From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Fri Apr 18 2003 - 11:15:53 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
>>>And personally, I can't imagine anybody arguing *history*
>>
>>as evidence.
>>
>
>
> I meant history as evidence of dietary superiority. History is great
> evidence that something has happened. It is not very good evidence that
> what happened was the best thing that could have happened. Was the asteroid
> that wiped out the dinosaurs the "optimum" event? Just because evolution
> takes a turn does not mean it is for the best. I know evolution tends to go
> toward survival of the fittest, but this is no guarantee that the result was
> indeed "best".
>
Harvey as gts tried to point out to you, historical evidence clearly
shows some dramatic negative health changes- first back when agriculture
came along, and more recently as I tried to point out here there was a
very dramatic rise in heart disease (especially the new form- heart
attacks), cancer, etc. during the first half of the 20th century. That
rise in incidence continues currently, and now we also have dramatic
rises in things like diabetes... all while much of the first world
population has faithfully eaten what nutritional scientists claim is the
safest diet - "the food pyramid".
Now, I can understand the feeling of wanting to do your own research and
come up with what you think is an even better way to eat than the now
almost-discredited food pyramid, but how can you be any more sure that
your ideas will turn out any better? It seems like you are essentially
going to experiment on yourself, and based on the results we've seen
from nutritional science so far it seems to have so little actually
figured out about how the human body really interacts with food that its
recommendations and findings often seem to have very significant
unforseen negative consequences. Why risk that when you can choose a
diet that has significant historical evidence on its side that it will
not be harmful? You can still supplement it with substances that seem to
be well-proven to help extend lifespan.
P.S. Can anyone show me some real proof that vegetarians live longer?
Some evidence mentioned at URL below says they don't.
http://www.westonaprice.org/myths_truths/myths_truths_vegetarianism.html
-- Brian Atkins Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/
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