Todd > That's rubbish.  I never claimed there's no need to discuss the
issue.  I didn't announce my position as "undeniable truth," but presented
arguments.

Really?  I thought you claimed any position contrary was "intellectual
dishonesty."  I am sorry if I've confused you with someone else.  I do get
this list in digest, so sometimes it's hard to follow the conversation.

Todd > if a food source was continuously available to paleo man then we
should assume he took advantage of it

I think you've got a little too much of Hobbes' "nasty, brutish, and short"
in your thinking.  Except in times of shortage, which I believe were
relatively rare given man's broad range of food sources and ingenuity in
finding them, why wouldn't he have discarded anything he considered below
the standard of edibility?  Paleo man was surely able to tell that certain
foods were good, some not so good, some really bad, some kind of bad.  He
was certainly able to make those distinctions; there are many, many
borderline foods that are considered starvation fare.  But you're right, I
haven't a clue what that edibility standard might be.  And neither of us
know to what degree cottage cheese causes people problems.  I think the
answer to that would probably point to whether suckling stomach contents
were eaten regularly enough for long enough for adaptation.  Personally, I
don't like cottage cheese enough to eat it now and hope for a positive
answer.

A word on standards.  You've said my standard is too high and listed some
modern foods that paleo man surely did not eat, yet which are commonly
accepted as paleo (olive oil might be a good example.)  I believe this was
meant to be evidence that, by my standard, if we're not eating mastadon
we're not paleo.  I don't think my standard is quite that high.  A modern
paleodiet should begin by excluding first those classes of foods that
paleolithic man certainly did not regularly consume.  Dairy is one of
those, perhaps with a cottage cheese exception.

Todd > Rennet-fermented cheese would have been available to paleolithic
people to an extent that simple whole milk would not have been.

Why is this so?  Wouldn't lactating females been considered fair game?
Like the stomach contents of sucklings, wouldn't the mammary gland have
been milked and the contents consumed?  Wouldn't this have been just as
common?

The evidence is clear that dairy causes problems.  I wouldn't be surprised
if that, to a greater or lesser degree, applies to all milk-based products.