On Sat, 11 Mar 2000, gordon wrote:

> By the way it is by no means proven that paleolithic eating habits caused
> paleolithic hunter-gatherers to be healthier than neolithic people. You
> assume it is true, and I join you in that assumption, but it is only an
> assumption. The evidence for it is not so strong as it may appear.

I agree that it is not proven, but it is more than an assumption.
It is closer to what contemporary epistemologists call an
"inference to the best explanation" and what C.S. Pierce called
an "abduction."

We have several lines of evidence, and even though they don't add
up to proof, they are best explained by the hypothesis that
nonpaleo eating is a major causal factor in many illnesses,
notably the "diseases of civilization": heart disease, cancer,
rheumatoid arthritis (but not osteoarthritis, which predates
civilization), diabetes, and so on.

For some of these, we have the evidence of paleopathology.  For
others, we have the evidence of the semi-paleo diets of recent
hunter-gatherers.  We also have the evidence of various clinical
and epidemiological studies, although the latter are often
ambiguous and notoriously hard to interpret.  In short, we have
an evidential jigsaw puzzle, with many pieces still missing.  But
this is common in science.

In addition there is the fact that paleolithic nutrition
comprises a wide spectrum of ways of eating, and there is nothing
to guarantee that all of them are superior to all neolithic
diets.  Under some conditions paleo people may have been forced
to survive on nutritionally marginal diets, while some neolithic
diets, such as the so-called Mediterranean diet, appear to be
fairly good.  I have little trouble believing that the best
neolithic diets are nutritionally better than the worst paleo
diets, especially when paleo is defined in terms of the foods
that are *excluded* (as in Neanderthin).

If we were to ask what is the *best* sort of neolithic diet, and
how does it compare, nutritionally, to the best sort of paleo
diet, I suppose we would be looking at something like the
Nourishing Traditions program on the neo side.  On the paleo
side, I guess we are still debating the details.

Todd Moody
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