[chargingmarmot]

Please. We live on a planet that has been bombarded by space rocks for billions of years and that's home to all sorts of viruses and bacteria that have been evolving to kill us for as long as we've been around.

If Mars were covered in gray goo we would have noticed by now.

[Calavar]

So did the indigenous people of the Americas, and yet it's estimated that as many as 90% of them died within the span of about 150 years.

[chargingmarmot]

This just reinforces my point. The germs that killed the native Americans grew up in an environment where humans were living in close proximity to a variety of animals (cows, chickens, rats) for thousands of years. (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel)

[tyg13]

Not that your point is invalid, but I wouldn't be linking Guns, Germs, and Steel. Quite a few historians have heavily criticized the claims in that book for being overly reductive pop history.

[l33t7332273]

Every critique I’ve seen hasn’t really attacked the core thesis of the work, mostly dismantling ancillary supporting examples.

I’ve certainly not seen a refutation of the fact that the natural attributes of living in one place provide advantages over other places.

I haven’t looked into this in a while though, so if you’re aware of some more comprehensive rebuttals, I’d like to see them.

[sixstringtheory]

This is argumentum ad verecundiam in a debate that is theoretical back-and-forth. I think it's at least worthy of examination, especially if you want to understand the points being made by those historians to which you allude. By all means link to their counterarguments, but don't chill the sharing of other work like that.