Yeah, the video is funny, but if you look at the comments, it seems to be having exactly the impression you described. It also reinforces the idea that science is always changing, and that "old science" cannot be trusted. In fact, science builds on itself. Once a hypothesis is tested by enough experiments to become a "theory", it becomes extremely unlikely that it will ever change as a result of further experimentation; it may or may not be valid in other domains, but it will always be valid in the domain in which it was tested. So, for example, relativity boils down to classical mechanics for low speeds, and quantum mechanics reproduces classical mechanics when you solve the equations for large sizes. Classical mechanics is still what engineers use in the domain of low speeds and large sizes. It annoys me to no end that people don't understand this.
Eating living things
- Thread starter Kate
- Start date
Jamie in Chile
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- Jan 3, 2016
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- Vegetarian
Video is pretty funny, but yes probably not helpful.
I used to be of the belief that, apart from eating fresh vegetables and fruit and avoiding cigarettes, all other nutrition advice was fairly pointless since there were so many conflicting expert opinions.
However I now believe that this is the impression you are left with if you get your nutrition advice from pub talk and dinner parties and media headlines, and never read scientific studies or books on the topics. Once you do that, things become a bit clearer.
Failing that, the NHS plate picture is not bad.
I used to be of the belief that, apart from eating fresh vegetables and fruit and avoiding cigarettes, all other nutrition advice was fairly pointless since there were so many conflicting expert opinions.
However I now believe that this is the impression you are left with if you get your nutrition advice from pub talk and dinner parties and media headlines, and never read scientific studies or books on the topics. Once you do that, things become a bit clearer.
Failing that, the NHS plate picture is not bad.
Jamie in Chile
Forum Legend
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2016
- Reaction score
- 1,852
- Age
- 44
- Lifestyle
- Vegetarian
You eat rocks? I can't believe it! Honestly, I have respected you as a vegan for so long and now I find this out! It's a well known fact that rocks are used as cover for insects and eating the rocks deprives the insects of these important ecosystems and in many cases leads to their death. Just lift one up and look underneath if you don't believe me. Even the very act of lifting the rock is extremely traumatic for the insects.
Plus, rocks may have a sentient wellness, much like oysters they need to be given the benefit of the doubt unless you can PROVE that rocks have no feelings. Can you? No!
You may no longer refer to yourself as a vegan.
I will admit I ate a few rocks myself in my teenage years when I fell in with a bad crowd but now I eat nothing but air and foam from the sea.
Lou
Forum Legend
Ha! You just flushed a very old memory out of where ever it was lurking into my forebrain. In college, I had this crusty old science teacher who did a unit on Cognitive Dissonance and how it was applied to learning and teaching. I think I forgot about this lesson about an hour after it was over. Now it just came screaming back.
He had a cowl over an overhead projector so the class couldn't see what was on it. But we could see the projection. and it was a petri dish with a blob in it. The blob was just sitting there and he then announced he was going to put some "blob food" in the petri dish for the blob and to watch carefully. The blob went right up to the food and absorbed it. He did this a couple of times and the blob continued to chase down its food and eat it. Each time it ate some food it got a little bigger. And then it split in half. i remember him chasing the blob around its cage with a needle, too. Reaction to stimuli, reaction to its environment, Motion, ingestion, reproduction. this blob was definitely alive. *
Then he took off the cowl. The blob was a couple of drops of mercury. It was all just a chemical reaction.
I brought this up not to provide evidence that rocks are alive and we should not eat them. (but, yeah you shouldn't - just ask your dentist). but in a roundabout way that just because plants react to stimuli does not mean they are intelligent. Although I just realized that a more strict interpretation would be that plants are not really alive. But I just spent ten minutes typing this and I'm not going to erase it even if it is stupid. So there.
*https://books.google.com/books?id=e...n, liquid mercury appears to be alive&f=false
I'm brand new on the Forum like 30 seconds. But I got here by reading this thread and I guess I just want to say that I'm not super happy that someone like Kate would be automatically banned from the Forum. Obviously her questions were not sincere and she was being antagonistic but that doesn't really justify shutting her down in my opinion. This question about eating plants comes up all the time when discussing veganism with lay people and I think it's good to be able to bounce ideas back and forth especially with respect to someone who is being antagonistic.
I used to be a member of some politically Progressive websites but if you ever questioned anything you would be called a troll and possibly banned and it becomes nothing but an echo chamber. Not very productive.
Anyway I think the main issues for me are sentience... Animals have it in Spades and with plants it's Highly Questionable.... and the least harm principle. I often joke that the only way to do no harm to any living thing is to kill yourself but frankly even if you did that billions of gut bacteria would die and you'd probably crush a bunch of insects and dust mites when you hit the floor, not to mention that you yourself are a living thing. So there is no way to never cause any harm. It's all about reducing harm, reducing suffering. As others have said quite clearly it is not about being perfect, it is about continually improving.
We all make judgments about the value of various types of life. For example if you knew that when you got in your car and drove down the road puppies and kitties and dolphins and elephants would be bouncing off your car dying you would never do it. But because it's mosquitoes and flies and grasshoppers we all accept it. And that isn't to say that we shouldn't try to minimize that, and I now gently blow mosquitoes off my arm rather than swatting at them of course but there's a difference between a mosquito and a human or a dog or a cat or even a fish or an oyster.
Similarly there is a difference between a blade of grass and a mosquito.
Anyway those are just the random thoughts of a new member. Glad to be here.
I used to be a member of some politically Progressive websites but if you ever questioned anything you would be called a troll and possibly banned and it becomes nothing but an echo chamber. Not very productive.
Anyway I think the main issues for me are sentience... Animals have it in Spades and with plants it's Highly Questionable.... and the least harm principle. I often joke that the only way to do no harm to any living thing is to kill yourself but frankly even if you did that billions of gut bacteria would die and you'd probably crush a bunch of insects and dust mites when you hit the floor, not to mention that you yourself are a living thing. So there is no way to never cause any harm. It's all about reducing harm, reducing suffering. As others have said quite clearly it is not about being perfect, it is about continually improving.
We all make judgments about the value of various types of life. For example if you knew that when you got in your car and drove down the road puppies and kitties and dolphins and elephants would be bouncing off your car dying you would never do it. But because it's mosquitoes and flies and grasshoppers we all accept it. And that isn't to say that we shouldn't try to minimize that, and I now gently blow mosquitoes off my arm rather than swatting at them of course but there's a difference between a mosquito and a human or a dog or a cat or even a fish or an oyster.
Similarly there is a difference between a blade of grass and a mosquito.
Anyway those are just the random thoughts of a new member. Glad to be here.
Lou
Forum Legend
Those are good thoughts, and I kind of agree that Kate was banned maybe a little hastily. But in defense of the moderators, most of us have heard that stupid argument at least one too many times. There are lots of places on the web where you can argue with antagonistic carnists. Thank god this is not one of them.
