Paradigm wrote:Not so much civilization as agriculture.
Anthropologists and historians mark the dawn of civilization at the start of agriculture. I would have said specifically agriculture, but there are other aspects of civilization that contributed to disease aside from agriculture (ie sedentarism).
Paradigm wrote:It would be inaccurate, however, to say that civilization "creates" most diseases.
If you look at the literature on this issue you'll find that they're specifically called "diseases of civilization." So that's all I was getting at in my original post. Honestly I think this is just splitting hairs here, but whatever...
Paradigm wrote:It just facilitates their spread more easily.
Um, I don't know. I would probably still go with 'create,' because your statement can be construed to mean that these diseases existed pre-agriculture/civilization, and that agriculture/civilization only allowed them to spread easier. Everything from the worst degenerative diseases to the common cold aren't found in hunter-gatherer groups. So it's not simply a matter of agriculture/civilization helping to spread disease easier as you say.
Paradigm wrote:Africa has always had malaria, but it's become a much bigger problem since people started living together in cities rather than in the more dispersed conditions that prevailed previously.
Well Malaria isn't considered a disease of civilization (it's something like 30 million yrs old). I believe we were talking about diseases that are caused by agriculture/civilization. Of course, civilization helps spread any and all disease easily with it's densely populated cities. So yes, malaria was exacerbated by civilization, but not caused by it.