(also heard as “But we humans have always been hunters.”)

Well, our ancient ancestors also raped women, enslaved their enemies and murdered their adversaries, and yet we have fortunately evolved to the point of realizing that these practices — just like abusing, enslaving & murdering other sentient animals — are not acceptable forms of behavior. But I’m getting ahead of myself …

When it comes to understanding the actual role our ancestry plays in the animal cruelty debate, feel free consider the following facts:

*Fact #01) We humans are not instinctively aggressive or cruel … To the contrary, we are by nature plant-eating herd animals who have thrived as a species not due to our self-destructive tendency towards aggressive violence, but rather due to our ability to come together in groups and care for one another. Consider the wisdom of Robert Sussman, PhD – professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis: “Our intelligence, cooperation and many other features we possess as modern humans developed from our attempts to out-smart predators … [The idea of humans as hunters] developed from a basic Judeo-Christian ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressive and a natural killer. Yet in fact, when you examine the fossil and living non-human primate evidence, that is simply not the case.”

Yes, our herds (called “tribes” or “communities” or “nations” today) did sometimes compete with one another — admittedly sometimes violently — and yet they did so (and continue to do so) against their true nature. Indeed, behaviors that are aggressive & practices that are cruel are not “natural” to our species – rather, they are habits inherited from our cultures, responses learned from our parents, or thoughtless reactions to random happenstances in our environments.

Yes, we are still a young, confused species, and yes, acts of violence are still widespread in human societies around the globe, and yet these are not arguments for the continuation of these practices. Indeed, the time has come for us to “grow up” as a species. The time has come for inhumane behaviors that are protected by tradition, custom or ignorance to succumb to a more mature humanity — a humanity that is championed instead by thought, by reason, by morality and by compassion.

*Fact #02) We humans do not have any innate carnivorous instincts … Put one hundred human infants (or babies, or toddlers, or even young children) in one hundred rooms containing one hundred rabbits (or puppies, or kittens, or calves, or chickens, or baby pigs, or lambs, etc) and every single one of them will either try to play with those animals or will sit and stare at them in wonderment (if not awe). In fact, not a single human infant (or baby or toddler or child) will ever try to kill & eat any animal whatsoever — unless that young human has some sort of brain injury or psychological defect … Think about that for a moment.

 

*Fact #03) We humans’ OLDEST ancestors were actually vegans … Yes, “paleo diets” are still the rage (literally) in many circles, and yet if these folks are trying to use the diets of their ancestors to justify their cravings for meat, then why are they only looking at their relatively recent human ancestors to do so? Indeed, our oldest human ancestors actually ate an almost exclusively plant-based diet … That’s right, while the relatively young diets of Homo-erectus and the Neanderthals are still up for debate (with quite a few paleontologists believing that these ancestors were primarily vegan as well), there is little doubt that our older ancestors were almost exclusively plant-eaters. In a 2013 study released by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it was reported that up until roughly 4 million years ago, all our earliest ancestors (for roughly 26 million years!) had diets that were very similar to chimpanzees — diets that, other than including the very rare lizard or the occasional termite, were completely plant-based.

 

*Fact #04) We humans do not have the biological tools required to catch, or kill, or render live game … Dr. Richard Leakey, world-renowned anthropologist, summarized the issue as follows: “You can’t tear flesh by hand and you can’t tear hide by hand. Our anterior teeth are also not suited for tearing flesh or hide. We don’t have large canine teeth, and we wouldn’t have been able to deal with food sources that require those large canines.” And Dr. Neal D. Barnard, founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, says humans lack the raw abilities to be good hunters, noting: “We are not quick, like cats, hawks or other predators. It was not until the advent of arrowheads, hatchets and other implements that killing and capturing prey even became possible.”

*Fact #05) Just because our ancestors were forced to hunt in order to survive times of severe famine, does not mean that we should continue to eat animals today … As stated earlier, during most of our evolutionary history we were almost completely vegan. The addition of meat to the early human diet came only with the discovery of fire, which allowed us to lower the risk of being sickened or killed by the parasites in the meat our ancestors were forced to eat to avoid starvation (or learned to eat via addictive habit thereafter). In addition, we humans only started consuming milk products roughly 10,000 years ago — also very recently in our species’ evolution, and also in response to times of desperate famine. Please note that these young behaviors did not turn our ancestors (or us) into carnivores or “true omnivores”, but rather simply allowed our early forefathers & foremothers to survive periods of time when far healthier plant foods were unavailable.

And besides …

*Fact #06) Just because we humans can do certain things, does not mean that we are designed to do so. I mean we can digest cardboard, but that doesn’t make it a good idea to eat it … And in fact, at least when it comes to eating meat and digesting milk products, it is quite clear that we humans are actually designed to NOT do so, which is why our GI tract has so much trouble digesting animal flesh and the mammary secretions from other species, and why the consumption of animal products has been conclusively linked to higher rates of various types of cancer, diabetes, colorectal disorders, high blood pressure, heart attack, heart disease, osteoporosis, stroke & obesity.

Cardiologist William C. Roberts (the editor in chief of The American Journal of Cardiology, and the medical director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute at Baylor University Medical Center) says without hesitation that humans aren’t physiologically designed to eat meat, stating: “I think the evidence is pretty clear. If you look at various characteristics of carnivores versus herbivores, it doesn’t take a genius to see where humans line up.”

Indeed, there are literally dozens of such physiological characteristics that show quite clearly that humans are clearly not designed to eat meat, and thus not meant to hunt it or farm it either. Consider the following chart that identifies just some of the same:

In essence then, just because our ancestors “naturally” made grave dietary errors in our species’ distant past does not make it wise or prudent for us to repeat those same mistakes today.

 

*Fact #07) Finally — and by far most importantly, even if it were natural for humans to kill animals (which it clearly isn’t), just because something is “natural” and we can do it, does not mean it is a choice worthy of support or that we should do so … Indeed — murder, rape, slavery and cannibalism are all human practices that are actually older than hunting, and thus even more “natural” than eating animals, and yet we do not invoke their brutal history to justify their continuance today. And why not? Well, primarily because they are cruel & primitive & unnecessarily violent & patently immoral …

… just like killing animals for food.

 

Current status of this Myth: Clarified (and Crushed)
Justification it provides for eating animals: NONE

 

“I don’t care what our ancestors ate thousands — or even hundreds — of years ago. It’s 2015 now and we know for a fact that we do not need to eat meat, dairy or eggs to survive & thrive. Choosing to take the life of another sentient being when we have no biological need to do so is selfish at best, immoral at standard, and downright evil at worst.” ~ inspired by Gary Smith

Filed under: Minimizing the Myths of Meat by Scaughdt