Example: Nobel prizewinner Kerry Mullis believes in astrology, denies climate change, and claims he communicated with aliens in the form of a fluorescent green racoon.
Alexander gives a number of other examples (granted, not all of them were quite as bizarre as Mullis) and concludes: "...the field of early psychedelic research seemed to pretty consistently absorb brilliant scientists, then spit out people who, while still brilliant scientists, also had styles of thought that could be described as extremely original at best and downright crazy at worst. I think it’s important to try to understand why."
Thanks! I had forgotten those examples. While I acknowledge that some of these psychedelic-using people are way smarter than me, and that maybe *I'm* the crazy one, I think it's reasonable to treat this with extreme caution.
I'm curious about psychedelics, but I'm not going to try them. Or, at least, I'll wait until I'm near the end of my life when I don't have much to lose.
Scott Alexander has an interesting blog post about a number of scientists who became quite weird after they experimented with psychedelic drugs:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/28/why-were-early-psychedelicists-so-weird/
Example: Nobel prizewinner Kerry Mullis believes in astrology, denies climate change, and claims he communicated with aliens in the form of a fluorescent green racoon.
Alexander gives a number of other examples (granted, not all of them were quite as bizarre as Mullis) and concludes: "...the field of early psychedelic research seemed to pretty consistently absorb brilliant scientists, then spit out people who, while still brilliant scientists, also had styles of thought that could be described as extremely original at best and downright crazy at worst. I think it’s important to try to understand why."
Thanks! I had forgotten those examples. While I acknowledge that some of these psychedelic-using people are way smarter than me, and that maybe *I'm* the crazy one, I think it's reasonable to treat this with extreme caution.
I'm curious about psychedelics, but I'm not going to try them. Or, at least, I'll wait until I'm near the end of my life when I don't have much to lose.