13. Notes on ‘Sapiens’, book by Yuval Noah Harari

Scientists store knowledge of the workings of their instruments, as well as postulating a theory they attempt to prove empirically.
Social scientists dealing with prehistoric physical and cultural anthropology have a different task: to reconstruct a necessarily incomplete chronicle of human culture and behavior. Then the task is addressing the blank spaces in the story and write the best theoretical hypotheses. The fun part is inspecting where the hard science meets the theoretical social science and analyzing the author’s particular opinions or biases. Harari does not seem to hide his particular perspective of various human situations, and so makes it enjoyable to challenge him. Such as:

p, 70-75 ”Guilty as Charged”. This is a subheading Harari uses to describe Homo sapiens behavior in Australia. About 40,000 years ago Sapiens reached the shores of Australia in some kind of unknown seaworthy vessels. The author describes the rich populations of giant marsupials- giant kangaroos, giant sloths, giant wombats, diprotodons living on the continent when humans arrived. But “within a few thousand years virtually all of these giants vanished. ..Was it all the fault of Homo sapiens?” Then under “Guilty as Charged” he presents the case that Sapiens were culpable, guilty, unethical it seems, for causing the extinction of these animals. He explains how some scientists ”try to exonerate our species, placing the blame on the vagaries of climate”, which Harari dismisses with historic meteorological data.

But do these ancient Sapiens need to be exonerated, even if they caused the extinctions as the evidence indicates? Today it is easy to find culpability in modern man’s role of driving species to extinction. And I do. Whales, sharks, cod, gorillas, tigers, rhinos, elephants and many more are endangered because man chooses not to refrain from overindulgent behavior that he knows is wiping them out. But ancient Sapiens in Australia had no clue that they were causing extinctions. They knew they were killing the animals for food and clothing. and perhaps they killed animals to make their surrounds safer. (As did American settlers) They killed for the survival of their families, their clans and their tribe. It is a bit of a reach to blame them for not thinking, “We need the food and hides of these animals, and our neighbors were killed by a 2-ton diprotodon last week but we must go easy on killing them or they will become extinct in a few thousand years.”

 I think it fair, in light of all the disruptions to the Australian food chains which Harari cites, to say the Sapiens of Australia were somewhat of an invasive species. But like contemporary invasive species – wild bore, devil weed, killer algae, and snakehead fish, they were simply trying to survive and thrive, not a psychopathic…. er sociopathic…… er anthropathic species. (heh heh, Just made up a new word) This extinction of the superbeasts occurred more than 30,000 years before Homo sapiens acquired writing.

1 p 15-17 Prehistoric racism. 150,000 years ago Homo sapiens resembling modern humans populated east Africa. 70,000 years ago they migrated into the Middle East and continued relentlessly till they populated all of Eurasia. They met the Neanderthals in Asia minor and , and Homo erectus in the far east. Over the millenia, the Neanderthals and Homo erectus disappeared. Harari explains the 2 theories. The Interbreeding Theory says the “Neanderthals bred with Sapiens until the two populations merged”. The Replacement Theory contends that there were sufficient differences between the two that they would have had little sexual interest in each other.
And if they did interbreed the offspring would have been infertile because of the genetic difference. Instead the new neighbors out-survived the old ones, and also probably killed them in warfare. The seminal novel Clan of the Cave Bear tells of a Homo sapien girl orphaned by an earthquake and taken in by Neanderthals. The end assumes the theory that the two groups interbred and thus endorses the Interbreeding Theory

Then Harari says, ”A lot hinges on this debate. If the Replacement theory is correct all humans have roughly the same genetic baggage, and racial distinctions among them are negligible. But if the Interbreeding Theory is right, there well may be genetic differences between Africans, Europeans and Asians that go back hundreds of thousands of years. This is political dynamite which could provide material for explosive racial theories. [italics mine]

Seriously, Mr Harari? Racism today is simple by comparison to racism based on the relation of one’s DNA sequencing and its relation to Neanderthal or Homo erectus DNA sequencing.

Racism today: Identify a group, tell your colleagues this group is bad, inferior, immoral, dangerous, etc The disdain generated by hating an out-group is gratifying as is all human endeavor which diminishes the they and enhances the we. Also, try to find other categories which diminishes them. This process has been painfully manifest in the US in current times. To diminish the Biden administration, create the belief that their rDNA vaccination is bad, and our hydroxychloroquine is good. Their mandate on masks is bad, etc. And demonize the experts such as Marge Green did shamelessly to Dr Fauci.

So how would racism work based on the prehistoric record of one’s DNA? To discriminate against African Americans one need only identify physical traits. To discriminate against Jews, a bit harder. One needs knowledge that a person himself identifies as such. So if you know a person identifies as Jewish, you can harass him personally, or refuse to hire him. And you can attack the institutions of the Jewish culture, such as the synagogues. But to discriminate against someone who neither identifies with, nor has identifiable physical characteristics of, nor has knowledge of, a specific genetic sequence in his DNA would require the work of a myriad of scientists, a broad testing program, and a political agenda. Not very feasible. There are far easier ways to do political demagoguery. So, luckily, no. The Interbreeding theory of how Sapiens came to dominate the Eurasian continent could not become political dynamite, nor evolve to become a racist movement…. (end of article)

NOTES wipe out cod, tragedy because A we have no of them more to eat
wipe out tiger or mountain gorilla, tragedy because of B no respect for their a right to live. or C because of the resulting disrupion in the balance of nature…

Funny story about the balance of nature factor. True story but I can’t remember all the details. A small island was inhabited by 200 primitive natives, I think off the coast of Australia. Australian health authorities, seeing a good amount of mice and other rodents on the island endeavored to help. They parachuted (yes!) a large number of cats onto the island to despatch the pests, which they did. But within months the natives had to be evacuated from the island. The rodents’ diet had been the ample supply of insects that covered the island. With no predators the insects multiplied quickly. They invaded the natives’ huts and took up residence by the millions in the earthen walls and thatched roofs. eh. Balance of nature disrupted.

Harari says the nature of of man being bad is not the problem. The problem is when good people are given bad info and they make poor decisions.