From: Alonzo Davis (alonzo@mca.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 27 1996 - 07:30:24 MST
James Rogers wrote:
>
> ><So we arrive back at the Great Filter problem. The dinosaurs lived on
> >earth for millions of years, but never evolved into tool-using creatures.
> > Why?
> >Terence McKenna has suggested that when our ancestors discovered
> >psychedelic mushrooms, that stimulated them to start thinking, talking, and
> >using tools. That was when they broke through the filter and started
> >making progress. Without mushrooms, we could have been stuck in an
> >evolutionary cul de sac for eons, like the dinosaurs.>
>
> I watched a show once where they suggested that it was the introduction of
> seafood into the proto-human diet between 4 and 7 million years ago that
> triggered the increase in intelligence. The diets of most primates are
> lacking in several important neuro-active and bio-active compounds directly
> involved in higher brain functions. Many of these compounds are generally
> only found abundantly in nature in seafoods.
>
> Several studies have been done on the impact of diet on intelligence. The
> lack of seafood in a diet (especially from saltwater sources) has been shown
> to have direct impacts on the average intelligence of a population. These
> compounds are especially important during childhood.
>
> Iodine is a case in point. Naturally, iodine is found almost exclusively in
> seafood sources. There is a region in inland China where 1 in 8 people is
> technically mentally retarded, and few people in the region have "normal"
> intelligence. As a whole, the average IQ of people in this region is far
> below the human average. The reason has been determined to be iodine
> deficiency. They have no access to sources of iodine in their diet. They
> are genetically normally, but lack of a key compound has rendered them less
> intelligent than their genetically determined capability. Unfortunately,
> the effects of this are structural and irreversible.
>
> Fortunately for many developed countries, iodine is artificially introduced
> into the diet so that this is not a problem. This may also be why countries
> with high seafood diets also are among the highest in raw IQ as well.
>
> The introduction nootropics into the proto-human diet was very likely
> responsible for the advance of our species. I don't know too much about the
> mushroom theory, but the seafood theory does seem plausible. AFAIK, humans
> are the only primates that eat seafood.
>
> -James Rogers
> jamesr@best.com
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