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

From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Apr 18 2003 - 11:22:38 MDT

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    Harvey Newstrom wrote:

    gts wrote:
    >> Interesting. This is also an infamous argument of the creationists in
    >> their debates with evolution scientists.
    >
    > 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?

    I don't see how your argument along these lines can support your case
    regarding the value of historical evidence in helping us determine proper
    diet. Indeed it supports my case:

    The demise of the dinosaurs is historical evidence that the asteroid impacts
    was not good for the health of dinosaurs, in a manner exactly analogous to
    my argument that the poor health of early dairy and grain farmers relative
    to their ancestors is evidence that the recent agricultural revolution was
    not good for the health of humans.

    If we are going to accept the theory of evolution then we must accept the
    premise that contrary to the false claims of creationists, historical
    archeological evidence *is* real empirical evidence even when the events
    under consideration were not witnessed in real time and have not been
    duplicated in the lab. Otherwise we might just as well subscribe to biblical
    creation theory to explain the origin of species.

    > However, testing nutritional diets is easy to test. It is fully
    consistent to want
    > nutritional studies done.

    Absolutely. I should not need to remind you that the literature is already
    replete with evidence from nutritional science that paleolithic foods are
    healthy foods.

    Paleodiet theory states only that those foods have been found to be most
    healthy *because* they are the foods to which we are best genetically
    adapted. This leads to the approach to nutritional science that Eliezer
    seems to be suggesting and which I also recommend (in which any
    non-paleolithic nutritional hypothesis is the competing hypothesis which
    must disprove the default paleo hypothesis). Do you follow?

    -gts

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