Animal cruelty

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Lots of good quality protein lead to the production of larger brains.

See:

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases ... 1999a.html

ruveyn

I hope you won't be offended if I reference Genesis in light of one of the things in the article, but I notice that in the article it said,

"Buffered against nutritional deficiency by meat, human ancestors also could intensify their use of plant foods with toxic compounds such as cyanogenic glycosides, foods other primates would have avoided, said Milton. These compounds can produce deadly cyanide in the body, but are neutralized by methionine and cystine, sulfur-containing amino acids present in meat. Sufficient methionine is difficult

to find in plants. Most domesticated grains - wheat, rice, maize, barley, rye and millet - contain this cyanogenic compound as do many beans and widely-eaten root crops such as taro and manioc. "

This seems remarkably able to be related to the curse upon Adam, in which it says,

"Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."

I know you do not accept the timeline of Genesis, however it would seem interesting enough of a parallel that it is particularly plants of the field (wheat, rice, maize, barley, rye and millet) which contains such a cyanogenic compound. This would tend to suggest the necessity of human carnivory prior to the explicit permission given in Genesis 9, although that is also assuming that there wouldn't have been more varieties of plants some of which would have become extinct during the flood. (Working within the context of Genesis, that is. I know you and many others regard it as a myth.)

The creation myth in Genesis is a book of stories. I am talking about serious nutritional matters. Proteins not only made for larger brains, but the social and technical skills needed for hunting exerted a selection pressure on our species to produce Smart Hunters who had a definite survival and reproductive advantage. So the meat eating (which probably started off as scavenging carcasses killed by other species) lead to hunting which lead to Smart. This took millions of years, not the 6000 that Genesis asserts.

I accept the time line of Genesis about as much as I accept a Flat Earth.

ruveyn

I was not claiming that you did.

As moot and meaningless as my response is going to be I feel the same way...and children. It's been my experience with adults that the damage is already done but that's not to say you can't influence them to better themselves or help in some ways without becoming coe-dependent.