Nutrition psychology. When did our species start eating meat? The case of vegan proponent Dr Marcus Vinnari

A lecturer in economics at the university of Helsingfors recently claimed that meat-eating is a new thing. The lecturer belongs to those outliers (~1 %) who abstain from animal source food in favor of a vegan alternative. His reference is a chart from Statistics Finland spanning from 1950 and forward. Common knowledge in anthropology, on the other hand, dates the introduction of animal source food (ASF) 3.6 million years before the present. Science also demonstrates that cognitive functioning depends on the nutrients found in ASF. The lecturer's behavior demonstrates lack of rational prospective thinking and is consistent with “natural stupidity”/dysrationalia. Is it really ethical for a lecturer to promote the idea that meat-eating started seventy years ago, and is it responsible of the faculty to let him do that?? 12 pages.

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Marcus Vinnari, an economist employed as lecturer at University of Helsingfors, and a supporter of veganism, recently claimed that meat-eating is a new thing.

“Every now and then you come across the argument that in food culture there should be a reason to consider “pericent” Chinese. That would certainly be a very good direction. For example, the current consumption of meat is a fairly recent trend #broiler” (Google translate).

Dr Vinnari's claim was communicating on Twitter in Uralic-Finnish, a remote language spoken imposed by Russia ~1863 during their occupation, as opposed to:

1. Finland's and Sweden's common trade language, which has been the trade language around the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic sea for at least 1000 years. Let's call it the Fennoscandian trade language.
   
   
2. English which has been the Lingua franca in the Academy for decades.

I used the quote function to answer, using academic lingo:

When questioned about the validity of his statement, a common tradition between scholars, Dr. Vinnari opted to block the conversation.

As a psychological scientist I'm used to open-minded conversations by heterodoxy – viewpoint diversity, as well as rejection in favor of dogma – the opposite to heterodoxy.

But heterodoxy is the very reason we should reason – use language to exchange ideas – so to speak. But in order to do so we have to tame the devil within us – abandon dogma (P inker, 2011). That increases the probability to reach entrainment – rhythmic synchronization of behavior (Borrie, 2017).

In my doctoral thesis, I developed a dual-model for leadership style which influences social creativity for problem solving and innovation. The first 'leg' of the model was intentional prospection, and the second was networking by parallel distributed processing (PDP) (Österberg, 2012). I have used the model in my profession. For example, in executive coaching, and to establish connections with other scientists across the globe. And we typically have great conversations. Noteworthy. I was recruited to the University of Helsingfors because of my expertise. The principal of the University of Helsingfors considered me to be a top researcher.

So why on Earth would a lecturer in economics at the University of Helsingfors block a conversation with a psychological scientist who was recruited to Finland to accomplish something, and who the principal of the University of Helsingfors considered to be a top researcher?

Here's some important things to take into account.

1. Academic field.

Economics and science use different approaches.

Link tog source.

Link tog source.

Dr Vinnari use economics, I use science.

2. Language. Expressions of our thoughts through visual and auditory images, as well as abstract propositions – which we use to send information from one mind to other minds (Pinker, 2010). Language also explains culture (Reich, 2019).

In Fennoscandia, the typically language around the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic sea is Swedish. The backstory is that thousands of years ago, Svear established a naval trade empire called Svithjod, with it's epicenter in Roden, and administrative hub in Tiundaland. During the Vendel period (540 – 750 AD), Satakunda applied to become a member of Svithjod, which later became the kingdom of Swedish.

Svithjod's naval trade empire was based on exogamy and entrepreneurial thinking, which is about the “knowledge structures” that people use to make judgments and decisions that involve the evaluation, creation and growth of opportunities (Cacciolatti och Lee, 2015 ;Mitchell et al. 2002; Österberg, 2012).

But in the inland of the eastern part of Svithjod lived tribes who spoke Uralic languages in different ways and they whoreshipped the bear. They typically applied endogamy, tribalism.

A Swedish priest, Mikael Olofsson (1510 – 1557) wanted to recruit these tribes to Christianity, and for that reason, he created a standard version of their languages, and translated parts of the bible to that language. He also changed his last name Agricola.

In 1581, the eastern part of the Swedish kingdom was crowned a grand duchy, and the concept Finland was introduced.

This was also the time when the renaissance swept over Europe, followed by the science revolution, and the enlightenment (McKeown, 2009; Pinker, 2018; Widmalm, 2012).

When Swedish Emanuel Swedenborg (1688 – 1772) abandoned science in favor of mysticism (Heaven and Hell, 1758), he likely established a zeitgest, 'spirit of the age', which spread from Uppsala University (1477 – ) to it's newly established (1640 –) branch in the eastern part of the kingdom – The Royal Academy in Åbo (later the University of Helsingfors). That included Swedish philosopher Henrik Gabriel Porthan (1739 – 1804), a Fennophile who claimed that real Finns originated from his home turf Karelia.

In 1808, Russia invaded the Swedish grand duchy, which became a vasall state, and Porthan's Finnophilia transformed into the Fennoman movement (1810), that is, national-romanticism or etno-nationalism, that is, the opposite of enlightenment thinking.

1863, Russian tsar Alexander II (1818 – 1881) imposed a second language to suppress the trade language. Bu the didn't choose Russian, but a Uralic language.

In ~1925, the Uralic language reached break even. It was marked by the language strife; kids whose mothers refuse to teach them the trade language, attacked kids who kept speaking the trade language. And Finland, which since 1917 was independent from the oppressor Russia, started to stagnate. During his Gifford talk in 2019, Mark Pagel stated that Finland was marked by tribalism (Pagel, 2019), again, the opposite of enlightenment thinking.

The Lingua franca of the academy has been English for decades.

Dr. Vinnari's choice of language was neither the Fennoscandian trade language, nor the lingua franca of the academy, but the Uralic language which was imposed by Russia ~1863, the language which seem to explain why Finland is marked by tribalism.

I'm from Sweden, a country that has thrived for the past ~3000 years, and which has the largest pool of experts among the Nordic countries. And I was recruited trice:

1. When star-psychologist Daniel Kahneman (1934 - ) received the Swedish Riksbankens prize in Economics in memory of Alfred Nobel, I was recruited to a department of business administration and economics to 1.1 do my doctorate, 1.2 tutor established researchers in methods.
   
   
2. As an expert-lecturer to the University of Helsingfors, to teach leadership, decision making, organizational learning, and social creativity for problem-solving and innovation. Language: Fennoscandian trade language.
   
   
3. As a research-leader at the University of Helsingfors. In one course about leadership – organization (advanced level), I used academic lingua franca, English. 

And because 99.9% of the global research community, including me, do not understand Uralic-Finnish, the implication of Dr Vinnari's behavior was that he disentrained himself from us. Ergo. He didn't block me, he blocked himself from us.

In a later conversation, where another expert asked Dr. Vinnari about the references used for the claim that meat-eating is a new thing, Dr Vinnari, now accepting to use academic lingo, gave the following respons, and I quote:

“It's a chart from Statistics Finland. We have the best statistics in the world” (Vinnari).

When facts from a blog were presented, Dr Vinnari made the following response ...

And when confronted with some common knowledge, for example Mann (2018), Dr Vinnari replied:

And presented with facts and figures he questions the sources (Its very nice that we have blogs. People can write what they like; Nah).



Who is correct about when humans became meat-eaters, Dr Vinnari or me?

Common knowledge in paleo anthropology:

3.6 million years before the present, our ancestors ate bone marrow (McPherron et al. 2010; Mann, 2018; Thompson et al. 2019).

2.8 million years before the present, our genus existed (Kimbel och Villmoare, 2016; Villmoare, 2018; Villmoare et al. 2015).

2.6 million years before the present, they ate meat (Pobiner, 2013, 2016).

Implication 1. their guts reduced, and their brains started to expand, from the occipital Lobe and forward (Aiello and Wheeler, 1995; Coolidge and Wynn, 2018; Hublin et al. 2015;Pontzer et al 2016).

Implication 2. With a bigger brain, there was room for new mental function, like social cognition, symbolic thinking, and executive functions, including prospection – the ability to elaborate intentions and scenarios forward in time (Coolidge and Wynn, 2018; Gilbert and Wilson, 2007; Szpunar et al. 2014).

~320 000 years before the present, our specific species existed (Hublin et al. 2017).

~70 000 years before the present, after a climate event which led to a bottle-neck event, constructive thinking was added (Ambrose, 1998, 2010).

Human's, or Homo Sapiens Sapiens, can, with proper upbringing and food, apply epistemic and instrumental rational thinking (Stanovich, 2011, 2016).

Veganism, that is, the idea to abstain from the nutrition dense diet which gave our species the executive functions e.t.c., was originally introduced by Swedenborg, as a means to clean the body in preparation för the second coming of Jesus.

In 2019, BBC reported about är baby girl that suffered from veganism.

Link to source.

In Aug 2022, a vegan mother was jailed after her child died because of veganism.

Link to source.

A recent systemic review and a meta-analys concluded that the decision to abstain from animal source food is associated with lack of mental wellbeing (Dobersek et al. 2020, 2021). Plante et al 2019 showed that people who abstain from ASF has issues with social relations. The brain needs animal fat (Ede (2019).

Malnutrition may be the reason humans sometimes fall into various mental fallacies, like natural stupidity – our species propensity to rely on information which are either prototypical (Kahneman och Tversky, 1972), available (Tversky och Kahneman, 1973), or just easy to access (Kahneman and Tversky, 1977), or dysrationalia – the inability to think and behave [epistemic and instrumental] rationally despite adequate intelligence (Stanovich, 1993).

These biases interact in a reinforcing loop.

And when that has happened, we tend to stick to the story. In a famous study from the 1950s, researchers Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schacter infiltrated a sect who had conformed to the idea that a flood would swamp the planet in the near future. On page three the researcher famously wrote:

Link to source here.

Conclusion. Dr.Vinnari's claim that meat eating was introduce recently, is false. Our species have adapted to an animal source diet for millions o years. That may be why Dr. Vinnari has a hard time accepting viewpoint diversity. Is it really ethical for a lecturer to promote the idea that meat-eating started seventy years ago, and is it responsible of the faculty to let him do that?

Also read: Finnish consumers still prefer healthy meat over plant-based alternatives, but Finnish researchers and journalists report the opposite

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