Controversial scientist Richard Dawkins recently made a post supportive of cannibalism on Twitter. In the post he said, "What if human meat is grown? Could we overcome our taboo against cannibalism? An interesting test case for consequentialist morality versus “yuck reaction” absolutism. "
His post was in response to an article about the possibility of lab grown meat being on sale within the next year. Dawkins seemed to insinuate that objecting to cannibalism is somehow intolerant or wrong, when there are many obvious and scientific reasons why cannibalism is a bad idea.
Researchers discovered through studying cannibal tribes that the practice of eating human flesh often caused a fatal brain disease called kuru. This is just the worst thing that can happen to you from consuming your own species, it is well established fact that this can cause a long list of mental and physical illnesses.
According to Wikipedia:
Kuru is a very rare, incurable neurodegenerative disorder which was prevalent among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea in the 1950s and 60s. Kuru is caused by the transmission of abnormally folded prion proteins, which leads to symptoms such as tremors, loss of coordination, and neurodegeneration. The term kuru derives from the Fore word kuria or guria ("to shake"), due to the body tremors that are a classic symptom of the disease and kúru itself means "trembling". It is now widely accepted that kuru was transmitted among members of the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea via funerary cannibalism. Deceased family members were traditionally cooked and eaten, which was thought to help free the spirit of the dead. Females and children usually consumed the brain, the organ in which infectious prions were most concentrated, thus allowing for transmission of kuru. The disease was therefore more prevalent among women and children.
You may think that cannibalism is something that does not permeate into American culture, but as steemian @richq11 pointed out in an article this week, Human Embryonic Kidney cells are used as "flavor enhancers" in popular drinks like Pepsi.
It is strange that Dawkins is attempting to normalize such an obviously unhealthy and dangerous practice, but perhaps he was just being edgy and trying to get attention as so many of these pundits often do. Dawkins is best known as a champion of atheist materialists, and is often making absolute statements about how reality is confined to the world of the five senses, while dismissing anyone with a different idea as an "absolutist."
In 2011, Dawkins was challenged by Graham Hancock to try psychedelics to see if it would change his mind about more supernatural or explainable phenomenon, and Dawkins has yet to accept the Challenge.
This is not relevant to the story, this is just my favorite moment involving Dawkins, because it is the same challange that I put forward to most staunch materialists, and Graham Hancock is awesome. Huge Thanks to @dwinblood for the tip on this story!THIS WAS A STEEMIT EXCLUSIVE!!
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No matter how much they try to push it, there are some lines that must not be crossed. It's not "taboo" for a human to consume human flesh. It's immoral. Evil. @ironshield
so it has been said about many other practices.
Any actual argument though?
lol
I haven't had breakfast yet today. Now, I don't think I want to and I'm never drinking Pepsi ever again. I should just stop drinking all sodas for that matter. Where's the green faced emoji when I need one?
I've always thought Dawkins was an arrogant jackass. Whether he was serious or just trying to get people's goat with this tweet, I stand by my initial assessment of him.
i always think of the south park with him lol
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Interesting read. I think when mentioning Kuru it is worthy to note that the tribes buried the bodies for days, allowing extreme decay before exhuming their bodies and ingesting their flesh and maggots. In contrast, we refrigerate meat if it isn't being consumed right away to preserve it.
This is from the Wikipedia article on Kuru: "Corpses of family members were often buried for days then exhumed once the corpses were infested with maggots at which point the corpse would be dismembered and served with the maggots as a side dish."
I'm a vegetarian and have no interest in human meat, but I am guessing their particular method of eating buried rotten flesh could be a large factor in health issues.
There are some things that I'd really prefer not to know.
This is one of them.
I... I guess I can be grateful this was not a cultural practice I grew up with.
It's somewhat interesting to consider Dawkins ghoulish interest in cannibalism in this context. Sadly, he won't be able to get any rotting, maggot-infested human brains grown in labs.
Actually, no I'm not sad about that.
For Dawkins sake, I hope he's not either.
Haha yes, the burial/exhumation process adds an additional element of horror to the idea.
Good points!
the problem is that there is no good way to sterilize something infected with prions, medical instruments used on patients of those diseases have to be discarded because they can't be reliably sterilized.
Sure, I wasn't challenging how infectious it may be. My response was regarding the suggestion that eating humans can lead to Kuru. I'm not a medical expert and it looks like the initial formation/cause of prions is still at the hypothetical level of understanding. I tried to find how many other instances there are of eating meat with that level of decay in other cultures and came up empty-handed, though I did see information about one nutritionist who claims to have cured cancer by doing so.
I see this from the Wikipedia article about prions: "Current research suggests that the primary method of infection in animals is through ingestion. It is thought that prions may be deposited in the environment through the remains of dead animals and via urine, saliva, and other body fluids. They may then linger in the soil by binding to clay and other minerals.[63]"
So my next question as to cause vs. transmission is: Do we have much research on the effects of eating badly decomposed meat? This is something scavengers do, and I did find this article on the spread of prions based on scavenger bird droppings: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3904308/
This is a small, yet more widespread group to reference, but there are cases about people resorting to cannibalism in survival scenarios, and I can't find evidence of such individuals contracting Kuru. The same can be said about serial killers who have engaged in cannibalism with their victims, I have found no evidence of Kuru. A list of cannibalistic killers for reference: https://www.ranker.com/list/killers-who-ate-their-victims/ranker-crime
My very amateur guess would tell me that the more decomposition a meat has undergone, the higher chances for various cell mutations. Perhaps animals in the wild could acquire prions when they have been forced to scavenge on badly decomposed flesh to survive. I don't have enough information to back up this suspicion, and I imagine scientists analyzing the remains of a dead animal with prions might lead to the assumption that it was "infected during life" instead of the result of decomposing, because they weren't analyzing it from birth. In any case, I don't think eating extremely decomposed meat of any kind would be without serious health risks for humans, which is why I think the cannibal tribe of Papua New Guinea is more of a unique case regarding cannibalism. And if they are perpetuating the infection by eating their own infected, the same still stands that they are a unique case.
It would be unlikely to occur in such a situation because the people they are eating are not infected. It happens more often in cultures that practice cannibalism on the regular because at some point someone was infected so they actually transmit it to each other when they eat other cannibals. You probably couldn't get it by eating non cannibals.
after something is dead it's cells stop dividing so the chance for cell mutations would go to zero as does the chance of those cell mutations being passed on to the next generation. The problem with rotten meat in general is things like botulism and e-coli.
Alright so we seem to agree, my theories aside, that Kuru only happens when eating the infected.
When you say "It happens more often in cultures that practice cannibalism on the regular" I assume you are talking about other than the Papua New Guinea tribes? Can you tell me which groups you are referring to so I can look them up? Thanks!
I don't know of any modern cannibalistic societies outside of PNG. It is banned there like everywhere else but they still do it a little. Despite the lush forest the soil in PNG is not the best and not terribly productive so the people there are always short on food and that is one reason they culturally practice cannibalism, that is a lot of meat to throw away.
There is a lot of information about CWD which is a prion disease that affects deer species in North America if you want to learn more about them. Even that is not entirely understood.
For the same reason why everything should be “legal”, I’m not going to stop you... but I’m taking a mental note, and I’ll sell you to your friends for dinner if ya get to close.
I'm really hoping he's asking the question to get a rise out of people. To me it looks like the kind of idea one would see on Star Trek before it became "Space Action Adventure Time!". Perhaps it is just a throw back to when science fiction was about the implications of technology on morality before it was taken over by what I call "social science fiction" which I consider no more than just Will and Grace on a spaceship....
Dawkins is just asking provocative questions. As for Kuru disease, that's a specific case that wouldn't actually happen with lab grown meat... unless you make lab grown meat with the particular prion in question.
Seems like a good way to start a zombie apocalypse...
Dawkins comes off as incredibly creepy.
"I've been waiting a long time for lab-grown human flesh so I can try it without ending up like Dahmer" is basically what I read from his tweet.
Sweet Jesus.
No pun intended.
Thanks!
I figure that kuru comes as a result of "mixing genomes." Although rare it is similar, I believe, to rejecting transplanted body parts. For fear of sounding anti-scientific" I believe you're supposed to leave this pebble with the same shit you were born with!
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Thanks for sharing this post.
I appreciate your blog.
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Kuru symptoms, and parkinson symptoms, seem to be pretty similar. I think Michael J Fox was a pepsi spokesperson, does not mean he used the product I know, nor that it had any contributing factor to his condition.
When we start growing bodies to harvest organs, shortly after will the meat disposal discussion.
Ohh what a future we are headed toward.
why grow the whole body?
why not just grow the specific organ you need?
In 2011, Dawkins was challenged by Graham Hancock to try psychedelics to see if it would change his mind about more supernatural or explainable phenomenon, and Dawkins has yet to accept the Challenge
Very wise of him.
Just say no to drugs they kill orders of magnitude more people daily than Kuru has...EVER.
As you mentioned...eating human flesh isn't the problem...consuming the prions are the problem. They happen to be found in Brain tissue (I noticed you didn't mention that)..
A 'flavor' of Kuru can be acquired by eating 'Mad Cows'...same effect.
Would that mean we should give up Beef?
I don't think it is fair to group psychedelics in with the types of drugs that kill people. Psychedelics are very safe when used responsibly, they are not addictive, and they can be beneficial for mental health. I am personally a big fan of them particularly, but I dont do other drugs, I rarely ever even drink.
Thanks for that other information, I only really scratched the surface with my research of kuru
I don't think it's fair the way you slandered Richard Dawkins...but there it is.
You are free to your opinions on psychedelics and Dawkins both, I was sharing and elaborating on mine
and I don't think it's fair for you to compare Alcohol to drugs.
and I don't think it's fair....do we really want to play this game?
I wasn't trying to play any games I was just sharing my opinion that psychedelics are in a different class than the drugs that kill people, perhaps "I don't think its fair" wasn't the best way to start that sentence.
Alcohol is a drug though, and it kills more people than psychedelics.
and what exactly has alcohol got to do with labgrown meat?
you logical fallacy is false equivalency.
But WAIT..there's MORE
your OTHER false eqivalency is comparing (somehow) comparing psychedelic DRUGS to eating lab grown meat.
NOTE: the word MEAT refers to muscle...
Finally!
Dawkins is a prick, he can eat a bag of dicks.
well yeah he's pretty much a prick...dunno about his culinary tastes though. I thought that was a MaCafee exclusive.
personally, i prefer to keep that taboo. because ew and also other reasons.
.