On Sat, 28 Feb 1998, Thomas Lunde wrote:
> Let me ask you
> a question? Why do humans have bad teeth? If evolution was all it is
> cracked up to be, surely we could have evolved out of tooth decay. If you
> have no teeth, it is pretty hard to chew grain or a hunk of meat.
Bad teeth before or at reproduction age are a very recent phenomenon (last
100 years) in history, due to industrial foods (refined sugars, white flour
etc). (Bad teeth _after_ reproduction age, OTOH, have little or no effect
on evolution anyway.) Pre-industrial humans and other mammals hardly need
dentists because they don't eat industrial food. Weston Price, D.D.S.,
and others have done interesting research in this field -- see e.g.
http://www.vegan-straight-edge.org.uk/foodproc.htm
Actually, processed foods _are_ evolutionarily relevant (tooth quality;
oral bacteria involved in many diseases; fillings toxicity; genetic
degeneration; sperm count etc.). However, it will take many generations
until the McDonalds customers are "mendeled out"... ;-)
Chris
(Motto: Just for the record :)
