Should PhD students drink more?

This essay examines the declining alcohol consumption among PhD students and its implications for academic social life. Drawing on Slingerland's (2021) evolutionary framework, I suggest that moderate communal drinking—specifically weak forms of alcohol like beer and wine, consumed socially—offers underappreciated benefits: enhanced social cohesion, creative thinking, and cross-group collaboration. While acknowledging alcohol's serious costs (e.g., addiction, health risks, potential harassment), I suggest our well-intentioned embrace of safetyism and push toward alcohol-free academic spaces may inadvertently sacrifice valuable social mechanisms that have facilitated human connection for millennia. Rather than advocating increased drinking, this perspective calls for a nuanced reconsideration of alcohol's role in academic communities, emphasizing the importance of moderation, context, and inclusivity in fostering intellectual bonds.