Evolutionary arguments about disease are difficult. Make sure your argument does not explain too much: vitamin >deficiencies are real!
Yes, they are difficult. That is because there are many factors at play in reality. But if his theory was correct, the solution would be so simple that evolution could solve it easily.
In reality, vitmain deficiencies have strong negative consequences, but nothing as drastic as what he proposes.
If vitamin deficiencies really had such an incredibly huge impact there would be a much stronger evolutionary pressure. With such a strong pressure, evolution might have developed vitamin storage organs or even a way for creatures to exchange vitamins to prevent vitamin deficiencies at any cost.
It's good to see skepticism in attributing everything to genetics...
Some legit anthropologists think pre-agricultural humans actually frequently lived into their 70s and 80s, contrary to popular assumptions
I would consider the possibility that changes in lifestyle and/or diet somewhere between 10,000 years ago and the present could have SERIOUSLY affected human health and social organization. Particular culprits I personally find likely are soil-nutrient depletion, the hyper-domestication and consolidation of monocropping corn & wheat, or confoundi
In a different forum I frequent ( The Ornery American ), a regular member there (LetterRip) has recently been making an extraordinary claim - a new theory of medicine he has devised that relates and can contribute in the cure of several neurological-related conditions.
I understand that the prior probabilities for him being a crank are much much higher than him being a new Louis Pasteur. Still I was wondering if there is anyone here with sufficient medical/medicinal knowledge that they can easily determine if there's something obviously ludicrous in LetterRip's theory, or even the opposite: if indeed there's something there that makes sense and is worth investigating.
Here are some of the relevant threads he began:
- where he requests contacts
- where he publishes portion of his theory as a Kindle book
- where he announces more "breakthroughs" and insights and offers to cure or at least alleviate simple ailments
Once again: I understand it's highly unlikely there's anything in his theory; still, I felt a cost-benefit analysis justified my making this post here.
So... anyone with enough understanding of biology/medicine to evaluate these claims of his?