Psychedelic Apes: From Parallel Universes to Atomic Dinosaurs - the Weirdest Theories of Science and History

by Alex Boese

Overview

What if we’re living inside a black hole? What if we’ve already found extraterrestrial life? What if the dinosaurs died in a nuclear war? What if Jesus Christ was actually a mushroom? Psychedelic Apes delves into the curious scientific subculture of weird theories. Thoroughly bizarre and contrary to the established norm, these ideas are often vehemently rejected by the intellectual community. From the creation of the universe to the evolution of humans, the birth of civilization right through to our more recent past, Psychedelic Apes explores some of the craziest ideas from science and history and shows that, sometimes, even the weirdest theories may be proved true.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509860524
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	11/01/2020
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.76(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Alex Boese holds a master’s degree in the history of science from the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Elephants on Acid, Electrified Sheep and Hippo Eats Dwarf as well as being the creator and curator of the online Museum of Hoaxes. He is also a daily contributor to the WeirdUniverse website. He lives near San Diego.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION
This is a book about the weirdest, wackiest and most notorious
against-the-mainstream theories of all time. In the following chapters,
we’ll explore curious questions such as, Are we living in a
computer simulation? Do diseases come from outer space? What
if planets occasionally explode? Is it possible the dinosaurs died
in a nuclear war? Could humans be descended from aquatic apes?
And was Jesus actually Julius Caesar?
Such notions may sound so outrageous that no one could possibly
take them seriously, but they’re not intended as jokes. Over
the years, these odd speculations have been put forward in all
seriousness by scholars who have argued that, no matter how
much they might challenge the conventional wisdom, they could
actually be true. Mainstream scientists, of course, strongly disagree.
They insist that such ideas are nonsense. Some grow quite incensed
that anyone would ever propose them in the first place, let alone
believe them. Nevertheless, weird theories are a persistent presence
in the history of science. They seem to sprout up constantly
from the soil of intellectual culture, like strange, exotic growths.
As an exploration of unorthodox ideas, this book is part of a very
old genre: the history of error. The purpose of this has traditionally
been to describe supposedly foolish or incorrect beliefs in order to
condemn them, holding them up as examples of flawed thinking
to be avoided. That, however, isn’t my intention here. Nor, on the
other hand, do I want to defend or endorse these weird theories.
My relationship to them is more complicated. I recognize that
they make outrageous claims. I’m also quite willing to admit that
most, perhaps even all of them, might be entirely wrong. And yet,
I’m not hostile to these theories. In fact, they fascinate me, and
that’s why I wrote this book.
On one level, I’m drawn to them because of a quirk of my personality.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a preoccupation
with oddities of history, especially ones involving outsiders and
eccentrics. From this perspective, the appeal of these theories is
obvious, because they’re all the product of peculiar imaginations.
Many of their creators were legendary misfits who ended up ostracized
from the scientific community because of their insistent
championing of aberrant notions.
I’m also intrigued by these theories because they offer a unique
window into scientific culture, which is a fascinating subject in its
own right. In particular, they reveal the tension between contrarianism
and consensus-building that lies at its very heart.
Science is a unique form of knowledge in that it promotes scepticism
about its own claims. It denies the notion of absolute
certainty. It always admits the possibility of doubt, striving to put
its claims to the test. For this reason, it places an enormous value
on contrarianism, or being able to ‘think different’, as the famous
Apple advertising slogan put it. Consider how scientific geniuses
such as Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein are celebrated because
they revolutionized our understanding of the natural world by
seeing it in completely new ways.
But, simultaneously, science requires consensus building. It
would be useless if researchers were forever disagreeing with one
another, endlessly producing new rival explanations. At some point,
they have to come together and accept that one interpretation of
the evidence is more compelling than all the others. In other
words, while science may shower its highest honours on those
who can think differently, most scientists, most of the time, need
to think the same way. As described by the historian Thomas Kuhn
in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, their jointly
held interpretations, or paradigms, guide day-to-day research,
shaping both the questions that get asked and the answers deemed
legitimate.
So, both contrarians and consensus-builders play a necessary
role in science, but, as we’ll see, they often clash – though this may
be putting it too lightly. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that
they often end up despising each other outright. The problem, as the consensus-
builders see it, is that while contrarianism has its place, it can easily be taken too far. They
argue that if a paradigm is supported by overwhelming evidence,
then persisting in rejecting it, preferring to promote one’s own
radical theory in its place, can quickly degenerate into lunacy. It
becomes tantamount to rejecting science itself.
The contrarians, on the other hand, stress that there are always
different ways to interpret evidence and that the evidence might
even be incomplete; perhaps a crucial piece of the puzzle is
missing.
They warn that rigid conformity can pose a far graver
threat to science, because it blinds researchers to possible new
interpretations.
I find myself sympathetic to both sides in this debate. I accept
that, realistically, the conventional scientific wisdom is almost
certainly right. Scientists, after all, are highly trained to evaluate
evidence. If it has persuaded most of them to favour one interpretation,
it’s probably because that genuinely is the best one. But
I have enough of a contrarian in me to find myself happy that the
iconoclasts are out there asking awkward questions, stirring up
the pot – even if, at times, they may come across as totally nuts.
On occasion – maybe not often, but every now and then – the
wild, unorthodox theory that seems to defy common sense does
end up being vindicated.
Which leads to the main reason for my fascination with weird
theories: sheer curiosity! When someone comes up with a truly
outrageous idea that completely flies in the face of orthodox opinion,
I can’t help it – I want to know what their argument is, and
part of me wonders, Is it possible they could be right? Is their
alternative point of view simply crazy, or could it be genius?
That’s the fun of these theories. They offer up the thrill of
unbridled speculation. They tackle some of the greatest questions
in science – about creation, the nature of the universe, the origin
of life and our species, the emergence of consciousness and the
rise of civilization – while advancing seemingly absurd answers to
them. But are the answers really that crazy, given how many
unknowns surround all these topics? That’s the element of uncertainty
that serves as their hook, giving these theories their power
to win converts.
By exploring these heretical ideas, you can venture briefly into
intellectually off-limit areas and you can find out if any of them
can (possibly) seduce you to their side. Perhaps they’ll cast doubt
on subjects that you thought were entirely settled, or that didn’t
even seem to be problems at all.
It’s my intention to give these theories a chance to persuade
you. Therefore, I’ve tried to provide a fair reconstruction of what
the arguments for them are, even if that risks making me seem
overly sympathetic towards them at times. Although, in every
case, I’ve also made sure to explain why these theories are rejected
by the appropriate experts. What I won’t do is tell you whether I
think any of them are right or wrong. I’ll let you decide their
worth for yourself.
And if you do end up concluding that the conventional wisdom
is correct and that these theories really are crazy, I’d maintain that
the time spent considering them still won’t have been wasted. The
classicist Mary Beard once argued, while discussing the theory that
Homer was a woman (which we’ll examine in the final section of
this book), that it’s possible for an idea to be ‘usefully wrong’. I
fully agree with her. I believe that a provocative idea, even if it’s
absolutely mistaken, can jolt us out of our intellectual rut. The
exercise of stepping outside of what’s familiar can shake up our
thinking and provoke us to question our assumptions, revealing
that it might be possible to look at what we took for granted in an
entirely new way.
And, on a somewhat more practical level, these weird theories
do offer an offbeat way to learn quite a bit about standard
science, because they constantly engage with the dominant scientific
schools of thought, even while disputing them. It’s like taking
a funhouse-mirror tour of the history of science. The frame of reference
may be highly unconventional, but you will nevertheless be
exposed to a lot of what is considered ‘correct’ science mixed in
with the incorrect. Hopefully, some of these theories might even
inspire you to hunt down more information about the topics or to
explore a discipline further.
The genre of weird theories is vast and sprawling. It would have
taken multiple volumes to explore it completely. To make things
more manageable, I applied some filters.
First and foremost, I eliminated any theory that I didn’t believe
to be genuinely contrarian in spirit. Right off the bat, this removed
from consideration two ideas that are widely associated with
resistance to scientific orthodoxy: creationism and climate-
change denial. Many of the theories we’ll examine in this book have been
accused by critics of being similar to these two. But I think the
comparison is misguided.
Creationism is inspired by a rigid commitment to an ancient
religious orthodoxy. That’s the opposite of contrarianism. Climate-
change deniers similarly represent a powerful interest group: the
fossil-fuel industry and all its allies.
A true scientific contrarian, in my mind, hasn’t simply embraced
an alternative, pre-existing orthodoxy. They’re not the attack dogs
of some well-entrenched faction that perceives itself to be threatened
by the scientific consensus. Instead, they’re genuine oddballs
who have carved out their own peculiar niche. Whatever else one
may say about them, there’s no cynicism or ulterior motives lurking
behind their stance. They’re honestly passionate about seeking
the truth, as they perceive it. And while they’re definitely opposed
to specific scientific ideas, they’re not anti-science.
Just the opposite.
They view themselves as the legitimate upholders of scientific
values, fighting against the rise of groupthink.
As a corollary to this, I believe that ignorance is not the same
as contrarianism. A true contrarian has to know the science they’re
rejecting. There’s an entire genre of crackpot science in which
people dream up elaborate theories, apparently never having read
any of the relevant scientific literature on the topic. I view that as
a separate phenomenon – interesting in its own way, but not what
I want to examine here. All the theorists we’ll look at have, I feel,
made an effort to understand the paradigms they reject. In fact,
quite a few of them were highly respected figures in their disciplines
before, to the bewilderment of their colleagues, seeming to
go completely off the rails.
Even with this filter, our topic remains huge. So I further narrowed
down the focus to the historical sciences: cosmology,
geology, evolutionary biology, palaeontology, anthropology and
the social sciences, such as archaeology and history. This is in
contrast to the experimental sciences, such as physics and chemistry.
(I let two physics theories slip through because they’re both
relevant to cosmology.) 
I chose this selection because, for my money, the historical disciplines
produce the best (i.e. most outrageous) weird theories.
They’re home to some of the all-time classics of the genre. They’re
inherently more speculative than the experimental sciences and so
theorists can really let their imaginations fly.
Concentrating on the historical sciences has also allowed me to
add some structure to the book. While each chapter stands on its
own, and you can read them in any order you wish, if you do
choose to read the book from front to back, the topics will proceed
in a rough thematic sequence. We’ll start with the widest-
scale view possible, the entire universe, and then we’ll progressively
zoom in closer: on to the solar system, then the Earth, the origin
of life, the evolution of humans and, finally, the emergence of civilization.
In this way, I’ve designed the book to offer a kind of
alternative history of the cosmos, from its creation right up to the
dawn of the modern era.
For the sake of variety, I’ve also thrown in along the way a few
examples of weird-became-true theories: concepts that were initially
rejected by the scientific community, but were eventually
accepted as correct (or, at least, plausible). I did this to show that
it is indeed possible for theories to make that journey from being
outcast to being accepted.
Finally, let me add a note about terminology. The word ‘theory’
has a specific meaning in science. It’s defined as an explanation
that’s strongly supported by evidence and generally accepted by
the scientific community. This contrasts with a hypothesis, which
is more like an educated guess based on limited evidence.
A problem arises because, in popular usage, a ‘theory’ means
any kind of supposition or idea. The term is interchangeable with
a hypothesis or speculation. This creates a source of tension
because some scientists can be very particular about the usage of
these words. In fact, they’ve been aging a campaign for over two
centuries to try to get people to stop referring to hypotheses as
theories. They worry that, if the public perceives a theory to be any
old idea or conjecture, then they won’t attach sufficient weight or
importance to it. They may end up thinking that the theory of
evolution is just some half-baked notion that Charles Darwin
dreamed up while sitting on the toilet.
I’m afraid I’m going to draw down the ire of the linguistic
sticklers, because I’ve opted to use ‘theory’ in its lay rather than its
scientific meaning. My excuse is that this is a book for a broader
audience, so I thought it fair to use the word as it’s understood in
general usage. I’ve tried to stick with whatever term was most
widely used to describe each idea. If most people called it a theory
(whether or not it was accurate to do so), so have I. Likewise, if
most people have referred to a certain concept as a hypothesis, I
do too.
Which is all a long-winded way of saying that, just because I
may refer to some of the ideas in the following pages as theories,
it doesn’t mean that technically any of them are. A few of them do
actually come close, and you’ll find a range of plausibility in the
following pages. I suspect you may even end up agreeing with
some of the claims! Others, however, don’t even really pass muster
as hypotheses. Mere conjectures might be more accurate. Proceed
with appropriate caution. 

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Cosmological Conundrums 9

What if the Big Bang never happened? 11

Weird became true: radio astronomy 22

What if our universe is actually a computer simulation? 27

What if there's only one electron in the universe? 35

What if we're living inside a black hole? 43

Weird became true: dark matter 51

What if we live forever? 55

2 A Pale Blue Peculiar Dot 65

What if the Earth is at the centre of the universe? 67

What if planets can explode? 74

Weird became true: the heliocentric theory 85

What if our solar system has two suns? 90

Weird became true: continental drift 98

What if ten million comets hit the Earth every year? 103

What if the Earth is expanding? 111

3 It's Alive! 121

What if everything is conscious? 123

What if diseases come from space? 131

Weird became plausible: the vent hypothesis 141

What if the Earth contains an inexhaustible supply of oil and gas? 146

What if alien life exists on Earth? 156

Weird became (partially) true: the Gaia hypothesis 163

What if we've already found extraterrestrial life? 170

4 The Rise of the Psychedelic Ape 179

What if the dinosaurs died in a nuclear war? 181

What if our ancestors were aquatic apes? 190

Weird became true: the out-of-Africa theory 199

What if we're descended from a pig-chimp hybrid? 204

What if hallucinogenic drugs made us human? 213

Weird became true: cave art 221

What if humanity is getting dumber? 225

5 Mushroom Gods and Phantom Time 233

What if ancient humans were directed by hallucinations? 235

Weird became plausible: beer before bread 245

What if Homer was a woman? 250

What if Jesus was a mushroom? 258

Weird became true: ancient Troy 268

What if Jesus was Julius Caesar? 273

What if the Early Middle Ages never happened? 282

Epilogue 291

Acknowledgements 293

Bibliography 295