Remove the dot at the end, otherwise it’s a dead link.
It is important to note that behavior is always in relation to an environment, so we can’t say that some behavior is 70% caused by genetics, the most we can say is that something is 70% caused by genetics in this specific environment. This is easy to check with a thought experiment, lets take these people whose “willingness to stick with veg*n diets, regardless of their stated reasons, are 70-80% inborn” lock them in a vegetarian Hindu monastery and you’ll obviously see the rate of vegetarian diets skyrocket. So when you write “Vegetarianism is mostly genetic, claim Wesseldijk et al.” Wesseldijk herself would say:
Yet, as Dr. Wesseldijk reminded me in an email, high heritabilities do not imply that biology is destiny. According to surveys by the Vegetarian Resource Group, the percentage of Americans who are vegetarian or vegan jumped six-fold between 1994 and 2022—from 1% to 6%. This impressive change in patterns of meat-eating was due to shifts in cultural attitudes, not changes in our DNA.
And to tie it in to the Hindu monastery (from the same article):
It is important, however, to keep in mind that estimates of heritability only apply to the populations that the subjects in the studies represent. Most of the individual differences in meat-eating among the Dutch are rooted in genes, yet culture is almost entirely responsible for the fact that per capita meat consumption is 20 times higher in the Netherlands than it is in India.
Agreed completely. A genetic component influencing dietary decisions doesn’t mean that veganism / vegetarianism is out of reach for most or that cultural factors play no role in the adoption of animal-friendly lifestyles. There’s definitely still a role for advocacy regardless of the heritability of veg*nism.
Remove the dot at the end, otherwise it’s a dead link.
It is important to note that behavior is always in relation to an environment, so we can’t say that some behavior is 70% caused by genetics, the most we can say is that something is 70% caused by genetics in this specific environment. This is easy to check with a thought experiment, lets take these people whose “willingness to stick with veg*n diets, regardless of their stated reasons, are 70-80% inborn” lock them in a vegetarian Hindu monastery and you’ll obviously see the rate of vegetarian diets skyrocket. So when you write “Vegetarianism is mostly genetic, claim Wesseldijk et al.” Wesseldijk herself would say:
And to tie it in to the Hindu monastery (from the same article):
Or as Dr. Wesseldijk has also phrased it:
Agreed completely. A genetic component influencing dietary decisions doesn’t mean that veganism / vegetarianism is out of reach for most or that cultural factors play no role in the adoption of animal-friendly lifestyles. There’s definitely still a role for advocacy regardless of the heritability of veg*nism.