Keith Thomas wrote:
> No problems with this particular paper, PP, but there is a reference
> you might like to add to your
> page on the origin of modern day thinking about palaeo food and palaeo
> lifestyle - the seminal
> 1973 paper by Stephen Boyden:
> 
> http://www.natsoc.org.au/html/publications/otherpapers/Evolution.htm
> 
> It's a classic and it was when I read that paper that everything "fell
> into place" as they say.

Thanks for the reference to that interesting paper, Keith, but I think Dr.
Cordain explained to some degree why Dr. Eaton is credited with the theory
of evolutionary dietary discordance, rather than those who earlier expressed
some of its concepts, when he wrote: 

"Although a few physicians, scientists, and anthropologists had been aware
of this concept, it was Dr. Eaton's writings that brought this idea to
center stage" (Loren Cordain, Ph.D., The Paleo Diet, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
& Sons, 2001, p. 4).

The paper you referenced shows that Stephen Boyden did address the concept
of evolutionary discordance, calling it the "principle of phylogenetic
maladjustment," and he mentioned the importance to optimal health of "A
well-balanced diet of a quality close to that of primeval mankind," but he
did not in that paper mention any specifics on what that diet would entail
or when the dietary discordance began. Nor did he devote much space to
discussion of diet or nutrition, whereas the types of foods of the
Paleolithic era and their nutritional qualities is the central feature of
the theoretical model that has developed out of Eaton, Cordain, et al's
work.

The credit for scientific theories usually goes to the first person who
formulates the discrete concepts of others into a coherent, effectively
communicated and comprehensive explanatory model that is widely recognized
in the scientific community and cited repeatedly by it. For example, Darwin
did not come up with all of his concepts, but he is recognized as the first
to put them all together in a coherent, comprehensive and persuasive package
that became widely referenced by the scientific community. Boyden's paper
seems to me to be a precursor to the theory of evolutionary dietary
discordance (a.k.a., the theory of Paleolithic nutrition), rather than the
seminal scientific work on the subject. In other words, for better or worse,
it is the first influential formulation of a theory that usually gets the
credit, not the first expression of some of its concepts. However, if Boyden
did discuss elsewhere the types of Paleolithic foods and how significant
discordance began with the development of agriculture, I would probably cite
him even if he did not present the material to the scientific community. If
you know of such a paper by him, please let me know.

Thanks,
Paleo Phil