The Logic of the Larder means decent AW.
__________________________________________________ _______
Logic of the Larder

by Henry S. Salt

Excerpted from The Humanities of Diet. Manchester: The Vegetarian Society, 1914

It is often said, as an excuse for the slaughter of animals, that it is better for them to live and
to be butchered than not to live at all. Now, obviously, if such reasoning justifies the practice of
flesh-eating, it must equally justify all breeding of animals for profit or pastime, when their life
is a fairly happy one.
[...]
Let us heartily accept all that may be said of "the joyfulness of life." But what is the moral to
be drawn from that fact? Surely not that we are justified in outraging and destroying life, to
pamper our selfish appetites, because forsooth we shall then produce more of it! But rather that we
should respect the beauty and sanctity of life in others as in ourselves, and strive as far as
possible to secure its fullest natural development. This logic of the larder is the very negation of
a true reverence for life; for it implies that the real lover of animals is he whose larder is
fullest of them:

He prayeth best, who eateth best
All things both great and small.

It is the philosophy of the wolf, the shark, the cannibal. If there be any truth in such an
argument, let those who believe it have the courage of their convictions, and face the inevitable
conclusion.
[...]
[2] "If the motive that might produce the greatest number of the happiest cattle would be the
eating of beef, then beef-eating, so far, must be commended. And while, heretofore, the motive has
not been for the sake of cattle, it is conceivable that, if Vegetarian convictions should spread
much further, love for cattle would (if it be not psychologically incompatible) blend with the love
of beef in the minds of the opponents of Vegetarianism. With deeper insight, new and higher motives
may replace or supplement old ones, and perpetuate but ennoble ancient practices."—Dr. Stanton Coit.

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.htm
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
After reading all that it's clear The Logic of the Vegan is a very inaccurate title.
The Logic of Livestock Hatred is accurate. It is well known that vegans hate meat
to the extent that they would promote veganism even when it results in the deaths
of more animals than raising livestock would, as in the case of rice milk vs. grass
raised cow milk. It is now established that:

The Logic of the Larder = Decent Animal Welfare
The Logic of the Vegan = The Logic of Livestock Hatred

dh@. wrote in message ...
The Logic of the Larder means decent AW.
__________________________________________________ _______
Logic of the Larder

by Henry S. Salt

Excerpted from The Humanities of Diet. Manchester: The Vegetarian Society,
1914

It is often said, as an excuse for the slaughter of animals, that it is
better for them to live and
to be butchered than not to live at all.

Do you think that this argument would apply to the argument about Deer
reproduction and how they will overpopulate an area unless humans kill a
percentage of them? In this way we could justify the waste of their meat by
throwing it away and killing them, hence we have a version of this animal
logic in which it is better to not only kill them but to throw away the meat
if need be, for their betterment.

http://www.google.com/search?q=deer+population

Now, obviously, if such reasoning justifies the practice of
flesh-eating, it must equally justify all breeding of animals for profit
or pastime, when their life
is a fairly happy one.
[...]
Let us heartily accept all that may be said of "the joyfulness of life."
But what is the moral to
be drawn from that fact? Surely not that we are justified in outraging and
destroying life, to
pamper our selfish appetites, because forsooth we shall then produce more
of it! But rather that we
should respect the beauty and sanctity of life in others as in ourselves,
and strive as far as
possible to secure its fullest natural development. This logic of the
larder is the very negation of
a true reverence for life; for it implies that the real lover of animals
is he whose larder is
fullest of them:


If we humans have this capacity to eat and digest meat, a capacity whos
assembly is directed by the genes, why should we justify this instinct in
any way? If we rule against these human traits do we learn of a way to drug
those parts of the brain so they don't work properly, or perhaps, cut them
out of our brains so they don't bother us any more?

He prayeth best, who eateth best
All things both great and small.

It is the philosophy of the wolf, the shark, the cannibal. If there be any
truth in such an
argument, let those who believe it have the courage of their convictions,
and face the inevitable
conclusion.
[...]
[2] "If the motive that might produce the greatest number of the happiest
cattle would be the
eating of beef, then beef-eating, so far, must be commended. And while,
heretofore, the motive has
not been for the sake of cattle, it is conceivable that, if Vegetarian
convictions should spread
much further, love for cattle would (if it be not psychologically
incompatible) blend with the love
of beef in the minds of the opponents of Vegetarianism. With deeper
insight, new and higher motives
may replace or supplement old ones, and perpetuate but ennoble ancient
practices."-Dr. Stanton Coit.

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.htm
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
After reading all that it's clear The Logic of the Vegan is a very
inaccurate title.
The Logic of Livestock Hatred is accurate. It is well known that vegans
hate meat
to the extent that they would promote veganism even when it results in the
deaths
of more animals than raising livestock would, as in the case of rice milk
vs. grass
raised cow milk. It is now established that:

The Logic of the Larder = Decent Animal Welfare
The Logic of the Vegan = The Logic of Livestock Hatred


Why should the style of managing food animals be relevant to the
justifiaction for instinctually killing and eating them? Don't we need to
justify these instincts first before considering the consequences to our
dinner victoms? I am a vegan but freely admit that my body is set up to
instinctually drive me towards both meat and vegetables.

Consider the possibilities;

1. we could just hunt them in the wild and disturb their natural function as
least as possible before killing and eating them

2. we pen them and treat them as we may before killing them for dinner

3. we stop eating all meat

4. stop eating all vegetables and kill even more animals for fun and fat

Someone said that if I don't vote that I vote because I am a citizen and am
noted in some statistic and my non-vote influenced something an a different
way than had I not been born. Whatever we humans do with animals at this
point seem to be problematical to some degree.

****wit David Harrison, cracker, lied:

The Logic of the Larder means decent AW.

It does not, ****wit. It has *nothing* to do with the animals'
welfare. The (Il)Logic of the Larder is a discredited bit of sophistry
employed by liars like you to justify your consumption of animals. It
is predicated on the utterly illogical and wrong belief that causing
animals to exist is doing them some kind of favor. It is not doing any
kind of favor to cause animals to exist, ****wit: existence is not a
"benefit" to animals.

"Immortalist" wrote in message news:025Gf.39300$bF.20115@dukeread07...
..
If we humans have this capacity to eat and digest meat,

'Scientists may have found meat link to colon cancer
Wed Feb 1, 2006 12:38 AM ET

By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists said on Tuesday they may
have found a reason why eating too much red meat increases
the risk of colorectal cancer.

By studying cells from volunteers eating different diets, they
discovered that red meat raises levels of compounds in the
large bowel which can alter DNA and increase the likelihood
of cancer.

"It is the first definite link between red meat and the very first
stage in cancer," said Professor Sheila Bingham, of the
Medical Research Council Dunn Nutrition Unit in Cambridge,
England.

In earlier research, Bingham and her team showed there was
a strong correlation between eating red and processed meat
and the risk of colon cancer.

The chance of developing colorectal cancer was a third higher
in people who regularly ate more than two portions of red or
processed meat a day compared to someone who ate less
than one portion a week.

In their latest study, published in the journal Cancer Research,
the scientists studied cells from the lining of the colon from
people who consumed red meat, vegetarian, high red meat or
high fiber diets for 15 days.

"We looked at whether eating red meat alters the DNA of
these cells," Bingham told Reuters.

They found that red meat consumption was linked to increased
levels of substances called N-nitrosocompounds, which are
formed in the large bowel. The compounds may stick to DNA,
making it more likely to undergo mutations that increase the
odds of cancer.

The DNA damage may be repaired naturally in the body, and
fiber in the diet may help the process. But if it isn't, cancer
can develop, Bingham said.

The scientists said the findings could help to develop a
screening test for very early changes related to the disease.

Colorectal is one of the most common cancers in developed
countries. More than 940,000 cases are diagnosed each year
and about 492,000 people die from the illness, according to
the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC) in Lyon,
France.

A diet rich in fat, animal protein and refined carbohydrates
and lack of exercise are risk factors for the illness. Most
cases are in people over 60 years old and about 5 percent
of them are inherited.

Health experts estimate that about 70 percent of colorectal
cancers could be prevented by changes in diet and nutrition.
Diarrhea, constipation and rectal bleeding can be symptoms.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...ANCER-MEAT.xml

See: http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm .

a capacity whos
assembly is directed by the genes, why should we justify this instinct in
any way?

*Fat*, including the fat in meat, is a primary reinforcer..

'Measuring Brain Activity In People Eating Chocolate Offers
New Clues About How The Body Becomes Addicted

CHICAGO --- Using positron emission tomography scans to
measure brain activity in people eating chocolate, a team of U.S.
and Canadian neuroscientists believe they have identified areas
of the brain that may underlie addiction and eating disorders.

Dana Small, assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern
University Medical School, and colleagues found that individuals'
ratings of the pleasantness of eating chocolate were associated
with increased blood flow in areas of the brain, particularly in
the orbital frontal cortex and midbrain, that are also activated
by addictive drugs such as cocaine.
...
According to Small, a primary reinforcer is a stimulus that an
individual doesn't have to learn to like but, rather, is enjoyed
from birth. Addictive drugs can be viewed as primary
reinforcers. Fat and sweet also are primary reinforcers, and
chocolate is chock full of fat and sweet, Small said.
...
Small explained that studying the brain's response to eating a
highly rewarding food such as chocolate provides an effective
"in-health" model of addiction. "
...'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0829082943.htm

If we rule against these human traits do we learn of a way to drug
those parts of the brain so they don't work properly, or perhaps, cut them
out of our brains so they don't bother us any more?

Eat healthful fatty plant foods like avocados, nuts, or olives instead.

"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Immortalist" wrote in message
news:025Gf.39300$bF.20115@dukeread07...
..
If we humans have this capacity to eat and digest meat,

'Scientists may have found meat link to colon cancer
Wed Feb 1, 2006 12:38 AM ET


http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...ANCER-MEAT.xml

See: http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm .

a capacity whos
assembly is directed by the genes, why should we justify this instinct in
any way?

*Fat*, including the fat in meat, is a primary reinforcer..

'Measuring Brain Activity In People Eating Chocolate Offers
New Clues About How The Body Becomes Addicted

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0829082943.htm

If we rule against these human traits do we learn of a way to drug
those parts of the brain so they don't work properly, or perhaps, cut
them
out of our brains so they don't bother us any more?

Eat healthful fatty plant foods like avocados, nuts, or olives instead.


Then maybe our instincts for eating meat will go away and the genes that
direct the assembly of these instincts will mutate to direct the assembly of
animal love instincts? Not a bad idea but it might take a while to happen.

OUR KIND by Marvin Harris 1989
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0060919906/

9 - MEAT

THE OPEN COUNTRY beckoned wich another resource. In rhe forest, animals tend
to be small, furtive, difficult to see. But the savanna teemed with visible
herds. From time to time a stick-carrying group of australopithecines would
encounter an infant gazelle or antelope that had strayed from the protection
of its mother and they would surround, seize, and eat it. Occasionally they
would also stumble upon the remains of a larger animal that had died from
natural causes or had been killed by the feline predators that lived off the
herds. Hooting and howling and waving their sticks, they would drive away
the vultures and jackals, rush in and rear off bits of decaying meat, and
run to the nearest clump of trees, ready to drop everything and seek safety
in the branches if one of the felines returned and interrupted their meal.

I confess that there is no archaeological evidence that such events ever
happened. But rhe behavior of chimpanzees and other primates, as well as our
kind's dietary preferences, leave little doubt that the ausrralopithecines
had a special fondness for meat. And as savanna-dwelling, tool-using
animals, they had a developed capacity and plenty of opportunity to scavenge
and hunt. As for seeking the safety of trees, we do have the fossil evidence
of curved fingers and toes and the chimpanzeelike long arms and short legs.

Not so long ago scientists believed that monkeys and apes were strict
vegetarians. After meticulous observation in the wild, most primates turned
out to be omnivores. Like humans, they ear both plant and animal foods.
Being rather small creatures, monkeys necessarily prey mostly on insects
rather than on game. And a significant amount of their insect eating is
simply a natural by-product of the consumption of leaves and fruit. When
they encounter a leaf with a weevil wrapped in it, or a fig with a worm in
it, they do not spit out the intruder. If anything, they spit out the leaf
or fruit, a practice that produces a steady rain ot half-chewed plant food
as the troop progresses from tree to tree.

As among most human populations, monkeys usually eat only relatively small
amounts of animal food compared to plant food. This is not a matter of
choice, bur simply of the difficulties monkeys confront in obtaining a
steady supply of animal flesh. Studies in Namibia and Botswana show that
baboons will stop eating virtually everything else when insects swarm. They
prefer animal matter first; roots, seeds, fruits, and flowers second; and
leaves and grass third. At certain seasons of the year, they spend as much
as 75 percent of their eating time on insects. Several species of large
monkeys not only consume insects but actually hunt small game. My
reconstruction of the australopithecine way of life gains plausibility from
the fact that the most accomplished hunters among monkeys appear ro be
grounddwelling baboons that live in open country. During a year of
observation near Gelgil, Kenya, Robert Harding observed forty-seven small
vertebrates being killed and eaten by baboons. The most common prey were
infant gazelles and antelopes. If mere baboons are capable of capturing
infant gazelles and antelopes, the early australopithecines cannot have been
less capable.

Among extant nonhuman primates, chimpanzees are the most ardent meat eaters.
The time and effort expended m termiring and anting alone suggest the degree
of their fondness for animal flesh. And let us not forget the painful bites
and stings that they risk in order to get at these tidbits. Nor do
chimpanzees confine their pursuit of animal flesh to anting and termiting.
They actively hunt and eat at least twenty-three species of mammals,
including several kinds of monkeys and baboons, galagos, bush bucks, bush
pigs, duikers, mice, rars, squirrels, shrews, mongooses, and hyraxes. They
also kill and eat chimpanzee and even human babies if they get a chance. At
Gombe, over the course of a decade, observers witnessed the consumption of
ninety-five small animals-mostly infant baboons, monkeys, and bush pigs.
This is only a partial accounting because the chimpanzees consumed
additional animals out of sight of the observers. Altogether, Gombe
chimpanzees devoted about 10 percent of their time spent on feeding to the
pursuit and consumption of game.

Chimpanzees usually hunt cooperatively and share their quarry with each
other. In fact, if a chimpanzee is unable to get others to join in, it will
abandon the hunt. Throughout the entire process of killing, distributing,
and consuming prey animals, they display an unusual level of social
interaction and excitement. During the hunt, anywhere from three to nine
chimpanzees try to surround the prey animal. They keep positioning and
repositioning themselves for as long as an hour, trying to cut off potential
escape routes.

Both males and females hunt and consume meat. During an eight-year period,
from 1974 to 1981, females captured or stole, and then ate, at least part of
forty-four prey animals, not counting another twenty-one prey animals that
they attacked or seized but were unable to hold on to. Males hunted more
than females and consumed more meat. Chimpanzees occasionally share plant
foods, but they always share meat unless the prey is captured by a solitary
chimpanzee in the forest. Meat-sharing often results from persistent
"begging." The supplicant holds an outstretched hand under the meat
possessor's mouth, or parts the lips of a meat-chewing companion. If these
tactics fail, the supplicant may begin to whimper and to express rage and
frustration. Van Lawick-Goodall describes how a young chimp named Mr. Worzle
threw a tantrum when Goliath, a dominant male, refused to share the body of
a baby baboon with him. Mr. Worzle followed Goliath from branch to branch,
hand outstretched and whimpering. "When Goliath pushed Worzle's hand away
for the eleventh time, the lower-ranking male . . . hurled himself backward
off the branch, screaming and hitting wildly at the surrounding vegetation.
Goliath looked at him and then, with a great effort (using hands, teeth, and
one foot), tore his prey in two and handed the entire hindquarters to
Worzle."

10 - AFRICAN GENESIS REVISITED

CHIMPANZEES HUNT more often than they scavenge. The reason is obvious. In
the forest, there are fewer carcasses of large animals and they are harder
to find. Given the great herds that grazed on the savanna, the early
australopithecines probably scavenged more than they hunted. Their digging
sticks were not sharp or strong enough to pierce the skin of wildebeests,
antelopes, zebras, or gazelles. Fangless and bereft of cutting implements,
they had no way of breaking through tough hides to get at the meat, even if
they somehow succeeded in killing an adult. Scavenging solved these
problems. Lions and other predators did the killing and obligingly ripped
open the carcass, exposing the meat. Once the predators had eaten their
fill, they departed to a shady spot and took a nap. The principal problem
for our ancestors then became how to get rid of other scavengers. Vultures
and jackals could be driven off by swinging and jabbing the digging sticks.
They also undoubtedly threw stones if any were available in the immediate
vicinity of the carcass. Hyenas, with their powerful bone-crushing jaws,
would present a more formidable problem to a group of three- or
four-foot-tall primates. The australopithecines were well advised to keep
their distance if hyenas got to the carcass first; or to leave promptly if
hyenas showed up after they had begun to dine. In any event, it was a good
idea not to linger but tear and break off as much as they could and get to a
safer place as quickly as possible. Predator cats might return to the scene
of the kill for dessert; or if the carcass had been created by a natural
death, the cats might soon be by to investigate-most predators have no
qualms about doing a little scavenging on the side. The safer place was a
grove of trees where, if danger threatened, the australopithecines could
drop their sticks, grasp the bark with their curved toes, and scamper into
the upper branches.

I don't want to overestimate the timorousness of the australopithecines.
Japanese observers report that they have seen groups of chimpanzees at
Mahale National Park in Tanzania occasionally confront and intimidate one or
two big cats and sometimes succeed in taking meat away from them. The
australopithecines with their sticks and stones might have done even better.
Yet I doubt that they were like the fierce "killer apes" from whom we
allegedly derive our "instinct to kill with a weapon," as depicted in Robert
Ardrey's popular book, African Genesis. The idea that the australopithecines
were mighty hunters grew out of Raymond Dart's belief that the fossil bones,
horns, and tusks found at several australopithecine fossil sites in southern
Africa were used by them as weapons. But I cannot see how these objects
could have inflicted major wounds on large, tough-skinned animals. Even if
they could have had lethal effects, how could the australopithecines have
gotten close enough to use them against full-grown prey animals without
being kicked or gored to death? A more likely explanation of the association
between australopithecine fossils and the bones, horns, and tusks of other
animals is that the caves where they occur together were hyena dens and that
they were collected and deposited together by hyenas.

While the australopithecines never became mighty hunters, they did
eventually improve their ability to compete as scavengers. The barrier to
their success was that they had to wait for the teeth of better-endowed
natural hunters or scavengers to penetrate the hides before they could
approach a carcass. But sometime between 3 million and 2.5 million years
ago, long before Louis Leakey's handy person was on the scene, the
australopithecines achieved a technologl breakthrough-as great as any that
was ever to occur in human history. They began to make cutting, slicing, and
chopping implements out of pieces of rock. Hide, muscle, sinew, and bone
yielded to the new devices as readily as to the sharpest tooth and claw, and
a bolder way of life beckoned.

11 - KNAPPER BUTCHER SCAVENGER HUNTER

THE EARLEST AUSTRALOPITHECINES must have used stones at least to the same
extent as do modern chimpanzees -as missiles to repel intruders and as
hammers to break open nuts. This throwing and hammering would occasionally
split off scone fragments whose edges were sharp enough to cut through
hides. But such incidents occurred in the context of activities that could
not be made more efficient by using sharp-edged implements and so their
potential was not utilized. Sharp flakes created by ricocheting scones
hurled to drive away vultures and jackals would have a better chance of
being recognized as a way of cutting through rough hides, slicing off hunks
of meat, and removing limb bones. The next step was to pick up a rock and
bash it against another on the ground and then to search in the debris for
the sharpest flakes. Finally, a rock was held in each hand and a carefully
aimed blow was delivered to the edge of one rock by using the other as a
hammer. Repeated hammering not only yielded useful flakes, but the core from
which they were detached would itself begin to acquire edges useful for
cutting and chopping.

The earliest stone tools-those found at Gona and Omo, in Ethiopia-already
reveal a trained facility for selecting the best available materials to
serve as cores and hammers and for delivering well-aimed blows to detach
razor-sharp flakes. Experiments by archaeologists who have taught themselves
to produce replicas of these earliest srone tools show that cores and flakes
were equally valuable. Hammersrone blows delivered to one side of the end of
a core produced a heavy chopping tool that is effective in severing tendons
and sinews and in breaking joints apart. The flakes are best for cutting
through hides and slicing through meat. Heavy cores are good for smashing
bones to get at the marrow and for breaking open skulls to get at the
brains. Nicholas Toch of Indiana University has duplicated these simple
tools and used them to butcher elephants and other large, tough-skinned
animals. The australopithecines undoubtediy applied their stone tool kit to
tasks other than butchering carcasses. Toth found that heavy chopper cores
were good for severing straight branches from a tree and that with small
flakes he could whittle down and shape the points of digging sticks into
spears. Other flakes were useful for scraping meat, fat, and hair from
hides.

Some kind of container for carrying things was also probably essential for
the australopithecine way of life after they began to use stone tools.
Analysis of stone artifacts at sites in Tanzania that date to about two
million years ago reveals that there are more flakes than can be accounted
for by the number of scars on the cores found with them. This suggests that
whoever did the knapping carried a supply of pre-struck flakes and perhaps a
small core and hammerstone or two from one butchering site to another. A
small bag made out of scraped hide and secured by bits of sinew around the
waist or over the shoulder would have made an appropriate container.

With the manufacture of core and flake scone tools, sharpened digging
sticks, thongs, and skin bags, and the carrying and storing of tools and
materials, the limit of the ape brain was reached. While none of these
artifacts or behaviors in isolation would have taxed the capabilities of a
chimpanzee, to operate them all as part of an increasingly complex
scavenging, hunting, gathering, and digging system of production called for
cognitive abilities that were beyond those of the early australopithecines.
Natural selection favored the individuals who learned most quickly to make
the best tools, who made the cleverest decisions concerning when to use
them, and who could optimize production in relation to daily and seasonal
changes in the abundance and availability of plant and animal foods.
Selection for these capabilities may account for the 40 percent to 50
percent increment in the size ofhabilis's brain over that of the
australopithecines.

But despite the more elaborate tool kit and bigger brains, there is no
evidence that habilis was any closer to being a hunter of large game. Its
diminutive stature and its curved fingers and toes-still indicative of tree
climbing as a means of avoiding predators-do not bespeak of boldness in the
hunt. And its tools, however useful in butchering large animals, show no
sign of being useful in hunting them.

Our ancestors must have remained primarily scavengers, at least until the
appearance of the first erectus, 1.6 million years ago. Everything about
erectus suggests that it was filling an ecological niche based on a new mode
of subsistence. It was a conspicuously taller species than habilis, and its
fingers and toes had lost all vestiges of arboreal agility. Its tools
consisted of sharp flakes and new kinds of cores that were worked on both
sides and shaped into large ovate, pointed "hand axes," cleavers, and picks.
Experimental trials with these "bifaces" show that they are useful aids in
the butchering of large animals. Moreover, microscopic striations
interpreted as "cut marks" on animal bones associated with erectus tools
provide direct evidence that they were used for dismembering and defleshing
animals. Erectus was also probably skilled in using both core and flake
tools to whittle, shave, and scrape sharp-pointed wooden spears.

Yet butchers need not be hunters. Moreover, there is something missing from
erectus's bag of tools (and from habilis's tool kit as well). None of the
cores or flakes are of the sort that could be inserted or hatred as points
for spears or other projectiles. Perhaps they threw their wooden spears at
small animals with deadly effect, but without stone or bone points they were
unlikely, at a distance, to pierce the hides and penetrate to the vital
organs of larger prey. The absence of stone projectile points lends support
to the view that erectus was simply a more efficient scavenger than earlier
hominids, and that if some of them occasionally did hunt, it was only for
small animals.

I personally doubt that erecrus settled for being a scavenger first and a
hunter second. The readily visible herds of large animals would have acted
as a constant temptation to take direct action in order to assure a supply
of its favorite food. After all, the development of stone technology was
largely a consequence of the australopithecine's attempt to exploit the
nutritional advantages of meat. Having gone so far as to invent knives,
hammers, axes, and containers primarily ro facilitate the butchery of
animals, the failure of erec- tus to invent stone-tipped projectiles need
not indicate that they were not habitual hunters. Rather, it may simply
indicate that they did nor hunt by hurling spears at a distance but by
thrusting them into their quarry at close quarters. Archaeology does not
provide the evidence for this line of reasoning. We must turn instead to
certain peculiarities of the human form-to our lack of body hair, to our
sweat-gland-packed skins, and to our ability to run marathons. But first I
shall have to say some unflattering things about erectus's brain.

OUR KIND by Marvin Harris 1989
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0060919906/

"Immortalist" wrote in message news:Ed8Gf.39582$bF.12276@dukeread07...

"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Immortalist" wrote in message
news:025Gf.39300$bF.20115@dukeread07...
..
If we humans have this capacity to eat and digest meat,

'Scientists may have found meat link to colon cancer
Wed Feb 1, 2006 12:38 AM ET



http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...ANCER-MEAT.xml

See: http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm .

a capacity whos
assembly is directed by the genes, why should we justify this instinct in
any way?

*Fat*, including the fat in meat, is a primary reinforcer..

'Measuring Brain Activity In People Eating Chocolate Offers
New Clues About How The Body Becomes Addicted

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0829082943.htm

If we rule against these human traits do we learn of a way to drug
those parts of the brain so they don't work properly, or perhaps, cut
them
out of our brains so they don't bother us any more?

Eat healthful fatty plant foods like avocados, nuts, or olives instead.


Then maybe our instincts for eating meat

...... the *fat* you _crave_.

“Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining
from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident
and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched
his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead
creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and
ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little
before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his
eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed
and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench?
How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which
made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and
serums from mortal wounds? … The obligations of law and
equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and benevolence
should be extended to the creatures of every species, and these
will flow from the breast of a true man, in streams that issue
from the living fountain. Man makes use of flesh not out of
want and necessity, seeing that he has the liberty to make his
choice of herbs and fruits, the plenty of which is inexhaustible;
but out of luxury, and being cloyed with necessaries, he seeks
after impure and inconvenient diet, purchased by the slaughter
of living beasts; by showing himself more cruel than the most
savage of wild beasts ... were it only to learn benevolence to
human kind, we should be merciful to other creatures. … It is
certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense;
on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame
creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I
swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their
beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like
tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious
voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence
that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a
little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life
to which they are entitled by birth and being…Why do you belie
the earth, as if it were unable to feed and nourish you? Does it
not shame you to mingle murder and blood with her beneficent
fruits? Other carnivores you call savage and ferocious - lions
and tigers and serpents - while yourselves come behind them
in no species of barbarity. And yet for them murder is the only
means of sustenance! Whereas to you it is superfluous luxury
and crime!”
Plutarch (c. 56 – 120 A.D.) (Roman historian and scholar)

will go away and the genes that
direct the assembly of these instincts will mutate to direct the assembly of
animal love instincts? Not a bad idea but it might take a while to happen.

Every normal human (not psychopath) has an innate sense of compassion.

OUR KIND by Marvin Harris 1989
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0060919906/

9 - MEAT

THE OPEN COUNTRY beckoned wich another resource.

Puleease. Have you read nothing I've posted?

In short:

"Studies of frugivorous communities elsewhere suggest that
dietary divergence is highest when preferred food (succulent
fruit) is scarce, and that niche separation is clear only at such
times (Gautier-Hion & Gautier 1979: Terborgh 1983). "
- Foraging profiles of sympatric lowland gorillas and
chimpanzees in the Lopé Reserve, Gabon, p.179, Philosophical
Transactions: Biological Sciences vol 334, 159-295, No. 1270 '

"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Immortalist" wrote in message
news:Ed8Gf.39582$bF.12276@dukeread07...

"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Immortalist" wrote in message
news:025Gf.39300$bF.20115@dukeread07...
..
If we humans have this capacity to eat and digest meat,

'Scientists may have found meat link to colon cancer
Wed Feb 1, 2006 12:38 AM ET



http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...ANCER-MEAT.xml

See: http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm .

a capacity whos
assembly is directed by the genes, why should we justify this instinct
in
any way?

*Fat*, including the fat in meat, is a primary reinforcer..

'Measuring Brain Activity In People Eating Chocolate Offers
New Clues About How The Body Becomes Addicted

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0829082943.htm

If we rule against these human traits do we learn of a way to drug
those parts of the brain so they don't work properly, or perhaps, cut
them
out of our brains so they don't bother us any more?

Eat healthful fatty plant foods like avocados, nuts, or olives instead.


Then maybe our instincts for eating meat

...... the *fat* you _crave_.

"Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining
from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident
and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched
his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead
creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and
ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little
before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his
eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed
and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench?
How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which
made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and
serums from mortal wounds? . The obligations of law and
equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and benevolence
should be extended to the creatures of every species, and these
will flow from the breast of a true man, in streams that issue
from the living fountain. Man makes use of flesh not out of
want and necessity, seeing that he has the liberty to make his
choice of herbs and fruits, the plenty of which is inexhaustible;
but out of luxury, and being cloyed with necessaries, he seeks
after impure and inconvenient diet, purchased by the slaughter
of living beasts; by showing himself more cruel than the most
savage of wild beasts ... were it only to learn benevolence to
human kind, we should be merciful to other creatures. . It is
certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense;
on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame
creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I
swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their
beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like
tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious
voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence
that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a
little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life
to which they are entitled by birth and being.Why do you belie
the earth, as if it were unable to feed and nourish you? Does it
not shame you to mingle murder and blood with her beneficent
fruits? Other carnivores you call savage and ferocious - lions
and tigers and serpents - while yourselves come behind them
in no species of barbarity. And yet for them murder is the only
means of sustenance! Whereas to you it is superfluous luxury
and crime!"
Plutarch (c. 56 - 120 A.D.) (Roman historian and scholar)

will go away and the genes that
direct the assembly of these instincts will mutate to direct the assembly
of
animal love instincts? Not a bad idea but it might take a while to
happen.

Every normal human (not psychopath) has an innate sense of compassion.


How is it possible for normal humans to participate in acts of
non-compassion if all normal humans have an innate sense of compassion? Or
are you claiming that no normal humans are humans that participate in
non-compassion?

OUR KIND by Marvin Harris 1989
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0060919906/

9 - MEAT

THE OPEN COUNTRY beckoned wich another resource.

Puleease. Have you read nothing I've posted?


Yes, and I like it!

In short:

"Studies of frugivorous communities elsewhere suggest that
dietary divergence is highest when preferred food (succulent
fruit) is scarce, and that niche separation is clear only at such
times (Gautier-Hion & Gautier 1979: Terborgh 1983). "
- Foraging profiles of sympatric lowland gorillas and
chimpanzees in the Lopé Reserve, Gabon, p.179, Philosophical
Transactions: Biological Sciences vol 334, 159-295, No. 1270 '


So you are appealing to "niche creation" through fruit scarcity? Interesting
inverse proportionality, I must say! I could envision a world where humans
evolved feline like pure meating eating needs if some humans had no access
to fruits for 10,000 years or more and then when fruit came back into their
area they may not be able to evolve back those lost traits except through a
convergence. If it is then by convergence I sense a contradiction in the use
of the term (divergence). Although I agree with the proportionality of
degrees between fruit and meat sources and needs I doubt it is inverse to
the degree.

On Tue, 7 Feb 2006 09:46:23 -0800, "Immortalist" wrote:


dh@. wrote in message ...
The Logic of the Larder means decent AW.
__________________________________________________ _______
Logic of the Larder

by Henry S. Salt

Excerpted from The Humanities of Diet. Manchester: The Vegetarian Society,
1914

It is often said, as an excuse for the slaughter of animals, that it is
better for them to live and
to be butchered than not to live at all.

Do you think that this argument would apply to the argument about Deer
reproduction and how they will overpopulate an area unless humans kill a
percentage of them? In this way we could justify the waste of their meat by
throwing it away and killing them, hence we have a version of this animal
logic in which it is better to not only kill them but to throw away the meat
if need be, for their betterment.

Well of course. What possible difference could it make to a dead deer
what happens to its dead body? In regards to cruelty to the animals, it
doesn't matter what we do with their dead body afaik. If there's some
reason why or how it could matter to them, I have yet to learn what it is.

http://www.google.com/search?q=deer+population

Now, obviously, if such reasoning justifies the practice of
flesh-eating, it must equally justify all breeding of animals for profit
or pastime, when their life
is a fairly happy one.
[...]
Let us heartily accept all that may be said of "the joyfulness of life."
But what is the moral to
be drawn from that fact? Surely not that we are justified in outraging and
destroying life, to
pamper our selfish appetites, because forsooth we shall then produce more
of it! But rather that we
should respect the beauty and sanctity of life in others as in ourselves,
and strive as far as
possible to secure its fullest natural development. This logic of the
larder is the very negation of
a true reverence for life; for it implies that the real lover of animals
is he whose larder is
fullest of them:


If we humans have this capacity to eat and digest meat, a capacity whos
assembly is directed by the genes, why should we justify this instinct in
any way?

We don't need to. But when people like "aras" insist that another
option is the most ethically superior, we need not be afraid to examine
whether or not they have the best idea. As yet they haven't presented
any reason to agree that they do. I'm still waiting to learn, so if you know
please don't keep it a secret like they do.

If we rule against these human traits do we learn of a way to drug
those parts of the brain so they don't work properly, or perhaps, cut them
out of our brains so they don't bother us any more?

I don't know what they have in mind on that. Probably nothing, as
with a number of other things.

He prayeth best, who eateth best
All things both great and small.

It is the philosophy of the wolf, the shark, the cannibal. If there be any
truth in such an
argument, let those who believe it have the courage of their convictions,
and face the inevitable
conclusion.
[...]
[2] "If the motive that might produce the greatest number of the happiest
cattle would be the
eating of beef, then beef-eating, so far, must be commended. And while,
heretofore, the motive has
not been for the sake of cattle, it is conceivable that, if Vegetarian
convictions should spread
much further, love for cattle would (if it be not psychologically
incompatible) blend with the love
of beef in the minds of the opponents of Vegetarianism. With deeper
insight, new and higher motives
may replace or supplement old ones, and perpetuate but ennoble ancient
practices."-Dr. Stanton Coit.

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.htm
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
After reading all that it's clear The Logic of the Vegan is a very
inaccurate title.
The Logic of Livestock Hatred is accurate. It is well known that vegans
hate meat
to the extent that they would promote veganism even when it results in the
deaths
of more animals than raising livestock would, as in the case of rice milk
vs. grass
raised cow milk. It is now established that:

The Logic of the Larder = Decent Animal Welfare
The Logic of the Vegan = The Logic of Livestock Hatred


Why should the style of managing food animals be relevant to the
justifiaction for instinctually killing and eating them? Don't we need to
justify these instincts first before considering the consequences to our
dinner victoms? I am a vegan but freely admit that my body is set up to
instinctually drive me towards both meat and vegetables.

Consider the possibilities;

1. we could just hunt them in the wild and disturb their natural function as
least as possible before killing and eating them

2. we pen them and treat them as we may before killing them for dinner

3. we stop eating all meat

4. stop eating all vegetables and kill even more animals for fun and fat

Someone said that if I don't vote that I vote because I am a citizen and am
noted in some statistic and my non-vote influenced something an a different
way than had I not been born. Whatever we humans do with animals at this
point seem to be problematical to some degree.

We are in the period where it will be determined how much influence humans
will have on wildlife. "aras" pretend that they want to provide all animals with
the right to not be killed, while at the same time they contribute to most of the
same animal deaths that everyone else does. At this point the only things we
know "ar" has to "offer" a

1. the elimination of domestic animals
2. the elimination of wildlife population control

On Tue, 7 Feb 2006 12:01:06 -0800, "Dutch" wrote:


dh@. wrote
The Logic of the Larder means decent AW.

No, it doesn't.

Your hero said it does:

"when their life is a fairly happy one." - Salt

The Logic of the Larder has *nothing* to do with animal
welfare.

That's a lie.

On Tue, 7 Feb 2006 13:23:34 -0800, "Immortalist" wrote:

Among extant nonhuman primates, chimpanzees are the most ardent meat eaters.

You may find this interesting:
__________________________________________________ _______
[...]
We might look toward the social aspects of chimpanzee societies to understand their hunting
patterns. One clue to the significance of meat in a chimpanzee society comes from the observation
that males do most of the hunting. During the past decade, adult and adolescent males made over 90
percent of the kills at Gombe. Although females occasionally hunt, they more often receive a share
of meat from the male who captured the prey.

This state of affairs sets up an interesting dynamic between males and females. Sometimes a begging
female does not receive any meat until after the male copulates with her (even while clutching the
freshly killed carcass). Some other observations are also telling. Not only does the size of a
hunting
party increase in proportion to the number of estrous females present, but the presence of an
estrous
female independently increases the likelihood that there will be a hunt. Such observations suggest
that
male chimpanzees use meat as a tool to gain access to sexually receptive females. But females appear
to be getting reproductive benefits as well: William McGrew of Miami University in Ohio showed that
female chimpanzees at Gombe that receive generous shares of meat produce more offspring that
survive.

The distribution of the kill to other male chimpanzees also hints at another social role for meat.
The
Japanese primatologist Toshisada Nishida and his colleagues in the Mahale Mountains showed that
the alpha male Ntilogi distributes meat to his allies but consistently withholds it from his rivals.
Such
behavior, they suggest, reveals that meat can be used as a political tool in chimpanzee society.
Further studies should tell us whether such actions have consequences for alliances between males.
[...]
http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/article...ford-full.html
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

dh@. wrote in message ...
On Tue, 7 Feb 2006 09:46:23 -0800, "Immortalist"
wrote:


dh@. wrote in message ...
The Logic of the Larder means decent AW.
__________________________________________________ _______
Logic of the Larder

by Henry S. Salt

Excerpted from The Humanities of Diet. Manchester: The Vegetarian
Society,
1914

It is often said, as an excuse for the slaughter of animals, that it is
better for them to live and
to be butchered than not to live at all.

Do you think that this argument would apply to the argument about Deer
reproduction and how they will overpopulate an area unless humans kill a
percentage of them? In this way we could justify the waste of their meat
by
throwing it away and killing them, hence we have a version of this animal
logic in which it is better to not only kill them but to throw away the
meat
if need be, for their betterment.

Well of course. What possible difference could it make to a dead deer
what happens to its dead body? In regards to cruelty to the animals, it
doesn't matter what we do with their dead body afaik. If there's some
reason why or how it could matter to them, I have yet to learn what it is.

http://www.google.com/search?q=deer+population

Now, obviously, if such reasoning justifies the practice of
flesh-eating, it must equally justify all breeding of animals for profit
or pastime, when their life
is a fairly happy one.
[...]
Let us heartily accept all that may be said of "the joyfulness of life."
But what is the moral to
be drawn from that fact? Surely not that we are justified in outraging
and
destroying life, to
pamper our selfish appetites, because forsooth we shall then produce
more
of it! But rather that we
should respect the beauty and sanctity of life in others as in
ourselves,
and strive as far as
possible to secure its fullest natural development. This logic of the
larder is the very negation of
a true reverence for life; for it implies that the real lover of animals
is he whose larder is
fullest of them:


If we humans have this capacity to eat and digest meat, a capacity whos
assembly is directed by the genes, why should we justify this instinct in
any way?

We don't need to. But when people like "aras" insist that another
option is the most ethically superior, we need not be afraid to examine
whether or not they have the best idea. As yet they haven't presented
any reason to agree that they do. I'm still waiting to learn, so if you
know
please don't keep it a secret like they do.

If we rule against these human traits do we learn of a way to drug
those parts of the brain so they don't work properly, or perhaps, cut them
out of our brains so they don't bother us any more?

I don't know what they have in mind on that. Probably nothing, as
with a number of other things.

He prayeth best, who eateth best
All things both great and small.

It is the philosophy of the wolf, the shark, the cannibal. If there be
any
truth in such an
argument, let those who believe it have the courage of their
convictions,
and face the inevitable
conclusion.
[...]
[2] "If the motive that might produce the greatest number of the
happiest
cattle would be the
eating of beef, then beef-eating, so far, must be commended. And while,
heretofore, the motive has
not been for the sake of cattle, it is conceivable that, if Vegetarian
convictions should spread
much further, love for cattle would (if it be not psychologically
incompatible) blend with the love
of beef in the minds of the opponents of Vegetarianism. With deeper
insight, new and higher motives
may replace or supplement old ones, and perpetuate but ennoble ancient
practices."-Dr. Stanton Coit.

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.htm
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
After reading all that it's clear The Logic of the Vegan is a very
inaccurate title.
The Logic of Livestock Hatred is accurate. It is well known that vegans
hate meat
to the extent that they would promote veganism even when it results in
the
deaths
of more animals than raising livestock would, as in the case of rice
milk
vs. grass
raised cow milk. It is now established that:

The Logic of the Larder = Decent Animal Welfare
The Logic of the Vegan = The Logic of Livestock Hatred


Why should the style of managing food animals be relevant to the
justifiaction for instinctually killing and eating them? Don't we need to
justify these instincts first before considering the consequences to our
dinner victoms? I am a vegan but freely admit that my body is set up to
instinctually drive me towards both meat and vegetables.

Consider the possibilities;

1. we could just hunt them in the wild and disturb their natural function
as
least as possible before killing and eating them

2. we pen them and treat them as we may before killing them for dinner

3. we stop eating all meat

4. stop eating all vegetables and kill even more animals for fun and fat

Someone said that if I don't vote that I vote because I am a citizen and
am
noted in some statistic and my non-vote influenced something an a
different
way than had I not been born. Whatever we humans do with animals at this
point seem to be problematical to some degree.

We are in the period where it will be determined how much influence
humans
will have on wildlife. "aras" pretend that they want to provide all
animals with
the right to not be killed, while at the same time they contribute to most
of the
same animal deaths that everyone else does. At this point the only things
we
know "ar" has to "offer" a

1. the elimination of domestic animals
2. the elimination of wildlife population control

If we discover some instinctual impulses that are harmful how do we deal
with these inborn activities and structures, for instance, which of these
three solutions apply to the topic?

In full recognition of the struggle for women's rights that is now spreading
throughout the world, each society must make one or the other of the three
following choices:

1. Condition its members so as to exaggerate sexual differences in behavior.
This is the pattern in almost all cultures. It results more often than not
in domination of women by men and exclusion of women from many professions
and activities. But this need not be the case. In theory at least, a
carefully designed society with strong sexual divisions could be richer in
spirit, more diversified, and even more productive than a unisex society.
Such a society might safeguard human rights even while channeling men and
women into different occupations. Still, some amount of social injustice
would be inevitable, and it could easily expand to disastrous proportions.

2. Train its members so as to eliminate all sexual differences in behavior.
By the use of quotas and sex-biased education it should be possible to
create a society in which men and women as groups share equally in all
professions, cultural activities, and even, to take the absurd extreme,
athletic competition. Although the early predispositions that characterize
sex would have to be blunted, the biological differences are not so large as
to make the undertaking impossible. Such control would offer the great
advantage of eliminating even the hint of group prejudice (in addition to
individual prejudice) based on sex. It could result in a much more
harmonious and productive society. Yet the amount of regulation required
would certainly place some personal freedoms in jeopardy, and at least a few
individuals would not be allowed to reach their full potential.

3. Provide equal opportunities and access but take no further action. To
make no choice at all is of course the third choice open to all cultures.
Laissez-faire on first thought might seem to be the course most congenial to
personal liberty and development, but this is not necessarily true. Even
with identical education for men and women and equal access to all
professions, men are likely to maintain disproportionate representation in
political life, business, and science. Many would fail to participate fully
in the equally important, formative aspects of child rearing. The result
might be legitimately viewed as restrictive on the complete emotional
development of individuals. Just such a divergence and restriction has
occurred in the Israeli kibbutzim, which represent one of the most powerful
experiments in egalitarianism conducted in modern times.

On Human Nature - Edward O. Wilson 1978
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...id=1036537594/

dh@. wrote in message ...
On Tue, 7 Feb 2006 13:23:34 -0800, "Immortalist"
wrote:

Among extant nonhuman primates, chimpanzees are the most ardent meat
eaters.

You may find this interesting:
__________________________________________________ _______

http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/article...ford-full.html


Trying to find the source for the meat for sex theory but can't remember.
Also as the men hunt out further from camp and have to be gone from camp the
power turns matriarchal. The theory is that just before the evolution of the
State males were hunting too far out in the wild, the women took over, the
men come back and fit into this new power structure and take the power and
the state emerged. That was a simplification of the theory. But meat fo sex
hoe-dum---

Promethean Fire - Reflections on the Origins of Mind
Charles J. Lumsdem - E.O. Wilson - 1983
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/1583484256/

As DAWN SPREADS from behind the Ngorongoro peak in East Africa, a dozen
habiline men, women, and children climb westward down a dry stream bed
toward the lakeside camp of a larger band. The encounter between the two
groups is tense. Some of the opposing adults recognize each other, but the
last meeting was months before and memories are dim. The older males
advance. Some stare tight-lipped, a universal primate sign of challenge;
others purse their lips in an expression of growing excitement. A dominant
male of the larger band turns openly hostile. He motions the opposing band
away by swinging his right arm forward as if throwing an object underhand.
But the gesture is ignored. First the adults and then the young mingle. They
extend their hands and touch each other's bodies lightly, talking back and
forth with conciliatory murmuring. The individual sounds are full of meaning
but are probably not true words-not arbitrary symbols strung together to
form sentences. As anxiety subsides, smiling and short bursts of laughter
spread through the group. The young start to gambol, chase each other, and
pretend to fight.

The larger band has surplus meat. On the previous day the foraging males
discovered the fresh corpse of a young hippopotamus sprawled in the mud of a
stream-bed hollow. Several ran off to gather handfuls of large basaltic
pebbles for conversion into tools. One of the habilines selected a stone six
centimeters in diameter, around which the hand could be curled easily, for
use as a hammerstone. He struck it three or four times against other
pebbles, breaking away irregularly shaped but sharp-edged flakes. The pieces
were then pulled back and forth as little knives, and the remaining cores
became crude choppers. With these implements the hunters cut into the
hippopotamus and pulled away chunks of flesh. They chopped open the brain
case to reach the brain, cracked the rib cage to uncover the heart and
lungs, smashed the long bones to expose the marrow, and sliced the
thick-skinned anterior abdominal wall to lay bare the kidneys, liver, and
spleen. They ate the choicest parts on the spot, then sawed the tough,
fibrous joint ligaments to free a limb for transport back to the home base.
The stone tools were abandoned with the remains of the carcass, to await
discovery by the archaeologist descendants of the hunters one hundred
thousand generations later.

Now, on the following day, the larger band shares its meat with the members
of the smaller one. The excitement the food engenders is intense, and the
aroused habilines communicate eloquently with rapid gestures and vocal
signals. A few of the newcomers are able to eat by unobtrusively pulling
fragments off the pieces held in the hands and mouths of others. But most
must beg for shares, by holding out their upturned palms and whimpering.
That afternoon, stirred by the restless pacing and hand pointing of its
largest male, the smaller band departs for a distant forest enclave. There
are no farewells; none yet exists in the human vocabulary.

FOOD SHARING, conducted in rudimentary form by chimpanzees and carried to
extreme ritualistic heights by modern man, was probably crucial to the
social life of the habilines and as much as any single trait of anatomy
marked the beginning of their long evolutionary ascent. Anthropologists
believe that Homo habilis, unlike any other primate with the possible
exception of the man-apes, both gathered food and carried it for long
distances. The habilines were also unique in the large amounts of animal
food they collected through hunting and scavenging. They enjoyed an
exceptionally broad diet. From time to time, perhaps daily, groups of
foragers left the campsites in search of fruits, berries, nuts, tubers, and
meat. Some of this food must have been eaten on the spot, but a portion was
brought back to the camp to be shared with those band members who remained
behind. The beneficiaries almost certainly included crippled adults and
mothers with infants. From the pattern of wear on the stone choppers, it is
known that the habilines used their tools to cut both large tubers and
animal flesh. It seems likely that adults of both sexes participated in
foraging, but that the males traveled farther and concentrated more on
hunting. Such is the division of labor employed by virtually all living
hunter-gatherer societies. And in this instance the habilines are nicely
bracketed on the other side of the Y-shaped evolutionary tree: when
chimpanzee groups hunt young baboons and monkeys, the lead is usually taken
by the males.

Although the habilines bequeathed us only their bones, meager traces of
food, and the circles of rocks marking their home bases, they must have also
employed a more complicated "soft" industry. Chimpanzees are remarkably
ingenious at inventing and using perishable tools. They crumple leaves and
sponge up water from tree holes, and strip leaves from twigs and fish for
termites by poking the twigs into the nests. They also uproot saplings to
lash enemies and employ twigs as toothpicks. The habilines, with larger
brains and the undisputed capacity to shape stones, almost certainly
possessed at least that varied a repertory. Glynn Isaac, a leading authority
on the reconstruction of Paleolithic environments, has pointed out that the
habits of hunting and carrying food were powerful stimuli for the invention
of other simple tools that might easily have been contrived by intelligent
apes. He believes that the most primitive humans used sticks to spear
animals and dig soil, and that they transported food in turtle shells, bark
trays, and stomach bladders.

Chimpanzees have other, sometimes surprising talents. Under laboratory
conditions they can weave sticks and vines into simple patterns (but cannot
untie knots). They can classify and group objects into abstract classes
according to size and color, distinguish photographs of human beings from
those of all kinds of animals, and draw rough circles and other elementary
figures just short of representational images. When a chimpanzee looks into
a mirror he recognizes himself as something distinct from other members of
his own species. In the original test of that capacity, the psychologist
Gordon G. Gallup put spots of red dye on the heads of chimpanzees under
anesthesia and then allowed them to see their reflections after awakening.
The apes immediately responded by touching their hand to the red spot. We
may conclude that if some habiline Narcissus ever looked into a pool of
still water, he understood that the face staring back was his own image and
not that of a second, ghostly primitive. Perhaps he also thought in some
wordless fashion: this is I, who exists apart from the clamorous band and
will someday die. Scientists, given enough time, might deduce whether this
is true and thereby have something to say about the evolutionary history of
the self and of the soul.

Biologists and psychologists alike speak of flexibility as an advanced trait
and, sure enough, chimpanzees and great apes have more varied behavior than
monkeys. When given a toy or some other novel object to examine, they touch
it with more of their body parts, hold and manipulate it in a greater
variety of ways, and are generally less predictable in moment-to-moment
responses. As a corollary, young chimpanzees play and explore more than
other animals, yet much less than modern human children and adults. We can
again assume that the problematic habilines lay somewhere in between. Play
extends the variability of behavior mightily and opens numerous
possibilities for cultural innovation in both animals and man. John and
Janice Baldwin described a remarkable example involving a two-year-old
squirrel monkey named Corwin. Occasionally Corwin dropped food pellets,
which bounced off his cage floor. He turned the accident into a game in
which he deliberately dropped pellets and chased them as they bounced
around. One day as he was leaping upward a pellet flew out of his hand and
ricocheted through the upper part of the cage before settling to the floor.
Corwin then started to release pellets deliberately as he jumped, making the
game more complicated. Finally, he learned to toss the pellets up into the
air and catch them in his mouth.

Such antics can sometimes be turned to advantage. One of the subordinate
male chimpanzees studied by Jane Goodall at the Gombe Stream National Park
in Tanzania learned to bang two empty kerosene cans together. He then used
the extraordinary movement and noise to augment his threat displays and, as
a result, rose to dominance in just a few days over larger males in the
troop. Another, partially crippled chimpanzee observed by Geza Teleki
compensated for his lack of mobility during hunting by dashing the head of a
prey repeatedly against tree trunks. How easy it would be to evolve to a
more humanlike behavior, to change from hitting a stick with a head to
hitting a head with a stick. The habilines or their immediate ancestors
almost certainly took this step. They inaugurated the long and malevolent
lineage of weaponry, which in its final nuclear form could annihilate Homo
and demonstrate-in a conclusive and unexpected manner-that culture is indeed
superior to heredity.

Of the chimpanzee epigenetic rules, those processes by which the ape's mind
is assembled step by step, we know almost nothing. The course of chimpanzee
intellectual development has been charted to some extent by psychologists
who have extended conventional work on humans to include these apes. As a
result we have an increasingly clear picture of how well chimp infants can
manipulate objects. We also know the age at which growing youngsters can
solve elementary puzzles, memorize the meaning of symbols, and practice
primitive forms of art. But tests on choice, by which apes are allowed to
pick among flavors in drinks, geometric designs, ways of holding objects,
facial expressions, and so forth, have not been undertaken. And little
wonder: the importance of such analyses for basic theory are still largely
unappreciated even in the case of human beings. It is clear that epigenetic
rules of mental development do exist in these animals and that they are
subject to bias just as in human beings. Chimpanzees avoid incest in a
humanlike manner, consistently rejecting as sexual partners those band
members with whom they were most closely associated as juveniles. They also
have at least one kind of response that outwardly resembles a human phobia.
When chimpanzees were shown a stuffed leopard in the African wilds, their
reaction was explosive. They dashed about barking and shouting, hugged and
kissed each other, and voided their bowels. Some broke off saplings to lash
the "monster," and finally, when the harmlessness of the stuffed animal
became apparent, the troop closed in to inspect it with what can only be
categorized as awe.

These accounts of course rank as no more than suggestive anecdotes. But they
also point the way to definitive experiments. It should be relatively easy
to compare the responses of the apes to similar, competing stimuli-for
example to leopards as opposed to lions and hyenas-through successive ages
and degrees of previous experience. A pattern of cognitive development will
emerge, and when the information is matched point by point with the rapidly
accumulating data on human mental development, the bracketing technique can
be used to sketch a tentative picture of the mind of Homo habilis. Then it
will be possible to assess with greater confidence the events that occurred
during the ascent from the habilines to modern man.

What we have in the interim is a substantial mass of information on the way
of life of Homo eredus, the transitional human species that arose from Homo
habilis about 1.5 million years ago and gave rise to Homo sapiens a million
years later.

The fragments of bone and stone tools that Homo eredus left behind have led
archeologists to form a portrait of a human being more intelligent than the
apes and Homo habilis. The eredus bands followed complicated patterns of
migration through base camps and temporary resting sites, while pursuing
different game according to season. To exploit the environment through such
a long-term rotation must have required improvements in memory, foresight,
and leadership. What is more, for such skinny, fangless bipeds to hunt
animals as large as elephants, in fact just to seize the fallen bodies from
other scavengers, required impressive skills. The elephants might have
simply blundered into swamps and bogged down in the syrupy mud. But it is
just as likely that they were driven into such natural traps. How could a
small group of human beings herd panicked and very dangerous animals ten
times their weight? A good answer is fire. Bits of charcoal are distributed
around the ancient hunting sites in a pattern suggesting that Homo eredus
set fires that swept over large areas of grass and brush. "My guess," the
anthropologist F. Clark Howell has written, "is that the purpose was to
drive elephants along the valley into the swamps." We are evidently in the
presence of a creature far above the level of the most intelligent animals,
one that can be called human in a fuller sense. Much of the available
information can be summarized in another fictional scenario.

A Homo eredus toolmaker squats on a stony ridge and searches the terrain
below him. Nearby he sees the rising smoke of the campfire and the hurrying
figures of the newly arrived band members as they drag in tree branches for
firewood and shelter. He listens to a familiar cacophony: the cracking of
wood, shouts, laughter, a steady murmur of primitive speech-vocal signals
delivered emotionally, perhaps a scattering of true words. His eyes quarter
along the more distant terrain, south across an expanse of wind-stunted
pines and copses to the deep-blue arc of the Mediterranean Sea. He thinks
briefly about what may lie beyond, on the other side. No hope of ever
knowing. It is mid-morning, one million years ago.

The band has been on the move for days. How many the tool-maker does not
know and cannot conceive. His days are hour-less, he has no concept of
years, and higher numbers are forever beyond him. But like all of his kind,
he senses the change of time in the daily passage of the sun and stars, in
the seasonal cycles of the grass and wildflowers and movement of game. These
matters he knows very well, and in them he is wise even by modern human
standards. They fill his thoughts now, after a sleepless night of dread.

Early in the evening before, as the light failed, the band was visited by a
pride of hunting lions. The lionesses circled the human bivouac briefly.
They crouched facing the huddled band, their tails switching lightly from
side to side, the telltale intention movements of the hungry predator. Then
inexplicably they rose in unison and left. But they did not travel far.
Through the night the band heard an occasional deep cough, a rustle of
disturbed shrubs and fallen branches here and there. The lions were still
hunting, now deterred by the smoldering campfire. The human watchers very
likely wondered what else might be out there moving in the night. Perhaps
the strange stumptailed cats with saberlike teeth, a vicious pack of hyenas,
and other, formless horrors belonging more to the imagination than to
reality, the forerunners of monsters and bogeymen. Better to have a
generalized fear of the dark and to shrink thrilled and apprehensive from
the unknown than to take time to learn and deal with each menace in turn. On
this night, deep in Homo erectus time, men occupy a paradoxical position
within the ecosystem. Their tools and organized movements are turning them
into the greatest predators of all time; yet their thin, slow bodies render
them prey for the most powerful of their carnivore rivals.

The toolmaker picks up a hammerstone in his right hand. It is a quartzite
pebble slightly larger than a clenched fist, tapered to a blunt edge.
Extending his left hand he selects a round unworked stone of equal size. As
he makes these first movements a group of children halt a game of
king-of-the-mountain and climb the slope to watch. The toolmaker hefts and
turns the two stones in his hands. He is judging, choosing, thinking of the
finished product, why it is needed, to whom it will be given, and how it
will be used. His mind at this instant is a flurry of competing
possibilities. He settles on a sequence of steps. Concepts of vision and
sound crowd through his consciousness in the form of a time series, like
labeled beads sliding along a string. Perhaps he links silent words with the
concepts that pass in review, so as to say roughly: "Strike . . . turn .. .
edge ... ax ... give .. . brother . .. horse." He will dress an ax to give
to his brother for the butchering of a horse. This Ur-language, if summoned,
is a poor accompaniment to the rich and fluid imagery of the concepts upon
which, in the course of human evolution, they are being grafted. A stunning
linguistic efflorescence will ensue sometime during the next million years.

The toolmaker holds the rough stone in his upturned palm and grips it
tightly with his fingers. He pulls his arm close to the chest, tenses, and
strikes down hard with the hammerstone. A chip flies to the side, leaving a
concave depression and a sharp ridge along the thin edge of the stone. In
the next hour the tool-maker repeats the process fifty times: turn and
examine, grip, and strike. With shorter, more precise blows he trims the
opposite sides into a double edge. In the end an almond-shaped hand ax
emerges. It is a fine example of the Acheulean industry, the mark of Homo
erectus culture, elegant in comparison with the crude choppers of Homo
habilis yet still far inferior to the splendid stone instruments later made
by Homo sapiens. For some reason the toolmaker chooses to stop at around
fifty percussions instead of proceeding to the hundred or more required for
a significantly more refined tool. Perhaps he cannot conceive of anything
better. His most ambitious fantasies cannot reach much further than the tool
he now cups in his hands.

The toolmaker descends to the camp, trailing his entourage of children. The
simple bowl-shaped shelters have been completed. A group of foragers is
leaving at this moment to search for tubers, berries, and small animals, and
with any luck to sight big game. There will be a sharing of food and
exchange of tools.

In several days the band will move on toward a winter rendezvous point.
There they will join a friendly group, composed of familiar faces. Some of
the adults will be recognized generically as kin. In the ancient hominoid
manner there will be an exchange of young females. The communication will be
intense, an emotional mixture of sounds and quick gestures. There may also
be some true words-short, distinctive sounds used as symbols and conveying
arbitrarily chosen meaning.

Some of the men will organize long-distance marches to hunt big game. Their
parties will move with growing circumspection as they approach a distant
stream that runs to the sea. There lies the territorial boundaries of
strangers. During vicious raids those aliens have killed members of the
band, and a few have fallen in turn. Although they look the same (and are in
fact Homo erectus), these creatures seem wicked and not truly human. They
are almost as little known as the unseen forces patrolling the night. If
they could be destroyed or driven away, the entire band would experience
indescribable relief and joy. There would be an urge to stripe the body with
ochre and to dance.

So THE HUMAN MIND was growing genetically more complex during the
million-year transitional period of Homo erectus. But although erectus
evolution was quick relative to that of most other organisms, it was
glacially slow in comparison with the acceleration that later carried Homo
sapiens from the Paleolithic era to the beginnings of civilization. In some
localities there was even a deterioration rather than an improvement in
toolmaking skills over periods of a few hundred thousand years. These
anomalies can be explained by recognizing that the whole erectus population,
which extended all the way from Africa to eastern Asia, was composed of
thousands of groups isolated from one another by rivers, mountain ranges,
and sheer distance. The bands probably contained no more than thirty or
forty members, and of those only several were likely to have been skilled
toolmakers. If the best craftsman died in a hunting accident, the abilities
of the group as a whole might easily have been set back for years.

The size of the Homo erectus brain nevertheless grew centimeter by
centimeter-it eased its way upward for a million years.

Promethean Fire - Reflections on the Origins of Mind
Charles J. Lumsdem - E.O. Wilson - 1983
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/1583484256/

"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Immortalist" wrote in message
news:025Gf.39300$bF.20115@dukeread07...
..
If we humans have this capacity to eat and digest meat,

'Scientists may have found meat link to colon cancer
Wed Feb 1, 2006 12:38 AM ET

By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists said on Tuesday they may
have found a reason why eating too much red meat increases
the risk of colorectal cancer.


"Too much red meat" being the key point, here.

regards
Milan

dh@. wrote
On Tue, 7 Feb 2006 12:01:06 -0800, "Dutch" wrote:


dh@. wrote
The Logic of the Larder means decent AW.

No, it doesn't.

Your hero said it does:

"when their life is a fairly happy one." - Salt

That's not the Logic of the Larder, it is one of the supposed preconditions
for applying the Logic of the Larder, however you don't even bother with
that step, as you demonstrate when you wistfully "consider" the many
billions of animals raised for food since we began this discussion, with NO
stipulation of their welfare.

When Singer pondered embracing The Logic of The Larder as a utilitarian
principle at The Salatin Farm it was contingent on the animals living long,
peaceful lives. You have stripped that concern away with your crass
kiddie-porn version of it.

The Logic of the Larder has *nothing* to do with animal
welfare.

That's a lie.

Animal welfare exists as a principle independent of ****witted logic like
The Logic of the Larder or AR.

****wit David Harrison, ignorant unlettered redneck cracker, typically
got it wrong:
The Logic of the Larder means decent AW.
__________________________________________________ _______
Logic of the Larder

by Henry S. Salt

Excerpted from The Humanities of Diet. Manchester: The Vegetarian Society, 1914

It is often said, as an excuse for the slaughter of animals, that it is better for them to live and
to be butchered than not to live at all. Now, obviously, if such reasoning justifies the practice of
flesh-eating, it must equally justify all breeding of animals for profit or pastime, when their life
is a fairly happy one.

****wit, you colossal dumbshit ****wit: Salt does *not* in any way
believe that one can "...justify all breeding of animals for profit or
pastime, when their life is a fairly happy one." You ignorant lying
cracker cousin-****ing hick, you're leaving out the the crucial bit of
his logic in your ****witted, perverse conclusion:

"*IF* such reasoning [that it is better for them to live and to be
butchered than not to live at all] justifies the practice of
flesh-eating..." [emphasis added]

Salt says the "reasoning" is shit, ****wit. It *is* shit. "[i]t is
better for them to live and to be butchered than not to live at all" is
utterly specious and FALSE, ****wit. That is the entire point of
Salt's essay: the FALSENESS of your underlying belief. Since your
underlying belief is SHIT, ****wit, all the rest of the house of cards
you have built on that ****witted, FALSE belief comes tumbling down and
is blown away.
flesh-eating