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"What's amazing is that people even feel the need to study whether breastmilk is superior to processed alternatives " Well it would be great to know just if th

by roel_v 9y ago

"What's amazing is that people even feel the need to study whether breastmilk is superior to processed alternatives " Well it would be great to know just if they're different at all. You seem to think it's 'obvious' that breastmilk is always better; I don't see a logical reason to think so, or at least not so strong that it shouldn't be studied. Yes, the research does show that breastmilk is better. My wife nursed our children until they were 15 and 18 months old, respectively. I'm not some pro-formula-campaigner. But I don't see any reason for naturalistic fallacy-based reasoning, either.

sbenitoj 9y ago
I applaud your wife for investing her time an energy for breastfeeding your children for so long, almost no one breastfeeds that long anymore -- that investment will pay dividends for your children for the rest of their lives. But I have to ask, how is evolution not an "obvious" reason that breastmilk is a superior source of nutrition for baby mammals? Why would every mammal do best on their mother's milk but somehow humans do better on processed junk food powder that didn't exist until 60 years ago?
- roel_v 9y ago
  Because evolution is not an optimizing process? It easily gets stuck in local optima. Look at what a clusterfuck the 'design' of the human body is: from the susceptibility to all sorts of diseases, to the mechanical problems with the spine as support of our whole body weight, to plain weirdness like the appendix. Your argument seems to revolve around the difference between humans and other mammals, with that I would agree - I don't see a reason it'd be different. But your argument also relies on the assumption that for other mammals the mother's milk is better. That's the whole question to be investigated - is it really so? If so, what is it in breast milk that is better? And once we figure that out, how can we put that into something that can more easily be manufactured and used, so that all women can get the advantages that breast milk provides? It's not like 'nature' is some magical thing that imbues mystical powers on matter. It's all physics and chemistry. We don't understand everything about it, maybe we only understand a tiny part of it; so that's why we have to do the research.

by roel_v 9y ago

sbenitoj 9y ago

I applaud your wife for investing her time an energy for breastfeeding your children for so long, almost no one breastfeeds that long anymore -- that investment will pay dividends for your children for the rest of their lives. But I have to ask, how is evolution not an "obvious" reason that breastmilk is a superior source of nutrition for baby mammals? Why would every mammal do best on their mother's milk but somehow humans do better on processed junk food powder that didn't exist until 60 years ago?

roel_v 9y ago
Because evolution is not an optimizing process? It easily gets stuck in local optima. Look at what a clusterfuck the 'design' of the human body is: from the susceptibility to all sorts of diseases, to the mechanical problems with the spine as support of our whole body weight, to plain weirdness like the appendix. Your argument seems to revolve around the difference between humans and other mammals, with that I would agree - I don't see a reason it'd be different. But your argument also relies on the assumption that for other mammals the mother's milk is better. That's the whole question to be investigated - is it really so? If so, what is it in breast milk that is better? And once we figure that out, how can we put that into something that can more easily be manufactured and used, so that all women can get the advantages that breast milk provides? It's not like 'nature' is some magical thing that imbues mystical powers on matter. It's all physics and chemistry. We don't understand everything about it, maybe we only understand a tiny part of it; so that's why we have to do the research.