When you say Cornell - you mean the guy who wrote
" The China Study" which is interesting material to be sure, I just think you take his work further than it should be taken and to mean more than it should mean.

Changing diet in response to certain criteria (lifestyle, presence of certain illness) certainly makes sense and as I have already said - there is a case for it. What I disagree with, are blanket assertions to its applicibility and necessitiy of no meat in all places in all times for all people. At the end of the day, he is still a guy selling a book, he still has plenty of opinion in with his facts, and activists always stretch things to help their rhetoric.

As for sources, mostly its general historical research. When arguing on forums I actively try to *avoid* doing the repeated link-drop, because my observation is that people who overuse links and copy/paste often do so because they do not understand the material well enough to form educated opinions on their own and instead rely on parroting the opinions of others (via copy/paste or link ) and usually end up linking/pasting non sequiturs or low-quality material. I try not to be like that. If I am writing the equivalent of a position paper, I will cite references, or if I am referencing something that can not be easily googled in 5 seconds. People who will not do their own research or challenge their own assumptions cannot be convinced anyhow.

I have done copious amounts of research on varying historical periods, they werent Vegans or even in most cases vegetarians. That being the case, you have to really stretch and extrapolate to try and use them to make a case for Veganism... especially when in many cases is was the poorest and most downtrodden people who most lacked meat.

I do generally try to attack the beliefs and not the person, though if needled I will occasionally needle back. To me its all in good fun, and I make a general (but sometimes incorrect) assumption that if someone else is arguing on internet forums they do it because it is also fun for them.(edit: this was especially true in your case, I always figured that if someone was a law student they must like to argue) Mostly I consider it entertainment, the world at large doesnt really care who says what on a forum debate.

Last edited by Derid; 07/24/12 09:04 AM.
For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)