Has Alcohol Played a Key Role in Human Evolution? Say Cheers to Being More Creative!

A short interview with philosophy professor Edward Slingerland, who distills extensive research into a single shot of insight

As we raise our glasses to welcome in the New Year, let’s examine how drinking alcohol can be a positive force for creative individuals and society as a whole.

In a biographical Q&A that I wrote for the E³ publication back in October, I shared this writing tip:

“Write drunk, edit sober. It’s a joke! But seriously, write like you’re drunk and edit like you’re sober.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have hedged my bets so much where alcohol is concerned.

Earlier this month I interviewed philosophy professor Edward Slingerland for my Discomfort Zone newsletter. Edward is the author of the book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, which has been called “Wide-ranging and provocative” by The Atlantic, “A rowdy banquet of a book” by the New York Times, and “Engrossing” by the New Scientist.

I asked Edward about the Mad Men stereotype of a booze-fueled advertising industry in the 1960s.

ES “Whatever its obvious drawbacks in many regards, the Mad Men of the 1960s did get something right. In an industry completely dependent on creative insight, it makes sense to provide a role for alcohol in the workplace. This is something that contemporary companies, like Google, also understand. When Google engineers hit a wall on a particular coding problem, they don’t continue to sit at their computers consuming PFC-enhancing coffee. Instead, they turn to the company-provided Whisky Room, packed with bean bag chairs, whiteboards, and a world-class collection of single-malts Scotches, in order to gently downregulate their PFCs in search of the needed creative workaround.”

What does downregulating your PFC mean?

ES “The ancient association of alcohol with creativity is no myth. The human adult ability to stay focused on task, delay gratification, suppress unhelpful behaviours, and reshape behaviour is dependent upon a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex (PFC). This is the last part of a human being to develop, not fully maturing until the mid-20s or so. The reason for this slow development is arguably because the PFC presents evolution with a design trade-off: it allows one to be a fully functioning adult, but also interferes with creativity and openness to experience. Our ability to solve tasks requiring creative insights or ‘lateral thinking’ decreases steadily over time, mirroring the maturation of the PFC. Little kids are great at these tasks, grown-ups less so.”

Is there scientific evidence to back up these claims?

ES “Experimental research on creativity has shown that, when PFC function is depressed, adults return to child-like performance on creativity tasks. Adults who suffer PFC damage through strokes or other accidents show a creativity boost. So do adults who have their PFCs temporarily depressed by, for instance, zapping it with a trans-cranial magnet.”

So how does getting drunk help?

ES “Inducing strokes that permanently impair the PFC is not a great cultural strategy, however, and trans-cranial magnets are large, expensive, and a very recent invention. Fortunately, super-focused, responsible adults have an ancient cultural technology that functions as a low-tech trans-cranial magnet: alcohol. Alcohol affects the brain-body system in a variety of ways, but one of its main functions is to downregulate the PFC. The only experimental study to date that directly employed alcohol as a creativity booster found that creativity peaked at about .08 BAC, or about two drinks in. Other indirect evidence suggests that making it difficult or impossible for people to drink together socially reduces intellectual innovation.”

Want to know more? Read Edward’s book!

Drunk (Little, Brown 2021) is a rigorous, scientifically grounded publication. As the book’s blurb states, “Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Drunk shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers.”

I thoroughly recommend getting hold of Drunk, pouring yourself the libation of your choice, and settling down to read it. Cheers!

Edward Slingerland is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. His research specialties and teaching interests include Warring States (5th-3rd c. B.C.E.) Chinese thought, religious studies, cognitive linguistics, ethics, and the relationship between the humanities and the natural sciences.

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