There has been a recent addition to the physical causes of poverty offered by Jared Diamond, a physiologist with a background in linguistics, archeology, and ecology (Diamond 1997). Diamond looks not just at the biology of humans, but at the biology that surrounds humans. He is looking for an alternative to the kind of social Darwinism that explains the world map of development by implying that some ethnic groups are better than others. Diamond argues that geography, the quality of land, climate, and native plant species; guns and capital, which allow exploration and domination; and germs,
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