That’s more an abstraction the first part about philosophical human nature. The assertion has been made by several respected futurists, and I tend to agree with it on several levels.
There is also the concept I outlaid about humans being sort of “blank slate” rather then having built in behaviors. In my OP I assume two impossible situations, and question if there is any EVIDENCE either human group might diverge in some way. Or put it “are there any built in behaviors”. Thinking that would be a lever point to say humans are not a “blank slate” but have inclinations, and maybe some natural technological blue prints built in. Not things we just learn from culture.
It occurred to me that a “blank slate” human with no inclination, and ample vegetative food, would have no inclination to hunt. But thats just a guess.
That was the substance of my OP.
The reason I pointed out the health implications was to cite there seem to be some adaptations issues to lots of meat, that evolution has not ironed out yet. It was a cornerstone of the evolutionary point I was making. On my confusion over humans beings seeming lack of “total” adaptation to it.
If you conclude that infers no meat would be better, go for it. As many have pointed out they eat meat and are fine. But I’m not suggesting anyone give up what they like.
That’s really not this discussion. As I have repeatedly pointed out.
I think the system will shift slowly on its own with out my help. I explained the why, not the end result.
You keep referring back to your OP. Well, that’s been the subject of substantial discussion. Why not quit trying to restate your OP and talk about what you think now? I don’t know about others reading this thread but I find it very difficult to understand exactly what you’re getting at in a lot of your long posts, with all the vagueness, disorganization, repetition, and recursiveness. You get very clear when you restate your OP, but then things get very fuzzy again. I almost get the feeling that you’re intentionally trying to be obscure.
The crux of the argument seems to be the assertion that animal-based food is inherently unhealthy because of the negative health effects that have been linked to high meat consumption in the western diet.
The problem is that the health effects are not necessarily caused by meat per se, or even the amount of meat. Rather it seems to be the type of meat, and even how the meat is raised. Everything I have read to date indicates that diets high in fish have a positive correlation to cardiac health. The current reasoning seems to be the high levels of omega-3 fatty acids in fish.
I am also seeing a lot about how grain finished animals have more omega-6 and less omega-3 then wild or grass finished animals. Cite
Which actually brings up another point: human beings need omega-3 fatty acids in their diet and have a hard time getting them from plant sources. Cite
In summary:
Not all animal-base food sources cause health problems in humans.
There are at least two things that humans need that are difficult to get from plant sources (B12 and omega-3 fatty acids).
American need to eat better on average. I doubt you could find anyone on this board who would disagree with that. However, trying to redefine basic biology in the face of contradicting facts is not going to help you. In fact it will probably hurt you. If you try to convince people to do something good for them with an easily debunked falsehood, you can do more harm than good.
Sidenote: E-prime is not suited to any hard science discussion. It is intended to put everything onto a subjective level which is the opposite of what science does. How you feel about nuclear power should have no bearing on the half life of cobalt-60.
It seems to me the l human diet past human beings look to have eaten opportunistically. Necessity being the mother of invention humans in their particular environmental niches, be it the frozen arctic, or the desert, have developed skills to survive in that given environment. Human diet also seems to be influenced by culture and tradition, as well as available technology. We find taboos on many great opportunistic sources of food, that contradict opportunism.(the sources of taboos would make in interesting study). So the natural human diet of each group would seem to be defined by location and culture. Omnivore can be generally applied, but would not be well suited in describing some Eskimo tribes, or sects of Jain in India.
Cooking seem to be near universal. Cereals are almost universal to agricultural societies. Husbandry seems to naturally follow agriculture in most cases. HGs seem to utilize anything that will feed them, with possible taboo exceptions I've not at all looked into. (No information presented on herding cultures)
Diet in human beings would appear to be a strong product of culture, rather then any inborn preference. Environmental factors seem to influence said culture. Culture seems to be something unique to humans. The substance of culture may also have strong links to food collection and preference, something I have not looked into greatly.
To assess a core diet removed from culture would be impossible, because the environment would always set limits and alter the constraints, ie not enough bovine, or not enough avocado. So we again have to see the human diet as being something of adaptation to the environment that may contradict our biology, where technological advancements have lead to greater dietary opportunity then evolution has had time to select for.
Since we are using the term natural or by nature, we must fill that into the context of the definition. The one I see is “in nature, not caused by mankind”. Which from a certain perspective lends to tool use being, a thing of mankind. With out tool use I really can’t see meat as a readily available food source, which was one of my points.
We can also use is in a context of born with a given thing. When we further the definition, we still find the same, human beings just don’t seem to be born with the same natural tools a bear would have to catch prey.
Another is instinctual, and I’m not convinced humans have a natural hunting instinct.
Which is why I talked about the impossible situation to find if humans have any non cultural or inborn behaviors. Not saying that hunting would not be one of them, but I have no evidence either way. Only that with a human beings natural(non tool) equipment, vegetation would seem to be more logical. Though bugs, and small lizards might present opportunities.
That would seem to make the point that nature may have selected for humans to eat fish, or we were just naturally able to for what ever reason.
The point is not about what we should eat, but what we are biologically set up to handle, or have been naturally selected for over a long period of time. That being one potential window into our natural diet, but not the beat all end all, one clue. Your point suggests fish may have been selected for, since it appears they have positive rather then negative health effects.
I’m starting to wonder what the point of this thread has become. So many people show evidence, anecdotal or scientific, that man has had an omnivorous diet for a long, long time, and JZ just comes up with some other half thought-out way to try to say vegetarianism is optimal. I can’t tell if you are trying to convert everyone to your way of life or if you are just wanting everyone to write a term paper for you. Which is it?
Not sure, but people keep replying or requesting clarification. Trying to steer clear of “ism” or bias here. Though in a survival situation that “ism” would not be optimal.
The OP was a comment on an article, regarding the “natural” or “by nature” food of humans or “man”. Which ironically lead to a discussion on semantics, and other fun tangents.
Nature:
the fundamental qualities of a person or thing; identity or essential character
(often capital, esp when personified) the whole system of the existence, arrangement, forces, and events of all physical life that are not controlled by man
(Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Biology) all natural phenomena and plant and animal life, as distinct from man and his creations
a wild primitive state untouched by man or civilization
Maybe my point is lost, but if people keep posting at me, I’ll keep replying.
It’s going to be one hell of a term paper, on some facet of human behavior, that may or may not relate to diet. (Jokes)
Yet you keep ignoring concrete factual information in our replies. It’s been pointed out that:
a) tool use is not essential to meat eating.
yet you keep bringing that up
b) any definition of human behaviour that excludes tool use is meaningless
yet you keep bringing that up
Human behaviour is rooted in either nature or nurture or a combination thereof. Humans natural state, if you want to exclude nurture, is to die of exposure and lack of mother’s milk. That is also the natural state back at least 70 million years.
What you are doing to defend your idea of a natural human state that leads to vegetarianism is one of either two things, which in this thread you’re weaving back and forth between or combining:
A purely intellectual excercise of assuming it’s true without reasoning.
and
A totally dishonest analysis of 200 000 years of Homo Sapiens history.
Again, you “clarify” the OP. Forget the OP. It has been dealt with. It’s old news. It has been thoroughly eviscerated and debunked. Given what everyone has told you in this thread, do you think any differently now than you did when we started?
:smack: You keep doing this. Humans are ‘selected’ to be omnivores…we eat a VARIETY of things, including fish, eggs, meat, vegetables and fruit. That’s what omnivores do…they eat a variety of things, instead of a narrowly focused set of foods. It’s in the root of the word.
Then there you go…we are ‘biologically set up to handle’ meat, fish, eggs, insects, vegetables and fruit. We have been so ‘set up’ for literally millions of years. It is our ‘natural’ diet and has been for as long as our species has existed…and for several of the species we descended from as well.
Why you keep struggling with this is a mystery. It’s really simple…human beings aren’t adapted to eat ONLY fish. Or ONLY meat. Or ONLY vegetables. Or ONLY fruit. We are adapted to eat any or all of those things. That’s our strategy for survival.
It makes me think of the “bard’s enigma” actually.
No not particularly, though I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think differently about. There seems to be lots of different ideas about what I’m saying, and a general conclusion that what ever it is, is incorrect.
Perhaps if your further explain my heresy to me I shall yet repent.
We can’t assume that nature will adhere to our concepts, we must instead adhere our concepts to nature or what is actually there.
Nature would not select with any result in mind, it’s just what survives. But there are mathematical rules you can apply on a long enough time line that work pretty well.
We would probably have the most adaptation to what was most available in that several million year period. Some gene sets have quickly adapted to milk as that became available. But that was never as far as I know the ONLY food source. That did not preclude the adaptation.
No one suggested human beings are adapted to eat ONLY fish.
I’m not sure that you see what I’m trying to communicate. Hopefully I have cleared it up.
No, I have no idea what you are trying to convey to be honest. You get more confusing as the thread goes on. What does ‘nature will adhere to our concepts’ mean, exactly? Because it’s clear that ‘nature’ definitely does NOT ‘adhere’ to your concepts, presuming that those concepts are contrary to the evidence that human beings are adapted to eat a variety of foods, including animal protean.
I have no idea what ‘mathematical rules’ you are talking about or frankly what that even means within the context of the discussion I thought we were having. It is a clear as mud what your point was there.
Well, you seem to be playing with the concept that humans are adapted to eat only very narrow food types (presumably of the vegetable variety, even though it’s been pointed out to you repeatedly that this isn’t the case). No one ELSE is suggesting that we are adapted to eat ‘ONLY’ fish, that’s true enough. What just about everyone else in this thread is trying to convey is that humans are adapted to eat a variety of things, and in fact we require nutrients from a variety of foods to remain healthy. That’s what makes us adapted to be omnivores, not herbivores, carnivores or frugivores.
More good reasoning on why the thing I originally said would be impossible to know is impossible to know.
I never said it would lead to any belief system.
I said in that “impossible” situation it would be the logical thing.(think on that, if you don’t laugh, well your missing the point and we can debate this further)
Tool use seems to be a key component of meat eating. Someone did say an antidote of several people downing a horse somehow and devouring it somehow with no help of tools. No cite, though it would have been an good cite.
I’m not really sure that’s the straw that’s gonna break the camels back, on no tools somehow = meat.
At the risk of feeding trolls, nature selects for what reproduces, not what survives. If you survive to the age of 120, but never reproduce, you haven’t passed on your genes and you haven’t been selected.
On the other hand, if you reproduce at 20, then die at 35 of meat-caused heart disease, you’ve passed-on your genes. You have been selected, even though your meat-based diet killed you.
There is no difference between a human who reproduces at 20 then dies at 35 because of poor diet, and a human who reproduces at 20 and lives to 130 due to excellent diet. They both pass on their genes.
Since none of the health risks of meat kill you quickly enough to prevent reproduction, human adaptation is not a factor in this debate.
Eggs, small lizards, small birds, rodents, fish, frogs, shell fish, and insects can all be caught and eaten without tools. Not as easily as with tools, but still caught and eaten. Note that I caught or witnessed someone else catch each and everyone of these things at some point in my life. I have also found fresh kills of larger or faster animals just hiking in the woods without really looking.
Human have detrimental health effects from too much of the certain kinds of meat (corn fed beef, for example), to much of certain kinds of plant products (cane and beet sugar, for example) and certain modified food products (partially hydrogenated fats and HFCS, for example). Based on clinical and populational studies we should change our diets to eat less of these and to eat less in general for that matter. I think there is wide agreement on that. If promoting that is your goal, you are doing it wrong. And I can’t really think of any other rational goal for what you are doing based on the limited clues you have provided.
Could you clearly and concisely explain what your intention is and, based on your current understanding what position you are taking in furtherance of that intention? Right now it seems that you just don’t want to be considered an omnivore.
That’s not necessarily strictly true, because a person who lives to be 130 may be able to constribute materially to the survival of their offspring and grandchildren, etc. So living to 130 can be a selectable trait, even if reproduction happens early on.
However, this may be moot, because a person foraging exclusively for wild vegetable-based foodstuffs is, I think, more likely to suffer malnutrition or starvation than a hunter-gatherer - and malnutrition/death tend to put a crimp on reproductive capacity, especially death.
I have no argument that different human population subgroups have different diets, and that those diets are constrained by culture and tradition, which includes tool use.
This, I think, is a symptom of the problem. The classifications of “omnivore”, “herbivore”, and “carnivore” really only apply at the species level, not to subgroups. Sure, subgroups may be vegetarian or exclusively hunters, but the labels you are working with, strictly speaking, belong at the species level - and at the species level, Eskimos and Jains describe the end points of the spectrum.
Largely because the definition of culture is somethings humans do. The things we think of as culture heavily dependent upon language.
But the same can be said of any animal juxtaposition. I mean, bears do not have the same natural tools that sharks have to catch prey, doesn’t make them less efficient killers. Humans do not have bears’ natural tools of teeth, claws, and strength - they have humans’ natural tools of hands and brains and the ability to sweat and run for extended periods of time without overheating. It’s called persistence hunting, basically you run after a prey animal and keep chasing it until it overheats and dies from exhaustion. Sure, a gazelle can outrun a human, but a human can outlast a gazelle. Just stay on its trail and eventually catch it when it is too exhausted to move. Yes, this is still practiced by some human groups today.
If you want to exclude tool use from humans, well I suppose you could run that thought experiment, but it’s a gigantic fantasy, as silly as imagining humans without hands.
That’s not precisely true. Yes, reproducing once is more significant than not reproducing at all, but a human having a reproductive career of a couple of decades and a dozen or so offspring is a better reproductive success than having just one offspring and then croaking.
(By the way, JZesbaugh, a simple way to edit quotes is to use quote tags - [noparse]
[/noparse] surrounding the quote text. You can use the automatic blanket quote and insert additional tags to break up the text and edit as you see fit. Just a suggestion.)
Right and mathematically someone who lives slightly longer or is healthier will probably have more opportunities to copy himself/herself.
So you get numbers related to diet based on longevity, and adaptation to diet that make reproduction numbers higher like.
2.1 kids per x behavior/gene pattern genes survive 2.4 for y behavior/gene pattern genes survive
on a long enough time line the 2.4 will be come the dominant genome, or behavior pattern, as may have happened with the milk or lactose gene in Europeans. They have adapted the genes to drink milk.
That is how it is a factor!!! Am I not making this simple enough.
