evolutionary biology.

His third and best known popular science book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, was published in 1997. In it, Diamond sought to explain the political and economic dominance of Eurasian societies over those from other parts of the world throughout history. Using evidence from archaeological and historical case studies and evidence from genetics and linguistics, he argued that gaps in power and technology between human societies are not primarily caused by cultural or racial differences, but originated in environmental differences amplified by various positive feedback loops. According to Diamond the geography and ecology of the Eurasian landmass gave societies there an advantage over those on other continents, which they were subsequently able to dominate or conquer. Guns, Germs, and Steel was a best-seller and received several awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, an Aventis Prize for Science Books and the 1997 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. However the work was criticised for factual inaccuracies in some of Diamond's case studies, and more generally as an argument for environmental determinism. A television documentary series based on the book was produced by the National Geographic Society in 2005.

Diamond's next book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), examined a range of past civilizations in an attempt to identify why they either collapsed or succeeded, and considers what contemporary societies can learn from these historical examples. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, he argued against explanations for the failure of past societies based primarily on cultural factors, instead focusing on ecology. Among the societies mentioned in the book are the Norse and Inuit of Greenland, the Maya, the Anasazi, the indigenous people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Japan, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and modern Montana. Similarly Collapse was again both critically acclaimed and criticised for environmental determinism and specific factual inaccuracies. It was nominated for Royal Society Prize for Science Books. In 2012, Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt proposed an alternative theory to a central thesis of "Collapse" by demonstrating – both through research and full-scale recreation for National Geographic television – that the statues on Rapa Nui could have "walked" and that the people of the island may not have cut trees to transport their statues.

In 2008, Diamond published an article in The New Yorker, describing the role of revenge in tribal warfare in Papua New Guinea. A year later, two of the men mentioned in the article filed a lawsuit against Diamond and The New Yorker claiming the article defamed them, seeking $10 million in damages. The suit was later dismissed.

Diamond's most recent book Natural Experiments of History, co-edited with James Robinson, is a collection of essays illustrating the multidisciplinary and comparative approach to the study of history that he advocates.

Selected publications

Main article: Jared Diamond bibliography

Books

• 1992 The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, ISBN 0-06-098403-1
• 1997 Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality, ISBN 0-465-03127-7
• 1997 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-06131-0
• 2003 Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion, ISBN 1-58663-863-7.
• 2005 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-303655-6.
• 2010 Natural Experiments of History (with James A. Robinson). ISBN 0-674-03557-7 ISBN 978-0674035577
• 2012 The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? ISBN 978-0713998986.

Articles and book chapters

• Diamond, J. M.; Keegan, W. F. (1984). "Anthropology: Supertramps at sea". Nature 311 (5988): 704–705. PMID 6436714.
• Diamond, J. M. (1986). "Molecular biology: Why do disused proteins become genetically lost or repressed?". Nature 321 (6070): 565–566. doi:10.1038/321565a0. PMID 3520338.
• Cohen, M. M.; Diamond, J. M. (1986). "Medical research: Are we losing the war on cancer?". Nature 323 (6088): 488–489. doi:10.1038/323488a0. PMID 3762700.
• Diamond, J. M. (1987). "Survival in extreme isolation". Nature 325 (6103): 394. doi:10.1038/325394a0. PMID 3808038.
• Diamond, J. M.; Rotter, J. I. (1987). "Observing the founder effect in human evolution". Nature 329 (6135): 105–106. doi:10.1038/329105a0. PMID 3627251.
• Rotter, J. I.; Diamond, J. M. (1987). "What maintains the frequencies of human genetic diseases?". Nature 329 (6137): 289–290. doi:10.1038/329289a0. PMID 3114647.
• The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (May 1987) Discover pp. 64–66
• Curse and Blessing of the Ghetto (March 1991) Discover, pp. 60–66
• Race Without Color (November 1994) Discover
• The Curse of QWERTY (April 1997) Discover
• Kinship With The Stars (May 1997) Discover
• Japanese Roots (June 1998) Discover
• Diamond, J. M. (2000). "Talk of cannibalism". Nature 407 (6800): 25–26. doi:10.1038/35024175. PMID 10993054.
• What’s Your Consumption Factor? (January 2, 2008) The New York Times
• Vengeance is Ours (April 2008) The New Yorker
• Diamond, Jared (2011). "Why do some societies make disastrous decisions?". In John Brockman. Culture: leading scientists explore civilizations, art, networks, reputation, and the on-line revolution. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-202313-1.

Boards

• Editorial board, Skeptic Magazine, a publication of The Skeptics Society
• Member, the American Philosophical Society
• Member, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Member, the National Academy of Sciences
• US regional director of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF/World Wildlife Fund)

Awards and honors

• 1961–1965 Prize Fellowship in Physiology, Trinity College, Cambridge, England
• 1968–1971 Lederle Medical Faculty Award
• 1972 Distinguished Teaching Award, UCLA Medical Class
• 1973 Distinguished Teaching Award, UCLA Medical Class
• 1975 Distinguished Achievement Award, American Gastroenterological Association
• 1976 Kaiser Permanente/Golden Apple Teaching Award
• 1976 Nathaniel Bowditch Prize, American Physiological Society
• 1978 American Ornithologists Union, elected fellow
• 1979 Franklin L. Burr Award, National Geographic Society
• 1985 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant
• 1989 Archie Carr Medal
• 1990 MacArthur Foundation Fellow
• 1992 Tanner Lecturer, University of Utah and many other endowed lectureships
• 1992 Rhône-Poulenc Prize for Science Books for The Third Chimphanzee
• 1992 Los Angeles Times Science Book Prize
• 1993 Zoological Society of San Diego Conservation Medal
• 1994 Skeptics Society, Randi Award
• 1995 Honorary doctor of literature, Sejong University, Korea
• 1996 Faculty Research Lecturer, UCLA
• 1997 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Prize for Guns, Germs and Steel
• 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Guns, Germs and Steel
• 1998 Elliott Coues Award, American Ornithologists' Union
• 1998 California Book Awards, Gold Medal in nonfiction for Guns, Germs and Steel
• 1998 Aventis Prize for Science Books for Guns, Germs and Steel
• 1998 International Cosmos Prize
• 1999 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
• 1999 National Medal of Science
• 2001 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement
• 2002 Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science
• 2006 Royal Society Prize for Science Books for Collapse (shortlisted)
• 2006 Dickson Prize in Science
• 2008 PhD Honoris Causa at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

See also

• Assembly rules

External links

• Diamond's page at the UCLA Department of Geography
• UCLA Spotlight – Jared Diamond
• Edge – Jared Diamond

Lectures and talks

• Why societies collapse at TED, 2003
• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed at The Earth Institute at Columbia University, April 2007
• The Evolution of Religions at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California
• PBS – Guns, Germs and Steel (with full transcripts)

Interviews

• Hammer Conversation with Jared Diamond and John Long, March 16, 2010
• Interview with Charlie Rose
• Interview with New Books in History