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Re: Early diets
b14817@vaxb.phx1.aro.allied.com
23 May 94 09:17:26 MST
In article <60.941.7295.0N19F46B@canrem.com>, j#d#.moore@canrem.com (J. Moore) writes:
>
>> I have read that one of the differences between a herbivore and a
>> carnivore is the postioning of the eyes. Herbivores having eyes on the
>> sides of their heads for maximum field of vision to spot carnivores, and
>> carnivores having eyes on the front to give binocular vision and better 3-
>> d vision.
>> JON W. PARKER AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az
>
> But of course animals cannot be conveniently slotted into only those two
> categories. Many animals are omnivorous -- humans are, and so are apes,
> and it's overwhelmingly likely that early hominids were as well. In
> addition, some animals thought of and generally categorized as
> carnivorous are actually omnivorous, such as most (if not all) canids --
> all the various wild dogs, wolves, foxes, coyotes.
>
> Primates have eyes in front, yet are omnivorous, and that's omnivorous
> with a HUGE portion of the diet being plants.
>
> Using only two categories like that, with an either-or categorization,
> results in simplistic mistakes. For instance, you can go into many
> vegetarian "health" food stores and see a poster contrasting "the"
> carnivorous animal's digestive system with that of "the" vegetarian
> animal (generally a lion and a cow, respectively). The point they try
> to make is that it isn't "natural" for humans to eat meat. The poster's
> arguement makes a couple of simplistic mistakes in its arguement. One
> is that humans have never been "naturally" carnivorous; neither have
> they been "naturally" vegetarian. We're omnivorous, and "naturally"
> rather opportunistic about it. The other dumb mistake (or perhaps
> deliberate falsification) is the claim that our digestive system is much
> like a cow's, which is a highly adapted system with a mighty weird
> stomach. Even a gorilla, which eats a lot of grasses and such, has a
> setup quite different from ours.
>
> Point being: any claim that has you forced to choose between two and
> only two categories has probably got a big hole in it. Always look for
> a third category (or more); it almost always around.
>
> Jim Moore
>
> * Q-Blue 1.0 *
Using omnivore in stead of carnivor would have been more correct from our point
af view. The prey probably does not make that distinction.
--
JON W. PARKER AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az
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