Summary of Jared Diamond, "Geographic Determinism: What Does Geographic Determinism Really Mean?" The term "geographic determinism" is used by many scholars as a pejorative, to justify the quick dismissal
of a proposed geographic interpretation of a human phenomenon. For example, the charge of geographic
determinism is occasionally leveled at my book Guns, Germs, and Steel. What does this term mean?
Many human phenomena and characteristics - such as behaviors, beliefs, economies, genes, incomes, life
expectancies, and other things - are influenced both by geographic factors and by non-geographic
factors. Geographic factors mean physical and biological factors tied to geographic location, including
climate, the distributions of wild plant and animal species, soils, and topography. Non-geographic factors
include those factors subsumed under the term culture, other factors subsumed under the term history,
and decisions by individual people. Some human phenomena and characteristics are overwhelmingly
influenced by geographic factors; others are significantly influenced by both geographic and non-
geographic factors, and still others are subject to scarcely any significant geographic influence at all. [...]
But many scholars do react to any explanation invoking some geographic role, by denouncing "geographic
determinism and then thinking no further, on the assumption that all their listeners and readers agree that
geographic explanations play no role and should be dismissed.
Several reasons may underlie this widespread but nonsensical view. One reason is that some geographic
explanations advanced a century ago were racist, thereby causing all geographic explanations to become
tainted by racist associations in the minds of many scholars other than geographers. But many genetic,
historical, psychological, and anthropological explanations advanced a century ago were also racist, yet
the validity of newer non-racist genetic etc. explanations is widely accepted today.