Humans have evolved over time to become allergic to many of the foods we eat. I have allergies to soy and intolerances to lots of yummy fruits and vegetables, for instance. Then there are things like wheat and peanuts and milk that many humans just can stomach. Some attribute this to blood type or environmental factors. Some even will say that nature is rebelling so we stop raping the planet of its resources.
In anthropology and sociobiology here are theories that we adapt to adjust to our environments and certain behaviors like diet are actually Maladaptive to our productive human evolution.
Whatever the explanation, we embrace science to help us overcome our allergies and intolerances in defiance of nature’s protest…for better or for worse.
In today’s Wall Street journal there is a story if one such feat of maladaptive brilliance…genetically modified milk for people who are allergic to milk. Rather than finding another source of nutrition other than milk from another animal designed to nourish it’s offspring but instead co-opted for our consumption, we decide to simply adjust the poison so we can ingest it anyway. Genius? Maybe? Or perhaps resources could be better spent simply finding the appropriate alternative.
Either way I give a “moo” for science.
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The Narcissistic (American) Anthropologist 