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Post by theropod on Jun 23, 2019 21:05:53 GMT 5
Medicine is a science. Period. Medical doctors usually work outside of academia and may not do much research work, they are fully qualified in their field, which is looking after human health. That also applies to dietitians, dietary science is a science, and of course dietitians are scientists, even if they pursue careers outside of academia. Both are highly qualified to give you dietary advice, more so than most biologists. They might not be qualified to do evolutionary biology, but the questions of whether veganism is healthy and whether humans are herbivores¹ don’t require a background in evolutionary biology. Now of course any scientist, whether they are a doctor or a biologist by training, can still be just as wrong or biased about something (there are certainly trained doctors out there purporting wrong information in support of their own ideology, just as there are biologists who do the same). While a trained professional will of course be on average more reliable than any random person, their status is no replacement for looking at what they did to arrive at their conclusion. rock : There is a huge and profound difference between years of courses at a university and what passes for a biology class at a high school. I hope you realize that. ¹And no, of course humans aren’t herbivores, the simple fact that we don’t get an adequate supply of vitamin B12 from plants is pretty unequivocal evidence of that. The simplest test of whether something is a herbivore is to make the (thought-) experiment of what happens if you put it on an exclusively plant-based diet, which fails spectacularly with humans even assuming otherwise ideal circumstances (varied and high-quality plant matter available year-round, in large amounts), unless we use synthetic dietary supplements.yeah i do think scientists know more than doctors in terms of biology Seriously? That was what you took away from my post? @creature: Ok, that’s a funny hypothesis. Who says that bacteria found in dirt provide adequate quantities of vitamin B12? |
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Post by creature386 on Jun 23, 2019 21:16:00 GMT 5
I've found this on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12However, it does seem that the plants we can eat have additional bacteria which make it difficult for us to get vitamin B12 out of them: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29216732So, if humans could digest grass (and wouldn't get sick from eating it dirty), maybe we could live herbivorously. |
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Post by theropod on Jun 23, 2019 21:27:19 GMT 5
Do we know if the same bacteria can also survive and thrive in a human gut? EDIT: Also, would we have to eat our own feces in order to benefit from them? I find that question sort of relevant  |
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Post by creature386 on Jun 23, 2019 21:34:41 GMT 5
Do we know if the same bacteria can also survive and thrive in a human gut? Yes, but they're useless for us:(from the Wiki article on B12) EDIT: Also, would we have to eat our own feces in order to benefit from them? I find that question sort of relevant I actually wanted to write something about that, but you beat me to it. If our ancestors were indeed herbivores, they most likely could not have survived otherwise (and they would have needed special adaptions in their feces like rabbits do). |
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Post by theropod on Jun 23, 2019 21:52:20 GMT 5
Thanks, that answers my question then  I stand corrected: Humans are absolutely 100% herbivores, given that we hibernate (to avoid the winter, when there’s no suitable plantmatter naturally available in most parts of the planet), eat our own feces (to take in vital nutrients only available through hindgut fermentation), and do that all day long (to build up sufficient nutrient storage for hibernation). Or maybe omnivores. |
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rock
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Post by rock on Jun 23, 2019 21:56:52 GMT 5
Thanks, that answers my question then I stand corrected: Humans are absolutely 100% herbivores, given that we hibernate (to avoid the winter, when there’s no suitable plantmatter naturally available in most parts of the planet), eat our own feces (to take in vital nutrients only available through hindgut fermentation), and do that all day long (to build up sufficient nutrient storage for hibernation). Or maybe omnivores. humans are not herbivores! we are omnivores , if humans are herbivores then why do we have a stomach PH OF 1.5-3.5? for eating meat , yes , anyhow i will send a link debunking this |
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rock
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Post by rock on Jun 23, 2019 21:57:55 GMT 5
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rock
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Post by rock on Jun 23, 2019 21:59:06 GMT 5
Thanks, that answers my question then I stand corrected: Humans are absolutely 100% herbivores, given that we hibernate (to avoid the winter, when there’s no suitable plantmatter naturally available in most parts of the planet), eat our own feces (to take in vital nutrients only available through hindgut fermentation), and do that all day long (to build up sufficient nutrient storage for hibernation). Or maybe omnivores. bears are omnivores and they hibernate |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Jun 23, 2019 21:59:24 GMT 5
Thanks, that answers my question then I stand corrected: Humans are absolutely 100% herbivores, given that we hibernate (to avoid the winter, when there’s no suitable plantmatter naturally available in most parts of the planet), eat our own feces (to take in vital nutrients only available through hindgut fermentation), and do that all day long (to build up sufficient nutrient storage for hibernation). Or maybe omnivores. humans are not herbivores! we are omnivores , if humans are herbivores then why do we have a stomach PH OF 1.5-3.5? for eating meat , yes , anyhow i will send a link debunking this He was clearly being sarcastic... |
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rock
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Post by rock on Jun 23, 2019 22:02:51 GMT 5
humans are not herbivores! we are omnivores , if humans are herbivores then why do we have a stomach PH OF 1.5-3.5? for eating meat , yes , anyhow i will send a link debunking this He was clearly being sarcastic... oh ok |
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rock
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Post by rock on Jun 23, 2019 22:03:17 GMT 5
Thanks, that answers my question then I stand corrected: Humans are absolutely 100% herbivores, given that we hibernate (to avoid the winter, when there’s no suitable plantmatter naturally available in most parts of the planet), eat our own feces (to take in vital nutrients only available through hindgut fermentation), and do that all day long (to build up sufficient nutrient storage for hibernation). Or maybe omnivores. is this a joke or are you being sarcastic? |
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Post by creature386 on Jun 23, 2019 22:15:35 GMT 5
I've found this on Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12 However, it does seem that the plants we can eat have additional bacteria which make it difficult for us to get vitamin B12 out of them:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29216732 So, if humans could digest grass (and wouldn't get sick from eating it dirty), maybe we could live herbivorously. humans cannot eat grass www.livescience.com/32435-why-cant-humans-eat-grass.htmlI'm aware of that. If you struggle with English, let me explain you a thing or two about "if" clauses. "If" clauses are used to make conditional statements (if X then Y). The tense tells you how likely the condition is. If + simple present + will (or just another simple present verb) = the condition is likely. If I had considered humans eating grass to be likely, I would have written: "If humans can eat grass, maybe we can live herbivorously." However, the fact that I used an if + simple past + would (or could, in this case) sentence meant I found the condition (humans being able to eat grass) to be either very unlikely or outright false. And theropod most definitely used sarcasm. He's aware that we do not eat feces all day. |
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Post by dinosauria101 on Jun 23, 2019 22:26:35 GMT 5
EDIT: Also, would we have to eat our own feces in order to benefit from them? I find that question sort of relevant I second that. Especially cinsidering there's nothing to suggest they taste better than they smell...... |
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Post by theropod on Jun 23, 2019 23:16:20 GMT 5
Thanks, that answers my question then I stand corrected: Humans are absolutely 100% herbivores, given that we hibernate (to avoid the winter, when there’s no suitable plantmatter naturally available in most parts of the planet), eat our own feces (to take in vital nutrients only available through hindgut fermentation), and do that all day long (to build up sufficient nutrient storage for hibernation). Or maybe omnivores. humans are not herbivores! we are omnivores , if humans are herbivores then why do we have a stomach PH OF 1.5-3.5? for eating meat , yes , anyhow i will send a link debunking this |
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Post by theropod on Jun 23, 2019 23:22:17 GMT 5
It was my general impression that no one here is in any doubt regarding humans being omnivores. I assume we are just here to poke some fun at a radical vegan presenting his "alternative" facts (which are wrong, just to be perfectly clear). Humans are of course omnivores. As I already wrote, there is fairly unambiguous evidence of that. But we’ve already discussed this relatively simple matter far more than it deserves.
That being said, I did learn something interesting from this thread, namely the mechanism by which ruminants get their B12 and that it could theoretically work for humans,given the aforementioned adaptations creature and myself outlined. Of course humans do not have those adaptations, which flies totally in the face of any notion that we are herbivores.
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