Cannibalism and evolution.

[downbeatplumb]

What tastes better than a nice bacon sandwich?

It was while I was chomping on said delicacy the other day that a thought occurred.
I have heard that the closest thing to the taste of human flesh was bacon.

Robot identifies human flesh as bacon.

http://www.wired.com/table_of_malcontent...identifie/

So I wondered if we humans are predisposed to actually seek out the taste of human flesh.

There is archaelogical evidence for ancient cannibalism.

http://www.assemblage.group.shef.ac.uk/issue9/cole.html

I think that an animal that is both predator and prey to itself is a very potent evolutionary mix.

My question is: do you agree that cannibalism could have been a major factor in human evolution?

Or is bacon just lovely?

[Anomalocaris]

I don't like bacon, but I like tunafish and mushrooms. Human flesh does not taste like tunafish or mushrooms. Therefore we are not predisposed to seek out the taste of human flesh.

And yes, effects of cannibalism probably played a role in shaping human behavior and genetics. Certain spontanous mutations change some proteins to result is one of the several invariable fatal degenerative diseases. These diseases are transmissible only by cannibalism. Epidemics of these diseases have been observed in modern pacific island cannibal population. But it has never been seen in other settings. So cannibalist population would tend to either deselect itself through vulnerability to this family of fatal degenerative diseases, or evolve immunity against these diseases, unless even more severe selection pressures promotes it, such as frequent extreme famine even more damaging to successful reproduction than epidemics of these diseases.

There were proposal to study the degree to which human populations have evolved immunity to these diseases as indicators of how prevelent cannibalism had been in our past. I understand the degree of immunity was determined to be very low. Which suggest cannibalism was not the primary source of human diner menu.

Just to add to the gruesomeness of the topic, pacific island cannibals recognize the similarity in taste between human flesh and pork. They call their human victims "long pigs".

[Autumnlicious]

Cannibalism is incompatible with our social cognition excluding very, very specific circumstances. Even then, most of them are either religious rationalizations or forced choices that incur significant emotional and psychological stress.

To consume another like you, that which you evolved to think about, predict and analyze and emphasize with, verges on eating oneself. Some form of dehumanization is required to make it possible.

Just to add to the gruesomeness of the topic, pacific island cannibals recognize the similarity in taste between human flesh and pork. They call their human victims "long pigs".

And people wonder why civilizations throughout history exterminate their foes for far less.

[HeyItsZeus]

Cannibalism just isn't for me, thanks for the offer though...