Did meat eating play a role in human evolution?

[Jebus]

Katharine Milton claims her research supports this claim: nature.berkeley.edu/miltonlab/pdfs/meateating.pdf

rebuttal here: http://www.ecologos.org/meat-eating.htm

[Shai Hulud]

Not thrilled with this article. Some of it is valuable, but grains do not contain opioid residues.

[zeello]

The fact humans evolved from an herbivore is pretty damning indeed. My personal theory is that meat eating came about as a survival tactic. The only evolution is that humans who did not eat meat or did not survive eating meat (wheher its because they didnt cook the meat or because their bodies couldnt handle it) have gone extinct and we are all the descendants of the meat eating ones. That is the only evolution that could possibly have occurred, since the theory necessitates that herbivoric humans died somehow. (Natural selection)

[brimstoneSalad]

It's really irrelevant if meat eating played a role in human evolution or not, because that neither makes it healthy nor morally permissible if it did (nor does the contrary mean the opposite). That would be an appeal to nature fallacy regarding the ethics, or a Dillahunty fallacy regarding the misunderstanding of evolution.

[Insert name here]

I found this article that suggests that humans evolved to be natural herbivores rather than omnivores.

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

It is an interesting read, the main thing to take away from it is that just because we are capable of eating meat does not mean we are "Natural" omnivores. If meat played a crucial role in human evolution, that is, if it made our intelligence possible, then why aren't all carnivores naturally more intelligent than herbivores? The only good conclusion to come to is that there are other factors in evolution that determine intelligence. In other words, saying that meat is the main reason humans have intelligence is just silly.

[ankacitah]

humans should eat meat only if they have nothing, but nothing else to eat. But, with the options today.....So, did it helps us, nope, in my opinion.