No idea, tbh. I’m nearly half way through it and I’ve yet to hear anything controversial other than religion is basically made up, but I already thought so. It’s really just super thought-provoking stuff.
If I were to describe it, I’d say it’s moreso an incredibly well thought-out narrative on the story of the human species and where we fit in time and space.
For example, the part this meme is from blew my mind. It’s a couple paragraphs and gets set up with the backdrop/context of the agricultural evolution and kind of comes out of nowhere.
Lastly, one interesting thought I had while reading it is how evolution doesn’t really “care” if we’re depressed, as long as we’re still reproducing the cycle continues (this was moreso a thought I had while reading the book than something explicitly said, I think)
troyunrau@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
r/askhistorians on reddit always rails about it being, paraphrasing: too cut and dry for such complicated topics. I’ve the first half of the first one, and I don’t disagree, but I’m not a historian. Reductionism is definitely in play, and there’s certainly a narrative bias in there for entertainment.
It seems about as reliable as Isaac Asimov’s essays (as published in The Road to Infinity, or similar).
hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Thanks. So, interesting and generally reliable, but claims should be treated with caution?
troyunrau@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Yep.
When a historian complains that something is reductionist, I usually ask them “what is the temperature of the air in the room right now.” I don’t mind reductionism, particularly when ingesting materials from outside my field of expertise – because I don’t have time to become an expert in every field :)
hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
What mean? I can’t brain good today
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 months ago
His supervisor disowned him. He’s not good science. currentaffairs.org/…/the-dangerous-populist-scien…