Alcohol predated science, We Never Know.
We don’t know who exactly who fermented the first barley, wheat, malt, grapes, etc, but in the Old Babylonian and Middle Babylonian versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh (2nd millennium BCE), there was an ale-wife, named Siduri. But older than this Epic, is the mid-3rd millennium BCE Hymn to Ninkasi, a Sumerian goddess of beer, which included some detail of how to brew beer (read
Hymn to Ninkasi).
In 18th and 19th dynasties Egypt (New Kingdom period), a number of pharaohs’ tombs (Tutankhamen, 18th dynasty, late 13th century BCE, and 19th dynasty Seti I, Ramesses II, III & IV), each have one of their chambers in tomb, texts written and preserved on the walls, the Book of the Heavenly Cow. It is believed that the original story may have originally written in the Old Kingdom or Middle Kingdom periods but have been lost for some times.
Before the texts talk of the sky goddess transforming into cow, which the aging sun god mounted on back and they flew to the sky, there is section of text, which today called the Destruction of Mankind.
In Destruction of Mankind, it narrated how men stopped worshipping the sun god Ra, so Ra sent one of his Eye that transformed into the lioness goddess, Sekhmet, who began killing people, eating their flesh and drinking their blood, and would kill everyone, but Ra stopped her by having 12 goddesses to produce beer dyed red, like blood, and filled one of the valley with beer. Sekhmet assuming this beer was blood of her victims, drank until she became intoxicated, and forgot all about killing men, and Sekhmet transformed into shape of beautiful woman, named Hathor. You can read Seti’s
Destruction of Mankind here.
Now both myths from Mesopotamia and Egypt, but these are indications they know how to make alcoholic beverages. But physical evidence showed that beer making predated these myths, existing as early as 8th millennium BCE, in Neolithic building complex of Göbekli Tepe.
Beer brewing is certainly older than science.
People of ancient Egypt and Greece also make and drink wine, but wine, like beer, predated these civilizations, and evidence can be found in various Neolithic places, including Southern Caucasus, like some sites in Georgia, dated between 6000 and 5800 BCE.
And wine made from rice, predated Chinese civilization, and possibly dated as early as 7000 BCE, discovered in a Neolithic site at Henan.
Both wine and beer making predated written history.
And as to cigarette, it may be modern invention, but smoking tobacco predated invention of cigars and cigarettes. I am not sure when it all started, but the ancient Mayan used some sorts of tubes, possibly made from reeds, to smoke tobacco.
You cannot blame science for these inventions in regarding to tobacco and alcohol, as these were made before science got involved.
And pollution started long before the Bronze Age, when people started burning or cutting down forests, to built their settlements or to clear lands for agricultural farming - the Neolithic revolution.
The inventions of gun and explosive are more recent, but again they were made before science got involved. Gunpowder was accidentally invented by Taoist Chinese, but again I don’t remember when exactly, if it was invented during the Tang Dynasty or Song Dynasty, I’m not sure exactly.
Seriously, WNK, you really need to learn some history before you shoot off your mouth.
