> In a message dated 97-07-18 06:55:21 EDT, you write:
> << > There is a picture a dancing person with mushrooms sprouting all over
> their
> > body in the tassili plateau in northern africa dated (4000 BC? 6000?), so
> > there were definatley cultures taking them near where primates evolved
> into humans.
>
> A first step, but hardly any proof of his theory.
> >>
> Pretty close
No. First, the statue was *much* too young to relate to the origin of
humanity (the fact that there is an airport today near some runic
stones doesn't mean the vikings had air travel :-). Second, that
people have used psychotropic drugs doesn't show that they have
affected our evolution, just that people have known about them for a
long time.
Something that might be used to support (or falsify) McKenna's theory
is to compare societies where psychotropic drugs have been used with
societies where they have been rare or not used, and see which have
had the fastest memetic evolution. As a suggestion, what about
comparing Greece and Rome (fairly non-psychotropic as far as I know)
with India (some use, at least) and the indian civilizations?
According to McKenna the amount of novelty among the Atztecs would
have been larger than among the Greeks.
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Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
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