Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution? - PaleoHacks.com

Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-09T19:52:44Z

I assume most people who believe in following a paleo lifestyle also believe in evolution. But I'm interested to find out if there's anybody out there who doesn't. I for one just finished reading The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, a book that basically says evolution is proven. No longer a theory.

If you are paleo and don't believe in evolution, how do you reconcile the two?

Answer by JeJ for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-09T20:07:56Z

Agree to disagree. I am not religious, but I think you don't have to believe in evolution to see that taking care of your body makes sense. I'm sure Adam, Eve, and T.Rex didn't squeeze oil out of veggies or hunt twinkies. How people get to their own conclusions is personal.

Answer by TruthinessInc for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-09T20:14:22Z

"If you are paleo and don't believe in evolution, how do you reconcile the two?"

*faith/fāTH/

Noun:

1.Complete trust or confidence in someone or something. 2.Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. *

This is what I think you're looking for?

Truth.

Answer by borofergie for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-09T20:49:29Z

Listen to this guy, who follows a Paleo like diet even though he believes that the earth is <6000 y/o. http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/can-a-christian-follow-a-paleo-low-carb-diet/9381

Obviously he's a nutter, but I love the bit where he says that the God is a low-carber, because when Abraham offered him bread "He only ate a morsel".

If you don't believe in evolution, then there really is no point in following an evolutionary diet.

There are genuinely people that refuse to accept that grains can be unhealthy because "bread is mentioned in the Bible, therefore it is blessed by God". Loons.

Answer by August for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-09T21:01:03Z

People like Dawkins do not want to use evolution to explain reality. He doesn't eat paleo, at least not to my knowledge. He wants to control people. This is where evolution is used to metaphorically bash less intelligent people over the head. Before they started pushing everyone into college, there was only about 15% of the population that went- this is probably the appropriate percentage. What I mean by that is now we have a lot more degreed people than we need, and comparatively, the knowledge rattling around in these credentialed people's brains leaves much to be desired. So, 15% of 300 million who could actually handle college level stuff, and then some smaller percentage actually capable of doing biology or anthropology. So what am I saying? Evolution is important, but if you stop pretending everyone is your equal, you could also stop beating them over the head every time they demonstrate they don't understand things as well as you do.

And I am also saying some guy who thinks Genesis is the literal truth can be told we weren't designed to eat grains, legumes, or dairy, and with a careful reading of the text he could even figure out animal products were okay before God explicitly said they were okay- and since you are the smart one here, don't you think you ought to stop trying to beat people over the head and try to explain things in a way that this guy would understand without violating something so central to his identity?

Another thing you have to realize is that evolution is a basis for which to run the 'paleo' experiment, but once people start running the experiment, and they get all healthy and thin and stuff- even the biggest fundy in the world can look at the results and notice it works. So, they can be paleo because they've seen it work and not refer back at all to evolution. Matt Lalonde, at the orginal AHS took people to task about this very subject, but in his case he wasn't talking about Christains, he was talking about biochemists. Evolutionary theory helps you come up with the hypothesis, which means you've got a starting point for an experiment, but they aren't impressed by that- they are impressed by the outcome of the experiment. And if you are really sciency, your outcomes are repeatable.

Hopefully I have beaten this horse to death. Now go bother Dawkins about his eating habits. Horse is paleo. Feed him some.

Answer by jake for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-09T21:26:35Z

evolution is a fact and not something that you can decide to believe or not believe. it has been proven. whether people want to leave their cave or not is up to them but the fact remains.

Answer by BoneBrothFast for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-10T02:35:24Z

I eat WAPF so I follow the ancient Sumerian agriculturalist way of eating.

Answer by thhq for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-10T04:36:10Z

Most paleos say that they believe in evolution, but deny the basic principle: adaptation. If you can digest grain and dairy products you have moved past paleo evolution-wise. You may have perfectly legitimate reasons not to eat those foods but evolution is not one of them.

Answer by Gary for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-10T09:04:49Z

I think in these questions it's important to separate 2 distinct questions:

What impact does food have on the body?
Why does it have that impact?

Many studies show us that eating unprocessed meat, fish, eggs, fruit, veggies, nuts and seeds makes our bodies work better. Good fats are necessary for bodily function. Gluten is inflammatory and largely unnecessary and not beneficial. Sugar makes us fat. These are all studies about the WHAT.

WHY is a whole different question. Everyone seems to answer it based on their pre-existing point of view. If you are an evolutionist, you think that the why answer is because we evolved that way. If you are a creationist, you think that the why is because we were created that way. If you are an intelligent-designist (if that even exists...) then you will think we were designed that way.

Whichever of these (or other) creeds that you follow, you can still reconcile eating unprocessed, natural foods that are good for your body and enhance the body's processes, rather than processed and refined carbohydrates that leach the body of nutrients and make us fat and ill. The fact that this way of eating has been called "Paleo" doesn't make it any less relevant in answering the WHAT question, regardless of your WHY beliefs. If it was called the "Eden" diet or the "ID" diet, then would you approach it differently? Would you reject it just because the why doesn't conform to your way of thinking?

Answer by meta for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-10T10:34:03Z

I would like to think that obtaining the benefits of what paleo has to offer should be available to everyone regardless of race, colour, creed, sexual orientation or religion.

One possible way of providing evidence for the innate suitability of Paleo dietary practices may in fact be in the Bible:

Consider the passage in the Genesis regarding a place called Eden where Adam and Eve found themselves freshly minted by God and in this place there were no processed carbs.. or processed meat.

Of course, given the paleolithic era is not consistent with a Judeo-Christian history it could be termed something like "Edino" rather than Paleo (after the Aramaic Edinnu for Eden).

Answer by Michael for Do you follow a paleo diet and NOT believe in evolution?

2012-10-11T16:58:08Z

Silly and fun thread. Basically, if a person doesn't believe in evolution, does that mean they have to think all foods are equally healthy? Of course not. Some fraction might believe that meat and veggies are the most healthful, and believing that doesn't prove evolution any more than my belief in the golden rule means that I must therefore believe in any religion that promotes that. On the other hand, some fraction of creationists will believe that they should eat low fat because science says so. Naturally that they believe in one kind of science but not another is amusing. But then again, most of us here believe in evolutionary science but not (standard) nutritional science, so we're doing the same thing (except I think our reasoning is more sound, but it's still the same notion of accepting what some scientists say but not what others say). Then of course, most nutritionists believe in evolution but manage to fail to apply that knowledge to their nutritional science. Alas, good science is hard, and most people -- including many researchers, apparently -- are not equipped or motivated to sort out good science from bad. What a mess!

So who is more contradictory? The creationist who eats paleo, or the nutritionist who believes in evolution and that grains are more nutritious than grass-fed meat?