Whisp wrote:
Daedalan wrote:
Conservation of Energy holds true in this discussion as well. The soy/bean protein you consume, require more energy input to create, then what you would receive from it. The plant is an inefficient design.
to eat meat you gotta feed the animal some plants. i dont see how that is less energy efficient, if thats what youre saying. plants are extremely efficient, and your only other option of using the energy of sunlight to assemble sugar would be photosynthetic bacteria. but plants are experts at storing this sugar, and animals are experts at eating it.
you guys keep saying "meant." who means it to be? meant by god? meant by our ancestors? meant by whom? meant by nature or evolution isn't an answer.
pandas aren't carnivores if they eat a plant based diet. i think i made my point pretty well, that if one claims an animal's best interest is always to conform to its own physiology, he's wrong. pandas that consumed bamboo survived because they had no competition for the bamboo, and the bamboo couldn't run away.
That incorrect. Reread the quotation I cited. Pandqs are carnivores, which subside on meat. They are evolving into herbivores, that consume bamboo. You are basing your argument on the panda, but the panda is a meat eater becoming a herbivore. The fact it has canines is a vestigal trace of its evolution still undergoing tranformation. Which may or may not result in the species exctintion. Thus the fact that a panda eating bamboo is a sign that we don't have to eat meat is incorrect. That creature is evolving into a diffrent food source.
The meat is extremely efficent from the hunter's point of view. Domiscated cattle are inefficent because of the enormous amount of meat we require as a civilization. Wild animals hunted for meat, are efficent. The singular event of hunting and killing the animal, is more then made up for with the energy supplied by the animal's carcuss. Plants by design are efficent, you are correct. Humans as a species, do not have the neccesary conponents to make use of this energy. Thus the reason why, not to be foul, you poop more when you consume vegetable matter.
Have you ever seen the shere amount of plant material a cattle would consume, and the resulting fecal matter? they are more efficent at making use of the locked plant energy then we are. Herbivores are designed to consume way more energy from plant material then we do. Because we are omnivores, we consume them to make up the excess energy that we don't get from the plant because we do not have their processing power. It is believed that at a far distant past, humans began life as herbivores, and slowly over time we have evolved to become more carnivore, thus we are at a mid point right now in omnivore stage. Read the vestigal organ section below.
Thunderstomp
"Meant" in my reasoning doesn't mean because it worked for us in the past, its because its the way we are designed. Natrual law evolved us into the animal we are today. To not follow that law of evolutionary design is your choice, but pretending it doesn't exist is incorrect reasoning. Yes, you are an evolved form of human that designed to consume meat and plant material. No, you do not wish to consume meat material. Yes, you are still a creature designed to eat meat material, thus meant to consume meat and plant material. You just don't want to. A lack of desire doesn't mean you are not "designed" or "meant" to do it, it just mean you do not wish to.
To both of you.
The evolved form of man as it stands today, is designed with the idea that the creature would be consuming both plant and animal matter. We have even evolved out vestigal organs which were used in consuming denser plant material, such as bamboo. Thus technically speaking, as an evolutionary species, we are slowing evolving to consume more meat then plant. I'm not trying to tell you your lifestyle is incorrect, I'm trying to explain that your lifestyle is a philosphical choice, its not backed by human evolution. You ARE "meant" to eat meat by evolution, it doesn't mean you have to, but its the way you were designed as a species.
Evolution is real, it might not have a will from our concept, but it happens in a definite set of circumstances. We evolved to consume meat, choosing not to is fine and dandy, but it doesn't change the fact your body is built to consume it. Society's current technology is the only thing that keeps vegans from getting removed due to natrual selection.