The Sun: In Vino Veritas

The Sun ➞

Though some academics, particularly those in the medical establishment, have come to see humanity’s taste for alcohol as an evolutionary mistake, philosopher and religious-studies scholar Edward Slingerland sees how drinking played an important role in humanity’s development. It helped an aggressive, untrusting primate to build mainly cooperative, and undeniably successful, large-scale societies. He argues that intoxication has been a defining feature of our existence ever since we were hunter-gatherers roaming the grasslands. Although the behavior is not uniquely human — species as varied as bats, fruit flies, dolphins, and reindeer all use substances to alter their minds — we are far and away the most adept at it.