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Re: milk and human sociobiology
Gerold Firl (geroldf@sdd.hp.com)
28 Jan 1997 01:01:16 GMT
In article <5cbcic$dt0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>, rs222@worldnet.att.net (Robert Snower) writes:
|> geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) wrote:
|> >"In Sherratt's view (A.G. Sherratt, in I.
|> >Hodder, et. al., eds,, _patterns of the past_, cambridge uni. press,
|> >1981, and personal communication, 1982), developments from scattered
|> >places were gathered together in northern mesopotamia (or at any rate
|> >on the fringe of the fertile cresent)c. 6000 years ago, as a package
|> >in which the plow was the salient invention. Thence it radiated north,
|> >south, east and west, in association with the milk-drinking mutation."
|> > "Almost all mammals lose the ability to digest milk sugar
|> >(lactose) after infancy, and milk is then harmful to them; the same is
|> >true for most human beings." (Nigel Calder, _timescale_, 1983, p.
|> I think all of you are all wet. I just called the zoo. The man
|> assured me that they feed all of the adult chimps and gorillas milk
|> every week, and he has never found any of them lactose intolerant.
|>
|> I believe lactose intolerance began, as an adaptation, in hominids and
|> is not characteristic of our primate relatives. And I know the reason
|> why, and nobody else does.
|>
|> The oddballs are humans, not mammals in general. Lactose tolerance is
|> the normal condition.
If so, it seems very strange that the only human groups which are not
lactose intolerant (LI) are those which have recently (in the last few
thousand years) begun keeping domesticated herds. The cultures which
do not keep domesticated ungulates all evolved LI, according to your
theory; did the lactose tolerant groups then re-evolve this trait, or
simply never lost it in the first place?
--
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Disclaimer claims dat de claims claimed in dis are de claims of meself,
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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=---- Gerold Firl @ ..hplabs!hp-sdd!geroldf
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