Sapiens: Should We Accept Or Question?

Sapiens, the book, has been on the non-fiction paperback best-seller list and has sold more than a million copies (in all formats). Amongst those million+ copies sold, I personally know a handful who have bought and read this book...but I know of only one person who started reading the book, enjoyed Part One: The Cognitive Revolution, and could not get past Part Two: The Agricultural Revolution.

I am that person!

My network on LinkedIn also seems to have read and enjoyed this book - thus I am sharing my thoughts on the matter here, on this platform, with the hope that those who enjoyed the book in its entirety can help me clear my doubts about some of author's claims in this non-fiction book.

Author has, without any room for doubt, labelled Agricultural Revolution as "History's Biggest Fraud". Well, that captured my attention and I was piqued to see how and why such a claim could be true.

It was here that my doubts and disagreements started...

The way I understand fraud, there should be at least two parties involved for fraud to happen. Logically, one cannot defraud oneself. If fraud did happen, then which two parties were involved. Let us try and break this down then, as there are two possible scenarios that I can think of:

Either this is a generational fraud, i.e. one generation of foragers simply decided to defraud all following generations by introducing agriculture to their lives. This doesn't seem quite convincing, because an entire generation would have sacrificed the comforts of their life as a forager (as per the author, foragers had a better lifestyle than humans in the agrarian society) to convince following generations to follow suit.

Or...this is a fraud of a much sinister entity - Nature. If this is the case, then there is no point crying fraud because Nature has made no pact with any species to be 'nice' to them forever. Just consider how many species have been wiped-off because of Humans - a Nature's gift to those species.

If anyone has understood from this book about the fraudulent activity that happened, then please let me know as I am keen to understand. As of now, I can't see it!

The second doubt that I have, is about how the author has claimed lives of Homo Sapiens deteriorated after they stopped being foragers and started an agrarian society. Following are some quotes from the book, to show author's views on this matter:

"Scholars once proclaimed that the agricultural revolution was a great leap forward for humanity. They told a tale of progress fuelled by human brain power...

...That tale is a fantasy. There is no evidence that people became more intelligent with time. Foragers knew the secrets of nature long before the agricultural revolution, since their survival depended on intimate knowledge of the animals and plants they gathered."

"Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers."

"The Agricultural Revolution was a trap."

This is the most difficult for me to accept...someone in the 21st century (i.e. the author) believes that foragers were so intelligent that there was no need for any further intelligence to be added to their levels of intelligence.

The author managed to publish this book, using his brain power (definitely more than that of an average forager), working on tools and technologies (definitely superior to any tool or technology available to an average forager), and making use of his time to write this book (something he wouldn't have had, if he was too busy hunting and gathering food, as foragers did). Yet, he claims that "there is no evidence that people became more intelligent with time" from the times foragers lived.

Once again, asking my network (or anyone in the extended network) to help me see what am I missing in the author's arguments, why am I unable to accept his claim that Agricultural Revolution was "History's Biggest Fraud"!

To anyone who has liked this book, and hasn't felt uneasy with author's claims that I have shared above - why? Is it okay to make unsubstantiated claims, make money from such unsubstantiated claims, and become a thought-leader? Well...if yes, then that is our own fault. That is readers' fault for not questioning the author, and for accepting such unsubstantiated claims.

Why, you may ask?

Because, this book isn't sold as work of fiction. As mentioned earlier in this article, this book has been on the non-fiction paperback best-seller list. Any author's book, which is sold as a non-fiction, has to be scrutinised more seriously for the claims it makes than fiction.

The bigger questions for us are: should we blindly accept what is presented to us, or should we at least take a moment to think and question before accepting the presented data? Are we following a herd, or do we still keep and use the power to think & question for ourselves?

Please feel free to share your views about Sapiens, if you have read it. And, of course, I am very keen to know your views on this article and the points that I have raised. TIA :)