3 ms·
Like you said, we know that cannibalism causes prion disease. We know this. Thus, we are not resistant to it. So from an evolutionary perspective you could make
by subroutine 8y ago
Like you said, we know that cannibalism causes prion disease. We know this. Thus, we are not resistant to it. So from an evolutionary perspective you could make a strong argument that what actually happened was that those humans who didn't engage in cannibalism and die of prion disease were heavily selected for. Which is probably why you don't see many humans eating the dead. Now that last bit is speculation, but all this is speculation. But based on my own introspection, I'm imagining myself stumbling upon a recently dead human corpse, I'm almost certain my innate reaction -- (well, almost surely innate, and not socialized, since I've never been explicitly taught how to react in such a situation) -- is that I'm definitely not going to fucking eat that corpse. In fact, the only humans that do seem to still engage in cannibalism do it out of some social ritual.
- ouid 8y agothe prevalence of the PNRP gene is much better explained by periods of time when humans were very cannibalistic. This makes more sense behaviorally as well, since humans are very difficult to program with instincts. I would bet dollars to donuts that the average hunter gatherer/early farmer had no such revulsion. Meat is meat.
- subroutine 8y agoWell here is the major point: there is only one prion (PRNP), for which all mammals seem to be susceptible to disease. It would be odd if deer and sheep had coevolved the same resistances and susceptibility to PRNP due to human cannibalism
- ouid 8y agoprevalence is not existence.
- subroutine 8y agoNot sure what that means
- gear54rus 8y agoto nitpick, you probably WERE taught how to react by countless books, movies, stories in which people don't even think of eating corpses
- subroutine 8y agoTrue, but u could make the same argument for (literal) shit. Life reflects art reflects life, and so it goes.