RE: evolution and diet (was: FITNESS: Diet and Exercise)

From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Apr 17 2003 - 16:36:14 MDT

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    > Jared Diamond disagrees with you.

    I haven't read his books so I took a glance at the reviews of _The Third
    Chimpanzee_ at amazon.com. The first review contains this interesting
    passage:

    "Having read the book _Ishmael_, by Daniel Quinn, a few years ago, I wonder
    if Diamond's thinking could actually be improved by being combined with
    Quinn's. Diamond suggests that, when prehistoric societies drove certain
    animals to extinction, they were acting out a human tendency to be
    destructive to our local environments that is simply horribly intensified
    today. Quinn suggests that some of those prehistoric societies were not
    particularly more destructive than other animals, and for the same reasons;
    while other, more civilized societies had the tendency to be destructive
    because of their cultures' inclinations, and passed this tendency on to us,
    their cultural descendants."

    This comment is interesting to me for two reasons: first, I would disagree
    adamantly with Diamond if he really suggests in his books that the hunting
    of animals to extinction was a "destructive tendency" of hungry paleolithic
    peoples who didn't know better, and second because I'm inclined to agree
    with Daniel Quinn who believes civilized societies have often tended to be
    more destructive than prehistoric societies.

    Quinn by the way is popular among serious paleodiet purists who in some
    cases try to make it a life-style as much as a diet.

    -gts



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