THEEZ LOOK LELISHUSS, HIC!: A chimpanzee feeding on the ripe fruits of Parkia bicolorHENRY GBEREGBE
Why are humans so attracted to alcohol, and why do so many struggle with its abuse? These are questions that science still can’t answer. The “drunken monkey” hypothesis proposed by University of California, Berkeley, biologist Robert Dudley posits that, unlike our attraction to other addictive drugs, our use and sometimes dependence on alcohol stems from the millions of years our ancient primate ancestors spent consuming ripe, fermented fruits. Perhaps these predecessors evolved some kind of neurological mechanism that drove them to seek out and consume sugar-rich, ethanol-containing foods, which were likely in short supply millions of years ago. But now that there’s a liquor store on every other corner, that drive to seek out alcohol has turned against us. (See “Drunks and Monkeys,” The Scientist, ...
