Diamond's geographic determinism isn't the same as the earlier version, which was racist. That one said that geography had a shaping influence on genetics, so that, for example, peoples of the tropics became essentially more laid-back or lazy than people from the cold north, who had to struggle against their environment and were improved by that. Diamond simply says that as chance ruled in the optimum climate for growing food and in the distribution of the best domesticatable plants and animals, the people who lived in these regions were the first to take advantage, through nothing more than accident. They used their innate abilities, but they had these in no greater amount than did people who moved slowly toward food production, or not at all, because of where they lived.