Subject:
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Re: Flesh eaters stole my brain (was Re: Why is cockfighting bad?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 24 Jul 2000 03:21:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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1639 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> This debate has been churning along (very) nicely (and quite civilly, as these
> go, I think the same old players are getting better at debating nicely)
> without too much input from me since I ducked and ran (:-) but one nugget here
> got me to thinking. Not sure I am making any definitive statement, take it as
> grist for the mill and that's all.
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
>
> > But not all animals; how about insects? If we could grind up a zillion
> > drosophila and harvest the protein, would we, by your paradigm, be morally • able
> > to eat it? Somewhere else on this thread it was asserted that fruit flies
> > don't feel pain--if not, and since their responses (as many insects') are
> > autonomic, then is there any moral wrong commited in consuming them? That
> > might be worth considering--the ants in an acre of topsoil outweigh the soil,
> > so they'd provide a nearly limitless source of nutrition to those willing to
> > consume them.
>
> Cite please! More ants than everything else put together? Even earthworms?
> Wow. That doesn't sound right, somehow. Amazing if true, though.
C'mon Lar--don't cloud the issue with a call for facts!
Actually, I'll have to recheck my info. Maybe it *was* earthworms, and
they're not half as crunchy as insects. To digress re: Ant Weight, here are a
few tidbits I came across:
from http://www.oxy.com/rainforest/insects.htm
"The weight of ants alone may exceed that of all vertebrates (including all
birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians) by eight times in a typical lowland
tropical forest."
from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2203crea.html
"They [ants] outnumber us a million to one, and the total weight of ants
matches that of the entire human race."
And Papa Asimov wrote a zoological essay proclaiming "the total mass of ants
exceeds that of all other animals combined."
Anyway, if we lack sufficient ant mass, let's start on the annelids!
Dave!
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