"There have long been two strongly divergent poles in our evaluation of ethnobotany. Some students are carried away in an enthusiastic assumption that native peoples everywhere have a special intuition in unlocking the secrets of the Plant Kingdom. Others cast aside or at least denigrate all aboriginal folk lore as not worthy of serious scientific consideration. Both viewpoints, of course, are unwarranted. The accomplishments of native peoples in understanding plant properties so thoroughly must be simply a result of a long and intimate association with their s and their utter dependence on them. Consequently — and especially since so much aboriginal knowledge is based on experimentation — it warrants careful and criticai attention on the part of modern scientific efforts. It behooves us to take advantage now of this extensive knowledge that still exists in many parts of the world, lest it be lost with the inexorable onrush of civilization and the resulting extinction of one primitive culture after another. This experimentally acquired knowledge may not much longer be avaĂlable."
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Academics from the United StatesEnvironmentalists from the United StatesBiologists from the United StatesCuratorsBotanists from the United States
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Richard Evans Schultes
(January 12, 1915 – April 10, 2001) was an American , curator of Harvard's Orchid Herbarium, and professor of biology at Harvard University.
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