The problem is that it seems like the scientific community has largely failed at communicating their findings to the wider public. Where are the books like Diamond's that tell people what modern science has found about the same topics? Pop Sci is extremely popular, but scientists refuse to write them, so you get books by people like Diamond that hit the mainstream and then you get subreddits like r/askhistory getting mad about it. You can't get mad when your entire field has failed at educating the public.
The problem is that "the academic view" is a messy web of ideas and findings, with a lot of uncertainty and inconsistencies. That's a hell of a lot harder to sell and engage people with than a simple and elegant idea that's eloquently explained, even if said idea is almost certainly wrong.
I think people can easily be engaged by complex, messy topics. You just need a scientist who's a decent writer to try. Scientists, academics as a whole aren't trying.
This is only tangentally related to this discussion, but this youtube video about science communication (through the lens of 'what killed the dinosaurs?') I found quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DHgkMYgp7w . Science communication is hard, and it's not that unusual for scientists to market their ideas to the public, but it's still difficult even then for the public to get a good idea of the academic view.
The problem is that "the academic view" is a messy web of ideas and findings, with a lot of uncertainty and inconsistencies
That’s a cop-out. What it’s really saying to me (as a non-academic) is that they don’t have a theory. That is really bad news for a field struggling to be respected as a science.
Where is the Newton of history? Where is the Einstein or the Darwin of anthropology? Diamond earns my respect for having the courage to even try.
Well, duh. Not every branch of academia has a grand unified theory of their field. That's what physics is going for, and still hasn't succeeded at. That doesn't make any random attempt at a theory a good one. Coming up with a theory is easy if you don't bother to be constrained by pesky details that don't match your theory, but unfortunately description of human society is actually incredibly patchwork, messy, and inconsistent.
Then who is the Einstein or the Darwin of anthropology? If Diamond is not credible, then who is? It's a lot easier to pick apart someone else's theory than it is to advance your own. If no one in a field is willing to step forward with a theory then the whole field is worthless.
