Hangover theories like the drunken monkey hypothesis have received a lukewarm reception among primatologists and human ecologists, who point out that wild primates appear to avoid the kind of overripe fruit that produces ethanol, and that studies with humans suggest we strongly prefer simply ripe (no ethanol) fruit to overripe fruit.45 (I certainly do.) Other hangover theories are hampered by the unfortunate fact that the postulated functions of alcohol or other drugs in our ancestral environment could have been performed just as well by something that doesn’t paralyze large portions of your
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