New Evidence in Historical Cannibalism Debate

An anonymous reader writes "ScienceNOW is reporting that a team of scientists led by Geneticist Jaume Bertranpetit has called into question findings from an earlier study of human prion diseases. The first study, led by John Collinge of University College London, stated that the existence of a gene that codes for prions was a result of a "balancing act" that had kept it in the gene pool for so long. The balancing act was supposedly due to widespread cannibalistic practices in human history. The new report suggests that their results were skewed because of low frequency variations known as 'ascertainment bias.'"

Comments

Re:The other white meat

[zakezuke]

Every culture used to do some weird/nasty/mean things at some point.

While every culture has things in the past it's done it's not proud of, cannibalism may not be as horrid as it sounds. If for example the society becomes sustainable it would make sence that something would need be done about it. Could be no more than self-sacrifice, some form of lottery, or simply the need to waste nothing. Or it could be one fell on a tribal hunt, the beast got away, and the wish of the fallen comrade was for the tribe to survive the winter. You might think it would be less cruel to for example eject individuals from your tribe for the sake of the whole, you would have to know the conditions of the outside enviroment and their perception of it to judge whether they were being cruel or kind. If we are talking a pre-copper age culture, I think I would rather die at home quickly than being left half eaten beign picked apart by the crows. If we are talking the copper/bronze ages expelsion might have been a kinder solution. At least a person could have some basic armor and a weapon, even a horse. It's silly to put things into moral context when no one needs morality when there isn't enough to eat.

Cannibalism is a total taboo today, we are wise enough to understand it's not a typicaly healthy habbit. But in it self it's neither evil or immoral. We probally get this belief from those who discovered this age old taboo was simply unhealthy and assumed some sky-god / earth-god was punishing us.