Eli Stark-Elster

Native psilocybin use in Southern Africa Continue documenting the indigenous use of native Psilocybe mushrooms in Lesotho, including the collection of physical samples, to identify novel medical applications of psilocybin.

Thanks to @slatestarcodex , I'm pleased to announce that a fundraising page for my fieldwork on psilocybin use in Lesotho is now live on Manifund! Share (or support) if you want to further our medical and ethnographic understanding of psychedelics🍄🌍
manifund.org/projects/doc...

The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Story From thunder gods to serpent slayers, scholars are reconstructing myths that vanished millennia ago. How much further can we go—and what might we find?

Patterns recur through various mythologies: floods, tricksters, battles with monsters, creation and apocalypse. Some scholars believe there is a common source—and hope to find it.

He who is without sin On factory farming, the Holocaust and hypocrisy

Those who wish to judge the crimes of the past should not support the crimes of the present. Link below.
open.substack.com/pub/unpublis...

Experience required Or: Do Atheists Dream of Conscious Trees?

The last twenty years of the cognitive science of religion have been defined by religious belief. The next twenty years will be defined by religious experience. Here's one reason why!

Ah, should tag @willgervais.com -- would be keen for his thoughts, as author of the (really outstanding) book that we're commenting on! Also folks like @xygalatas.bsky.social, @lfitouchi.bsky.social , and @dansperber.bsky.social, among others.

"the decline of religious belief doesn’t imply the emergence of true disbelief"

Strategy and experience required: Social learning cannot explain the varieties of supernatural belief Published in Religion, Brain & Behavior (Ahead of Print, 2025)

New commentary out w/ @manvir.bsky.social
in Religion, Brain, and Behavior! We argue that social learning fails to explain three patterns in religious belief and practice: SBNR beliefs, strategic endorsement of beliefs, and religious experience. Check it out:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"A well-designed PhD program teaches you how to ask good questions. Trivial as this may sound, no ability is more central to scientific progress than asking good questions. And doing it is much, much harder than you think."

Goldilocks questions On the nature of "PhD-level intelligence"

OpenAI was mocked for saying GPT-5 would display "PhD-level intelligence." If we took that concept seriously, what might it mean? Which capacity is uniquely cultivated through a PhD?
I think it's mostly one thing: learning how to ask Goldilocks questions.
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I Do Not Recommend Boofing Plants Notes from the Field #1

Graduate school is hard, because sometimes it requires you to explain the word “boofing” to your grandparents. Context below!

open.substack.com/pub/unpublis...

Eli’s Extras: Being ‘Dylanesque’ On the musical stylings of Jesse Welles

Not science, but wrote this short essay about Jesse Welles and the meaning of ‘Dylanesque.’ If you don’t know who Jesse is — you should check him out!
open.substack.com/pub/unpublis...

Andrew Tate is right about masculinity We don’t need a Joe Rogan of the Left. We need a liberal 12 Rules for Life.

Yes, I’m serious. But don’t get mad until you’ve read the piece! Ft. recommendations for work by @edhagen.net , @lukeglowacki.bsky.social , Will Buckner and others.
open.substack.com/pub/unpublis...

The S Stands for Shtetl On the meaning of a Jewish superman

Amidst the destruction of Gaza, what does it mean to be Jewish? In my latest Substack, I look for answers in an unlikely source: Superman. Link below! @jacobgeller.com

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Intelligent aliens would make a whole bunch of stuff like ours. Maybe. Which technologies, if any, should we expect any advanced civilization to invent?

What technologies, if any, should we expect any alien civilization to invent? Find out in my latest Substack, linked below. Inspiration creds to @etiennefd.blogsky.venki.dev and his lovely Historical Tech Tree 👽😃
open.substack.com/pub/unpublis...

Trans athletes are political cheesecake On disgust, social policing, and Ben Shapiro’s mind-reading capacities

For Substack (link below), I explore why the media won't shut up about trans athletes. It's because they're political cheesecake, to borrow a phrase from Steven Pinker. The special ingredient? Disgust.

open.substack.com/pub/unpublis...

Humans aren’t the only animals with complex culture − but researchers point to one feature that makes ours unique Animals can learn from each other, maintaining their cultures for long periods of time. What sets people apart may be the uniquely open-ended ways we invent new ideas and share and build on them.

Hello, Bluesky! Pleased to share that my first public-press article, on the shifting debate over what makes human culture unique, was published today in @us.theconversation.com. I review recent literature suggesting that cultural open-endedness, not cumulative culture, is our true defining trait.