Re: Excerpt from an article on Smithsonian.com

On Aug 21, 8:30=A0am, arch...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
> > > "humans needed to fuel their outsize brains....more cognitively
> > > aware, faster-wired, faster-brained, smarter..sudden increase
> > > in brainpower,....onset of speech" - due to genius "seafood"?
>
> > > Then how on Earth did and do these humans manage......???
>
> > They're humans, they manage despite adversity. They
> > also benefit from the genetic advantage of many
> > generations of omnivorous ancestors.
>
> "Diet doesn't change genes. A change in our ancestors' eating habits
woul=
d
> not have conferred any genetic advantage. That's Lamarckian evolution,
no=
t
> Darwinian evolution."
>
> Not really, sometimes a genetic mutation requires other non-genetic
> factors for it to be an advantage. =A0Consider an animal which has a
> mutation for great speed over long distances. =A0If it lived in a
tropica=
l
> rain forest where open spaces did not allow taking advantage of the
> mutation the gene would soon pass from the pool.
>
> When humans had the mutations for larger brains and speech etc. which
> require more energy and other factors, the energy dense animal products
a=
t
> hand would go hand in hand with the mutations and the mutations would be
> retained in the gene pool.

They require more energy, do they? You're sure of that?

In that case Pearl's point is a fair one: you would expect people who
switch to a vegetarian diet to run into trouble making use of their
larger brains.

You are right that it is conceivable that the change in diet may have
led to the mutation being adaptive when it would otherwise not have
been, but I am not sure that the explanation you are suggesting at the
moment is the best one.

The bottom line is that the American Dietetic Assocation agree that
appropriately planned vegan diets are nutritionally adequate at all
stages of life and help to reduce the risk factors for some serious
health problems. So while it's all very interesting to find out all
this stuff about our evolutionary history, the fact remains that you
can be healthy on a vegan diet, and most people find they quite like
it once they get used to it, and so that blocks one possible reply to
the ethical arguments for veganism...