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A few weeks ago, Jared Diamond, author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, wrote a (rather negative) book review of Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire - a critique of his own book - for Nature... without mentioning that Questioning Collapse was, well, questioning Collapse. StinkyJournalism.org laid out this conflict of interest, starting a good ol’ fashion media ethics debate. Today, the controversy comes to a head and the collected contributors of Questioning Collapse have formulated a response. -------- Requesting Full Disclosure and Correction of Factual Errors Patricia A. McAnany, Norman Yoffee, Joel Berglund, David Cahill, Frederick Errington, Deborah Gewertz, Terry Hunt, Timothy Murray, Kenneth Pomeranz, Christopher Taylor, Michael Wilcox, and Drexel Woodson. -------- The 18 February 2010 (Vol 463) issue of Nature contains a response to our recently published book entitled Questioning Collapse. Called “Two Views of Collapse,” it masquerades as an impartial book review in which the reviewer (Jared Diamond) alleges that the edited book contains serious errors of fact. This justifies his devaluation of our emphasis on human resilience and allows him to discount the importance of culture and history, including the facts of 18th-19th century colonialism. Throughout the “review”, Diamond fails to disclose that our book critically examines two of his publications: Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. The lack of full disclosure brings forth troubling questions. Readers of Nature expect a book review to include a description and evaluation of a book but not an author’s rebuttal to criticism of his own publications. We are disappointed that Nature would ask Jared Diamond to review our book. Nature is of course free to solicit an article by Diamond that considers the evidence presented in our book and/or to present new evidence. We are further surprised that the editorial team at Nature allowed the review to be published in its current form with unsubstantiated allegations of “errors and implausible extremes.” Here, we take pains to correct, once again, the errors perpetrated by the “reviewer” that again repeat over-determined and simplistic theses regarding both societal “collapse” and current global inequities in power and wealth. Read on as they dissect Diamond's argument, point by point. . . We emphasize that Questioning Collapse presents ample archaeological and historical data that contextualize how societies moved through periods of crisis. The goal of our book is to provide students and lay persons alike with an understanding of historical processes that is based upon up-to-date research. Questioning Collapse is more than a critical evaluation of Diamond’s scholarship: it is about how we understand change in the past, how we grapple with the legacy of colonialism and with inequalities in the present, and how we can move forward productively and resiliently into the future.
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Point of trivia: Lunokhod means moon walker in Russian. The Lunokhod 2 was a Russian Rover that landed on the moon in 1973, and to this day holds the record for the longest distance of surface travel on the moon. It was intended to survey sites for later manned landings and lunar bases; in June of 1973, the mission was declared completed. Many speculated that this was due to mechanical failure and the Lunokhod was never recovered from the moon. Fast forward to 1993. Richard Garriott (a.k.a. Lord British) purchases “ownership” of the Lunokhod landers for $68,500 from the Lavochkin Association, a Russian aerospace company. Even though the landers were still on the moon. Now this is where it gets cool. Fast forward to this past Wednesday. 2010 - 37 years after the Lunokhod mission, Cambridge author and astronomer Phil Stooke found it neatly tucked in a crater. From CTV/Canada a.m. : “By comparing the newly released images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter with pictures from his own recently published reference book on moon geography, The International Atlas of Lunar Exploration, he was able to find the tracks the old Soviet rover left in the moon dust.” Check out the interview here on CTV… On the moon, "there are no waves or wind on the moon to wash or blow them away, like footprints on a beach. They could be there for millions of years." Kudos to Wired for my favorite caption thus far: "Game developer's lost Russian rover is found." And to the Vancouver Sun for nicknaming Stooke a "lunar sleuth." Intrepid, exotic, outstanding. I may have to find a new career... [Above image: Lunokhod 2. The large white arrow indicates the rover, the smaller white arrows indicate its tracks, and the black arrow indicates the crater where it picked up its fatal load of lunar dust.]
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Meet Bill, author and originator of the Dictionary of Irish Biography Blogspot. His mission statement: The new Dictionary of Irish Biography from the Royal Irish Academy and Cambridge UP. 9 volumes, 10,000 pages, 10 million words, 9700 lives. A mammoth account of Irish lives from the earliest times to 2002. I'm reading it from beginning to end. The Dictionary of Irish Biography - more affectionately, DIB - is the most comprehensive and authoritative biographical reference work on Ireland. From James Ussher to James Joyce, St. Patrick to Patrick Pearse, St. Brigit to Maud Gonne MacBride, Maria Edgeworth to Elizabeth Bowen, Edward Carson to Bobby Sands, this indispensable resource outlines the careers at home and overseas of prominent men and women born in Ireland, north and south, and the noteworthy Irish careers of those born outside Ireland. I had the chance to ask Bill a few questions about this adventure that he’s embarked on. Read on to learn about his motivations, expectations, and revelations.
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Happy St. Patrick’s Day friends! The Irish Times on The ABC of the Irish: “Twelve years in the making, the innovative and imaginative comprehensive Dictionary of Irish Biography is a wonderful work of scholarship.” Read more on this epic undertaking…
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Congratulations to Michael D. King, Claire L. Parkinson, Kim C. Partington, and Robin G. Williams, editors of Our Changing Planet: The View from Space for winning the Best of Show 2009-2010 and Distinguished Technical Communication 2009-2010 Awards by the Society of Technical Communication.
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Times Higher Education discusses the subtleties and subjectivity of science – calling Why We Disagree About Climate Change “a distinctive and courageous book.” Full review here…
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The Al-Qaeda Seven controversy is all over the news. At the center of the debate are Justice Department attorneys who once represented terrorism detainees. Maligned by some for being un-American, their patriotism and their values called into question, and defended by others for protecting the liberties of unpopular clients, the story of the Al-Qaeda Seven calls into question the fundamental constitutional boundaries of our government. Ultimately, though, these Seven are a conduit for a larger conversation that we need to be having about the prosecution of suspected terrorists: Where should we try members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban? Jordan J. Paust, author of Beyond the Law: The Bush Administration’s Unlawful Responses in the “War” on Terror, asks just that in a new op-ed for Jurist. With vim, vigor, and vision, he suggests that we must look beyond the two forums offered by the Obama Administration – federal district court or US military commission – to consider a third option: military court-martial.
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Word play at The Globe and Mail brings Latin Alive with the help of Joseph Solodow – Busted! From bombs to broncos: And then there is a juggernaut
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