Fallacy Project References

Nutrition Facts
Dr. Michael Greger's outstanding collection of videos and text based on thousands of peer reviewed research papers on the documented health benefits of vegan diets as well as the documented hazards of diets which include animal products.

Wikipedia Vegan Health Arguments
Information about the health benefits of vegan diets is presented here with many references.

Health Benefits of Veganism
Concise explanations of the various health benefits of vegan diets is presented here with a good list of citations and references.

Diets and selected lifestyle practices of self-defined adult vegetarians from a population-based sample suggest they are more 'health conscious'
In this population-based study, evidence was obtained to indicate that vegetarians appear more 'health conscious' than non-vegetarians, although specific differences were not always consistent by gender. Additional population-based studies are required to determine if the observed gender differences exist in other populations.

Long-Term Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet
These large cohort studies suggest that vegetarian diets confer significant health benefits without necessarily requiring a rigidly structured diet program. Although randomized trials would provide the best level of evidence, they would be prohibitively large and expensive to study a long-term outcome such as mortality. Smaller vegetarian diet trials have measured intermediate outcomes (e.g., glycemic control)4 and benefits specific to certain conditions (e.g., nephrolithiasis, rheumatoid arthritis, dysmenorrhea).5-7 Taken as a whole, the evidence base favoring a vegetarian diet is encouraging, and informed patients who choose to reduce or eliminate meat consumption are likely to improve their overall health.

Raising Children Vegan
Veganism is recognized to have certain nutritional advantages, though having other areas of potential deficiencies to watch. The American Dietetic Association (ADA) gives as its position on vegetarianism at large "that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." And, child-rearing "expert" Dr. Spock even ultimately endorsed vegan diets for children.

Feeding the vegan infant and child
Nutrients that may be deficient in diets of vegetarian infants and preschoolers and that affect growth and development are energy, protein, calcium, iron, zinc, riboflavin, and vitamins B-12 and D. Reasons for these nutrient deficiencies include: limited volumetric capacity of the stomach of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers; low-caloric-density foods eaten by vegans; limited food choices; and restriction of number of meals and snacks eaten by vegan children. Suggestions are made for meeting the energy and nutrient needs of infants and children within the food ways of their families.

Livestock and Climate Change (pdf download)
51% of global warming is due to livestock.

Global Warming
Eating meat threatens animal welfare, personal health, societal safety, food security, biodiversity, and environmental sustainability.

Livestock's Long Shadow
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. An indepth view of how climate changes due to animal farming.

Environmental Experts and UN urge vegan diets
United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management issued a report on climate change. In that report, the panel stated that it was vital for humans to shift to a vegan diet in order to help reduce the worst impacts of climate change.

Some animal rights ethicists
A brief overview of the ideas of 5 individuals who have contributed to the substantial literature on animal rights ethics: Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Carol Adams, James Rachels, Steve Sapontzis.

Tom Regan's Animal Rights & Writes
Various essays, videos and other material specific to animal rights by one of the leading philosophers of modern times who argues that animals have inherent rights.

Animal Equality by Joan Dunayer
A keynote address explaining the concept of animal equality from a leader in the animal rights movement.

Anti-Human Supremacy Animal Rights Argument
A substantial anti-human supremacy argument for extending ethical regard and rights to nonhuman life forms.

Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach
Gary Francione's site which presents the central argument that animals are not property.

Oxford Center for Animal Ethics
A world-wide association of academics from all disciplines, pioneering ethical perspectives on animals.

Speciesism = Creationism; Treat It That Way
The foundation of animal sentience is self-evident.

Similarities and differences: understanding homology and analogy
Homology: traits inherited by two different organisms from a common ancestor.

A Question of Pain in Invertebrates
Some biological evidence relating to the possibility of pain in invertebrates is reviewed, and some practical implications are raised.

Cognitive Ethology: Slayers, Skeptics, and Proponents
The interdisciplinary science of cognitive ethology is concerned with claims about the evolution of cognitive processes. Since behavioral abilities have evolved in response to natural selection pressures, ethologists favor observations and experiments on animals in conditions that are as close as possible to the natural environment where the selection occurred. No longer constrained by psychological behaviorism, cognitive ethologists are interested in comparing thought processes, consciousness, beliefs, and rationality in nonhuman animals.

Wild justice and fair play: cooperation, forgiveness, and morality in animals
If one is a good Darwinian, it is premature to claim that only humans can be empathic and moral beings. (pdf download)

Cognitive ethology and the explanation of nonhuman animal behavior
Cognitive ethology is broadly defined as the evolutionary and comparative study of nonhuman animal (hereafter animal) thought processes, consciousness, beliefs, or rationality, and is an area in which research is informed by different types of investigations and explanations.

Animal passions and beastly virtues
… cognitive ethology is the unifying science for understanding the subjective, emotional, empathic, and moral lives of animals, because it is essential to know what animals do, think, and feel as they go about their daily routines in the company of their friends and when they are alone. It is also important to learn why both the similarities and differences between humans and other animals have evolved.

Animal consciousness
The cognitive states that underlie animal behavior may include conscious, subjective, mental experiences. Familiar arguments to the contrary are inconclusive. Interactive communication between social animals may well include the exchange of information about subjective feelings and thoughts. Objective data about the subjective experiences of certain animals may thus be potentially accessible through analysis of their communicative signals.

Advocates For Science-Based Medical Research
Americans For Medical Advancement (AFMA) is a not-for-profit organization that promotes biomedical research and the practice of medicine based on critical thinking and our current understanding of evolutionary and developmental biology, complex systems and genomics. Our primary concern is the advancement of investigative methodologies that lead to effective cures and treatments for human diseases. As such, AFMA is opposed to research modalities that have been shown to be scientifically invalid—specifically, the use of animals as predictive models (also known as causal analogical models) for humans relative to drug and disease response.

A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation
The Medical Research Modernization Committee (MRMC) is a non-profit health advocacy organization composed of medical professionals and scientists who identify and promote efficient, reliable and cost-effective research methods. The MRMC focuses exclusively on the scientific merits of different research approaches, even though some undoubtedly raise serious and important ethical concerns.