Is Meat Really Murder?

Thom Yorke · 11-12-2011, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaqarbal

All the above is a consequence of the awareness of Death. We humans know that we are going to die sooner or later. Therefore we act accordingly, bearing our descendants in mind, trying to record our thoughts and creations in order to make them last, etc. And because of that characteristic, today we know, for instance, how Human ideas regarding animals were in the past, thanks to art, literature, etc.

Just interested to hear why you chose the Capitoline Wolf for this. It was afterall just a reresentation of a part of the myth of the founding of Rome.

Zaqarbal · 11-12-2011, 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Yorke

Just interested to hear why you chose the Capitoline Wolf for this. It was afterall just a reresentation of a part of the myth of the founding of Rome.

It's just an example of how things change. Many ancient cultures had a favourable view towards wolves. To Romans, wolves often had a sacred condition (on the other hand they poisoned lions with Christians at the Colosseum, but that's another story).

Quote:

Wolves appear prominently in the folklore and mythology of human cultures. In Norse and Japanese mythology, wolves were portrayed as almost god-like. In Japan, grain farmers worshiped wolves at shrines and left food offerings near their dens, beseeching them to protect their crops from wild boars and deer, while the wolf Fenrir of Norse mythology was depicted as the son of Loki. Certain cultures portrayed wolves as part of their foundation myths. In Roman mythology, the Capitoline Wolf nurses the future founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. In the mythology of the Turks, Mongols and Ainu, wolves were believed to be the ancestors of their race, while the Dena’ina believed wolves were once men, and viewed them as brothers. Wolves were linked to the sun in some Eurasian cultures. The Ancient Greeks and Romans associated wolves with the sun god Apollo, while the wolf Sköll in Norse mythology was depicted pursuing the setting sun. (...)

(Wikipedia)

Then the Monotheistic plague prevailed. And by means of one of those pathetic stockbreeding metaphors (typical of a lame mentality originated in some seedy goatf***ers' dump in the Middle East many centuries before), wolves were regarded as the embodiment of Evil. The diabolic creature, full of negative attributes, who attacks God's docile flock.

Tsunami · 11-12-2011, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

I'm afraid that the text on that website is clearly written by an idiot. You should be a little more critical in regards to where you get your information.

Can you give me some reasoning why it's written by an idiot?

Guybrush · 11-12-2011, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

Can you give me some reasoning why it's written by an idiot?

It's a huge amount of text based on the wrong kind of reasoning (uneducated opinions) and I have better things to do with my time than picking apart the ramblings of ignorants, but yes, I can point out a few things.

Just looking over it, you can see that it is full of unsourced claims and statements. When it does refer, it's to Karl von Linne who was a brilliant scientist, but who died in 1778 and can't, despite his merits, be called an expert on human evolutionary history and historical diets.

When it comes to the proof that humans are not meat eaters, it uses examples like these :

Quote:

Meat-eaters: have claws
Herbivores: no claws
Humans: no claws

I'm a biologist (so is Vegangelica by the way) and anyone who's studied biology will recognize that claws is not a characteristic unique to meat eaters. Contrary to the text saying herbivores don't have claws, there are herbivores, omnivores and carnivores with claws because it's an extremely pratical "tool" to have for many reasons, such as digging through soil for a mole or hanging from a branch for a sloth. It's a very general characteristic possessed by large groups of animals, regardless of whether they eat meat or not. Most birds (you could argue all really) have claws, even the herbivorous ones. The same goes for rodents. So, possessing claws or not does not mean you are a carnivore or a herbivore.

Humans are apes and apes and monkeys can be identified as such for a range of characteristics, one of them being the absence of claws. Instead, we and they have fingers with nails. Nails have evolved from the reptilian claw.

Now, the reason we have nails and not claws is most likely because claws are generally not as good as fingers with nails when brachiating through trees. Our ancestors lived in trees and, through evolution, claws turned into nails. If humans a couple of million years ago started eating meat, they wouldn't evolve back the claw which had been lost. They wouldn't use claws to kill their prey like a tiger might. They would probably scavenge, or, when killing, club or spear animals to death. Hence, using "no claws" as an argument that humans are not "supposed" to eat meat is faulty logic.

Yes we do have a lot of herbivory in our ancestry and yes, that heritage have shaped our bodies. But while our distant cousins chew leaves in the forest, something happened to humans that set us on a different path, to become upright, large headed, small-intestined nomads radiating out into the world from Africa. A change to a meatier diet had a lot to do with that.

Tsunami · 11-12-2011, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

It's a huge amount of text based on the wrong kind of reasoning (uneducated opinions) and I have better things to do with my time than picking apart the ramblings of ignorants, but yes, I can point out a few things.

Just looking over it, you can see that it is full of unsourced claims and statements. When it does refer, it's to Karl von Linne who was a brilliant scientist, but who died in 1778 and can't, despite his merits, be called an expert on human evolutionary history and historical diets.

When it comes to the proof that humans are not meat eaters, it uses examples like these :

I'm a biologist (so is Vegangelica by the way) and anyone who's studied biology will recognize that claws is not a characteristic unique to meat eaters. Contrary to the text saying herbivores don't have claws, there are herbivores, omnivores and carnivores with claws because it's an extremely pratical "tool" to have for many reasons, such as digging through soil for a mole or hanging from a branch for a sloth. It's a very general characteristic possessed by large groups of animals, regardless of whether they eat meat or not. Most birds (you could argue all really) have claws, even the herbivorous ones. The same goes for rodents. So, possessing claws or not does not mean you are a carnivore or a herbivore.

Humans are apes and apes and monkeys can be identified as such for a range of characteristics, one of them being the absence of claws. Instead, we and they have fingers with nails. Nails have evolved from the reptilian claw.

Now, the reason we have nails and not claws is most likely because claws are generally not as good as fingers with nails when brachiating through trees. Our ancestors lived in trees and, through evolution, claws turned into nails. If humans a couple of million years ago started eating meat, they wouldn't evolve back the claw which had been lost. They wouldn't use claws to kill their prey like a tiger might. They would probably scavenge, or, when killing, club or spear animals to death. Hence, using "no claws" as an argument that humans are not "supposed" to eat meat is faulty logic.

Yes we do have a lot of herbivores in our ancestry and yes, that heritage have shaped our bodies. But while our distant cousins chew leaves in the forest, something happened to humans that set us on a different path, to become upright, large headed, small-intestined nomads radiating out into the world from Africa. A change to a meatier diet had a lot to do with that.

I don't think that the claws-argument was the only one you should look into, it was just a point.
But I appreciate your view, so I hope that you can appreciate mine, I haven't claimed that humans shouldn't eat meat (at least I think I haven't) I just said "Are not supposed to eat meat" because of our physique for example.

Edit : And if you think that this is a waste of your time, please don't comment, but leave it for someone who wants to use their time to do it.

Guybrush · 11-12-2011, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

I don't think that the claws-argument was the only one you should look into, it was just a point.
But I appreciate your view, so I hope that you can appreciate mine, I haven't claimed that humans shouldn't eat meat (at least I think I haven't) I just said "Are not supposed to eat meat" because of our physique for example.

Edit : And if you think that this is a waste of your time, please don't comment, but leave it for someone who wants to use their time to do it.

The reason I am hesitant to is not because I consider it beneath or because I like being arrogant or snotty, but because it takes a lot of time. When I was a moderator here, I spent a lot of time worrying about the quality of the site, but that eventually became more work than I liked and so now I try to use MB more for light entertainment rather than work. Commenting on an error like "carnivores : claws / herbivores : no claws" took a lot more time than it did for the original author to write his or her mistake. Thus, in order to comment on every erronous claim in the text from that website, I would have to write a lot more than the author did in the first place. Instead of doing that, I am hoping that by pointing out some of the faulty logic, it should be appearant that the author is not really well versed in human biology or evolutionary history.

The simple truth is that without the luxuries and imported fruits and veggies of modern society, there are not many places in the world people could live as vegetarians. Even less so when you think about a world without agriculture. Yet, humans roamed the world.

If you want to read about historical diets, you should read the text of someone who specializes in that field. You could check out some scientific articles, but they may be a tough read. Instead, I suggest you check out something like this document instead, an interview on historical diets with an anthropologist from the Berkeley University of California.

06.14.99 - Meat-eating was essential for human evolution, says UC Berkeley anthropologist specializing in diet

Tsunami · 11-12-2011, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

The reason I am hesitant to is not because I consider it beneath or because I like being arrogant or snotty, but because it takes a lot of time. When I was a moderator here, I spent a lot of time worrying about the quality of the site, but that eventually became more work than I liked and so now I try to use MB more for light entertainment rather than work. Commenting on an error like "carnivores : claws / herbivores : no claws" took a lot more time than it did for the original author to write his or her mistake. Thus, in order to comment on every erronous claim in the text from that website, I would have to write a lot more than the author did in the first place. Instead of doing that, I am hoping that by pointing out some of the faulty logic, it should be appearant that the author is not really well versed in human biology or evolutionary history.

The simple truth is that without the luxuries and imported fruits and veggies of modern society, there are not many places in the world people could live as vegetarians. Even less so when you think about a world without agriculture. Yet, humans roamed the world.

If you want to read about historical diets, you should read the text of someone who specializes in that field. You could check out some scientific articles, but they may be a tough read. Instead, I suggest you check out something like this document instead, an interview on historical diets with an anthropologist from the Berkeley University of California.

06.14.99 - Meat-eating was essential for human evolution, says UC Berkeley anthropologist specializing in diet

I guess I'll check that out later, but I would like to ask you to realize that I haven't even commented whether it was or was not essential to eat meat (at least I didn't mean to, if I did)
But if you want to make a good impact, you have to tackle the strongest points down.

Guybrush · 11-12-2011, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

I guess I'll check that out later, but I would like to ask you to realize that I haven't even commented whether it was or was not essential to eat meat (at least I didn't mean to, if I did)
But if you want to make a good impact, you have to tackle the strongest points down.

You write "not supposed to because of our physique", but we can eat meat and have adapted and evolved from being mainly herbivorous to including meat in our diet and so I don't agree with you.

Talking historical diets and excluding the modern bananas from the supermart, meat is not as difficult to digest as you might think. Aside from fruits and some other exceptions, plants are generally tough eating. Since they can't fight or run away, they protect themselves from being eaten by f.ex being poisonous or too tough to digest. Meat is generally easier on the stomach.

edit :

To clarify the point, you could turn your own argument around and say we don't have huge gorilla bellies and we can't digest grass so we're probably not "supposed" to be vegetarians.

Tsunami · 11-12-2011, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

You write "not supposed to because of our physique", but we can eat meat and have adapted and evolved from being mainly herbivorous to including meat in our diet and so I don't agree with you.

Talking historical diets and excluding the modern bananas from the supermart, meat is not as difficult to digest as you might think. Aside from fruits and some other exceptions, plants are generally tough eating. Since they can't fight or run away, they protect themselves from being eaten by f.ex being poisonous or too tough to digest. Meat is generally easier on the stomach.

With "not supposed to eat meat" I meant that we did not originally eat meat.

Guybrush · 11-12-2011, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

With "not supposed to eat meat" I meant that we did not originally eat meat.

But Homo Sapiens today are not the same animals as our herbivorous ancestors millions of years ago and so we are not "supposed" to be like them; like something we're not ..

Plus, if you went further back in time, you would come across carnivorous ancestors too.