Humans are herbivores.

I dunno. Do you have instincts that make you crave to go onto online forums? I highly doubt it, considering our ancestors did not have cravings for online forums (as they didn't exist). So, when you come to these forums, that would be you acting out of conscious knowledge, not instinct.

Plants, however, do not "act" out of any kind of conscious knowledge.

Of course. If you find a dead body on the ground, and you are hungry, and need to eat it to survive, well, then you eat it.

I'm not arguing that humans couldn't catch and eat animals without tools entirely, only that, in general, we didn't, because we had an extremely difficult time doing so.

Right. And, say, if you go to India, you'll see cows that roam freely, because of religous superstition.

It all depends where you're from, but cows definately can live and defend themselves in the wild.

The "defining" characteristic? I would think that having a CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM, or perhaps a BRAIN, HEART, or other vital organs, would be more of a defining characteristic than a mere cell wall. Maybe you define it as more important than the others, but I doubt that many people will agree with you.

You're right about cell walls vs. cell membranes. But regardless, one of the main deviances in a single-celled organism might be the presence or absence of a cell wall, but not in a whole organism or plant.

Thanks for proving my point! Let me show you how you proved it, using the article you provided:

1. Growth. Okay, plants grow.

2. Metabolism. Okay, plants have that too.

3. Motion, either moving itself, or having internal motion. Plants have the internal motion part down.

4. Reproduction. Yep, plants have that too.

5. Response to stimuli. Nope. Plants do not have that. The reason why plants grow towards light, water, and structure, is not because they can measure the properties of their environment and decide what to do (aka act upon it), but rather because, chemically, that's just how they have evolved.

A plant does not say "hey, here is water, I'll grow towards it." You can see that this is the case because, if a plant had a choice to decide whether or not it will grow towards water, there would always be rogue plants that would decide not to grow towards water. This is never the case. They always grow towards water because they are programmed, in a sense, to grow towards water.

Hence, because plants cannot respond to any stimuli (since plants have no senses that can be stimulated; no taste, no touch, no smell, no sight, no hearing, nothing at all), plants do not satisfy all of the conditions that define what life is.

Also, this definition is also flawed. Right in the article, it says this:

As you can see, male mules are not alive, but fire and stars are? That is an obviously flawed definition, but even by that definition, plants are not alive.

 

Hello everyone, I just wanted to pipe in about this thread and the article. I have not had a chance to read the whole thread so I apologize if any of this has been covered. I am a archaeological technician (i.e. I do all the grunt work) who has done some reading and studying on the subject of human anatomy and evolution. I am far from an expert on the subject so please take what a grain of salt, all be it a small one

Humans are not Herbivores. We do not have the teeth for it. Of course we are not carnivores either. We Are Omnivores. I know that the article gave some differences between us and what it considers the proper structure for each, but it focused on the wrong things. Our molars can chew vegetable and our incisors can go through meat. They are just not very good at either when compared to herbivores and carnivores. Dental wear pattern also tell us that we are omnivores.

Humans have been using tools since well before we were human. Homo Erectus was using stone tools to butcher animals. This can be seen in the archaeological record by the tell tail signs of a V shaped cut mark on the bones when found with our ancestor. Natural things such as teeth make more of a U shaped cut.

The article also suggested that hunting and gathering did not start until recently. This was put out be a archaeologist named Lewis Binford (over all a very wise and well known archaeologist). What the article did not state was the time frame of the word "recently". Lewis put the time at 100000 to 35000 years ago. This puts us in to the time when we were sharing Eurasia with the Neanderthals. Also Lewis never said we did not eat meat, but that we just did not hunt. In fact he believed our early ancestor were more scavengers then hunters.

Now what does this have to with your choosing to be a vegetarian...not much because it is your choose to eat whatever you want It is good to be an Omnivore.

Eric

 

Vegitation grows for the shear beauty of life as do animals. That is why things live and reproduce. A vegetarian is no better than any other entity that consumes others in order to survive. You can lie to yourself and believe it, but don't think that I will buy your bullshit. All life is a gift. An interesting thing is plants that attain a symbiotic relationship (give AND take) with animals (and man) are the most successful. The same goes for animals who only want to eat and breed- cows are mighty successful- look at McDonalds.

I would say a Sequoia Gigantea is far more aware than a cow ever is. They are one with the earth (matter) and the sun (light). Someone who thinks a cow is more aware than a plant is wayyyy the fuck off. Plants are the provider that nourishs all life on the planet- they nourish cows to nourish us. Plants are the holy link between light and matter. I, like some birds, like my food to be digested a couple of times before I eat it... I call this predigested food "meat".

Sorry. Like you, I only know what I have seen. Doubt that you or anyone else is ever going to come up with a completely original idea because all ideas are based on predecessors.

I do admit that I said something very similar at another point. The only thing is, I still find the idea of omnivorous people eating the herbivorous people very satisfying. I find vegans to be rather judgemental about meat eaters and feel that if the judgemental ones are eaten, the whole vegan race will be better.

Who knows though- I might go vegan sometime just for kicks, but the whole idea of eating just plants seems twisted and scewed to me, probably because I am allergic to many fruits (which taste awesome, but puff me up if I eat them- I don't get all anaphylactic but I can't eat 'em) and vegetable proteins (beans and rice or whatever...) fuck up my intestinal tract if I eat more than a smidgeon of them because the amino acids are not balanced the same way as in animal protein, not to mention vegetables constipate the hell out of me if I eat a lot of 'em. The only way I can stay regular is consuming large amounts of meat and cheese. If I eat too many grains or "healthy" foods I get very uncomfortable.

Double lie there bro. I do care and you only responded because you care.

When people get pissed off and say "I don't care!!!" or "I don't give a fuck!!" they aren't telling the truth. A life lesson for those of you who believe those statements.

 

Cheers!!!! If it can't hurt you, eat it!

 

Well that's obvious. Co-operation among species and even between species has always been a good evolutionary strategy.

But you haven't even explained how a plant is more aware then a cow.

Plants have no senses to percieve sensations to be aware of. They literally have nothing that they CAN be aware of. Your statement makes no sense.

Just because plants came first and make an excellent food doesn't mean that they are alive.

 

What I suggested was that animals should have the right to live and the right to their freedom. FYI no my cat is not currently neutered. I am not against spay/neuter as that is done in the best interest of the animal (and a whole other discussion so I won't bother getting into that). And if you would have read my posts you would have seen where I said that I DO NOT think that my morals (such as not killing unnecessarily) should extend to my cat. As I said before...if I felt that way I would not allow my cat the freedom to go outdoors which I do without restrictions. I realize that some mice are going to loose their life at the expense of my cat's freedom. Again as I said before...my morals are MINE. I don't expect an animal to have moral obligations. But if I see the chance to spare even ONE mouse (which again, happens on the rarest of occasion) then I do so.....simply because I can and one mouse still has it's life and my cat is none the wiser. The cat having freedom is not so much important to me as it is important to my cat......HE values his freedom and I would never think to take that away from him for the sake of my own moral beliefs.