How geography shapes cultural diversity (fwd link)

[King, Dr Alexander D.]

Jared Diamond's "theory" amounts to nothing more complex that "AAA high schools will have stronger football teams than small schools." You can't compare Mongolia and Angola unless you control for population density. They found some "correlations," but are they statistically significant? What is the standard deviation? How about controlling for dictatorial regimes that squash minorities or governments that perpetuate myths of nationalist homogeneity? The more I learn about Mongolia, the more diversity (linguistic and cultural) I seem to find there, especially in the mountainous northern regions. All that is ignored in official stats.

How can Nature publish such drivel?

-Alex

On 12 Jun 2012, at 6:52 pm, Phillip E Cash Cash wrote:

How geography shapes cultural diversity

Study offers evidence that long countries give better protection to languages than those that are wide.

Zoë Corbyn
11 June 2012

One reason that Eurasian civilizations dominated the globe is because they came from a continent that was broader in an east–west direction than north–south, claimed geographer Jared Diamond in his famous 1997 book Guns, Germs and Steel. Now, a modelling study has found evidence to support this 'continental axis theory'.

Continents that span narrower bands of latitude have less variation in climate, which means a set of plants and animals that are adapted to more similar conditions. That is an advantage, says Diamond, because it means that agricultural innovations are able to diffuse more easily, with culture and ideas following suit. As a result, Diamond's hypothesis predicts, along lines of latitude there will be more cultural homogeneity than along lines of longitude.

To test that prediction, researchers at Stanford University in California used language persistence as a proxy for cultural diversity, and analysed the percentage of historically indigenous languages that remain in use in 147 countries today relative to their shape. For example, the team looked at the difference between Chile, which has a long north–south axis, and Turkey, which has a wider axis running east to west.

Access full article below:
http://www.nature.com/news/how-geography-shapes-cultural-diversity-1.10808


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