[tossaccount123]

Guns, Germs, and Steel is essentially pop science by a guy with next to no expertise in many of the areas he bases his theories on like geography.

Germs - Ignores the fact that Europeans were devastated by things like Malaria that many Africans have moderate immunity to thanks to the sickle cell trait

Domesticated animals - Ignores that Europeans have actually used Zebras as work animals and had to domesticate cows from Aurrochs and dogs from wolves

The whole thing is basically Diamond starting off with a conclusion and finding a theory to fit in

[AcerbicZero]

I tried to read Guns, Germs and Steel several years ago, as it was popular, and required by a collage class I was taking. I finished maybe a third of the book before it became clear the author had lost the plot entirely, and all my independent reading on the subject seemed to indicate the author was at best ambitious with his conclusions; At worst, actively spreading misinformation.

[beerlord]

The best theory out there is the 'Cold Winters' theory. But it leads to politically incorrect conclusions, so is not widespread.

[wahern]

The emergence of human sociability defies modern genetic models. Nonetheless, out of all the irreparably flawed assumptions in anthropology, one of the least flawed is the premise that intelligence and sociability probably had a complex, interconnected evolution.

Given that not only can we not explain our sociability, but that it's emergence seems nearly impossible according to our understanding of genetic natural selection, then opining on the dominant factors that drive modern intelligence, let alone drove our intelligence hundreds of thousands of years ago, is a hopeless endeavor.

Anyone providing answers to such higher-order questions could only be correct by accident. We have no way of assessing the validity!