>Hmmmm,
>I'm curious about ant discussion of diet based on tooth morphology.  I'm
>an instructor at a chiropractic college and I'm frequently accosted by
>students who disagree with paloediets that the true diet of humans is a
>meatless, vegan diet.  These arguments are predicated on tooth
>morphology.  To date, my best reply is, "Then explain the presence of my
>rather large gall bladder."  My gut and particularly my large gall
>bladder must be present to handle an expectedly large parcel of fat and
>grease at any given time.
>
>Any thoughts on the tooth versus gall bladder problem?

The easiest and most direct rebuttal is that the advocates of vegetarian
"naturalism" would have one completely rule out the use of any technology
by early homo in catching, processing, and eating foods, particularly
meats, which is a bogus assumption. This is a huge blind spot of ignorance
in the Edenic vegan philosophy (one might more pointedly call it a
"fantasy") of naturalism regarding the life of early homo.

In my experience--and I have had numberous heated debates with vegans of
differing stripes over the last several years--in the first place, most
vegan advocates basing their views on prehistory are completely ignorant of
the archaeological/evolutionary picture of our hominid ancestors. Let alone
the specific findings on early use of tools by homo (our own genus), which
goes back approximately 2 million years, and which to a large degree
substitutes for the lack of shearing teeth that other omnivores/partial
carnivores tend to have.

There is also the interesting circumstantial observation that tooth size
and robustness in homo decreased over the eons in tandem with the
increasing use of tools. While not by any means constituting proof, I
believe current opinion in the anthropological community is that it is
suggestive that the use of tools in fact may have been the deciding factor
leading to decreased tooth robustness.

In debates I've been in, the vegan ideas about our
"inadequate-for-a-carnivore" teeth tend upon close questioning to be found
to be based on subjective idealistic projections backward in time about
what humans would eat if they had to eat just like all other animals. (I
call this the subjective "animal model for raw-food or vegan naturalism.")
But no archaeological evidence is offered to support this contention, only
subjective suppositions that are supposedly "common-sense."

I bet if you point out the fact of tool use going back 2 million years, you
will find your students will, number one, probably not even be aware of the
inseparable role tools seem to have played in the early diet of homo where
meat is concerned. Or number two, if they have considered it, I have never
heard a more than a flustered or opinionated comeback other than the weak
and untestable excuse that, "Well, it was a lowering in consciousness that
led humans to become debauched and out of touch with their instincts that
led them to abandon former Edenic habits." To which the best response is,
"Then explain the increasing brain size of homo as more sophisticated tool
use and meat consumption increased."

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]>