Thread: Is hunting morally acceptable in modern society?

Originally Posted by Ditch

snipped a bunch of irrelevant stuff...

I honestly don't know what you're going off about here.

This started with your comment about "predators" (incorrect use of the term, by the way) have two eyes for locating and stalking prey.

The counter to this was that two eyes are not indicative of locating or stalking prey, and may, in fact, serve or have arisen from other survival necessities.

To which you started spouting off about teeth and eating meat.

Look, no one here has said ANYTHING about humans not using meat as an important staple of their diet. So I don't know who you're trying to convince or of what.

Originally Posted by Ditch

You are correct about teeth designed for tearing flesh. However, that also doesn't necessarily require a creature to be a "hunter."

Animals might require flesh-tearing teeth, yet be primarily or solely scavengers.

Scavengers eat meat.

This, of course, presumes that man evolved and lived solely in conditions where winter was a hardship.

There is an abundance of evidence that early man hunted and ate animals such as mastodons.

Meat-eating has impacted the evolution of the human body, scientists reported today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Our fondness for a juicy steak triggered a number of adaptations over countless generations. For instance, our jaws have gotten smaller, and we have an improved ability to process cholesterol and fat.



Our taste for meat has also led us into some trouble—our teeth are too big for our downsized jaws and most of us need dental work.
"It's really amazing what we know now that we didn't know 15 or 20 years ago," said Mark Teaford, a professor at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University. Teaford helped organize a panel discussion on human diet from a number of perspectives:
• How did the ability to eat meat shape the evolution of humans?
• What can we learn about early humans from tooth shape?
Carnivorous humans go back a long way. Stone tools for butchering meat, and animal bones with corresponding cut marks on them, first appear in the fossil record about 2.5 million years ago.
How Did Meat-Eating Start?
Some early humans may have started eating meat as a way to survive within their own ecological niche.
Competition from other species may be a key element of natural selection that has molded anatomy and behavior, according to Craig B. Stanford, an ecologist at the University of Southern California (USC).
Stanford has spent years visiting the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda, Africa, studying the relationship between mountain gorillas and chimpanzees.
"It's the only forest where mountain gorillas and chimps both live," he said. "We're trying to understand the ecological relationship—do they compete for food, for nesting sites?"
The key difference between chimps and gorillas ecologically is that chimps eat meat and gorillas don't. A total herbivore is able to coexist with an omnivore because they have significantly different diets.




Spears were not used for gathering tubers. Bones have been found in caves.

All of this supports the assertion that we adapted to meat, rather than evolved as carnivores. A carnivore can remain healthy on a diet consisting solely of meat. Humans cannot, Humans are omnivores.

Maybe someone should just delete the thing again. Gumby...???

Originally Posted by Terry D

All of this supports the assertion that we adapted to meat, rather than evolved as carnivores. A carnivore can remain healthy on a diet consisting solely of meat. Humans cannot, Humans are omnivores.

the Eskimos of North America and Lapps of Scandinavia lived almost entirely on animal protein and were very healthy.

What Can the Diet of Gorillas Tell Us About a Healthy Diet for Humans?

Originally Posted by Blood

What Can the Diet of Gorillas Tell Us About a Healthy Diet for Humans?

I've never tried a diet of gorillas, but I'm sure some activist somewhere would frown on it.

Although I am pro-hunting, there is an interesting moral question to eating meat. Even if humans did evolve with meat as a part of their diets, should we now, when there are alternatives to meat with comparable nutritional value, continue eating something that comes from the pain of another living thing? It's also less economic; livestock takes more resources to maintain than crops.

Originally Posted by caelum

It's also less economic; livestock takes more resources to maintain than crops.

Read the article Blood posted. Crops are also a pretty big drain on resources. Especially space and natural environments. And most of the grain crops provide questionable nutritional value post-processing anyway.

I'm not saying your argument is without merit regarding resources. Rather, I think when it comes to space and other resource considerations, crops versus livestock kind of becomes a half a dozen of one, six of the other.

Originally Posted by Zuiun

Read the article Blood posted. Crops are also a pretty big drain on resources. Especially space and natural environments. And most of the grain crops provide questionable nutritional value post-processing anyway.

I'm not saying your argument is without merit regarding resources. Rather, I think when it comes to space and other resource considerations, crops versus livestock kind of becomes a half a dozen of one, six of the other.

There is really no comparison. Pound for pound, far more resources are expended to produce meat than to produce grains, fruits and vegetables. Livestock consume many times more food than they produce. Space for grazing is vast and intrusive. Speaking of "natural environments," huge areas of rain forest have been cut down and destroyed for cattle.

Originally Posted by Ditch

I do pride myself for being self sufficient in the wild. I know how to navigate by the stars or by making a sun compass. i can make my own fish hooks or traps, snares for small animals and such but prefer a bow or black powder rifle.

I don't like killing animals (humans maybe I don't take too much exception to) but I wish I knew how to do that stuff.

I recall seeing a Amerindian on television once. He was raised in the forests of some Latin American country. He said city folks in his country made fun of him when he eventually made the move to the city. But he said something else very interesting. He stated that it takes many men years, I think decades even, to learn how to adapt to life and survival in the forest if they come from the city. He went on to say "...but it only takes me a short time to learn to adapt and survive in the city."

Originally Posted by Zuiun

This, of course, presumes that man evolved and lived solely in conditions where winter was a hardship.

There is quite a lot of evidence to suggest differently. The evidence suggests that we migrated / expanded into such regions.

Read again what Terry wrote. Carefully this time. He said we adapted. That doesn't discount the notion that eating meat helped us tremendously.

Yeah, it's my understanding that humans are essentially tropical creatures. That's what I read doing a report on the effects of nuclear winter. Without clothing humans can not survive snowy winters or temperatures so cold it can't snow.

Originally Posted by Writ-with-Hand

Yeah, it's my understanding that humans are essentially tropical creatures. That's what I read doing a report on the effects of nuclear winter. Without clothing humans can not survive snowy winters or temperatures so cold it can't snow.

It all started in and around the grasslands of the Rift Valley of east Africa, around 5-6 million years ago. These early hominids evolved and moved out where they further evolved into homo sapien and homo neandertal, the latter of whom we either assimilated or out competed in Europe. Interesting subject.

Originally Posted by Ditch
snipped a bunch of irrelevant stuff...

Originally Posted by Zuiun

I honestly don't know what you're going off about here.

This started with your comment about "predators" (incorrect use of the term, by the way) have two eyes for locating and stalking prey.

The counter to this was that two eyes are not indicative of locating or stalking prey, and may, in fact, serve or have arisen from other survival necessities.

To which you started spouting off about teeth and eating meat.

Look, no one here has said ANYTHING about humans not using meat as an important staple of their diet. So I don't know who you're trying to convince or of what.

I searched this entire thread, I never said "snipped a bunch of irrelevant stuff" that I can see. where, exactly did that come from? This thread was dead for a few weeks, then Krell I believe came on slamming everyone for killing animals and eating meat. That is where I came back with the fact that men have always eaten meat as far as history can record them.

I don't call your responses "spouting off" and would appreciate the same respect from you. We can speculate all we want about why people have canine teeth but nobody really knows, do they? The logical explanation would be to shear meat. The same goes for binocular vision, we really don't know why certain animals have their eyes on the front of their heads, but I read that it was to focus and hunt game. People are quick to make speculations that we "evolved" a certain way, yet use a gorilla as an example of canine teeth and binocular vision on a vegetarian. Gorillas just as well could have "evolved" to eat only plants and their canine teeth are simply left overs. The fact remains, we don't really know. We do know that early man was a hunter and yes, a predator and ate meat.

Originally Posted by caelum

Although I am pro-hunting, there is an interesting moral question to eating meat. Even if humans did evolve with meat as a part of their diets, should we now, when there are alternatives to meat with comparable nutritional value, continue eating something that comes from the pain of another living thing? It's also less economic; livestock takes more resources to maintain than crops.

The real compromise may becoming in the next few years. Several different groups of researchers are working on ways to grow meat (from stem cells) of various types in the lab. Someday soon we may have the meat without the animal.

Originally Posted by Ditch

Originally Posted by Ditch
snipped a bunch of irrelevant stuff...




I searched this entire thread, I never said "snipped a bunch of irrelevant stuff" that I can see. where, exactly did that come from? This thread was dead for a few weeks, then Krell I believe came on slamming everyone for killing animals and eating meat. That is where I came back with the fact that men have always eaten meat as far as history can record them.

I don't call your responses "spouting off" and would appreciate the same respect from you. We can speculate all we want about why people have canine teeth but nobody really knows, do they? The logical explanation would be to shear meat. The same goes for binocular vision, we really don't know why certain animals have their eyes on the front of their heads, but I read that it was to focus and hunt game. People are quick to make speculations that we "evolved" a certain way, yet use a gorilla as an example of canine teeth and binocular vision on a vegetarian. Gorillas just as well could have "evolved" to eat only plants and their canine teeth are simply left overs. The fact remains, we don't really know. We do know that early man was a hunter and yes, a predator and ate meat.

The fact is we do know how human physiology evolved, and we do know that no primates evolved as carnivores including humans. The fact that humans long ago adapted to eat meat has never been in question here. The question has been the assertion that humans evolved as carnivores and that is without a doubt not the case.

Originally Posted by Terry D

The real compromise may becoming in the next few years. Several different groups of researchers are working on ways to grow meat (from stem cells) of various types in the lab. Someday soon we may have the meat without the animal.

Laboratory grown meat will probably be as full of estrogen as our beef is now. They learned in the 30's that if cows were injected with certain hormones they would produce more milk. Then they began injecting them with estrogen so they put on a lot more weight without consuming more food. So we are feeding our young girls as well as our young boys the female hormone. Studies are inconclusive if this leads to early puberty in girls, scientific studies that is. But I think that most older men on this forum will agree that when we went to school, there were a few girls who developed breasts early. It seems that the young women of today are maturing at a much earlier age and breast development is occurring at a much younger age. What is it doing to our young men? Hormones in the meat has been linked to cancer.

Another good reason to harvest natural meat from animals in the wild.