Profound articles of interest

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 22 Feb 2012 17:43

If somebody tells you something verbally, which you can't verify to other people, it's an anecdote, regardless of that person's qualifications.

The debate here is that you claimed your theory was "well accepted," while I claimed that the issue was debated. You responded by continuing to argue that your theory was well accepted, rather than the issue being debated, and there not yet being a definite answer.

Is it well accepted, or is the issue debated?

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 22 Feb 2012 18:52

Here's what I originally said. Clearly the original argument was about when exactly humans started consuming animal products

You're also wrong to think that we didn't eat meat until the invention of fire. It's pretty well accepted today that what allowed humans brains to grow to the size they are today was the scavenging of meat on the African Savannah, specifically cracking the bones of prey animals with crude tools, and sucking the bone marrow out. Bone marrow is EXTREMELY nutritious, and their would have been a ton of it available thanks to the fact that a lion can't pick up a big stone to crack a Gazelle's femur open to get to the good stuff, whereas a human or proto-human could...A human's brains accounts for about 2% of body weight, but receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization, aka a HUGE part of our metabolism. The question that I've already answered though is, how did we get enough nutrients to evolve such a massive and energy expensive brain when we were still basically just Apes running around the African Savannah with no knowledge of fire and no complex tools. The answer, as I've already given, is that we were great scavengers, and used our crude tools to access an energy source that was available only to us. This gave us the nutrient surplus required to continue making further use of more complex tools, and the ball gets rolling from their.

Instead I would say something like this in place of the second sentence, and then go on from there about bone marrows abundance in paleolithic Africa and its nutritional benefits.

"You're also wrong to think that we didn't eat meat until the invention of fire. It's pretty well accepted among archeologists and anthropologists that around the time we started scavenging for meat and bone marrow (Based on fossil record), we also witnessed a dramatic increase in brain size (Also based on fossil record); and that this exploitation of a new food source set off further evolutionary pressure and began to select for hominid populations with a different skill set than other Hominid populations who continued chilling in the forest picking fruit. This skill set would likely include greater tool use for cracking bones and greater communication skills, along with selecting for those who were daring and strategic minded. This period in hominid history also coincides with a geologically proven climatic cooling in Africa, making reliance on a vegetarian diet less likely for early Hominids."

I will cite sources later tonight or tomorrow, so be patient young Jeremy, every point will be referenced. To summarize, my overall point has always been that brain size increased dramatically around the same time archeology suggests favorable selection pressure began to be put on those who were capable of eating meat, and that the further away you get from Australopithecus and towards Homo, the more adaptivity of a omnivorous diet you see.

Also, this is awesome:

http://www.fitclick.com/how_many_calori ... w?fd=17578

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 22 Feb 2012 19:08

Also

Jeremy:

I also note that analysis of both the diets of our closest relatives, and of hunter gatherer societies demonstrates clearly that for most of our evolution meat has not been a major part of our diet

I'd argue that we really need to go back beyond our nearest relatives to understand how our eating habits developed.

But when I ask

So Jeremy's point as far as I can garner (And correct me if I'm wrong) is that the things we've been eating since Australopithecus days are better for us than the things we've been eating since Homo habilis days.

By "Austrilopithicus Days" I essentially mean "what we've eaten since our lineage was swinging in the trees" and by "Homo habilis" days I mean "a mainly omnivorous diet such as that of paleolithic Homo sapiens". Again I sometimes say shit hoping people get the esoteric meaning of what I say and it doesn't always land how I want it to.

But the reason I re-post Jeremy's quotes and then mine is because Jeremy disagrees with my rather facetious characterization of him, but continues to support the ideas that meat was not a major part of our distant ancestors (Australopithecus) diets, as if that somehow this matters for modern human beings, who are separated from our last mainly vegetarian relative (I say mainly vegetarian because Chimps are even known to relish meat as Jane Goodall proved) by 3 million years of evolution . This notion is fucking ridiculous considering the fact that we know that despite the fact that most of the world is lactose intolerant, certain populations have developed a tolerance to the disaccharide, and the evidence suggests that this ability can appear within a few thousand years alone! http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/science/11evolve.html

When selection pressure is high, shit changes fast when it comes to the digestive tract, and again I dunno why I'm having to explain shit like this to you Jeremy

Jeremy also claims in the first quote that studies of our distant ancestors AND hunter-gatherer societies show that meat has never been a big part of our diet. He's right that our distant Australopithecus ancestors probably didn't eat a ton of meat and as I pointed out above that doesn't mean jack shit, but I'd love to see where he gets the idea that hunter-gatherer societies of Homo sapiens don't eat meat every opportunity they get. Their has never been a hunter-gatherer society in the history of humanity that has ever willingly gone without meat. And the ones who live in places without meat eat spiders. So, Jeremy made a big slip and I'd love to see some studies suggesting that hunter-gatherer societies have usually not had meat as a big part of their diet.

And if you're talking about modern hunter gatherer societies who have been being pushed to the fringes of the world for the last 12,000 years, then I'm going to kill myself laughing. You might as well study chimpanzee's that have been caged and tested on and then thrown in a zoo, and then try and correlate their behavior to chimpanzee's in the jungles of Congo. Give me a break kiddo.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 22 Feb 2012 22:54

Meat makes up somewhere between 5% and 1% of chimpanzees diets. This is completely consistent with what I've written, and demonstrates that they rarely eat meat.

I'd love to see where he gets the idea that hunter-gatherer societies of Homo sapiens don't eat meat every opportunity they get. Their has never been a hunter-gatherer society in the history of humanity that has ever willingly gone without meat.

I'm not saying, and have never said, that humans don't eat meat. I'm saying that it generally hasn't been a major part of our diet. Polar and modern humans are probably the only humans to eat red meat on a daily basis. "Every chance they get" is not the same as eating it a lot.

You're also wrong to think that we didn't eat meat until the invention of fire.

I didn't say that humans didn't eat meat until the invention of fire, I said that meat wasn't a "major" component of diets until the invention of fire. Surely you can see the difference. Again look at chimpanzees - they may eat meat at every opportunity they get, but it doesn't account for most of their diet. Look at Tasmanian Aborigines; they ate meat, yes, but most of their diet consisted of plant materials. Look at tribes in Papua New Guinea - same thing. You seem to continually want to confuse meat not being a major component in a diet with not eating meat at all, just as you continually confuse vegetarianism with veganism, or red meat with meat.

Jeremy disagrees with my rather facetious characterization of him, but continues to support the ideas that meat was not a major part of our distant ancestors (Australopithecus) diets, as if that somehow this matters for modern human beings

Are you really this incapable of reading?

Jeremy wrote:This doesn't give us a reason to eat, or not eat meat. It's false to say that evolution suggests we are 'supposed' to do anything..

Jeremy wrote:As I've stated, evolution is not a reason for doing things now, only for understanding why we currently do things, or did things.

Jeremy wrote:This is an argument from evolution.

This whole debate started because Lierre Keith thinks that our evolutionary history means that being a vegetarian is bad, and I think that our evolutionary history does not tell us how we should do anything. People can clearly live long and healthy lives while being vegetarians, and long a healthy lives while eating meat, regardless of our evolutionary history.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 22 Feb 2012 23:14

I note that Dan has tried to post this same thing before, and happily my position hasn't changed;

http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.ph ... 23&start=0

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 23 Feb 2012 07:57

This whole debate started because Lierre Keith thinks that our evolutionary history means that being a vegetarian is bad, and I think that our evolutionary history does not tell us how we should do anything

No, you've missed her point from the beginning... She focuses very very little in that article on the nutrition or evolution side of eating meat, and spends the entire article slamming agriculture effects on human history. I've already had to point this out to you earlier in the thread, so it might be worth it for you to go back and read the article carefully my friend.

I'm saying that it generally hasn't been a major part of our diet. Polar and modern humans are probably the only humans to eat red meat on a daily basis. "Every chance they get" is not the same as eating it a lot.

You have every right to believe that, and every right to be completely wrong. As I've already explained, bone marrow would have been extremely abundant on the African savannah, so "every chance they get" would have been all the time for species like Homo habilis and Homo erectus. As I've already pointed out and will cite later, these two species also underwent some rapid changes to their teeth, digestive tracts, and brain size in relatively short period of time. Game, set, match. Your theory for this increase in brain size (Correct me if I'm wrong) was that they magically started using tools and speaking words and this magical leap in cognition set off a physiologically impossible chain of events that increased our brain size. AKA you are a moron. Or maybe you'll tell me "No Dan! That isn't my position, stop putting words in my mouth" and continue being a typical postmodern intellectual and just nit-picking without ever stating your own opinion. Christopher Hitchens is laughing at you from Heaven Jeremy.

I didn't say that humans didn't eat meat until the invention of fire, I said that meat wasn't a "major" component of diets until the invention of fire.

And you'd be wrong. As I've already pointed out, eating raw meat when the meat is of the highest quality (As nearly all meat would've been back then) is perfectly safe, so fire has nothing to do with when we started to eat meat heavily. Besides that, I've already got to lengths to explain to you how easy it would've been to exploit small game and insects on top of the scavenged meat and bone marrow we were eating, so just because we weren't hunting herds of mammoths doesn't mean we weren't changing our diet in response to climatic events that made fruit less available.

Look at Tasmanian Aborigines; they ate meat, yes, but most of their diet consisted of plant materials. Look at tribes in Papua New Guinea - same thing. You seem to continually want to confuse meat not being a major component in a diet with not eating meat at all, just as you continually confuse

Wow Jeremy, you're really starting to make yourself look stupid. You point to two remote island tribes as your proof of the fact that hunter-gatherers don't eat meat a lot, without mentioning that neither of those islands have an abundance of large game animals to begin with? Trust me dipshit, if they had herds of gazelle they'd be hunting them. Hahahaha

I note that Dan has tried to post this same thing before, and happily my position hasn't changed;

http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.ph ... 23&start=0

Yes Jeremy, everyone already knows that you use to spend hours of your time debating with a 16 year old when you were what, 25 at the time?

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 23 Feb 2012 08:14

BainbridgeShred wrote: As I've already pointed out, eating raw meat when the meat is of the highest quality (As nearly all meat would've been back then)

This is the second time I've seen Dan make this point, and both times it caught my attention. I agree that thousands of years ago, meat in the wild was free of chemicals and pollutants etc. That said, isn't it likely that the animals early humans hunted were likely to be the old and the sick? Those animals tend to be the easiest to catch/hunt, so even if the meat being eaten back in the day was chemical/pollutant free, I don't know that we can safely assume it was "meat of the highest quality."

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 23 Feb 2012 10:28

Why do you think I said "(As nearly all meat would've been back then)" and not "(As all meat would've been back then)"? I qualified the sentence because I'm sick of you taking one sentence out of an entire post of mine and trying to make yourself sound smart by countering it, but apparently you still missed the qualifier in your attempt to look smart. Certainly the quality of the meat is going to vary from animal to animal, but that doesn't really mean jack shit in something like a comparison of average paleolithic cow health to average modern factory farm cow health.

Also, do you have any proof that eating an older cow is far and away less nutritious or less healthy than eating a young cow? Remember that in the wild most species don't typically live to the age they are capable of living to in artificial circumstances, so it's not like humans were out their hunting down decrepit, old, senile cows. You're right that old and young animals make the best targets for predators animals, but like I said above that doesn't really mean jack shit.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 23 Feb 2012 10:39

Also, and this one is for anyone, I'm still looking for an explanation on what the calorie source was that allowed Hominid's metabolisms to redirect a huge part of it's energy reserves towards building the brain, assuming that calorie source is not bone marrow and scavenged meat.

Jeremy? Ken? Alan?

Post by **Allan** » 23 Feb 2012 11:31

I have absolutely zero interest in continuing on with a discussion where one participant is calling people stupid dip-shits. Get a grip.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 23 Feb 2012 14:17

I'm still waiting for Dan to provide any evidence for your case. Merely asserting things is meaningless. I've managed to provide alternative evidence from an Oxford Evolutionary Anthropology Professor, a University of Missouri Anthropology Professor, and the Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. These aren't just anecdotal claims that evidence exists, this is actual published peer reviewed science by experts in their field, and none of them agree with you! Where is your evidence rebutting those papers? Where is your evidence supporting your own claims?

I will hold the view that you've made this whole thing up, until you can demonstrate otherwise. Your childish jibes certainly support this theory. You took a unit of two of anthropology and you think you know everything. You read some silly article by radical actual post-modernist, and you think it closes the case on vegetarianism. You're wrong, and you need to grow up.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 23 Feb 2012 15:40

I'll refer you to the article Alan posted at the beginning of this discussion. That article is pretty good proof of the point that I'm making hahahaha, but don't ask him about that. But no really, the E.T.H. is exactly the study I would've posted as proof of my theory. Like I've said enough times now, I'll cite sources about a variety of subjects soon.

I have absolutely zero interest in continuing on with a discussion where one participant is calling people stupid dip-shits. Get a grip.

If you really take one dude calling another dude a "dipshit" that personally, then you need to go make yourself a nice cup of tea; pop a few Midol; and take care of your cuticles; because you're a big vagine. And if you take that last sentence ever more personally, then I think you're the one who needs to get a grip because this is the internet after all. I know Canadian's are second in politeness only to the Japanese, but in my country, we hold plain, straight-foward, honest speaking at a premium.

Because what's more offensive that calling somewhat a dipshit and a vagine? Trying to show someone up with an article you skimmed the day before, as if that article was proof positive that the other persons argument was wrong, when in fact it supported that other persons argument. That's what I find truly offensive. You should stop being butthurt about me putting you on blast for misinterpreting that article and just admit you were wrong, like I've already done once or twice in this thread.

Edit: And ya ya ya I know, not only am I rabid Canadian-basher but also a misogynist now

I really don't care.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 23 Feb 2012 16:07

Actually, Alan's right. This argument isn't worthy of calling anyone names. No one is dying, no one is getting tortured, no one is being denied access to any basic rights. I apologize.

Edit: And the only problem I have with Canadian's is that 1/4 of them seem to believe that George Bush and a team of demolition crew ninjas brought the towers down.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 23 Feb 2012 16:48

Do you deliberately continue to misspell Allan's name, or is this another example of your less than desirable reading skills?

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 24 Feb 2012 09:07

Lol good one Jer! I can always count on you for a little quality modified shit talk knowing that no one is going to have to take a Midol afterwards.

Though, I'd be careful sticking up for Alan and insulting someones reading comprehension in the same sentence.. After all it was Alan who read an article, misinterpreted it, and posted it on here as if it it were a counterpoint to my argument-- when really he was doing me a favor. And, as of this morning, he has still yet to come clean and admit that he misinterpreted the article and just posted it here to sound smart in front of his hacky sack buddies.

Look Alan, I know it's hard for Canadian's to admit to their big brothers to the South that you were wrong, but c'mon, show some intellectual integrity for the first time in this thread and just admit you didn't understand the article you were posting.

Post by **Allan** » 24 Feb 2012 10:10

Dan, Dan Reed? Just curious.

Edit: for what it's worth: I'm actually just West of you.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 24 Feb 2012 11:49

lol <3 <3

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 04 Mar 2012 19:03

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2 ... 08-03.html

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 04 Mar 2012 22:37

Nobody in this topic has denied that humans or chimps eat meat. What is debated is whether the theory that eating bone marrow is "widely accepted" as the cause of the evolution of large brains, or whether it's just one of many debated theories. You claimed that it was widely accepted and that you'd soon be able to provide evidence that you weren't making stuff up when you made that claim. Virtually everybody else in this topic have supported their claims with evidence, while we are still all waiting for you. Which supports my theory, that you have little clue what you're talking about, on this topic, and pretty much every post you've ever made on modified. I look forward to being corrected when you provide your evidence that the bone marrow theory actually is "widely accepted."

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 04 Mar 2012 22:59

Oh. I just found the article profound and of interest.