Talk:Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

How Cooking Made Us Human
The whole article reads like an unsubtle promotion of Wrangham's book. Several statements therein imply that Wrangham's views are correct and are heavily biased,. A classic example of bias is the word "stimulating" as in "Wrangham proposes a stimulating hypothesis". I will remove all such statements giving reasons below the following quoted sentences as to why they need to be eliminated from this article:-

Then there are numerous statements which make it seem as though Wrangham's claims are facts, rather than claims:-

"Some of the biological effects of cooking are that it neutralizes toxic substances in raw food, makes most food much easier to chew and to digest, and makes more efficient nutritional use of the same amount of food. The result is that individuals can thrive on less food, and spend much less time foraging, chewing, and eating. This high-quality and nutritionally-efficient food (compared to a raw diet) had profound long-term evolutionary effects, according to Wrangham. Humans developed smaller and highly efficient digestive tracts, which enabled larger and energetically more costly brains. Larger brains resulted in the invention of human culture and technology.

Indirect evidence for Wrangham's hypothesis is the fact that laboratory animals always gain weight well on a cooked food diet, compared with a raw diet. Relevant information in humans can be gained from comparing individuals on a raw food diet (raw foodism) with individuals on a cooked diet. The effects of a raw diet include invariable weight loss, and amenorrhea (cessation of the menstrual cycle), which results in infertility.

Wrangham also argues that fire would have been useful for fending off predators, allowing our ancestors to descend from the trees and switch to being evolved for running rather than climbing. Wrangham presents evidence that modern humans are highly evolved for eating cooked food and cannot live healthily for long on a strict raw food diet. [3]"

First of all, re the above claims:-

1) While cooking does remove some antinutrients(toxins) from a few raw foods, it also helps create far more heat-created toxins derived from cooking such as advanced glycation end products, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons etc.:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism#Potential_harmful_effects_of_cooked_foods_and_cooking

2) Re the claim"and makes more efficient nutritional use of the same amount of food". This is incorrect as the above link I just gave shows several references to scientific studies which show that meat protein is made LESS digestible by cooking, not more.

The large brains notion is also disproven re this excerpt from Wikipedia:-

"Critics of Wrangham's cooking theory point to the fact that archaeological evidence suggests that cooking fires began in earnest only 250,000 years ago, when ancient hearths, earthen ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint appear across Europe and the Middle East. In contrast, 2 million years ago the only sign of fire is burnt earth with human remains, which most anthropologists consider mere coincidence rather than evidence of intentional fire. There is also evidence that human brain size has decreased by 8 percent in the last 10000 years, correlated with increased consumption of starchy grains following the invention of agriculture – this contradicts Wrangham's theory, that in an earlier period in human evolution an increased consumption of starchy foods (cooked tubers) led to an increase in brain size. The current mainstream view in anthropology is, instead, that the increase in human brain size was due to a shift away from the consumption of nuts and berries to the consumption of meat. " taken from:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wrangham

Loki0115 5th december 2010.
 * I hope to have time in due course to investigate the recent changes, but a quick preliminary comment is that the article should present the key arguments of the book, so I'm not sure that the deletions are entirely desirable (although I acknowledge that there did not seem to be many/any sources). Also, articles like this (a serious scientific hypothesis) should not have a "Controversy" section: we just present a few responses. Johnuniq (talk) 04:24, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Re the above comment:- the previous article on the book read like a PR piece from the publisher, with Wrangham's claims wrongly made out to be hard scientific fact given the strong statements.

As for the controversy label, that is highly appropriate as serious scientific articles on Richard Wrangham routinely mention that "most other anthropologists", "many anthropologists" view Wrangham as being "just plain wrong"http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains with scientists pointing out that Wrangham has no credible evidence to support his claims and that there is evidence to counter Wrangham's claims, as seen in the controversy section.

So, Wranghams' notions are just fringe notions, not requiring much detail. Besides, it is highly suspicious thata book like this was given such a detailed write-up- many other books of this low calibre are usually just accorded 2-3 sentences in wikipedia and that's it. Loki0115 6Th December

Neutrality tag
The controversy over Wrangham's claims seems to have ended on the talk page. I think the article is tighter and more focused now. More depthful discussion of fire control and cooking controversies can be, and are being, explored in their respective articles. If no one objects to removing the tag, I will do so within the next few days. 66.108.199.84 (talk) 17:57, 4 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Agree. I have read this book and the article seems to be a balanced. --JBellis (talk) 13:42, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Article looks fine to me.Jarhed (talk) 18:23, 12 August 2011 (UTC)