bernard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looking at the conclusion, Diamond is criticized
> for not being scientific. Perhaps, the paper was
> submitted before the publication of this:
>
> Easter Island Deforestation
> B. Rolett & Jared Diamond.2004. “Environmental
> predictors of pre-European deforestation on
> Pacific Islands,” Nature 431: 443-446 (September
> 28)
>
> Abstract
>
> Some Pacific island societies, such as those of
> Easter Island and Mangareva, inadvertently
> contributed to their own collapse by causing
> massive deforestation. Others retained forest
> cover and survived. How can those fateful
> differences be explained? Although the answers
> undoubtedly involve both different cultural
> responses of peoples and different
> susceptibilities of environments, how can one
> determine which environmental factors predispose
> towards deforestation and which towards
> replacement of native trees with useful introduced
> tree species? Here we code European-contact
> conditions and nine environmental variables for 81
> sites on 69 Pacific islands from Yap in the west
> to Easter in the east, and from Hawaii in the
> north to New Zealand in the south. We hereby
> detect statistical decreases in deforestation
> and/or forest replacement with island rainfall,
> elevation, area, volcanic ash fallout, Asian dust
> transport and makatea terrain (uplifted reef), and
> increases with latitude, age and isolation.
> Comparative analyses of deforestation therefore
> lend themselves to much more detailed
> interpretations than previously possible. These
> results might be relevant to similar
> deforestation-associated collapses (for example,
> Fertile Crescent, Maya and Anasazi) or the lack
> thereof (Japan and highland New Guinea) elsewhere
> in the world.
>
> p. 445. “ We can now reconsider why Easter Island
> suffered almost the most extreme deforestation and
> consequent social and population collapse of any
> pacific island even though the Polynesians who
> colonized Easter colonized hundreds of other
> islands without wreaking such extreme impacts. Our
> study suggests part of the answer to be Easter’s
> extreme environmental fragility predisposing
> toward deforestation: of our 69 islands, it has
> the lowest tephra and dust fallout, the second
> greatest isolation and third highest latitude and
> no makatea, and is relatively low, small and dry.
> On the basis of those independent variables, our
> multiple regression and tree models predict
> correctly that Easter should have the third
> highest deforestation score, exceeded only by
> Necker and Nihoa, which also ended up completely
> deforested. That is, Easter’s collapse was not
> because its people were especially improvident but
> because they faced one of the Pacific’s most
> fragile environments.”
>
> Bernard
>
Hi Bernard,

I found Piesners valid for the most part. The 'Collapses' are complex and I get the impression Diamond is serving up some moral fable. I don't know that having an agenda (however noble) lends itself to impartial scientific inquiry. Although I have trouble with the accusation that Diamond isn't scientific; both of Diamonds works (Collapse and Guns, Germs Steel) are for a broad audience. I'm sure that Peisner did read the Bolett paper you cited, because Peisner lists it as a source for his 'Collapse' critique. Theres some irony
there.
Duncan