Café Inquiry Grand Rapids – IN PERSON – Did Agriculture Ruin Human Society?

Our regular hosts will be away this week, but don’t despair! Café Inquiry carries on undaunted, with Diane Baum leading the discussion on this week’s topic. Here is Diane’s description:

Frank and Jessica will not be in town this week and asked me to elaborate on my comments about how agriculture ruined human society. I wondered about this first hand as I witnessed the success of low-carb diets (keto, paleo, carnivore) and also the good health and co-operative society of the traditional Inupiat (Eskimos) with whom I used to live. Years ago, I researched the topic for a talk I was going to give to our local chapter of the Weston Price Foundation. In the 1930’s, Dr. Price investigated the health of aboriginal people and found their health better than the health of us moderns.  In 1987, Jared Diamond published an influential article calling agriculture our greatest mistake. Let’s talk about this!

For background material:

This is the article that started it all in 1987 from Jared Diamond, prize-winning author of Germs, Guns and Steel.  Here is a PDF of the Diamond article in case you’ve already used up your free Discovery articles. Here is a fun, short video on the topic, and an award-winning essay from 2006 which is a shortened version of the subject. Here is a video by a kid whose perspective was changed by reading Diamond’s article. This is a review of Dr.Weston Price’s book written in 1945-  Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Dr.Price was a dentist who visited aboriginal communities trying to find why people’s teeth degenerated.  If you’re really interested in the subject, here is a link to a PDF of Dr. Price’s entire book! The pictures are particularly interesting.

Looking at the history of Rome shows some problems that come along with agriculture. Here are a few short videos:

Agriculture in Ancient Rome led to the exhaustion of the land, war and empire. Large landholders “Latifundia”  displaced small farmers, driving them into the city. Rome then expanded further, importing grain and giving it away “cura annonae”- the grain dole- in order to pacify the poor (along with public entertainments – Bread and Circuses). There were a lot of deaths and corruption that came along with this.

For balance, this article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) takes a more nuanced look at the issue, pointing out that despite the downsides of agriculture it has enabled (for better or worse) a greatly increased population and technological growth. This article by historian Rachel Laudan points out some weaknesses in the evaluation of how much leisure time was enjoyed by the hunter/gatherers.

Hope you can join us for what promises to be an enlightening discussion!

Café Inquiry starts with a short introduction of the day’s topic, followed by casual discussion.

This event is free and open to the public. Donations appreciated, but not expected.

Attendees are able to future propose topics which would align with Michigan Humanist’s purpose: from atheism, agnosticism, humanism, secularism, and freethinking to broader subjects in science and humanities, such as religion, philosophy, social issues, politics, evolution, morality, ethics, and psychology.

Café Inquiry (Grand Rapids) meets each month IN PERSON on the second Sunday and ONLINE on the fourth Sunday.

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Michigan Humanists values the participation of all guests — requests for reasonable accommodation may be made by contacting the event host at least three days prior to the event.

Michigan Humanists expects all guests to engage in respectful discussion. Critiques on views and claims based on merit are allowed, but not attacks on individuals who hold other perspectives.

Any person engaging in disruptive behavior or harassment will be asked to leave, and may be banned from future events pending the severity of the action. Please speak to the event host or contact info@michiganhumanists.org if you feel these expectations are being violated.