From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Apr 23 2003 - 17:35:24 MDT
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky:
You did not answer my question, Eliezer.
Would Mr. Hugh M. Species in 12,000 BC have been acting unreasonably if he
asked the new dairy and grain farmers to prove their case that their
new-fangled foods were healthy additions to the diet? Please answer this
important question.
You might agree with me that yes, this burden-of-proof demand was
reasonable, but then go on to claim that the demand is no longer valid given
that ~14,000 years have passed since the advent of dairy and agriculture.
However in that case the burden of proof then shifts logically to you to
show that we have evolved to such a degree that bread and milk add something
to human health vs other more nutrient-dense paleolithic sources of
calories.
> For millions of years you've done fine on a diet of "things
> that taste good", following the decision rule of, if two
> foods are available, preferring to eat the one that tastes
> the best. Suddenly you awaken one morning to find paleodiet
> theorists claiming that this evolved instinctive
> simple rule no longer works
Why do you think sweet and fatty foods taste good?
Surely it is because paleo humans were always in a near desperate search for
much needed calories needed to survive. Paleo humans who liked the taste of
high-carb and high-fat foods tended to survive and multiply, and so we
moderns are left with their legacy: the reward circuitry in our brains is
activated by the taste of fat and sugar. Modern farmers have profited from
this at our expense by over-indulging us with the excessive quantities of
non-paleolithic sweet and fatty foods that activate our neural reward
circuitry.
-gts
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