[lbo-talk] East Coast Climate War

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Thu Nov 1 11:00:35 PDT 2012



>
>Gar: "To talk of Easter Island, and to ignore
>both rats and genocide is outrageous, and sloppy."
>
>[WS:] I thought that "Collapse" was about consequences of
>environmental destruction, not about evils of colonialism. You seem
>to be criticizing him for not writing a different book.

Among other things, he's criticizing what a gazillion other people criticize, i.e., Diamond is not honest. If you're interested there's tons of stuff here:

http://www.imediaethics.org/Subtype/12/Jared_diamond.php

There are many things that writers, and the publications that publish their work, can do to lose the trust of readers. One is to write about subjects that present clear conflicts of interest. Another is to fail to be transparent about those conflicts with their readers.

The February 18 issue of the journal Nature provides a clear case in point. In the issue, Pulitzer-winning scientist Jared Diamond reviews a book of essays called Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire. The review, "Two views of collapse," is largely negative. What Diamond doesn’t disclose to readers of the review, however, is that Questioning Collapse is not just a book about “collapse”... It’s a book about his bestselling book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Even more, it is a book of essays directly criticizing and critiquing Diamond’s own work and writings.

There's nothing subtle about it. "Wrentit," a reviewer on Amazon.com, summarizes the book this way: "Questioning Collapse is a collection of reviews of specific chapters of Diamond's book Collapse. The whole point of Questioning Collapse is to attack Diamond's arguments."

This may not be the only time the subject of a critical work has reviewed the book that critiques them. But, by failing to disclose that Questioning Collapse is a critique of his own research, Diamond misleads readers into viewing his book review as something it is not--the dispassionate opinion of an outside observer..

[...]



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