No, not mutation
Listening to a little PRX feature on why humans like chili peppers. Most of it makes sense, but an Evolutionary Biologist showed the idiocy of Evolutionary Explanations with stunning clarity.

Roughly quoting: "Chilis are strongly antibacterial. Before cooking was invented, a population that made a habit of eating chilis would survive to spread its genes, while a population that didn't eat chilis would die of dysentery and other digestive infections."

I suppose you could set up an experiment that way, and it would undoubtedly work that way.

But this misses the entire point, turning humans into passive grains of sand as usual.

How did the population get INTO the habit of eating chilis, which are painful and aversive?

Not by random mutation and natural selection. If you waited for that process, everyone would be dead. Instead, the habit developed almost immediately, one choice at a time, one ACCURATE OBSERVATION at a time, one EXPERIMENTAL REPORT at a time.

Here's how it happened: Teenage brother, always showing off his bravery, ate a painful chili along with his raw yak meat. The other kids and parents made fun of his usual dumbness. Next day, everyone but Brother was ill and unable to function. The day after that, Sister #2 decided to eat the chili as well. Next day, Bro and Sis 2 were both feeling fine and everyone else was still sick. From then on, everyone ate the chilis and everyone felt fine. Other families heard about this and started eating chilis. Soon the entire village was not only eating chilis but cultivating and finding new ways to use them.

These experiments with spices or salt or fire must have happened everywhere, simultaneous with the experiment of eating meat. Otherwise the experiment of eating meat would have failed instantly everywhere.

Why did Bro decide on a chili? Here we get into territory that seems mystical if you're into human exceptionalism, but seems perfectly normal without that assumption. All other animals have a pre-programmed set of food preferences. They know what they should eat and what they should avoid. They don't need experimentation, though they may experiment with variations on a theme. "I don't know this item, but it smells a lot like something good. I'm hungry. I'll try it carefully and see what happens." Humans must do the same, though we hide it from ourselves with stories about experimentation and innovation.

Plain fact: Even WITH cooking and chilis and salt, the experiment of eating meat was a bad idea that can't practically be deleted. We would have done better without it, but since we failed there, we need to be extremely cautious. Sharia law recognizes this.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 4:11 AM