On Feb 02, 2006, at 7:39 am, Ken Stuart wrote:

> This phenomenon is explained fully in the following [you can  
> substitute Vegan
> and Paleo for the two parties, or any other substitute tribes]:
>
> Emotions, not facts, form basis of political opinion
>
> Emory study lights up the political brain


That was well worth reading.  It reminds me of part of Steven  
Pinker's The Blank Slate, where he argues that there is an  
evolutionary advantage to having some self-serving opinions  My  
experience is that people will only make drastic changes in their  
opinions if they won't lose face doing so.  So, *generally* I don't  
go around telling people this is true and that is false- I just sit  
there eating away, because sooner or later people ask why I don't eat  
bread/cheese/potatoes etc.

Out of the people that do ask about my diet, I get a range of  
reactions from "oh that's interesting, why do you think that?" to  
"that's just STUPID, I might as well top myself if I can only eat  
like that"*.  Obviously the first group are far more likely to  
consider eating paleo, or moving in that direction.  The second are  
doomed to wander from one fad diet to the next convincing themselves  
that even if they aren't getting any slimmer, at least they aren't  
doing some crazy unhealthy do-you-want-to-die-from-heart-disease-or- 
cancer caveman thing.  Well, they dug their own hole...

Ashley


* that is a very close paraphrase to something I actually heard from  
a real person - scary!