Darwin's pharmacy : sex, plants, and the evolution of the noösphere

Resource Information

The work Darwin's pharmacy : sex, plants, and the evolution of the noösphere represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Manitoba Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Darwin's pharmacy : sex, plants, and the evolution of the noösphere

Title remainder

sex, plants, and the evolution of the noösphere

Statement of responsibility

Richard Doyle

Creator

• Doyle, Richard, 1963-

Subject

• Biological Phenomena
• Biology -- Philosophy
• Hallucinogenic plants -- Psychic aspects
• Philosophy
• Hallucinogens
• Biosphere
• Sexual selection in animals
• Gaia hypothesis
• Consciousness
• Rhetoric -- Philosophy
• Hallucinogenic drugs -- Psychological aspects

Language

eng

Summary

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 modeled as "eloquence adjuncts" that intensify a crucial component of sexual selection in humans: discourse. In doing so, they engage our awareness of the noösphere, 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 noösphere and integrating individuality into its ecosystemic 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 -- Provided by publisher

Member of

• In vivo (Seattle, Wash.)

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

570.1

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

QH331

LC item number

.D688 2011

Literary form

non fiction

NAL call number

QH331

NAL item number

.D688 2011

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

In vivo: the cultural mediations of biomedical science