Are humans unwitting partners in evolution with
psychedelic plants? Darwin's Pharmacy weaves the
evolutionary theory of sexual selection and the study of
rhetoric together with the science and literature of
psychedelic drugs. Long suppressed as components of the
human tool kit, psychedelic plants can be usefully
modelled as ''eloquence adjuncts'' that intensify a
crucial component of sexual selection in humans:
discourse. In doing so, they engage our awareness of the
noosphere, defined by V.I. Vernadsky as the thinking
stratum of the earth, the realm of consciousness feeding
back onto the biosphere. Sharing intelligence,
connecting with the noosphere and integrating
individuality into its eco-systemic context offers
powerful and promising ways to respond to ecosystems in
crisis, and formed the backdrop of what Doyle dubs the
''ecodelic'' thought of the environmental movement. Yet
current policies criminalize the use of plant-based
psychedelics while simultaneously feeding a violent
global black market for refined and chemically-derived
drugs.In this tour de force of ''first-person science,''
Doyle takes his readers on a mind bending journey
through the work of William Burroughs, Kary Mullis, Lynn
Margulis, Timothy Leary, Norma Panduro, Albert Hoffman,
Aldous Huxley, Dennis and Terrence McKenna, John Lilly
and Phillip K. Dick. Readers who take the journey that
is Darwin's Pharmacy will experience extraordinary
insights into evolutionary theory, the war on drugs, the
internet, and the nature of human consciousness itself.
Richard M. Doyle is professor of English and science,
technology, and society at Pennsylvania State
University. He is the author of On Beyond Living and
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