Practice question · Multiple choice
Why should Diamond’s continental-axis argument be held more loosely than the strength of its mechanism suggests?
Hints
- Separate the question, the mechanism, and the scope of the claim.
- How many millennia does the causal chain span?
Show the answer
D. A real mechanism, but a chain long enough for decisions
Why
The question is excellent, the mechanism is real, an east–west axis lets a crop package ride one climate band, and the trouble is that it explains a chain long enough for ten thousand years of human decisions to intervene, which they did.
Practise Geography and History
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Geography and History
- A geographical explanation and a determinist one can cite exactly the same evidence. What separates them?
- Ratzel’s Lebensraum feeding into Geopolitik is guilt by association.
- Why is "geography is contingent on technology" a serious constraint on the field?
- Complete the formulation.
- Sort each claim: determinism or the defensible position?
- Why does possibilism, pushed hard enough, stop being informative?
- What characterizes the defensible modern position?