We now understand that while at a reductive, molecular level protein may indeed be protein, at an ecological or species level, this isn’t quite true. As cannibal tribes have discovered, eating the flesh of one’s own species carries special risks of infection. Kuru, a disease bearing a striking resemblance to BSE, spread among New Guinea tribesmen who ritually ate the brains of their dead kin. Some evolutionary biologists believe that evolution selected against cannibalism as a way to avoid such infections; animals’ aversion to their own feces, and the carcasses of their species, may represent
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