Alan:
>If the intent wasn't there Kirt (i.e. if evolution did not develop
>food cycles, interdependencies and symbioses etc.) then there would be
>no such things as jungles.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree. I feel the "intent" you speak of is a
human ideation. It is something like the arguments that correlations do not
show cause and effect. Jungles could well exist without your notions of
intent. But, I suspect, you need the notion of intent to justify your
fundamentalist NH. Without it, NH's false claims to "naturalism" come
tumbling down.

>Granted, many seeds propagate through the
>air, but equally many (i.e. because they are too heavy or have evolved
>other propagation schemes) depend on being eaten by animals, birds and
>insects in order to propagate. A tree full of nuts would soon be overgrown
>by other nut trees if all nuts merely fell to the ground and germinated
>uneaten.

This happens all the time where seedlings sprout up under a parent tree.
The "mother tree" is hardly overgrown since it shades out the closest
seedlings. In the longterm, yeah, the younger trees replace the older
trees. What any of this has to do with whether nuts "should" or "want" to
be eaten is beyond me though.

>If you doubt this then you had better start reading some Darwin
>or study botany and natural history.

If I doubt what? That various schemes have evolved to disperse plants
seeds? I have trouble following your lines of thought many times.

Darwin, as well as any learned botanist or natural historian, would likely
give you a stern lecture on how animals utilize any potential food source
regardless of your notions about whether a food "intends" to be eaten.

>Points of view are gained through education (i.e. both quotable research
>and self-experimentation).

There is plenty of quotable research that humans are adapted to animal
foods out there...as well as research which concludes that fruits and
vegetables are useful in the human diet. Research and self-experimentation
will not get anyone closer to the "truth" when they start with
pre-conceived notions (whether of intent or the evils of animal foods). The
person must cherry-pick the research and get the "results" from their
self-experimentation that they expect.

>If someone claims he or she feels better
>after eating raw meat, for example, then there must be some proper
>description of "feeling better" as well as some research to back this
>up.

This is seriously wrong, IMO. Anyone can say their experience as their
experience. No one needs research to back up or share their experience. You
have been indoctrinated against animal foods so you dismiss others positive
experience with them as perverted somehow. This denies both quotable
research and self-experimentation which leaves you, by your own definition,
uneducable.

>After all, many people feel absolutely blissful after eating a
>bar of chocolate etc..

Many feel blissful having found a simple code (fundamentalist NH) to live
by (and judge others as inferior for not living by their simple code). The
security provided is comforting to some relative to a dynamic and
unknowable universe (ahem :/). Regardless of the simple code's longterm
utility and/or compatibility with reality.

Cheers,
Kirt


Secola  /\  Nieft
[log in to unmask]