• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Would we be smart without meat?

DC

Banned
DC
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
23,064
In a debate with friends about meat, the clame came up that, would Humans not have started eating meat, we would not have evolved such a good working brain. we would not be that inteligent as we are today.
the claim was based on the premise that nothing delivered that much energy and proteins in compact form back then.

what do you think about the claim?


ps: as meat or not meat is Philosophy, i posted it in this section.
 
My original instinct was this was really a question for the science section, not philosophy, but given how so much of anthroplogy and archaeology is based on guess work and "Just so" stories - philosophy may be the right place.

There's really two separate questions -

(1) did eating meat cause (or contribute directly) to the evolution of large brains
(2) did eating meat allow for the evolution of large brains

My opinion is that (1) may have some truth with regard to fish, but not necessarily other meats and (2) may have allowed for it given the metabolic needs of a large brain, but so did the art of cooking, which releases many nutrients in plant based diets.
 
My guess would be that being predators leads to more intelligence. In general, it seems that predatory animals are more intelligent than herbivores.
 
At a wild guess I'd think it helped at least
We lack the natural weapons of most carnivores so in order to get larger prey animals humanity's ancestors needed to develop both extensive tool use and coordination, which probably formed the basis for language.

But I'm no expert in this at all, just guessing
 
Pack mentality is not the same as herd mentality. Primates and wolves are social animals in a completely different way than sheep and cows are. I have no studies for you... only my direct observation.

Also, hunting creates a complex common goal which does not exist in the herbivore world. This also suggests a need for communication of some type.
 
Last edited:
icerat said:
(1) did eating meat cause (or contribute directly) to the evolution of large brains
(2) did eating meat allow for the evolution of large brains
Click to expand...

How about this:

The availability of meat created an environmental niche for large-brained primates.
 
icerat said:
My opinion is that (1) may have some truth with regard to fish, but not necessarily other meats and (2) may have allowed for it given the metabolic needs of a large brain, but so did the art of cooking, which releases many nutrients in plant based diets.
Click to expand...

I've heard that cooking also led to further advances in communication, beyond the realm of pragmatic communication used in hunting and into the domain of storytelling, small talk, etc. Homonids who were able to do this around the campfire instead of bashing each other's heads in had an evolutionary advantage.
 
To successfully kill large animals people needed
1. Complex language
2. The ability to predict what everyone else will do. This includes the potential meat.
3. Social pecking order. This means who gives orders to whom.
4. A group of 50+ people in a tribe.
5. The ability to make tools.

This required a high level of intelligence.

However I thought most primates ate meat?

edit. Also eating meat saves a lot of time. Herbivores spend a lot of time eating.
 
Last edited:
rjh01 said:
To successfully kill large animals people needed
1. Complex language
2. The ability to predict what everyone else will do. This includes the potential meat.
3. Social pecking order. This means who gives orders to whom.
4. A group of 50+ people in a tribe.
5. The ability to make tools.

This required a high level of intelligence.

However I thought most primates ate meat?
Click to expand...

I think most are herbivores who eat meat when they can but live mostly on plants, which move much slower.

A group of 50 individuals would require a LOT of nearby prey to provide a primarily meaty diet.
 
DC said:
In a debate with friends about meat, the clame came up that, would Humans not have started eating meat, we would not have evolved such a good working brain. we would not be that inteligent as we are today.
the claim was based on the premise that nothing delivered that much energy and proteins in compact form back then.

what do you think about the claim?


ps: as meat or not meat is Philosophy, i posted it in this section.
Click to expand...
If the developing humans had ate fish instead of red meat wed all be geniuses.
 
rjh01 said:
However I thought most primates ate meat?
Click to expand...

They do, but mostly to supplement their diet.

Take Chimpanzee, for example:

They also eat many different types of insects, however termites are the most nutritionally important. Termites are collected either by hand or with tools which are modified by the chimp and specifically used for this purpose. Many zoos, including the Honolulu Zoo, have built termite mounds to simulate this natural behavior of feeding. See our termite mound enrichment. Females spend twice as much time eating insects as males do. Birds are occasionally eaten. Mammals such as monkeys, pigs and antelope are also eaten, particularly by males, but along with termites only account for about 5% of their diet.

http://www.honoluluzoo.org/chimpanzee.htm

To put it in perspective, 5% of a diet for an adult male human would be slightly more than one large glass of a soft drink (assuming 2500 kcal/day diet, that's 125 kcal). Taking Coca-Cola for example, it has 97 calories for 8 fl.oz (~250 ml), so 3 dl gets you over that.

Another telling part, from a paragraph just above this one:
They will spend many hours a day eating about 20 different species of plants (...)

It would seem the answer to the OP is a clear "nope, we wouldn't".

McHrozni
 
RenaissanceBiker said:
Must ... resist ... herbivore ... joke.
Click to expand...
Just don't resist the herbivore, rubbed in garlic and sage, lightly coated in olive oil ... slow smoked over a coal and mesquite fire, ... and served with a nice vegan accompaniment, red whine.

Mmmmmmm

Reply to OP: concentrated protein is meat, and IIRC there is a correlation (not an expert here) related to protein in diet and brain development. Article in SCIAM some years ago, I think, is where I first saw this.

DR
 
Chimps hunt; they hunt and kill small game (being quite fond of monkeys, apparently) in a cooperative and coordinated manner.
It's a fair assumption that our own ancestors behaved similarly prior to any capability for attacking larger game with weapons.
As well, proto-humans would have been quite capable of scavenging.
 
DC said:
In a debate with friends about meat, the clame came up that, would Humans not have started eating meat, we would not have evolved such a good working brain. we would not be that inteligent as we are today.
the claim was based on the premise that nothing delivered that much energy and proteins in compact form back then.

what do you think about the claim?


ps: as meat or not meat is Philosophy, i posted it in this section.
Click to expand...

we always had a good working brain, you can look at homo skulls dating back millions of years to see that, what youre talking about is the adaption of a tree/forest dwelling mostly herbivorous ape like ancestor into an upright meat eating ancestor. Thats about 8 million years ago. We learned to walk upright to enable us to survive on the plains, so its quite obvious that we must have had that brain development already, because otherwise, the hundreds of thousands of years walking around without realising we could see further standing up would have caused that ancestral line to become extinct pretty quick.

Meat may have helped the final stages of brain development, but it was already evolving way before then, this isn't a hypothetical, its a fact

Our oldest known possible ancestral species Sahelanthropus tchadensis had a brain size equivalent to that of a modern chimpanzee. This was some million years before chimpanzees split from the homo line. So they had a decent brain 7 million years ago. and this was a time when they were evolving bipedalism
220px-SahelanthropustchadensisZICA.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahelanthropus
;)
 
Would we be smart without meat?

Come on ya which one is it? Is it red heroin, add hominy, scarecrow, bats n witches, booty itches smelly britches needy stitches heck I can't remember them all. Does any other fellow see a fallacy ?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom