This pattern reflects much of the criticism leveled at Harari’s works by scholars. He exaggerates and oversimplifies, but rarely does he get things completely wrong.
When I tried reading Sapiens, I felt like Harari drew conclusions beyond the available evidence and attempted to pass them off as unqualified fact. He’d make a claim about non-human hominids’ behavior and I’d think to myself, “Really? How do you know? I thought we lacked archaeological/paleontological evidence on that subject. There are alternative possibilities.”
I like your line “[a]nd none of this pansy using a tool to extract the fat nonsense.” It gives hyenas their due. Lions get may be royalty but hyenas are monsters. A lion will kill you and then eat you. A hyena does it the other way around. Often they don’t even even bother to finish the job.
When I tried reading Sapiens, I felt like Harari drew conclusions beyond the available evidence and attempted to pass them off as unqualified fact. He’d make a claim about non-human hominids’ behavior and I’d think to myself, “Really? How do you know? I thought we lacked archaeological/paleontological evidence on that subject. There are alternative possibilities.”
Yes, even in the first few chapters of Sapiens he got evolution wrong enough I couldn’t take anything he said seriously.
I made some really cautious criticism here and more useful but more speculative criticism here.
I like your line “[a]nd none of this pansy using a tool to extract the fat nonsense.” It gives hyenas their due. Lions get may be royalty but hyenas are monsters. A lion will kill you and then eat you. A hyena does it the other way around. Often they don’t even even bother to finish the job.