Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

“Evolution”: Responsible for “global obesity pandemic”

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The reason some media never run short of bad news is that they can make bad news out of pretty well anything, including the end of scarcity of food in many parts of the developing world.

Remember when it was too late  to save humanity from starvation? Thirty years ago I used to hear people explain that evolution had programmed us all to produce more people than could be fed. “Man is a species that has overbred,” and all that.

There are some really remarkable comments in this hot-weather scare, including “This is the first generation in history where children may die before their parents,” Steinbeck told the conference.

Oh? Centuries ago, nothing was more common, actually, than parents burying some of their children, and sometimes all of them. Recent generations in the developed world have been among the very first for whom the death of a child is a genuinely unusual event. But I digress.

The evolution link? Oh yes, sorry …

McGill, senior lecturer in Population Health at the University of Auckland, said humans were designed to maximize their energy intake because their large brains used about one-quarter of their total energy expenditure.

“Early humans sought energy-dense food with high levels of fats, starches and sugars. We are genetically programmed to find foods with these qualities appealing,” said McGill.

“However, highly energy-dense Western diets have had many of the flavor and micronutrients processed out of them. The artificial replacements in starchy, fatty and sugary foods make them over-palatable and easy to eat quickly.”

Apparently, we are assured, the obesity pandemic is to be blamed on the twin sacred bulls of “evolution” and the “environment”, not on sedentary lifestyles, self-indulgence, or an aging population. And, you guessed it, research funds are urgently needed to combat the growing mountains of pudge.

If Dave Scot were here (is he, I wonder?), I think he would say that – had there been a worldwide trend toward slimming down - “evolution” would explain that too. Just as it explained the worldwide famines of the late twentieth century.

Comments
[...] Just how they could possibly have believed that remains a mystery to me. But I must stop and remind myself that these people probably also believe in, for example, “evolutionary psychology.”  (Whatever rot the sturdy Pleistocene cave man shouted into the stalactites of his cave somehow got lodged in his genes, which explains the beer belly, and music, and also world religions, and oh yes, why the United States does not go to war against Canada, and just about anything else anyone wants to make up as well.) [...]ID goes global: But why should that be a surprise? | Uncommon Descent
May 22, 2007
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I'm wondering why we have THC receptors. ;)Fross
September 6, 2006
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Ekstasis: You are correct. http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=855&f=13376russ
September 5, 2006
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Wow, this is fantastic. And no doubt the Darwinists will come up with a wonderfully creative "theory", wooops, I mean "hypothesis", for why humans crave spices. Probably all that incredible nutritional value in pepper, coriander, etc that boosted the endurance and natural selection for hunting whoolly mammoths and avoiding sabre-toothed tigers. Of course, we have discovered that the spice in curry may stop alzheimers from getting started, so no doubt that gave a big edge for natural selection, since no doubt it was a disease that affected all sorts of geriatric primitives above age 80 back in those days.Ekstasis
September 5, 2006
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Evolution also causes us to eat too little: http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr04/anorexia.htmlruss
September 5, 2006
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Beer guts are due to bad design? I've always thought it was due to there being 900 calories in a six pack of regular beer. Are you sure they didn't mean bad decision instead of bad design? I cracked open a Moosehead to help me review my thinking on this matter. [3 minutes elapse] That sure hit the spot! Wikipedia agrees it's the calories not bad design. What a disappointment. I thought I was going to be able to blame mine on somebody else (mother nature). Curses. It's still me. I suppose I can always blame bad government for not putting a warning sticker on every bottle saying "Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that excessive consumption of beer can cause weight gain."DaveScot
September 4, 2006
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idnet.com.au Exactly. Take a Rolls Royce and run it without oil, and you will get a heap of scap iron in pretty short order. Does than mean the Rolls was not designed well (especially since the BMW takover)? Of course not.BarryA
September 4, 2006
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"humans were designed" and "We are genetically programmed" They are very comfortable with design terminology. Anti ID Australian science journalist Robyn Williams blamed the "beer gut" on bad design. It would seem a better conclusion to say that humans may work best when their design is overseen by moral law. Even good designs will have undesirable outcomes when unconstrained.idnet.com.au
September 4, 2006
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