JUL-A-12
Dear Glenn,
Thanks for your most
thorough reply. It seems to me that some very basic
research is still to be done
and will be the only way to resolve some of
these issues.
Two of these, however, are
not that difficult. You may know medicine but I
know human history. The
argument that hunter-gatherers world-wide were
PRIMARILY vegetarian is just
not tenable; such a statement does not agree
with either the
archaeological or the ethnographic record. While it may have
been so in a very few
regions where edible vegetation was abundant (as is
true today), in most areas
proteins and fats were the mainstay of the diet,
with edible plants certainly
utilized (and relished) whenever they could be
found. The evidence for this
is overwhelming and those who promote the
"primitive
vegetarian" model do so only by pretending that this evidence
doesn't exist. While it is
true that it's difficult to determine the exact
proportion of ancient diets
comprised of plant foods, the question is more
one of whether the amount is
5% or 10: there is no uncertainty that 90-95%
of the diet was meat and
fat.
This is precisely why the
cultivation of grain crops revolutionized human
civilizations - it gave
people a reasonably reliable source of carbohydrates
for the first time and only
then could they cut down on the amount of
protein and fats. (this was
a double-edged sword, however, because the
reliance on crops tied them
to one place, everyone was subjected to
potential bouts of
starvation due to crop failure, soils became depleted and
animal husbandry brought new
diseases - see Jared Diamonds "Guns, Germs and
Steel" - and as society
became more hierarchical, protein and fat became the
food of the rich and
powerful and those at the bottom were expected to
subsist on carbohydrates
alone).
Native North Americans on
the west coast, for example, readily took up the
growing of potatoes traded
to them by the Spaniards because they had so few
natural sources of
carbohydrates. No one could argue that Inuit/Eskimo
peoples were primarily
vegetarian: that they survived for thousands of years
on a diet of meat and fat
(with a bit of plant products in summer) is
indisputable. Their teeth
are no different than ours - being a human
carnivore doesn't require
tooth specialization because we use tools. The
Arctic environment is closer
to that experienced by Neandertals than any
other existing one on the
planet today and their diets must have been
analogous also.
As both you and Dobson have
stated several times, it is the alpine regions
of Europe and central Africa
that are seriously iodine-deficient. But
Neandertals did not
originate in either of these places and were certainly
not confined to the
mountains of Europe. Unless that were true, iodine could
not act as a selecting
force.
There is no doubt that many
of our health problems stem from a shift to a
diet of predominantly
carbohydrates, one that is difficult to control and
balance - one that MOST of
us are really not well-adapted to (native
populations in North America
have made this shift much more recently than
those with a European
heritage). We are still undergoing a process of
selection - you call the
slave trade situation "unnatural selection,"
implying that somehow what
is happening with humans is outside nature. But
in fact, the slave trade
selection of a stingy gene is but one example of
the kind of microselection
to which humans are exposing themselves and each
other (in addition to that
imposed by the environment) - it just happens to
be a very useful example
that allows us to see clearly what can happen to
both populations under these
circumstances. Many bouts of famine have
occurred over time, both
small- and large-scale ones, and these have
undoubtedly shaped the
physiology of many of our ancestors. The difficulty
is in pinpointing these
effects in the totally mixed population that
currently makes up much of
the world, when some individuals have problems
and others don't. Diamond's
Guns, Germs and Steel is an excellent summary of
the power of food sources to
shape the development of human societys
(although even he buys into
the traditional view of domesticates as human
innovation) - I recommend it
highly.
On another note, can you
explain how is it that your treatment of African
IDD patients with iodine in
poppy seed oil was able to last as long as 5
years? Where was THIS iodine
stored? It seems to me that perhaps we don't
understand fully what is
going on with iodine storage & cycling, both in
humans and in other animals,
under different circumstances of diet and
condition of the individual.
I'm not trying to be contentious about this - I
am merely trying to clarify
where research may be needed to gather more
detailed information, in
light of looking at iodine and thyroid hormone from
this evolutionary
perspective.
This dialogue is all helping
- I'm not disputing that iodine sources may be
a limiting factor in some
situations of human microselection, it's just that
my thyroxine hypothesis has
greater explanatory power in illuminating how
evolution actually works for
all vertebrates, not just humans. We need more
data on how it's produced
and utilized day-to-day both within and between
species, and how iodine fits
as a limiting factor. It shouldn't be a
chicken-or-egg dispute.
Look forward to your
package.
Susan
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Susan Crockford
Pacific IDentifications Inc.
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phone (250) 721-7296 FAX (250) 721-6215
home phone (250) 727-3214
What do you think of her
response regarding the principle source of calories? It may obtain in the Arctic with which she is most familiar, but
I assume the tropical African origin of the species, which antedated the
transmigration of hunters (and perhaps selected by it) by millennia.
The response to the iodine
store is easy, since I do not believe she understands that the oil is an iodine
depot. I will respond to the smaller points after I have mulled over her
principal source of prehistoric calories in her comparative analysis.
Cheers!
GWG
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