Not quite, but I’ve been in the UK long enough to learn the value of sensationalist, misleading headlines.  Drinking beer doesn’t make you smarter, but smart people might drink more in general if you believe this study.  So if you drink a lot, you might be really smart, or you might be an alcoholic.  When in doubt, ask your doctor.

An organisation in the UK together with one in the USA measured the intelligence of a bunch of kinds and then checked up on them throughout their lives to see how much they drank.  Turns out the smarter kids drank a lot more throughout their lives than the not as smart kids.  I’m not saying I put much stock in this survey, but it is interesting.  Here are some of my brilliant ideas on why smart people might drink more:

• Smart people go to university where you predominantly learn to drink
• Smart people are smart enough to know that drinking is fun
• Smart kids make more money later in life and can afford to drink more
• Smart people are more interesting and thus get invited out for drinks more often
• Smart people are driven to drink by the weight of their own genius
• Social kids seem smarter and social people drink more
• When people who aren’t smart drink they get arrested and go to jail where they can’t drink anymore

I’m expecting a call any day now from the researchers who performed this study to get my help with the conclusions.

Continuing on the science kick, the BBC filmed a group of Vervet monkeys in St. Kitts who have developed a taste for alcohol.  The monkeys were brought over from West Africa with slaves three hundred years ago and began consuming alcohol via fermented sugar cane.  Now they blatantly steal drinks from beach resorts.  Scientists have been analysing the monkeys to understand human drinking habits.  Turns out the same percentage of monkeys and humans drink alcohol.  The BBC points out the one big difference between humans and monkeys in terms of alcohol consumption is that monkeys tolerate alcoholic leaders where humans don’t.  What world are they living on?  Anyway, what’s really important in all of this is watching drunk monkeys stumble around:

Cheers,

Chris