Hi Kirt,

> 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.

And the next thing you will be questioning is whether plants REALLY
do attract bees in order to get pollinated!! Intent may be a human
word but evolution obviously intended them to do just that, just as
it intended food cycles, interdependencies/symbioses etc.. If you
wish to reject this then you are in for a scrap with just about
every botanist and biologist on this earth.

> 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.

I am not a member of the German NH Society any more. I and more
renowned people such as Helmut Wandmaker, Dr. K. J. Probst and
Franz Konz etc. left them nearly three years ago to form a
breakaway group which attemopts to provide some better answers
based on newer findings. People like Shelton, Fry and Walker etc.
may have been pioneers but they certainly did not (and could not)
know some of the things we know now.

> >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.

True to a degree..but this would not explain why most trees have
devised methods of spreading their seeds further afield (some are
propeller-shaped, some are encased in "cotton wool", some rely
on being eaten by birds or animals etc.).

>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.
>
Nuts can not afford to wait until the parent tree dies before taking
its place. They rely on animals such as squirrels etc. to propagate
(i.e. they serve as both immediate food..also to humans.. and also
rely on animals burying them elsewhere as a winter stock and then
forgetting where some of them were buried).

> >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.

Exactly that. You questioned the intentions of Nature.

> 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.
>
The problem is that there is very little research on what humans
are supposed to eat (because it would be counterproductive for the
food industry in the first instance). Cherry-picking is thus often
not possible and common sense has to be applied in the first instance,
often based on research which was not directed at the paleolithic
diet in the first place. In other words, to use a recent example here,
if raw stringbeans have been found by food researchers to contain a
toxic substance known as phasine in concentrations which are
dangerous to humans, then it is common sense that raw stringbeans
are not an original human food (the same goes for deadly nightshade
and any other raw plants containing high levels of toxins).

> >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.

I have never been indoctrinated against animal foods. In fact I am one
of the few who claim that humans can and must be able to deal with
raw animal protein. The diets of the apes most related to humans tend
to support this (a small percentage of the diet of chimps is made up
of insects and raw meat..and bonobos at least eat a small percentage
of insects). The question is..is it necessary. I have found more
arguments against eating (raw) meat than for eating it (and listed
them in a recent post to Jean-Louis, for example). That's all.

> >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.
>
Let me guess that you are an American Kirt. It is amazing how the
Americans tend to view the advice of people from other countries as
somehow meaning that they themselves are inferior in some way. Do
you walk around with a chip on your shoulder or something? I merely
offer my advice and knowledge to anyone on this planet to use or
reject as he or she thinks fit. Without discussion there can be
no progress. Personally I couldn't give a damn what other people
are eating and stand to gain nothing by converting anybody to my
way of thinking (except perhaps a better environment for us all).
Why not merely try weighing up the pros and cons of what people
say (and throw back any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism you like) rather
than trying to put people into specific drawers and shooting off
the "holier than thou" mentality.

Alan