Terrence Mckennas Stoned Ape Theory

It's a poop theory.. also, cattle weren't domesticated until after this so called "leap". So they would of been stuck trying to find mushrooms from wild bovine out in the wild and I doubt they'd find enough like that to effect their evolution as much as the stoned ape theory claims. There really was no leap, it was an evolution.. all the stoned ape theory is is a theory that people who like doing drugs get behind. "I like drugs. They open my mind.. but I don't understand human evolution, so therefore drugs."

 

I'd like it to be true haha but seriously doubt it. I don't understand how taking drugs could impact evolution. If I eat some mushrooms and have a child they won't be born with the knowledge I acquired on the trip. Im sure terrance probably covers that somewhere in one of his books (I have read food of the gods) but still. 

 

It's interesting enough that plenty of animals use mushrooms/plants recreationally, even dolphins. I think its turning things around. Intelligent animals (and even not that intelligent ones) do drugs. Not drugs make animals intelligent.

 

There could have been a particular culture that developed around it that led to social innovation, but who knows? I think it's a little doubtful that this was the case.

 

I'm an advocate for psychedelics and believe people should experience the weird, but in no way did they affect our own evolution.

Edit: Mantikore summed it up well.

 

I take a lot of this Psychonaut stuff with a grain of salt. But it is very interesting to read about and discuss. I like Terrence Mckenna's other work, this is kinda far fetched. I think I read about another theory that all the people in the bible were high on drugs.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKrskPyBuI

 

Doubt it influenced our biological evolution but it's quite probable it influenced our social evolution. Most 4th world tribes today have some kind of drug, usually hallucinogenic in nature that they highly revere, how far back does the use go? Who knows

 

I wanna know how they figured out how to extract the unmentionables from a plant by using a certain vine in a brew. That shit blows my mind because they really had no understanding of modern science or anything. One tribe said when they were high they were told which plant to use.

 

There are many things that all came together for humans and many theories. Thing is we will never know.
 
For instance our sexual organs how large they are, where they are placed in proportional to our bodies is a new design. For most animals there hidden. With humans unclothed there on display for all to see.
 
Protein had a huge role in our brains development. It is much harder to get protein then other sources of food. That quest perhaps developed our brains in ways that lead to today's brain. Language is another. When you speak it fires off neurons in a way no other creature experiences. Being able to articulate things actually propels development of your brain.
 
Most likely a billion factors went into our "leap" that defines our species..not just one. Just like anything today is usually the collective fail or thousands of years and the successes. Thing is no one will ever know the answer to that unless you can go back in time then hit a fast forward button to watch it progress.

 

speculation is always fun tho

-yuri

 

Here is what has never been clear to me. When listening to and reading about the theory, it almost seems as if there are two completely different versions of the theory, and which specific one it 'is' never seems to be directly articulated. And I never really seen it spoken of as if they are two different theories, so it has never been clear in my mind. And that is, whether the psychedelic plants caused pre-human upper primates to physically evolve into humans, or whether it caused what were physically humans to become what we know as humans, with all of our unique abilities. The first way of looking at it, which seems to be what is primarily being discussed here, does seem pretty unlikely. But hey, to test it, why don't we get some apes, and keep them in captivity over a number of generations. Give these apes psychedelic mushrooms somewhat regularly, and see what happens. Would be an interesting experiment, if nothing else. If this presentation of the theory were true, they would literally start to evolve, no?
 
The second way of looking at the theory, however, I think may be true. Early anatomically modern humans may have been not so much more than other animals, and particularly primates. Perhaps a bit better at forging tools, a bit better decision-makers, such things, but not too much above the apes. Perhaps these early anatomically modern humans began eating the mushrooms. And perhaps it is these psychedelics which took humans into clearly another level of cognitive functioning, with language, art, creativity, writing, and all of the various things that truly distinguish humans from animals. This I could believe, and I think may well be true. So in this case it is not that psychedelics caused us to physically evolve into humans. Keep in mind this would have been like a million years ago if this were the case. But I think it is very possible that it is psychedelics caused humans to develop what we would call the human mind, and truly higher-level cognitive functioning.

 

Problem with your proposed experiment is that a few generations isn't enough time to see any significant evolution. Evolution happens on the scale of tens of thousands/millions of years.
 
I think it was probably a large combination of factors that lead to us developing into modern man. It definitely has to do with our brains though. Aside from our brains, we have very few good adaptations that would allow us success in the wild. We're slow, pretty weak, don't have natural weapons like claws or horns or whatnot, our senses are shit compared to most animals.
 
But none of that matters because we learn, understand, and in turn have mastered our environment in a way no other species has.

 

I don't think evolution is as slow as people think it is

When we observe a population that is thriving, we see little genetic drift, because the gene pool becomes stagnant.

Evolution happens in leaps when mass extinctions leave mainly a certain type of creature alive. For example, if only.humans with webbed feat survived the zombie apocalypse, we would see a population of webbed footed humans emerge afterword

-yuri

 

  McKenna had a serious problem with stepping outside of his element, with absolutely no understanding about animal evolution whatsoever..

 Now, it's not the fact that he did this that bothers me, really..  I mean it's in our nature to step out and learn, but the man had one severely crippling bad habit-  The inability to listen to people.  


 I dunno why, but alot of people that make these claims tend to ignore the people that point out fatal errors in their hypothesis..


   Another good example being the 'aquatic ape theory' of human evolution.  (not to be confused with scientific theory).  She [the woman that created the idea] argued that humans were aquatic creatures at some point in our lineage, citing our ability to survive diving at great depths, etc..  However when confronted with video evidence of several primates shown to swim and enjoy a dip, and even learn complex diving and swimming skills, she totally ignores these people, and just keeps going.


 Persistence is an admirable trait, usually, but when these people fail to listen to constructive criticism, I completely lose respect for them.

 

one thing I do find interesting to think about, is that if our ancestors were eating these psychedelic fungus's before complex language was developed, did they get the same telepathic communication abilities that some people today experience on these drugs. and how would that have sounded to them? 

 

telepathic.. gotta be kidding me.

 

really depends on how spiritual you want to get with it. I think at a certain point it one could possibly have the ability to be telepathic

 

 
That's a cool belief but it's the wrong forum for that.