help solve a dissagreemant.

[68Goldfish]

OK, so me and a friend are having a dissagreement. This may sound stupid but see if you can follow. Imagine if you were a caveman and you never knew that an orange had vitamin C in it, in fact nobody knew because, well, everybody is a caveman. You knew what an orange was because you have seen them before, but you have never eaten one. Now say you, as the caveman, are in a situation where your at deaths door and the only thing that can save you is an infusion of vitamin C. Do you think that your brain will create a craving for an orange because it knows that there's vitamin C in the orange? My contention is that there's no way the brain can make the connection between the orange and vitamin C if it never knew that the orange had vitamin C in it in the first place. And you've never concumed an orange so you body hasn't even broke down an orange and realized that there's vitamin c in it to figure it out for itself. What do you think?

[chuckjones93]

I believe you are correct. And bored.

[Fontaine]

no way in hell.

[GianGian]

Obviously not.

[tplyons]

Nope, but if you had consumed an orange, the body might start to make a connection.

[Lalabadie]

Among the first Europeans to discover America, many suffered from scurvy, which is basically a diseased caused by a severe lack of vitamin C in your body. Amerindians prepared them birch bark tea, which contains a lot of vitamin C. They did it because they knew it cured this disease, not because they heard of vitamin C.

So my answer would be, if you had already experienced some symptoms of a lack of vitamin C and realised that eating an orange tamed these symptoms, then being in a situation where you are in a very bad lack of vitamin would sure trigger the link again. But not if you've never consciously realised it.

As Bernard Werber said, you realise the existence of what's inside of your body only when it hurts.

[hbarcat]

There are groups of chimpanzees which are observed to eat particular plants only when they get parasitic infections even though the plants taste very bad to the chimps. It turns out the plants have pharmacological properties which the chimps have somehow learned to make use of whenever they get sick. It seems they have developed folk medicine which is an inherent part of culture.


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...138/ai_9093600

[cheesemonkey]

Originally Posted by hbarcat

There are groups of chimpanzees which are observed to eat particular plants only when they get parasitic infections even though the plants taste very bad to the chimps. It turns out the plants have pharmacological properties which the chimps have somehow learned to make use of whenever they get sick. It seems they have developed folk medicine which is an inherent part of culture.


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...138/ai_9093600

that is awesome... and why i love monkeys (and apes)... though apes seem to be more intelligent than most monkeys...

If you ate an orange there is a chance that you might make the connection though i think it would be slim... if you didn't there isn't a chance at all...

[OtterOnBass]

Check your DNA, you're loaded with information you never 'learned.' It knows it wants food, water, sex, warmth, etc. The question is, how far does that info go. Does it desire things that cure scurvy? Maybe not, but...

Who the heck thought to make tea from birch bark!

Also, Dogs eat grass to make themselves vomit when their stomachs are upset. What the ..!

[cheesemonkey]

Originally Posted by OtterOnBass

Check your DNA, you're loaded with information you never 'learned.' It knows it wants food, water, sex, warmth, etc. The question is, how far does that info go. Does it desire things that cure scurvy? Maybe not, but...

Who the heck thought to make tea from birch bark!

Also, Dogs eat grass to make themselves vomit when their stomachs are upset. What the ..!

it will desire a cure for whatever is making it feel bad... whether or not it will desire a cure for scurvy specifically is a possibility... but if it never had an orange it wouldn't know that it was a cure...

[GeneralElectric]

A caveman isn't a homo sapian, and is in fact, a few rungs below the evolutionary ladder. I think that the caveman is closer to those medicine monkeys than we are and the body would try to find a way to correct itself given the environment.

I don't think you'd get the craving for an orange though, but foods that body has encountered before that have a higher content of vitamin C. If he's seen oranges before, but has never eaten them, there must be a reason why. Does that society of cavemen believe that oranges are poisonous?

[Stumbo]

In 1734, the Leiden-based physician Johann Bachstrom published a book on scurvy in which he stated that "scurvy is solely owing to a total abstinence from fresh vegetable food, and greens; which is alone the primary cause of the disease." and urged the use of fresh fruit and vegetables as a cure. It was not until 1747 that James Lind formally proved that scurvy could be treated and prevented by supplementing the diet with citrus fruit such as lemons and lime. James Cook succeeded in circumnavigating the world (1768-71) in HM Bark Endeavour without losing a single man to scurvy, but his suggested methods, including a diet of sauerkraut and wort of malt, were of limited value. Sauerkraut was the only vegetable food that retained a reasonable amount of ascorbic acid in a pickled state, but it was boiled to reduce it for preservation and much of the Vitamin C content was lost. In Cook's time it was impractical to preserve citrus fruit for long sea voyages. More important was Cook's regime of shipboard cleanliness, enforced by strict discipline, as well as frequent replenishing of fresh food.[6] The most effective regime implemented by Cook was his prohibition against the consumption of fat scrubbed from the ship's copper pans, then a common practice in the Navy. In contact with the hot copper, this fat acquired substances which possibly irritated the gut and prevented proper absorption of vitamins. [7] The first major long distance expedition that experienced virtually no scurvy was that of Alessandro Malaspina, 1789-1794. Malaspina's medical officer, Pedro González, was convinced that fresh oranges and lemons were essential for preventing scurvy. Only one outbreak occurred, during a 56-day trip across the open sea. Five sailors came down with symptoms, one seriously. After three days at Guam all five were healthy again. Spain's large empire and many ports of call made it easier to acquire fresh fruit.[8] Despite advances, British sailors throughout the American Revolutionary period continued to suffer from scurvy, particularly in the Channel Fleet. The eradication of scurvy from the Royal Navy was finally due to the chairman of the Navy's Sick and Hurt Board, Gilbert Blane, who finally put Bachstrom and Lind's long-ignored prescription of fresh lemons to use during the Napoleonic Wars. Other navies soon adopted this successful solution.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy

[funkalicious101]

An average body? Highly unlikely.
An average Sam Becker? Impossible to say, I produce my own vitamin C. I would never find myself in such a situation.

[Depth_Charge]

No, humans do not retain "race" knowledge, the bosy must first perform a chemical analysis to learn the effects of substances on it.

[dlloyd]

Originally Posted by 68Goldfish

OK, so me and a friend are having a dissagreement. This may sound stupid but see if you can follow. Imagine if you were a caveman and you never knew that an orange had vitamin C in it, in fact nobody knew because, well, everybody is a caveman. You knew what an orange was because you have seen them before, but you have never eaten one. Now say you, as the caveman, are in a situation where your at deaths door and the only thing that can save you is an infusion of vitamin C. Do you think that your brain will create a craving for an orange because it knows that there's vitamin C in the orange? My contention is that there's no way the brain can make the connection between the orange and vitamin C if it never knew that the orange had vitamin C in it in the first place. And you've never concumed an orange so you body hasn't even broke down an orange and realized that there's vitamin c in it to figure it out for itself. What do you think?

Scurvy is one disease that is unlikely to have been a problem in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies.

[Toasted]

This thread is so lulz.

"A man weighs 85Kg, he eats a 500g burger, what does he weigh now?"

[peterbright]

Unless it's a telepathic orange and is transmitting "Eat Me".

[MJ5150]

This reminds me of a discussion I had about if you handed someone who was blind from birth a round object, would they be able to identify it to you as a round object. What point of reference would they have to go from? This is assuming that they never had a previous experience holding something round in their hand.

-Mike

[JKT]

Guinea pigs can't synthesize vit C like us, and so need a fresh source of it in their diet all the time.

Wait ... am I still on topic?

[JKT]

Originally Posted by GeneralElectric

A caveman isn't a homo sapian, and is in fact, a few rungs below the evolutionary ladder. I think that the caveman is closer to those medicine monkeys than we are ...

And yet they still know where to buy car insurance

JKT