arjen:
> About 9 years ago I became interested in nutrition and
> started reading a lot of books on it.
Like what books?
> I was surprised that I couldn't find
> anywhere even a simple acknowledgment that humans are
> unique in the sense that they are the only species
> that are able to manipulate nature to their wishes and
> enabling them to live in habitats that are not
> suitable to their biological make-up, leading to
> serious possibilities for the inhibition of the normal
> natural selection process.
Humans manipulate nature, as does every other species on the planet. Humans,
because of their big brain, bipedalism, fine-tuned fingers, etc are the most
able to change their environment. Meaning they can live in most any
environment by developing the technology to thrive. Eskimos and their very
advanced technology exemplify this sort of thing.
Now, you say that habitats are not suited to their biological natures. You'd
better define "biological nature" for starters--very carefully. The idea
that the "normal selection process" is inhibited also needs to be spelled
out--very carefully. So far we have only heard you use both of the ruses
above to cling to a raw vegan diet as the true human diet.
The facts are that humans thrive on a wide variety of diets. Perhaps the
place you should start researching is Weston Price's "Nutrition and Physical
Degeneration" which vividly shows that humans (regardless of your "theory")
thrive on a variety of diets. He found the best health in those peoples
eating the most seafood. Initially he set out to prove vegetarian diets were
the best, but found just the opposite. If a diet (say, raw vegan) is the
most biologically appropriate, wouldn't we find that the most healthy
peoples practiced that diet?
Your "theory" would have to explain why there are no vegan human cultures,
historic or prehistoric that we know of, why longterm vegans are so often
sickly, why RAF is very attractive to human toddlers, etc.
> And if the theory I try to defend is really a
> possibility, it makes a lot of references of Beyond
> Veg TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. This refers especially to
> references that show that people ate meat during a
> certain time of our evolution, assuming that that
> means that we should be adapted to it. I explained
> extensively in my posts that that is absolutely
> nothing more than an assumption!
No, it is more than an assumption. Humans thrive on animal foods, find them
delicious, go to great lengths to obtain them, have health difficulties
without them (including loss of menstruation on raw vegan diets which would
limit reproductive success, regardless of your "theory"). Humans have not
eaten animal foods during a "certain time of our evolution" but from the
very beginnings of our homonid ancestry to the present.
> So here I am on this board with my theory. I really
> don't want to sound arrogant about "my theory", but I
> thought that my background in evolutionary biology
> (not anthropology: I only did one little course in
> that) provided me with a "unique" angle to the whole
> process (unique in the sense that I have never read
> about that possibility before).
You do sound arrogant. The idea that humans have disrupted natural selection
because of their technological prowess, and (what you don't mention)
cultural practices, is hardly a novel idea at all. Your unique angle is to
arrive at a raw vegan diet as a result of misreading most all of
paleoanthropology. This is speculation and unsupported by any body of
knowledge, making it a weak and unwise sepculation.
> So my reason for
> posting this is that I can fix the weak parts in this
> theory, since I am not part of the scientific
> community anymore and don't have access to a lot of
> literature.
Your theory? I have reread your original post and can only find the idea
that because people eat junk food, which is detrimental to their health,
that this shows that humans are not adapted to cooked foods. It is unclear
what that has to do with RAF, though you dismiss millions of years of
human/homonid animal food consumption with the idea that it is irrelevent
because it was _only_ concurrent with the biological changes not causal.
> So I was hoping that people would come
> with valid counter arguments that show mistakes in my
> reasoning or guide me to some references in the few
> places where I came with information that I needed to
> support my theory.
Your "theory" should explain why humans, individuals and cultures, thrive on
animal foods and why the majority do so poorly on raw vegan foods. It should
explain why humans, individuals and cultures, thrive while eating some
cooked foods and why the majority do so poorly on raw vegan foods.
> But again, my theory is based on
> very little facts, but a lot of reasoning about how
> natural selection can work and how it definitely
> doesn't work.
I must have missed the "reasoning". Like NFL you need to dismiss most of
human evolution (by saying we do things unnatural to our biological make-up)
so that you can arrvie at a raw vegan naturalism.
> And so far I really haven't had any
> arguments that I wouldn't be able to justify in the
> light of this theory and I also haven't seen any
> references where people say that my claims are false.
What are your "claims" again? That meat eating in prehistory is irrelevent
and humans aren't adapted to meat eating? That we aren't adapted to cooked
food?
It may well be that humanity is not perfectly adapted to any particular
after our strange history of diet. Certainly humanity is not perfectly
adapted to raw vegan since only a handful of folks actually do it longterm
and most of them probably cheat.
> (except for the one about the age at death for
> prehistoric humans, which is really irrelevant anyway,
> because I don't think that there is any professional
> who will claim that prehistoric humans lived a long
> life. And if I'm wrong: please give me references.
Paleolithic life spans are shrouded in mystery and controversy, but the
health statistics of recent hunter-gatherers are more well known. I suggest
you get a copy of "The Paleolithic Prescription" (Eaton, Boyd, et al) and
you will see how robustly healthy "primitves" were compared to folks today.
Indeed, if you want to use longevity as a yardstick for human health, that
would support the current junk diets in Western countries since longevity
has never been higher! Can't really have it both ways. If you use longevity
to trash the actual paleodiet (when there are many other factors besides
diet) then you would have to arrive at the SAD as best based on longevity.
> So
> this discussion has so far been pretty disappointing
> to me, since I have had to deal with some huge
> prejudices and attitudes
But you haven't dealt with the _biggest_ prejudice and attitude: your
BEFOREHAND premise of raw veganism. Your "theory" does not lead to any
particular diet in principle. You just say "meat-eating doesn't matter"
because it is not biologically appropriate. One could just as easily use
your "theory" to claim that "fruit-eating doesn't matter" because it is not
biologically appropriate. Your "theory" appears to be little more than a way
for you to dismiss ideas you don't like in the first place. IN THE FIRST
PLACE. Do you see that you have it all backwards: you start with what you
want to "prove". You make up some reasoning that allows you to dismiss huge
chunks of information so that you can "discover" the truth of what you
believe in the first place--regardless that what you believe is
false-to-facts. Theories are supposed to explain myriad bits of information
as well as have predictive powers about new information. The only
"information" your "theory" explains is the supposed biological
appropriateness of raw veganism. And it throws out huge chunks of reality
and information to do so.
That is a weakness.
> and now it is even taken
> further away from what I wanted by this request for
> references.
You ask for weakness to be tested and then dodge when it is pointed out that
your speculations are weak unless supported by references. I don't get it.
> But if you really want me to, I will read
> through my posts again and look at the places where I
> actually needed information from references and see if
> I can find out where I got it from.
In particular, I'd like to see references for the idea that raw veganism is
biologically appropriate for humans. This is the beginning and the end of
your "theory" so you had better put some effort into this if you expect to
be an important thinker of the 21st century.
Secondly, you need references for the contention that animal foods were
consumed during a "certain time of our evolution". Define the points with
starting dates and ending dates.
> I can also provide
> you with a list of books I read to build up my
> knowledge of evolutionary biology during university
That's OK. That wouldn't add to the discussion at hand.
Cheers,
Kirt
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