Philip Thrift wrote:
>
> On Tue, 15 Oct 2002 12:23:00 +0900, Tom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >Anyway, I haven't had any trouble. I don't think our paleo
> >ancestors had any trouble, but they had a lifetime to build
> >resistance to raw meat parasites.
>
> Our paleo ancestors cooked, starting before our species appeared.


This is one of those hopeless arguments, because there just
is not enough evidence to convince anyone either way.
Certainly there was use of fire going back 500,000 years,
and I agree there was probably cooking too. But we don't
know how much. Steadily increasing until now is my guess.
Cooking gives all sorts of advantages, so peoples who did it
would have increased at the expense of those who didn't. Raw
meat eaters today seem to all be on the perifery, Japanese,
and Eskimos, and the like.