Articles Reflecting a Vegan Lifestyle From All-Creatures.org

An Evolutionary Case for Veganism

From Gregory F. Tague, as published on Mother Pelican
January 2023

Other scholars conclude that meat eaters dissociate their empathic and disgust emotions from the reality of what’s put in their mouths ... Adults should not be under some obligation to inculcate children to prioritize humanity over other forms of life. As we can see from many recent events, whether deforestation, habitat loss, environmental catastrophes, or pandemics, that is a very costly proposition.

Healthy vegan meal composition shown using the food plate method. Image credit: Tischbeinahe - Own work, 29 November 2021, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia.

There appears to be a cultural struggle for dominance between the corporate agriculture of meat and any vegan ecology. Consumers want to think about whether those two are compatible and how their conflict plays out in cultural evolution. The dangers and rewards are both high. Tim Lewens (2015) sees Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd (2005) as posing a “kinetic” theory or “patterns of variation.” Selection, for them, is not paramount. Rather, they are more to “population thinking.”

Social learning and influence frequencies, in this model, count more than any focus on the innateness of inherited Stone Age mentality seen in evolutionary psychology. These authors pointedly say that “social learning” is a strategic ingredient as humans adapted and continue to do so culturally (Boyd, et al. 2011). Population thinking and evolutionary psychology are not necessarily mutually exclusive since populations consist of evolved brains and innate archetypes and instincts. Selection can also mathematically intensify in a population any “partially-adapted forms,” thus increasing variants of that trait (Lewens 2007).

Is there shared belief (via memes) or true replication and retention (via selection), asks Lewens (2015). Emphasizing cumulative population inheritance, cultural evolution may not need replicators. Alex Mesoudi (2011) might disagree, as he leans more to selection theory.

Without eliminating selection, stress can be placed on human culture and not “human nature,” depending how one defines human, including which ancient and extant ape species. What and how we learn is embedded in our species history, evolutionarily on both the individual and group levels. There are cognitive mechanisms enabling learning from others and the environment. Hence, there’s an intersection of biological and cultural evolution. Consider the rise of cultural values and norms. For instance, along with the preponderance of meat and dairy, there’s a definite interest in and flirtation with veganism.

Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE.

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And also read The Vegan Evolution: Transforming Diets and Agriculture By Gregory Tague.

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