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On the 12 of August BBC reported that Goldsmith University in London, UK, "is banning the sale of burgers to try to fight global warming". The initiative comes after IPCC published its latest report. Some media outlets have claimed that IPCC provides advice on nutrition, but the IPCC took to Twitter to reject that claim. So why does a university administration take the decision to ban meat?
Universities are places where people are supposed to explore matters from a personal viewpoint, and hopefully, the result of that work will contribute to society. The approaches will be manifold, calling for support for viewpoint diversity but also, favor rational over dysrational reasoning. Knowledge about methodology, therefore, is key for validation.
Originally, science was made up of a three-part structure: aesthetics complemented by law (imagine the Babylonian warlord Hammurabi (~1810 – ~1750 BC), and religion.
“Another mode, dialectical argumentation, exploits the observation that discussion and debate also commonly involves “attacks” which rebut or undercut the arguments of other agents” (Mercier & Sperber, 2011, p. 78).
The method applied in ancient times was based on the assumption that higher-order learning emanates from a force from above to certain prominent people, for example, priests, judges, and those who knew more about beauty. These people applied dialectical argumentation, the then known method, to convince others that their view was the correct one. But the ancient scientific conclusion was not about the generation of new knowledge by disjunctive reasoning but about adapting to viewpoints held by certain groups.
Despite the fact that Heliocentrism was established among 'scholarly oriented people' (cuneiform clay tablets that date to 1000 BC reveal that Babylonian astronomers had a pretty good understanding of the world outside our 'little blue planet'; Aristarchus of Samos (310-260 BC) had identified "the central fire" as the center of the universe (our solar system); Seleucus of Seleucia (190-150 BC) was known for following a Heliocentric worldview), Geocentrism became the norm promoted by the ruling elite as the then known world transcended into Medieval Dark ages that lasted ~900 years.
Darkness dispelled when Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) was assigned to solve the biggest riddle at that time: to figure out how to erect a construction of a self-supporting cupola spanning some ~42 meters onto the until then roofless Cathedral of Florence. Brunelleschi did complete his assignment but refused to disclose his method. (Just a few years ago, researchers in Florence claim to have found out how Brunelleschi went about.)
Brunelleschi's success, which is said to have ignited the renaissance, probably paved the way for others of a similar kind, like Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), a mathematician and astronomer, who in his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium re-discovered Heliocentrism. Hence, the renaissance.
So what have we learned from Babylonian astronomers, Aristarchus, Brunelleschi, Copernicus, Seleucus, and many others?
The answer is: to rely on results obtained from a “systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe”, that is, science, including disjunctive reasoning (Stanovich, 2015).
In 2017, White and Hall published Nutritional and greenhouse gas impacts of removing animals from US agriculture (PNAS), showing that if all Americans go vegan, direct climate harmful emissions will decrease by 2.6 %. Having Meatless Mondays will lower emissions by less than one percent.
And recently, the Telegraph reported that “a recent “meta-analysis” of all the peer-reviewed papers on this topic found that if the average westerner gave up meat altogether it would cut total emissions by 4.3 %” (The War on Meat has begun, and there are many reasons to join the resistance).
That means banning meat for the climate is a meaningless effort. But what are the health-implications of abandoning meat?
Most people (95%) assign to a conventional diet which for the past 4-3.6 million years includes animal source food (see “Perception versus facts”: What is the future for sustainable food? The case of the prospective mind for an orientation). 4 % ask for local or organic food. ~ 1 % of the population experiment with a vegan alternative, which by the way, is deficient in micronutrients, and because of that considered dangerous for kids (Harcombe, 2019; BBC: Vegan Australian parents who left baby girl malnourished avoid jail; Parents who raise kids as vegans should be prosecuted: doctors (Frishberg, New York Post; Crisp, The Telegraph).
“It is not medically recommended and even forbidden to subject a child, especially during periods of rapid growth, to a potentially destabilizing diet” (Legal opinion published Thursday by The Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium).
The decision to test a vegetarian or vegan diet is about obtaining a certain social identity (Plante et al 2019). And that decision seems to be based on neuroticism (Forestell & Nezlek, 2018).
“Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness” (Wikipedia; Thompson, 2008).
Even so, most people (84%) who test a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle return to a conventional diet (Herzog (2014).
A recent study in Finland reveals that abandoning meat and eggs, rich in choline, will impair cognition, in this case, increase the probability of suffering from dementia (Ylilauri et al 2019).
“Dementia is a broad category of brain diseases that cause a long-term and often gradual decrease in the ability to think and remember that is great enough to affect a person's daily functioning. Other common symptoms include emotional problems, difficulties with language, and a decrease in motivation” (Wikipedia).
Conclusion. A minority of people abandon a nutritious diet because they worry about the future. This is also referred to as Collapse anxiety - people’s fear that economic and social change threatens their “way of life” (Easterbrook, 2003; Samuelson, 2018). When people are worried, they search for belongingness - a social identity. And it seems that unlikely alternatives are favored over reasonable one's (read about When Prophecy fails and see Maria Konnikova on the Confidence Game (7 minutes). Those who worry also tend to reject viewpoint diversity and explorative thinking. Instead, they fall victim to confirmation bias and Dysationalia. Altogether, it will impair the mind of those who are paid to solve complex issues, for example, the most recent climate change.
Also:
Can we have a Conversation about the association between Food Preferences and Work Environment? An outlook at the Viikki campus
Also:
Can we have a Conversation about the association between Food Preferences and Work Environment? An outlook at the Viikki campus
Parents who raise kids as vegans should be prosecuted: doctors (Frishberg, New York Post; Crisp, The Telegraph).
The post was originally posted on the University of Helsinki blog for my research project (2018-2021).
Please support the blog via Swish (Sweden) or MobilePay (Finland).
Please support the blog via Swish (Sweden) or MobilePay (Finland).
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