Centuries of selective breeding turned wild cabbage into different vegetables • Hacker News Board

Re: Centuries of selective breeding turned wild cabbage into different vegetables

#71

Post by hollerith » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 10:35 PM UTC

culi wrote: post #48

hollerith wrote: post #17

What I appreciate most about these vegetables is that they're much lower in that pesky oxalic acid than most vegetables in the human diet.

Since we've been eating oxalic acid for millions of years I highly doubt it's a problem for us. In fact it acts as an antioxidant, can inhibit the growth of many bacteria/fungi, and can bind to heavy metals like lead and mercury. It makes sense to avoid stuff high in oxalic acid if you're at risk of kidney stones but it seems silly to worry about something we've been consuming for longer than we've been a species for

I have no opinion on whether it is a problem for people in general, but my observations after switching to a low-oxalate diet, then introducing high-oxalate meals as a test are that it is definitely a problem for me.

Re: Centuries of selective breeding turned wild cabbage into different vegetables

#72

Post by rectang » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #61

like_any_other wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just glad this only applies to plants, and possibly animals, and not humans.

The argument against eugenics is not "it doesn't work even in theory."

Exactly.

It seems to be a law of HN that any discussion of genetics descends into a debate about the existence of übermensch and untermensch. :(

Re: Centuries of selective breeding turned wild cabbage into different vegetables

#73

Post by sebastiennight » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 11:04 PM UTC

lukan wrote: post #65

cpard wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples please!

Broccoli!

Raw broccoli in a salad will get you tossed out of the country I was born in :-)

Now the true surprise with broccoli for me was learning that you can dice the stems and butter-roast them, then use them in pretty much anything from rice dishes to pies. Amazing

Re: Centuries of selective breeding turned wild cabbage into different vegetables

#74

Post by BigTTYGothGF » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 12:58 PM UTC

like_any_other wrote: post #68

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course he does not, because he would prefer people remained ignorant of that. That's certainly one hypothesis, but here's an alternative one that I'd like you to consider: he's not doing that because he died in 2002. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould ) > Man alone is the great exception, unaffected by geographical separation and restricted gene flows Extant bears have never invented the wheel, wo…

> he died in 2002 Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza measured genetic differences between human populations using the fixation index in 1994 [1]. He was not ignorant of genetics, he just chose to shift attention to craniometry instead. And even now that we have far better tools and knowledge, people choose to focus on outdated arguments instead, because they give the answers they want. E.g. by bringing up Gould when…

> By what mechanism do you think the visible physiological distinctions between human populations arose?

Genetic drift, mostly, with some founder effect mixed in.

Re: Centuries of selective breeding turned wild cabbage into different vegetables

#75

Post by like_any_other » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 11:11 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #72

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument against eugenics is not "it doesn't work even in theory."

Exactly. It seems to be a law of HN that any discussion of genetics descends into a debate about the existence of übermensch and untermensch. :(

It's a law of discussion of human genetics that they are always smeared as about superiority. We can conserve and differentiate between wolf subspecies without being called Eurasian wolf supremacists. So clearly this 'misunderstanding' is deliberate.