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It looks to me like the author was building a point about evolutionary bootstrapping of brain growth by eating meat ("but eating meat apparently made our ancest

It looks to me like the author was building a point about evolutionary bootstrapping of brain growth by eating meat ("but eating meat apparently made our ancestors smarter - smart enough to make better tools, which in turn led to other changes, says Aiello"). Brain growth was later accelerated when early humans gained the intelligence to cook. From what I understand about brain development from my child's pediatrician, dietary fat is important. I don't think the calorie argument is airtight. There's more to the story than is presented here. Anyway, the author opens with information from one source who seemed to focus on meat and later includes information from another source focusing on cooking. An editor probably read two paragraphs and wrote the headline. Nothing to get bent about.

billswift 16y ago
Also is the supply of B vitamins in meat. Children have died on some strict vegan diets (eg, macrobiotic).
dejb 16y ago
> It looks to me like the author was building a point about evolutionary bootstrapping of brain growth by eating meat He actually spoke to 2 separate anthropologists who had different views about our evolutionary diet and he chose to weave them into his own narrative. The second anthropologist, Richard Wrangham wrote the book "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" and as you can see below he strongly contradicts the notion that we ate much raw meat http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html?_r=1&ref=books http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html?_r=1&#38... Instead of writing about the differing opinions the author choses to strongly favor one view hide the fact that other is even in disagreement. > Nothing to get bent about. I think that deliberate twisting the of truth is something to legitimately get 'bent' about. The sad thing is the more than 50% of the people who see this will come away thinking they are basically saying 'meat makes you smarter' when neither of the views presented suggest anything of the sort.
- chc 16y ago
  The latter anthropologist is actually a vegetarian, so I very much doubt he believes that "meat makes you smarter." That was the part that made me really notice what the author was doing — when he smugly notes that his his source has to settle for a vegetarian meal.

billswift 16y ago

Also is the supply of B vitamins in meat. Children have died on some strict vegan diets (eg, macrobiotic).

dejb 16y ago

> It looks to me like the author was building a point about evolutionary bootstrapping of brain growth by eating meat He actually spoke to 2 separate anthropologists who had different views about our evolutionary diet and he chose to weave them into his own narrative. The second anthropologist, Richard Wrangham wrote the book "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" and as you can see below he strongly contradicts the notion that we ate much raw meat http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html?_r=1&ref=books http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html?_r=1&#38... Instead of writing about the differing opinions the author choses to strongly favor one view hide the fact that other is even in disagreement. > Nothing to get bent about. I think that deliberate twisting the of truth is something to legitimately get 'bent' about. The sad thing is the more than 50% of the people who see this will come away thinking they are basically saying 'meat makes you smarter' when neither of the views presented suggest anything of the sort.

chc 16y ago
The latter anthropologist is actually a vegetarian, so I very much doubt he believes that "meat makes you smarter." That was the part that made me really notice what the author was doing — when he smugly notes that his his source has to settle for a vegetarian meal.