Brains of the Animal Kingdom: Research shows we've underestimated | Hacker News Reader

Brains of the Animal Kingdom: Research shows we've underestimated

online.wsj.com

211 pointsrdl110 comments

After working a while with animal behavior and neuro-research, I tend to ask myself if there is proof an animal can't do something rather than if they can. They usually learn slower than humans, depending on animal and task, but they can learn complex tasks. What they fail at usually tends to be due to physical limitations such as visual acuity. I don't think we have found the limits of what many animals can do but we are raising the bar slowly. It takes a lot of thought and work to design an experiment with a complex task correctly.

Of Note: Pigeons can classify a Picasso from a Monet at an expert level and peck their answer within 300ms: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1334394/. They were tested on assembly lines to pick out defective parts. They did better than humans but were not used due to decreased moral of other humans on the line. This was done in the early 60's I believe. Here is an article on it in the New Scientist (1962) http://books.google.com/books?id=HxU-9UeDCI0C&pg=PA498&#...

Please link me to a study or web article. That's amazing.

EDIT: I see the links now! Thanks!

Link to the study about pigeons' discrimination between Picasso and Monet paintings: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1334394/pdf/jeab...

Still looking for a source for the assembly lines tests.

Proof that you can't do something is harder to get than proof that you can. It's hard to prove that an animal can't make a hammer drill, for example.

It's probably rude, but I think that the fact about the decreased morale is somewhat hilarious. Just picture the situation where you have a whole bunch of assembly line workers being ousted by pigeons. What would it feel like to know that a bird is better at your job than you? It's just absurd.

Somehow it offends one's dignity less to be ousted by a robot.

Pigeons have also been shown to have atleast rudimentary capability for solving the Traveling Salesman Problem: http://www.psych.ualberta.ca/~psychgso/gradlunchtime1011/lub... http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10071-011-0463-9

I have no question that animals far exceed the cognitive capabilities most humans give them credit for. It saddens me that there's such a massive void in knowledge about this world we live in. I wonder how much more advanced humans would be if more time were spent expanding that knowledge instead of gratifying our other pleasure-systems by focusing instead on increasing bank account balances, political power, or participating in destructive conflicts with other humans. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge seems to be turning into one of those huge unappreciated things that seems to have been degraded in its worth unless it's able to be leveraged to some competitive advantage.

Thank you! You are a great human.

Whether intended ironically or not, this comment amused me. (Knowledge seeking, moral high ground, and social approval are also pleasure-reward systems; not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Carry on; both of you are fantastic humans. :)

No, it wasn't intended ironically! I resonated because the other day I spoke with an academician in business studies, who was researching how corporations can make more money...

I argue that consumerist systems of ideas are essentially against human nature, fundamentally flawed. Because they focus locally, history-wise; "me, now, need that. yes, good. more. thank you."

In the mean time, humans are a uniquely interdependent species, in that they are interdependent not just in space, but also in time – through the techno-ideological legacies that are being passed on to next generations (and research is at the heart of all that). So, any endeavour that does not start as a concern for the future, and for the next generations, is against our very human nature... You know, somebody put it well: "for the most part, what we are surrounded by is not the dead work of the living, it is the living work of the dead." :)

Also, I believe that with the advent of computers, it has never been a better time in human history to do science (then, again, I also believe the statement could have been made at any point in human history. See above.) The computational power, the software, and Google – the great minds of our past would have surely looked at those and believe they are the holy grail of humanity. And the most amazing part is, that they empower anybody to conduct research.

In sciences, I find meaning and sanity. And people behave like gentlemen. Yes, that is pleasurable and deeply satisfying; but it is also preferable to the materialistic hysterias, which created so many socio-economic problems – proof of their lack of human ecology.

I hope I made a strong argument :)

I saw somebody say this in a Youtube video: "Stay human. Stay curious. And let the entire world know that you are."

What is "human nature?" Anyone making the claim that "X" is part of human nature, but "Y" is not part of human nature, needs to be very careful. Because the fact that humans do both X and Y is already evidence that both are a part of human nature. The fact that humans are consumerists that focus locally proves that consumerism is a part of human nature, by definition.

Sure, you could point to the influence of the media and how it shapes our behavior. But then again, the media is a social construct, something we humans have created and directed at ourselves. Thus, once again, the construction of mass media is also a part of human nature. All this would prove is that human nature is highly malleable.

How can you even begin to argue that something is "against our very human nature?" The fact that humans do that behavior is evidence it is in our human nature. You see, making such a claim relies on some inherently non-human standard of determining human nature and morality (since it seems your argument has to do with morality).

I think you made an exceedingly weak argument, by relying on such hand-wavy and self-defined notions as "human nature."

Good point...

Well, if we've always been doing X, and it seems we cannot do without it (well, try to argue against that); and then at some point we started doing Y (while still doing X); and Y is conflicting with/retarding X; then Y must be detrimental to our human nature.

On a different line of thought... In this case, X (i.e the spatio-temporal interdependence of our species) seems to pretty much enable Y anyway, so could X further be said to be more fundamental than Y? Well, Y also could be argued to enable X (hey, consumerism keeps us interacting with each other, etc.)... but it does a rather poor job overall. I don't think it's a great innovation, as much as some sociologists would probably wish to believe.

So... All in all, and to be more polite, we say it's preferable to postulate X, rather than Y, as fundamental to the so-called human nature, in order to make possible desirable results – such as a thirst for learning, curiosity, a concern for others, etc.

>What is "human nature?" Anyone making the claim that "X" is part of human nature, but "Y" is not part of human nature, needs to be very careful. Because the fact that humans do both X and Y is already evidence that both are a part of human nature.

Or that other people had fucked up society so much (for their own benefit, unrelated to X and Y), so that people are forced to do Y.

Like, for example, being a child prostitute.

Nothing in human nature (outliers excluded) makes a child want to prostitute itself. But they do it, all over the world, either because they are threatened with violence, or because they have to eat and it's something they can do to achieve that.

I gave an extreme example -- normal prostitution is equally off. As are tons of other things (working 16 hour shifts at some shitty factory in China for example, or eating fast food crap day in and day out), but those are not as controversial and people accept them more.

All you have shown is that it is within human nature for humans to force other humans to do terrible things (i.e. to fuck up society)

No, you missed the other part I have shown, which cames naturally from the above: that there are things that are forced upon some humans, and thus not a part of their nature or natural tendencies.

Uh... no. All you have shown is that it is within human nature to do something you don't want to do because you are being forced to (because you fear being killed or being beaten, or because you are desperately trying to survive).

Science research requires funding.

Even though we beat our chests about STEM education, basic sciences are woefully underfunded in relation to the number of students who graduate every year with BS, MS, and PhD degrees in life sciences.

Funding is prelevant. Governments, foundations, charities, donations, kick starters. What we lack is proper priority. We value things such as wealth & imaginary gods higher than knowledge.

This is all great in theory, and I agree, it would be awesome if we could increase knowledge for its own sake.

However, as the other poster pointed out: research requires funding, and sources of funding are far lower that people who want funding. Furthermore, if you're doing research for its own sake, where there's no chance of a payout, you're going to have it survive on a small amount of money. This is fine when you're 22, but what about when you're 35 and have a wife and kids you need to take care of? If you don't have money in the bank, some bad luck (like a kids broken leg) could wreck you. Which means its in your best interest to go where the money is.

Now suppose we lived in an idyllic society where if you were a scientist, you would never have to worry about health an vacation and groceries and car repairs and house repairs and everything else that comes up. Well, in that case, you've got a bunch of researchers, many of whom will never produce anything of value, and they're being funded by the state, or more so the rest of the people. And because by definition research is hard to judge the value of, people can't decide if your research is legitimate or something just to take state funding. Which brings you to where we are now: a limited pool of public funding, to which people apply for grants, or corporate funding, which usually expects some payout. While it would be nice a larger pool of public funds for research, there is in no way we could have an infinte supply for knowledge at all costs. After all, the world runs on money, and that needs to cone from somewhere.

The best way to do whatever research you want is to make your money first, and then do what you want with it.

Or governments can fund it.

Governments do fund it. That's what reverend_gonzo's argument was all about.

Other primates had been tested, but they had been tested on human faces -- based on the assumption that ours are the easiest to tell apart.

::face-palm::

Yes, if that's really true one has to wonder about the common sense of the scientists who did that research!

Well if it turned out that they could tell apart human faces that would be an interesting result. But it certainly doesn't prove that they can't distinguish members of their own species, if that is what the researchers were claiming.

Wow. I remember a time when I thought scientists were infallible, almost magical in their reasoning abilities. Then I read stuff like this and remember "Nope. Still only human." ;)

>I remember a time when I thought scientists were infallible, almost magical in their reasoning abilities. Then I read stuff like this and remember "Nope. Still only human."

Why would you think that?

Scientists are just humans that follow a methodology of inquiry (and keep tabs). Nothing more.

Sure, some scientists are super-smart (e.g Feynman) but that's because they happen to be geniuses, not because they are scientists.

They can also be stupider than the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds, not only in generic fields (he might be better at music than them), but also in general thinking.

Even having a PhD doesn't mean much. I've seen people I know getting those that are dumb as hell (being meticulous and methodological seems more of a predictor of getting one).

And of course the classic: sex, money, ideology, power, personal psychological complexes etc can make a scientist think BS just like any other guy.

Because I don't always think rationally. :)

Although there are interesting results there. There have been a few studies now done with dogs and their ability to not only recognize human faces, but to decipher emotions from them. It's fascinating insight into how domesticated dogs complement humans in really amazing ways.

So... if they think we all look alike, does that make them racist?

;)

I wonder if anyone has quantitatively measured the variation in human faces and how that differs from faces of other animals.

How could you? Any process and algorithm you picked for that measurement would be a prejudiced choice.

For example, if you used a human digital camera as your input, you'd be biasing based on frequencies human vision can see.

If your algorithm did some kind of hamming distance of pixels, it might be that one species cared more about that, whereas another cared more about a distance metric between fields of detected line boundaries. Who knows!

Any such attempt to quantitively measure variation in faces would also ignoring other senses, and other ways to establish identity than the face - just the choice of considering faces as an important discriminator feels anthropocentric to me.

In short, there is no definitive quantitative measure of "variance". That measure depends on both the senses and the brain of the observer - whether mechanical or biological.

Well you could physically measure the distance between the eyes, the curvature of the eye orbit, the width of the lips, curvature of the eye openings, length of nose, maybe a hundred such measurements, see how much each measurement varies between humans and then do the same test on raccoons. Wouldn't it be interesting if raccoons had similar variance in facial features but we just didn't know how to recognize them?

Of course facial recognition isn't the only way animals have of recognizing identity, but it's still an interesting question whether humans really have more distinct faces than other animals or whether we just think we do because we're really good at recognizing human faces.

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."

- Douglas Adams

The things listed are kind of old... this discussion has been going on for a while. Goldfish and tit for tat, fish and tool use, none of it is really new... so the implication that we're just getting to it isn't quite accurate, and the article didn't even mention what little actually is unique to humans. If you want an interesting talk about "uniqueness" Robert Sapolsky has one from a few years back that has been highlighted on ted, but I feel like the way it is approached in the article implies it is new, and it is not.

http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h...

One thing that is not correct is that humans are unique in sex not being used solely for reproduction, bonobos are very reliant on sex for social purposes.

A lot of those seemed like really striking examples of bad experiment design. I wish there were more venues for publishing negative results (as well as experimental setup for failed experimental design) -- I know sometimes it is done for really "interesting" negative results, but there's a strong bias against publishing when you don't see what you want, in the conventional journal system.

This is my belief too and a reason I'm vegetarian. In my mind the chance of us eventually beginning to see animals as more and more people like are VERY good. I don't want to look back over the last 20 years and realize that I killed and ate so many people especially since it is unnecessary.

Part of my chain of reasoning is seeing how black people were referred to as animals and their intelligence and general ability was VERY much underestimated since we are in fact all human beings. Then seeing all of the research we've done with dolphins. They have their own language and social structure. Even bees have a language that we're just now beginning to understand.

In fact, the more research we do, the more evidence we seem to find that we've sold "animals" short.

Animals eating each other is part of the nature of our existence. I myself don't feel any guilt about it.

Yes, but not all animals eat one another. And we are not, like tigers and lions, obligate carnivores. We can survive and thrive without meat. Our bodies are capable of surprising dietary adaptation.

If you don't need to kill/keep captive animals for food to live healthily, why do it? That's just my personal philosophy.

If you don't need to kill/keep captive animals for food to live healthily, why do it?

Because it tastes good. Just like every other type of food we eat that isn't a requirement for living healthily.

I agree that it's the only actual "reason." I just don't think it's a good reason. I think it presumes that the value of "taste" for us is greater than the value of "life" to an animal. And there's a lot of evidence that most meat is very unhealthy for you, anyways.

As an interesting (perhaps?) side note, I tasted meat recently for the first time in 2+ years and it was really lame and underwhelming. :/

> I tasted meat recently for the first time in 2+ years and it was really lame and underwhelming.

That statement is about as bizarre as "I tasted alcohol once, I don't understand what the big deal is".

I don't think it's the same at all. I don't think it requires a history of meat-eating in order to determine whether or not something tastes good to you or not. I tried steak, chicken, and fish. I don't think that most people would call meat "an acquired taste"?

My personal theory is that vegans put in way more effort to make their food taste good than non-vegans, and we eat an extremely wide variety of foods, so eating things like "steak" or "chicken" is generally a very boring flavor experience. I had a bite of "good steak" and thought...this is alright, but I could make better-tasting seitan!

> "I tried steak, chicken, and fish"

That does not seem much better. You may as well say "I don't like alcohol, I tried 'good beer', wine, and liquor".

There are particular animals that I like or do not like (salmon for instance I have never been a fan of with any preparation I have tried) and various preparations/cuts that I do not like (lamb chops, most preparations of steak besides rare (preferably Pittsburgh rare, which is sadly difficult to find or prepare yourself at home) and most baked/broiled preparations of poultry). These classifications are again only scratching the surface of course, basically just breaking the question down to "ale or lager? white wine or red? Dark liquor, or clear?"

Regardless if it isn't your thing, then knock yourself out, but you should be sure that you don't fall into the trap of being confused why others don't share your personal preferences. (Or worse, trying to suggest that people who don't share your personal preferences are deluding themselves; lying to themselves about their own tastes.) I don't find myself annoyed by veganism/vegetariansim until I really get one of those vibes coming across.

Yeah, I just tasted it because I'd forgotten what it tasted like. Obviously taste isn't a reason to stop eating meat for everyone, and it's certainly not as compelling as animal welfare/personal health/environmental concerns.

Hi. I've tried alcohol a couple of times, and I don't understand what the big deal is. Intellectually, sure, I'm aware that it decreases social inhibitions, but it didn't do much of anything for me, and it tasted pretty bad, so I haven't bothered with it any further.

If it didn't do anything for you, i doubt you drank very much. Most mind-altering substances also taste bad.

I disagree. There are a lot of nutrients (mostly protein) that, without meat, require us to rely heavily on nuts and beans. A dependency on those requires a large amount of additional effort for the consumer. Nut allergies are intensely common besides, having to depend your entire muscular structure on the number of beans you eat would be both very ineffective and would have a number of negative results.

Point being, meat is the most efficient way to get a lot of nutrients, and you can't declare that everyone can't eat it because you may someday discover that it's intelligent. The future is broad, we might find out that plants are actually the intelligent beings on this planet. Does that mean we should all starve ourselves now on the fear that that may happen in the future?

Everything has protein in it. I've gotten over 100g in a day without trying and little to no nuts. Your body will naturally combine different types of amino acids to form complete proteins. You just need to eat a variety of foods and you'll be good to go. The issue with a vegan diet is eating enough calories, not getting enough protein. In fact, many people in the US eat too much protein which is very bad for you! It's easy to undereat accidentally on a vegan diet because you have to physically eat more. Hard to complain about that though.

And effort, in my opinion, isn't enough to justify eating animals. Think about the specific efforts you go through to prepare raw chicken: you have to wash your hands in between handling it and your other foods so you don't risk contaminating them with salmonella. Way more effort than my dinner, where everything can safely touch!

Getting sufficient nutrients on a vegetarian diet is not difficult. It requires no particular thought unless you're doing a lot of exercise and need a huge amount of protein, but even then, it's pretty easy to get unless you want to avoid eggs, milk, soya, tempeh, nuts, mycoprotein, beans, lentils, protein supplements, etc.

Iron is more difficult in theory, but no other vegetarians I know have actually had a problem with it.

As a vegetarian, iron is something I haven't had a problem with (I know this from the blood iron levels they measure when you give blood). I cook with cast iron, which apparently increases the amount of iron in cooked foods [1].

[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2002....

I believe you may be misinformed: Calorie for calorie, broccoli has more protein than a sirloin steak. As stated in the other responses pretty much everything has protein in it.

Additionally, the only vital nutrients in meat are b12 and iron, both of which are available elsewhere (lentils are great for iron & supplement is available for b12)

Actually, calorie for calorie is not a valid counter. Per wolfram alpha, you'd have to eat 4.0kg of broccoli per .41kg of steak (average steak size).

Apart from that, I would cede to your points about the b12 and iron, but if you want calories to sustain you, meat is definitively the most efficient way to go about it.

Yeah, you have to eat more quantity-wise (but really, not that much more). Personally, I love eating, so I don't complain about it :) Eating many times during the day is healthier for your body anyways.

I make a vegan sandwich with 30g of protein and about 700 calories. Add a protein shake and a side of chickpeas and you're pushing 90g. It's shockingly easy (and healthy) to load up on vegan calories if that's your goal!

  | Because it tastes good

Ah, but in a vacuum of other considerations, I hear that human flesh is very tasty. Would you fancy a go with cannibalism?

This sounds like you're saying "We've always done it so it is ok by me." It's flawed reasoning. Following that reasoning why'd we let women start to vote?

As mlent points out we have a choice today. In the past there were times when it was necessary to travel and survive. Why do it if it's unnecessary?

Because eating some animals is necessary for human survival.

Non-animal sourced diets are hopelessly unhealthy in the long term no matter how many supplements you take to try and take to make up for it.

Citation very much needed, since all the scientific evidence says this is not true.

Read pretty much all the unbiased scientific literature that looks at the long term effects of a vegan diet, from nutritional studies to surveys of practicing populations. I won't bother to cite them. I'm assuming google isn't blocked in your country? (tip: papers published by vegan and vegetarian promoting organizations do not count).

Don't think I'm defending modern diets either. Most people eat a woefully unhealthy diet regardless of what they eat.

It's just that for most people who go to great lengths to adopt a highly specialized and unbalanced diet, it becomes religion, and they think it makes them immune to the fact of being an omnivore.

Being an omnivore doesn't mean you can choose to eat plants OR animals, it means you must eat a bit of both. But you can certainly go for long spells on just one or the other, but long term, you'll most certainly end up with a case of malnutrition on some area. Most of the studies I've read show that 80-90% of Vegans suffer some malnutrition of some form (despite having fantastic health in many other areas).

Put another way, if you have to take supplements to make up for dietary shortfalls (a number which approaches 100% in long term vegan population studies), you're doing it wrong.

Sorry, citation still needed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12826028

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. ... This position paper reviews the current scientific data related to key nutrients for vegetarians including protein, iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B-12, vitamin A, n-3 fatty acids, and iodine. A vegetarian, including vegan, diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. In some cases, use of fortified foods or supplements can be helpful in meeting recommendations for individual nutrients. Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life-cycle including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fibre, magnesium, potassium, folate, antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, and phytochemicals."

Notice that your citation completely agrees with my statement above but includes lots of wiggle words like "can", "appropriately planned", "well planned", "supplements" and focuses on vegetarian diets without specifying type of diet and doesn't focus on veganism as a dietary habit.

It also doesn't discuss long term dietary issues of vegan practitioners, percentage of practitioners with health deficits (ones who don't practice an "appropriately/well planned diet" and live without the use of "supplements").

Cite me some long term studies with randomly sampled population surveys and we can start having a real conversation.

I don't see anything that agrees with your original statement: "Non-animal sourced diets are hopelessly unhealthy in the long term no matter how many supplements you take to try and take to make up for it." You have yet to cite anything supporting that.

The only supplement that is strictly required on a vegan diet is B12. I'm not sure what's so inherently bad about taking a supplement anyway? Most people, regardless of diet, should be supplementing vitamin D in winter, for example.

I wouldn't want to be following any diet that isn't appropriately planned, so I don't understand your repeated scare quotes. You can be vegan eating nothing but potato chips and coca-cola, but that wouldn't exactly be well planned. Is it possible to be unhealthy on a vegan diet? You bet. Is it possible to be unhealthy on an omnivorous diet? Look at the average American.

"Is it possible to be unhealthy on an omnivorous diet? Look at the average American."

I'm not arguing that point, and I already conceded it earlier, don't misdirect.

If you think a little B12 every once in a while is the only supplement required on a vegan diet, with a little D in the winter, I hope that you aren't observing such a diet, or you've already failed in understanding even the basics of the nutritional and biological science required to even have a chance at making it work long term.

Who's misdirecting? You still haven't cited anything. I'll play along though; which nutrient(s) can only be obtained from animal sources? Even B12 is only accumulated in animal tissue, it's not produced by animals.

Anecdotally, I've been following a thoughtful vegan diet with B12 supplementation for 8 years. The results of my last blood test (including tests for various likely deficiencies) were exemplary. Could you post something other than your opinion? Otherwise, I'm done here.

I don't need to cite anything, 10 seconds on google scholar looking for long term studies will suffice for your needs.

Good luck with it and be careful.

tl;dr

Here's your 100 day challenge, get 100% of your dietary requirements from your diet (without fortification of key ingredients or supplements, just from pure foodstuffs), and prove to me that you aren't eating a poor diet.

here's the tl part:

You're overfocusing on B12, because the literature on vegan nutrition overfocuses on B12 as neurological damage caused by B12 deficiencies are generally irreversible. Dietary B12 doesn't come from many non-animal sources, but you don't need much anyway, and effects of B12 deficiencies aren't symptomatic for several years. Your pre-vegan intake of B12 would have been sufficient for a few years until you figured out non-animal sources of it. It's also unclear to date if the form of B12 found in non-animal sources (synthetic eukaryotic sources, etc.) functions identically to animal sourced (from prokaryotic sources) B12. There are almost no studies on it because you have to try and be deficient in B12 on a normal diet without large-scale intestinal disorders.

"Even B12 is only accumulated in animal tissue, it's not produced by animals."

I don't think you understand where B12 comes from, I'm sure your understanding came from some vegan promotional literature which seems woefully full of cherry picked misunderstandings and absurd apologetics.

I'm sure you're getting it through some supplement. Now get it through dietary means. Or if you actually care about the environment, get it from locally produced dietary sources alone and don't have to have some heavily processed fermented foodstuff shipped a thousand miles to your fridge. I don't need to cite anything for you to know you simply can't.

α-linolenic acid is where you'll probably have the biggest long-term health issues, as metabolism into EPA and DHA is very inefficient with most of the issues in DHA production. Multiple studies show deficiencies in vegan diets w/r to DHA. Synthesis, requires several dietary co-factors in careful balance and long term studies suggest possible liver damage in humans (but not conclusively) vs. simply ingesting animal sources of long-chain n–3 fatty acids. Most vegans eat sources of ALA thinking it will makeup for their dietary deficiencies EPA and DHA, but multiple studies show that DHA levels remain deficient in these cases.

I'm sure you take supplements to make up for this inadequacy in your diet. Now do it without them. And if you think that your non-animal sourced Omega-3 supplement is complete, think again. There is no such thing as one kind of ω−3. You need them all, but in particular you need EPA and DHA.

Oh and DHA supplements also have a nasty side effect of preventing blood clotting, damaging immune response and increasing LDL levels. In other words, don't take them, they will hurt you.

Vitamin D should also be a no-supplement required vitamin. You make it in your skin for goodness sakes! It's not really essential, but it's plentiful in animal sources, and just stepping out in the sun for a bit everyday is more than sufficient to produce all the D secosteroid you could ever possibly need. If you feel the need to take D supplements, for all that is holy, take D3 and not D2 as the bio-availability of D3 is several times higher than D2. But of course, if you're taking "vegan-friendly" D supplements, it's almost always a fungal source which of course is the deficient D2 ergocalciferol form. I would suggest UV lamps at your desk instead of supplements.

I'm sure you already know about Iron and Zinc deficiencies in your diet. Every vegan I know is acutely aware of it and tries to eat lots of iron and zinc rich food stuffs and takes yet again more supplements to make up for their shitty diet.

But look, the point is this: the definition of a poor diet is a diet that doesn't provide for all of the necessary nutrients as part of the diet. If you have to take supplements to make up for dietary shortfalls, your diet is a poor one...period. Waiving away the handful of supplements you take everyday is madness and a serious problem.

Vegans are among the only otherwise healthy population group in the developed world that routinely suffers from illnesses seen only in the most decrepit poverty stricken parts of the undeveloped world. Most vegans source their information from highly biased vegan promotional material and don't understand the basic science.

I get it, you want to help the animals out of some sort of moral obligation. And I'm sure you only eat food produced on farms with no field kills, and use the parts of the internet only on a machine powered by sources that have no animal impact. And that somehow you live in a vegan mecca where somehow all of the various plants that produce 100% of your dietary requirements don't have to be shipped from halfway around the planet killing goodness knows how many animals in the process and that you believe in a world where everybody else goes vegan and the billions of domesticated farm animals somehow continue to find sponsorship for their care and maintenance in perpetuity. I think that's great.

Just be careful, and proceed with the understanding that long-term, you won't be able to sustain this diet without compromises to your health.

"But look, the point is this: the definition of a poor diet is a diet that doesn't provide for all of the necessary nutrients as part of the diet. If you have to take supplements to make up for dietary shortfalls, your diet is a poor one...period. Waiving away the handful of supplements you take everyday is madness and a serious problem."

That's simply your opinion. You're obsessed with the evils of supplements. Who cares if you need a couple of supplements to make up for some known shortfalls? It's a trivial part of my day, and it's hardly a "handful of supplements". Besides, consuming animal products has its own set of drawbacks.

I'm not sure why the vegans you know are so concerned about iron and zinc. I'm deficient in neither and don't go out of my way to supplement them. They're readily available in many plant foods. I'm also well aware that vitamin D is produced in skin, but you might want to double check your latitude if you're relying on that in the winter.

My goal is not to get 100% of my dietary requirements from food. That's apparently your objective. I never claimed a vegan diet can provide all the nutrients you need without supplementation. I readily admit you have to take B12. Some other things might be good to supplement too, depending on the actual make up of your diet. This is true even if you are omnivorous.

This whole thread started because you made this claim: "Non-animal sourced diets are hopelessly unhealthy in the long term no matter how many supplements you take to try and take to make up for it"

And now you've added:

"Vegans are among the only otherwise healthy population group in the developed world that routinely suffers from illnesses seen only in the most decrepit poverty stricken parts of the undeveloped world."

Please cite something specific to support either of those claims. "Google it" is not a citation. I know a lot of long term vegans (multiple decades; some lifelong) who are doing just fine.

If anyone else is still following this thread, this is a good source of information for vegans who want to be healthy: http://veganhealth.org

Yes, if anybody is still on this thread, and you want to go vegan, or are currently practicing, please please please, read the relevant appropriate scientific literature and don't just rely on vegan promotional sites like veganhealth.org (which makes several of the dietary mistakes I noted earlier in the thread).

Don't rely on opinion, tips at Whole Foods, friends, the internet, vegan pamphlets, support groups or only promotional websites. For example, veganhealth.org (run by dietition Jack Norris) makes an good effort at being a good guide - Jack does a pretty good job of distilling lots of the hard stuff into digestible chunks (forgive the pun). But it's subject to the exact same pitfalls and hopeful thinking (a bit of ground flaxseed on toast will solve all your omega problems!) I've seen in dozens upon dozens of vegan promotional dietary guides.

Once you've decided to go vegan, you've made the jump to accepting that you will be eating an inadequate diet to start with. (Simple logic dictates that if you need supplements to fix gaps in your diet, it's inadequate in those areas). Maintaining proper nutrition and health is unbelievably complicated when you're starting at such a disadvantage.

See a doctor regularly and demand the appropriate blood tests that test for the specific dietary deficiencies that are normal on a vegan diet. Don't rely on a typical blood panel...which is designed for people on omnivorous diets -- diets for which almost all of the vegan dietary deficiencies simply don't occur. If you don't know what the tests are, it's time to start your research!

Many of the animals that humans eat are born into captivity, caged their entire existence, and slaughtered at a young age.

I feel sorrow for them.

And many of the animals humans eat are not. They are treated well, given ample amounts of the types of food their species was intended to eat, and slaughtered respectfully.

Instead of simply opting out of the horrendous conditions you don't agree with, what about voting with your dollar to support the ethical alternatives?

The vast, vast majority of the animals that Americans and Western Europeans eat are treated cruelly from birth until premature death. Some estimates have it as high as 99% in the US [1]. If you go to your average grocery store, like most people do, that's kind of meat you'll find. I've yet to personally meet a meat-eater who actually buys local, grass-fed, truly free-range meat. In some ways, it's more ethical, in my opinion, to eat local, "humane" meat than it is to eat factory-farm produced eggs and dairy.

I can't speak for michaelvanham, but a lot of veg*ns do vote with their dollars... It's pretty easy to find locally grown produce, plant-based non-animal-tested cleaning and hygiene products, etc. No way to be perfect, but easy to try :)

[1] http://www.farmforward.com/farming-forward/factory-farming

I have to laugh any time someone says "Humanely slaughtered" or in this case "slaughtered respectfully".

I guess the oxymoron is non-obvious.

Here's a couple extreme examples: I humanely slaughtered your family. I slaughtered your mother respectfully.

Followed by: "Why are you so upset?? I could have just opted out of slaughtering your family but I decided to opt into doing it respectfully."

I put that into familial terms to bring the context closer to home. We wouldn't stand for such language with humans. At the root is hubris and apathy.

I totally agree. A humane death, to me, is a natural death or one that relieved you of inevitable suffering (I.e. incurable painful disease).

So "many" means "a large number". In the US we're talking 3% - that's not a large number. Additionally, by not supporting any meat, we are fighting a system that is polluting the earth & unnecessarily abusing animals.

I am a vegan for moral reasons, and I have no objection to people eating animals. What I do object to is the horrifying daily torture that animals must suffer in the meat, dairy and eggs industry. I am guessing this is where some of your food comes from.

In my experience, people who have no qualms about using animal-based products are ignorant of the realities of how these products are made. I encourage you to watch Earthlings [1] -- free to watch on their site -- and see if you feel the same way once you've seen some evidence.

[1] http://earthlings.com/

As a fellow vegan, I have to ask -- why be vegan if you have no objection to people eating animals, if they are raised/slaughtered "humanely"? Why not just buy local meat/dairy/eggs? At least where I live, it's pretty easy to meet farmers at a farmer's market and talk to them about how their animals are treated.

Exactly. If you reason for avoiding meat is only because of shitty meat producers, then why not vote with your dollar instead and support the non-shitty meat producers?

See my reply to mlent.

First, I doubt we would be able to agree on a viable definition of "humane" commercial farming. But even if we did, I would not take the farmer's word for how the animals are treated. What I have heard from a former farmhand, who worked on several small farms, is that abuse of animals is simply the norm.

It sounds reasonable to me that this is the situation, except perhaps in very small farms. History has taught me this: whenever humans have physical control over other humans, they tend to abuse their subjects in terrible ways. Slavery. The Holocaust. Gulags. North Korean concentration camps. It seems to me that the way we are treating animals is simply a manifestation of this tendency toward sadism. It is not difficult to find recorded evidence of pure sadism playing out both in small and large farms. Since I have no way to verify a given farmer's claims, I will not take the risk.

Second, a well-balanced, strictly vegetarian diet is far more healthy than a diet that is based on animal products [1,2]. I know that many people do not believe this, and they base their views on the vast amount of disinformation that is out there. To get to the truth you have to listen to the experts. The book [1] I am citing was written by Dr. Walter Willett, one of the leading researchers on the relation between nutrition and disease. His recommendation is basically to eat as I suggested above. More precisely, he recommends (based on decades of research) to reduce animal-based foods as much as possible, and to reduce processed foods in favor of whole foods. There are of course additional recommendations that I will not go into.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Drink-Be-Healthy-Harvard/dp/074326...

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30gEiweaAVQ

I totally agree. It's nice to hear from people who've put some thought into what goes on their plate!

As a side note, I have a friend who worked in a Buddhist monastery and tended their chickens. He even sang to them. I would totally buy their eggs :)

Vegetarian diet more healthy? In what criterion? Lean body mass? Sprint speed? Hint: vegetarians are known to be slow [1]. I think whether vegetarian diet is more healthy depends on personal traits: gut flora, genetics, even climate one lives. Basically there is no such one-fits-all scenario for a diet.

[1] Louise Burke - Clinical Sports Nutrition

You're less likely to have numerous health problems by following a vegetarian diet. As a vegetarian you are, for example, less likely to have heart disease, the number one killer in the United States. [1] Interestingly, some of the oldest people in the world eat a primarily plant-based diet (though not exclusively). [2]

The issue is that you need a well planned veg diet. You can't just eat french fries and white bread and expect to maintain your health, obviously. For me, after a couple months of tracking my food and learning the calories/fat/protein of a lot of plant foods, I don't really have to think hard about creating well-balanced meals. It's a learning process.

I'm sure it's possible to have a healthy diet that includes a very small amount of non-red meat. That small amount is probably not going to hurt you that much. [3] However, you can get every vital nutrient you would get from meat from a plant source without the tacked-on fat and cholesterol.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/vegetarians-heart-h...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-...

[3] http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/study-urges-moderation-in...

You can't get B12 from any plant source, though.

Not from plants, but from micro-organisms and bacteria! Yum! Many of my foods are fortified with B12.

50% DV in my soy/almond milk, 40% in a single tbsp of nutritional yeast. I have a cup with cereal in the morning and a cup with dinner at night and I'm set. It's quite easy.

Personally, I'd rather get a shot than have to eat nutritional yeast.

Are you kidding? Nutritional yeast is delicious! You can put it on popcorn, include it in any recipe that calls for Parmesan (like risotto or cheesy pastas), use it for breading tofu, use it to make vegan mac n cheese. I love nutritional yeast...in case you can't tell. :) It just has an awful name.

I fail to see how sprint speed, or indeed any other sports-based metric, is related to health. A strictly vegetarian diet is more healthy in the sense that it dramatically reduces the chances of getting various diseases. These include some of the top killers in developed countries, like heart disease and stroke. Vegans are also far less likely to be obese, and obesity is an important risk factor of many diseases.

The three main factors that influence health (in the sense above) are smoking habits, diet, and exercise. The factors you mention are secondary. I refer you to the sources I cited above for more details and evidence.

> Basically there is no such one-fits-all scenario for a diet.

That's a bit like saying that not everyone should avoid arsenic... There are of course personal variations, but the fact that meat, dairy and eggs are bad for you is not one of them. The basic mechanisms that cause animal-based food to be harmful, like the fact that saturated fats increase bad cholesterol, are well-studied and do not vary greatly from person to person.

On the other hand, a vegan diet is not one-size; it's not like we just eat lettuce all day. In fact, when you go vegan you discover that you do not lose any diversity, because there are many plant foods that non-vegans usully don't consider eating (for no good reason).

Sprinter speed is mostly determined by genetics and training (and often, PEDs). Diet is largely irrelevant - Usain Bolt's "power food" is mcnuggets, Yohan Blake's is a 16 banana smoothie.

Here's a thought experiment: Imagine that I breed gorillas. Soon after reaching adulthood each gorilla is killed and made into dog food. One day I discover a gorilla whose mental abilities are similar to a 6-year old human child. That is, the gorilla can reason, communicate, be creative and show empathy just like a child. Is it OK to kill that gorilla? If so, how about an '8-year-old child' gorilla? Or 10-year-old?

Chickens, cows, and fish aren't very smart.

Citation? AFAIK, cows are relatively smart.

Excellent article!

A couple of observations...

"Aristotle's idea of the scala naturae, the ladder of nature, put all life-forms in rank order, from low to high, with humans closest to the angels. During the Enlightenment, the French philosopher René Descartes, a founder of modern science, declared that animals were soulless automatons. In the 20th century, the American psychologist B.F. Skinner and his followers took up the same theme, painting animals as little more than stimulus-response machines." <- rudimentary systems of ideas.

And I kindof gasped towards the end of the article, when I read this: "The one historical constant in my field is that each time a claim of human uniqueness bites the dust, other claims quickly take its place. Meanwhile, science keeps chipping away at the wall that separates us from the other animals."

I mean, as I said, excellent article, but let's not falsify by omission. We are the only species who can build on previous generations' achievements; and the only species who can abstract indefinitely (i.e, always make a statement about a previous statement). These are both due to the special linguistic behaviours we are capable of.

Yet don't you think your last statement there is a perfect example of walking through a quiet wood and declaring a woodpecker absent? We certainly don't understand non-human languages/communication systems, and significant evidence is piling up that it's often far more sophisticated than we think it is. And "building on previous generations' achievements" is a little ill-defined; isolated groups of individuals often form a unique society, even if they aren't conducting research on human intelligence.

I didn't say other species clearly do not possess equally impressive linguistic abilities. But qualitatively, our stand in sharp distinction. Surely, we can never be certain the woodpecker is absent, but, that's just a new take on the fact that our theories are merely the expectations with maximum probability. I stay open, and prepared to accept if a new sign of legacy-based behaviour is found in other species, as well as a form of extra-neural storage of symbolic configurations (e.g writing). But surely you cannot ask me to expect those.

I'm not sure about what you meant in your last remark. I meant that humans are uniquely able of starting where the former generations left off. This explains the techno-ideological development that has been occurring naturally for all and any of us (unless a library was burned down, which was a pathological thing to do).

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10071-007-0092-5...

There's a definite possibility bowerbirds learn bower making skills from older bowerbirds.

There's also... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect

Thanks, I think it boils down to tokipin's comment above.

there's probably a lot of examples of knowledge in animals that is passed from generation to generation, like say the knowledge of how to crack open nuts with rocks

we definitely have something most animals don't, but that something may be more of a degree thing than a kind thing

Very much agreed.

> we definitely have something most animals don't

"Religion and control of fire" seem to be the big things that humans have and no non-human animal has. "Language with recursive grammar" is a possible differentiator, but that's currently up for debate.

I would amend that list and add conscience and the ability to question what is moral or not. Animals in some cases may have limited capabilities, but other animals, such as cats and their sadistic behaviors, I would question.

that reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo

in the full talk, the speaker goes on to mention that some monkeys who were receiving the good reward would refuse to accept it until their counterpart was also given the good reward

Somebody else posted this in the same thread: http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h.... It overviews sharp distinctions between the behaviours of animals and humans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_culture gives a, IMO, decent overview but misses the famous example of the tit and the milk bottle: http://www.brefigroup.co.uk/resources/view_product.do?produc...

Also worth reading: "If a Lion Could Talk: Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of Consciousness" http://web.archive.org/web/20090416230704/http://www.nytimes...

If by 'we' the authors of this article mean people who only believe things that have been 'proven' by science, then the intelligence of animals will always be underestimated by definition.

You could also say we've vastly overestimated the intelligence of human animals.

In that respect, I would say we are separating into different species.

I've realised a long time ago that human knowledge on animal intelligence was underrated. They may not be able to predict future observations nor to be able to remember trivial events from the past nor to create or use tools, but when you take a closer look at them, whether they are insects, fish or mammals, they can all sense danger and opportunity in nature. It's no automatic reflexes but true analytics of their environment. After all a worm is said to have an IQ of 1 when the IQ of a computer is 0. Animal kingdom is smarter than previously thought and most of them probably have emotions like fear, pain & empathy. This is no anthropomorphism but a true fact.

Here's the author's Wikipedia page http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal

Should we be saying "Research shows research underestimated"

I have always believed that we were nowhere near over our chauvinism as a species in this regard.

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