Christ didnt DIE from POISON!!!

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naturelover24
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Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:20 am

Christ didnt DIE from POISON!!!

Postby naturelover24 » Tue Jan 04, 2011 12:29 am

the movie was wrong, Chris actually died from starvation. in the book it says Chris ate the potato seeds for a month or so without any problems at all, and could differenciate between the two. and later a study was done and concluded that Chris DID NOT die from the potato seeds, but from a steady decline into starvation, leading to death. Why did John Krakauer and Sean Penn portray chris' death as being poisoned?

User1
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2010 9:57 pm

Re: Christ didnt DIE from POISON!!!

Postby User1 » Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:50 am

Yes, Chris didn't die by poison as was outlined in the book and movie. But these guys had books to sell and a movie to promote. They ignored the evidence for the sake of money. Something I'm sure Chris would not have wanted to be a part of if he had a choice. It's all very well explained how he most likely died here.
http://www.tifilms.com/wild/call_debunked.htm
It doesn't diminish what he accomplished, just lays it out as I'm sure Chris would have wanted to see it.

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
—Henry David Thoreau

GoNorth
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Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:47 pm

Re: Christ didnt DIE from POISON!!!

Postby GoNorth » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:36 pm

naturelover24 wrote:the movie was wrong, Chris actually died from starvation. in the book it says Chris ate the Why did John Krakauer and Sean Penn portray chris' death as being poisoned?


For Sean Penn, I don't know. The theory shown in the movie - Chris confusing two different plants - had already been rejected by Krakauer in the book a decade earlier.
Krakauer's theory - Chris eating the seeds of the wild potato after having eaten only the roots so far, and those seeds containing swainsonine which might accelerate starvation - was described in the book as a theory, without certainty.

Quote from the book:
With the discovery by Clausen and Treadwell that wild potato seeds may be
repositories of swainsonine or some similarly toxic compound, a compelling case can be
made for these seeds having caused McCandless s death. If true, it means that
McCandless wasn't quite as reckless or incompetent as he has been made out to be. He
didn't carelessly confuse one species with another. The plant that poisoned him was not
known to be toxic—indeed, he'd been safely eating its roots for weeks.

User1
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2010 9:57 pm

Re: Christ didnt DIE from POISON!!!

Postby User1 » Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:30 pm

And yet, Krakauer speaks of it in public as if this were a proven fact: “It turned out—I’ve learned, since writing the book, those seeds were moldy. And this mold created a poison that doesn't actually kill you outright, it keeps you from digesting food. So even though he was still eating food, he couldn't make use of it. And that—so he starved to death because he ate these moldy seeds” (The Oprah Winfrey Show, 9/20/07). The same day he repeated this claim on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” describing to Melissa Block how he “puzzled” over this for years, but was now “pretty convinced” that Chris McCandless died from eating moldy potato seeds.
http://www.tifilms.com/wild/call_debunked.htm

Any idea what Krakauer current view is of how Chris may have died?

Furthermore from the same link,
Recently, an Alaskan high school student under the guidance of Dr. Clausen conducted a science experiment where he “sought to find evidence for whether or not H. alpinum seeds can produce swainsonine when grown with naturally occurring fungi.” In the end, after repeated failed attempts to find any detectable levels of the toxic alkaloid swainsonine in the samples, it was concluded that there was “no evidence to support the hypothesis that a fungus growing on H. alpinum seeds can produce swainsonine.

bobenns
Posts: 121
Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2010 6:21 am

Re: Christ didnt DIE from POISON!!!

Postby bobenns » Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:42 am

Not sure what Krakauers current view is but he just seemed to be fixated on the poison idea and it kept evolving. Once he started to promote the poison theory he, like most of us would find it hard to just say he was wrong. He also got close to the family and I think wanted to find a way of making it something beyond Chris' control that killed him. To say that an intelligent person would just hike out into the bush and stay there until he expired from lack of nutrition just doesn't seem logical, in fact it seems downright stupid for someone to just hunker down out there and stay for over 100 days without a good home cooked meal once in a while. The poison idea takes the blame away from other less palatable ideas like mental illness, obsession, suicide etc. In his wasting and weakening state Chris may have been affected by toxins in some of the wild plants he was eating from time to time and it would have become harder to recover strength from such episodes when he never got enough nutrition to begin with.

My own personal theory or take on what really happened keeps evolving the more I learn about it. Chris isolated himself from others and society in general in many ways at various times. Other times he was quite outgoing and social. I think he was obsessed with this Wild Alaska notion of his to the point of denying certain hard realities that should have kicked in and woke him up to self preservation.
There is no greater scripture than nature, for nature is life itself.


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