Excellent response, NJ. The only part of your post with which I would disagree ("Overall I see so many lucky rolls so as to rule out the total possibility of random chance X natural selection."), would likely be too far off topic to address in this thread.
Because at the end of the day, "I don't know for certain" just might be my answer.
Which is the exact position of any scientist worthy of the name when the evidence available for any hypothesis is lacking, ambiguous, or equivocal. Well said.
Something you pointed out in your response which is quite apropos was:
NJ writes:
Kod writes:
One of the easiest to question is Cacti that uses Mescaline as a way of fending off insects. Yet many other plants use other compounds to do the exact same thing yet without the psychoactive effect! The simple practicality is also questionable, because mescaline isn't the most effective, wouldn't a god/designer use a more effective non psychoactive compound?
I have a better question. Why would natural selection produce this symbiotic relationship between plants and humans, since you seem to speak of it in terms of it being purposeful? What are the forces driving it that it would actually be necessary from an adaptational point of reference?
I think yours is an especially apt question when we're talking about chemical and physical defenses plants evolved in the New World tropics, where humans are relative newcomers to the scene. A mere 13,000 years (well, even if we postulate the 25,000 years some authors argue) simply isn't enough time for human-derived selection pressures to have caused this kind of adaptation - especially at the extraordinarily low level of "exploitation for psychotropic effects" and limited numbers of species humans find useful in that context compared with the vast numbers that have similar adaptations. If, as the OP suggests, these few organisms really WERE designed for human use, what is the explanation for all the OTHER defenses plants have developed? Isn't more logical, as you state, that the few species humans find useful were merely serendipitous?