WEBVTT - How Disgust Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.360 dot com. You and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.160 and there's Charles W Chuck, Brian over there, and um, 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:23.360 there's Jerry and this is discussed and stuff you should 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.520 know about. Disgusted. You gotta say it like that. I'm 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:29.840 excited about this one, Chuck, And I don't know why. 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:32.640 I have no idea. I think you do. If you 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.159 stopped and really thought about that's fine, that's fine. But 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.120 if you stopped and thought about it, you would say, yes, 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.960 I know exactly why, Josh. And it is as follows 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.959 colon quotes, because this is one of those things that 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.720 science hasn't fully explained, which means there's a lot of 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.120 interesting theories, which means we just get to like talk 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.680 smack the whole time. It's interesting. This is one of 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.120 those where I was reading it and I was I mean, 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:58.800 it was sort of interesting, But then I was like, 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:04.280 why wouldn't wouldn't even study this? I I that's I mean, 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.000 that's a good question. That's a good question. I think 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.319 one of the reasons that I'm fascinated by it, and 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.840 that I'm sure one of the reasons these I mean 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.200 to to dedicate your career to studying disgust. It is 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.400 kind of a bizarre idea. But one of the main 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.000 researchers in the study of discussing a guy named Paul Rosen. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.760 He's kind of like the godfather, maybe even the father 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:31.760 of the field. Yeah here, but he's been doing it 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.240 longer than anybody, so he's the He's the pappy um 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.759 as they say in the Hills. Uh. He has said 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.640 that to him, discussed is the thing, the emotion, the 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:48.760 experience that makes humans human, that that it is discussed 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.800 that separates us from the other animals that were sure 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.000 the animal kingdom with so much so that we actually 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:59.080 may use discussed to separate ourselves from the rest of 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:03.880 the animals. Okay, that's pretty fascinating and it's worth exploring too, 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.080 because I think it says a lot about us as 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:11.400 as humans and as animals. So that's why that's the 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.400 answer your question. How about that? All? Right? Now, I 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.520 get why somebody would want to study I guess I'm 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.720 talking about allocating funds to study it. Oh, gotcha. It 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.600 just seems like a strange thing to sink money into. Well, 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:25.560 I mean, if the humanities are going to sink money 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.480 into anything. What makes us the most human would be 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.839 that make it? It makes sense according to one guy, Right, 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.600 I love it. Let's talk about gross things. Okay, so 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.400 we're going to so so this, this whole idea of 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:43.680 studying it, of studying disgust is actually pretty new. Um. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.560 Rosen didn't really start until like the seventies, and it 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.240 wasn't until the nineties that it really got it really 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.840 picked up, um, which will kind of get into. But 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.440 prior to that, it was basically just philosophers who who 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:00.160 were talking about disgust. Right, Yes, I think, uh, I'm 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:01.960 not sure about studying, but at least as far as 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:04.400 I think, it seems to me like it was more 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.120 of a like where's the boundary as far as what 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.040 can we write about? What can we talk about, and 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.760 what can we perform and still sell books and tickets? 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.440 Right Like we want we want people to to be 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.600 tantalized at the thought of being grossed out or disgusted, 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.720 but not actually be disgusted. And it's a fine line 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.800 that's walked, you know, no, of course, and it's subjective, 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.280 it is. But the other thing about discussed that's pretty 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:32.920 interesting is it also appears to be universal. It's like 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:37.280 it's a universal reaction. But what discuss people is not universal. 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.880 It's culturally bound, I guess right, maybe personal too, sure, 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.160 I think totally personal. So the the overtime, like as 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:47.960 you know, discussed kind of moved out of the realm 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.280 of philosophers and into science. Um. There were a couple 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.720 of people who kind of made contributions early on in 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.480 the field. One was Charles Darwin. He wrote a treatise 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.280 on it, and his big thing was that disc gust 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.080 was related to taste, which is true to an extent, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.200 but that was Darwin's big thing. And then later on 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:12.000 there was a guy, a psychoanalyst named andrews ang y'all. 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:17.760 And ANDREWS. Sangiel basically said that, um, no, no, no, 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.120 discussed is not really related to taste. It's the it 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.120 comes from the idea or the thought of putting something 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.320 horrific into the mouth, which again kind of makes sense 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.520 to a certain extent. But then when Rosen and friends 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.440 came along, it really started to take off and they 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.640 actually managed to kind of categorize disgust into a few categories, 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.839 which is what you do when you categorize things. Yeah, 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.760 there's uh, the first one is core discussed, and that's 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.479 what you think of if you like, you know, if 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.360 poop er, I mean, everyone has their own triggers, but 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:56.120 if like vomit or feces or like a like in 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.960 trails or something like, that's cord discussed. That's an encounter 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:05.680 with some sort of like physical contaminant that makes you, 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.320 you know, make that face right, and that face specifically. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.400 That's another universal thing too, apparently the faces. It's called 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.359 the gape, which is your mouth is open, your tongue 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.400 may or may not be sticking out, your nose is wrinkled, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.440 and your upper lip is is raised. And just like 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.080 I don't do that with my mouth open, though, so 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.280 you just kind of do the the nose wrinkle in 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:31.640 the upper lip. I guess like this, but I don't 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.360 open my mouth. So that's why I sort of like, 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:35.960 I don't know when it comes to stuff like this, 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.800 I'm a little when they make these sweeping statements like 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.159 everyone makes this face. Well, everyone may make a variation 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.039 of a face of like kind of there's like a 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:52.400 universal set of of characteristics to the face that you 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.720 could choose from that would fall into disgust like that. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.360 I don't know if you choose anything but maybe your 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.880 natural reaction. But like I don't open my mouth, and 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.800 when I read that, like everyone opens their mouth like, no, 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.719 that's not true. So um that I think one of 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.240 the reasons why there is like this idea of it 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.560 being universal is because evolutionary psychology is we'll see has 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.120 said like, yes, this is our realm, We've got this, 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.680 We're gonna explain this one, and to fully explain it, 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.599 it basically has to be universal. So I think that's 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.640 another thing about the point where the study of disgust 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.080 is right now, Like there's a lot of good ideas, 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.440 some of which have kind of been shown to be 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.120 probably true thanks to the Wonder Machine, but it's still 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.720 it's not fully explained, and so there are some ideas 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.479 and descriptions that make it seem kind of wacky too, right, Yeah, 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.120 for sure. Um. That second kind of discussed getting back 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.240 to that was animal nature discussed, which is apparently these 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.920 are things that in anything that reminds us that we're 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.520 really animals, and that that could there could be a 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.800 wide range of things they're from, Like some people think 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.480 people eating with the hands is disgusting, and I think 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.680 that would qualify under animal nature because like you're eating 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.960 like an animal. Let's say, um, sex uh, and we'll 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.760 get into that more later. But apparently there's a baseline 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.120 discussed for sex, which I'm not so sure about that 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.560 one either. And then hygiene, uh is another one. Poor 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.880 hygiene is the animal nature discussed. Yeah, And another one 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.680 is the like, like you said, entrails something that's called 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:34.360 the um, the body envelope, the ideal body envelope being violated, 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.760 whether it's like there's a deformity or there is like 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.360 some sort of um, like an open wound or something 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.000 like that. They think that this whole animal nature thing, 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.040 that all these things remind us that we are animals, 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.840 and that discussed can be triggered by um, that reminder 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.320 that we are that we are in fact animals, which 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.480 is kind of weird, but we'll get into explanations for 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.000 that later. I can't wait. That's right. And the final 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.600 one is moral discussed, which uh. And this is one 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.400 where you know, you can be disgusted with someone's behavior 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:13.560 or uh, you know, disgusted with like something a politician does, 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:18.160 or disgusted with racism or bigotry something like that. Right, 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:20.760 And that one makes like the least amount of sense 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:22.640 if you think about it like that. Okay, the first 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.240 two were just kind of like, all right, we're like, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.760 it's animal related. We might have issues with being animals, 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.360 so we're we're kind of disgusted by ourselves at the 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.800 thought that we're animals. Maybe it's a bit more of 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.760 a stretch than that Core discussed, Like Core discussed makes 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:41.080 the most sense out of all of them. Agreed. Uh, yeah, 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.720 And I don't even think that the moral discussed. I 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.959 think that's a different type of thing altogether. So that 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.360 that other people have proposed that that like they're like 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.280 some people have said, well English speakers are just misusing 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.240 the word discussed. They're talking right. Well, they've done they've 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.960 done studies of people in the Wonder Machine that shows 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.760 that the region of the brain, the anterior insula that's 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.000 usually um, that usually lights up when you're shown a 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.920 picture of like dog poop and said you're gonna eat this, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.640 you know, your your anterior insula lights up. That same 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.520 region lights up when people are disgusted with um other 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.320 people morally, Like remember the ultimatum game. I don't remember 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:24.800 it used to come up all the time back in 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.800 the day in our episodes. But so if somebody was 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:31.920 given a really really low offer to take it or 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.079 leave it, offer that was so low and so unfair 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.480 that the person said, I'm just leaving it. I actually 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.880 don't want this free money because I find it insulting. 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.720 That same part of the brain that that is triggered 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:49.439 by um, like fecal disgust, is also triggered UM, which 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.720 supports the idea that there actually is a moral dimension 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.959 to disgust and that we experience it in the same way. 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.040 That's interesting. It is interesting, but it is like the 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.800 it's the most tenuous of those three, I think. So 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:04.760 the way this all started out there there are a 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.839 bunch of theories, but it makes sense that it might 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:13.680 have ah been sort of an offshoot of distaste, which is, 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.040 you know, your body is conditioned thanks to you know, 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:22.160 evolution too. If you eat something that's bitter or rotten, 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.040 like your instinct, your taste instinct is to throw it 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.560 out and get rid of it. Uh, And it's a 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:32.079 defense mechanism to save your life. And so the idea 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:35.680 is that discuss developed out of that and that it's 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:40.040 just simply an evolutionary trait. Uh that could have you know, 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.920 saved took Tok's life, you know, however many years ago. Yeah, 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.960 and there's there's evidence apparently that this this distaste, which 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.959 is basically is in an involuntary reaction, is like dropping 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.920 something that's hot, like you don't stop and think like wow, 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.560 this cooking pan is about five on the five fifty 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.360 degrees fair at height, and then you'd drop it. I 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.640 should probably drop it like you just dropped the pant. 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.120 Distaste is the same exact thing, and they've actually seen 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.960 it elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Um, So we've probably 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.040 experienced distaste since before we were humans, and it's just 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.400 spitting something out that doesn't seem right in a in 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:20.880 a um an effort to I guess, keep the body 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.079 from becoming polluted with disease, right, And they think that 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.840 distaste somehow became a behavior that was laid over this 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.800 I'm sorry discussed has was a behavior that became laid 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.559 over this existing structure of distaste. Yeah, And that's interesting 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.040 to me because that means that it becomes all of 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.880 a sudden, It's not like you have to eat poop 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.720 to be disgusted, like the mere sight of poop now 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:53.280 can discuss somebody, uh, and that just happened over time, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.679 I think. So that is why Rosen says this is, 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:01.360 like discussed, is the defining characteristic of human entity, because 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.920 they suspect that other animals, at the very least almost 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:10.439 all other animals don't have the cognitive capacity to use 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.800 their imagination to imagine themselves eating poop and see in 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.040 and being disgusted by it as a result. Right, So 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:22.040 that's why they say discussed separates humans from from animals, 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.720 because it requires imagination to go from an involuntary reaction 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.800 of spitting out food to not even getting to the 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:31.439 point where the food is in your mouth. You can 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.600 imagine that you would have that reaction and experience the 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.080 emotion of disgust. So you don't have to go through 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.640 that process, that actually very dangerous process of eating something 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.400 rotten to figure out that you shouldn't be eating it. 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.280 You can imagine it beforehand. And that's the function that 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.760 discussed at least core discussed provides humanity. It advances us. 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.160 We don't have to learn through trial and error over 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.560 and over again not to eat rotting meat. We just 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.599 know on some very basic level that that is a 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.240 disgusting thing to do when we have a reaction to it. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.679 Are you want to take a break? Yeah, all right, everyone, 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.760 we're gonna be right back right after this with more disgust. 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.320 So I think we should go back to Took took 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.040 um and just like how this actually may have worked 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.679 back in the day. Uh, let's say Took Took and 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:34.640 his buddy mock Mock are strolling along the tundra. You know, Chuck, 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.400 after eleven years, I am surprised that we have a 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.319 new character, and I'm very pleased. Yeah, well, don't get 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.080 used to him, because mack Mok is he's about to 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.959 die for mock mom. So it Took Took and mack 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:52.280 mak are walking along the tundra. Um they find a 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:58.080 an old dead antelope, and mock Mock is like, well, 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.719 this doesn't smell great, but I'll tell you what, I'm 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.880 gonna eat this thing because I don't have this genetic 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:08.640 trait because my mom eat this stuff. Uh, and it's fine, 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:11.719 and Took Tooks like, I don't know, my friend, it 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.480 looks and smells gross. Um, I do have this genetic trait, 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.480 So I'm gonna pass on that, So mock Mak's like, 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.479 you're a sucker. I'm gonna chow down on this rotten antelope. 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.920 And then mock Mock gets sick and dies before mack 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.280 Mak can have any babies. And then if this happens 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.600 thousands and tens of thousands of times over a huge population, 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.640 you can see how over time it would be like 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:40.760 any physical evolutionary trait that might evolve over time, and 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.600 all of a sudden, Tuk Tuk's family is thriving today 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:48.280 in the United States, all healthy descendants of Took Took 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.880 and mock Mok is long gone, right, And because Tuk 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.880 Tuk was able to pass along his genes of being 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:59.360 disgusted by rotten meat, and mock Mock died before he 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.520 could pass his genes of not being discussed along, So 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:07.520 nature or natural selection or revolution selected for for Tuk 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.640 Tuk's right right, And Tuk Tuk was a prolific lover, 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.400 as we all know. And I imagine mock Mock in 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:20.600 his dying words gasping, I regret never having seen the ocean. Probably, 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.760 so it's a good Mock Mock. Everyone doesn't know, but 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:30.240 it's true that was so chuck um. That's the that's 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:36.400 the evolutionary psychology basis for explaining how disgust came along 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:38.720 and was passed along, right, And it makes sense on 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.200 a very basic level, but it starts to get less 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.600 and less sensible, as you've already pointed out, as we 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:49.000 start to add more and more inputs of disgust. Right, like, yes, 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:53.760 it makes sense that either uh, somehow the idea of 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.520 not eating meat was passed along, either genetically or even 0:15:57.560 --> 0:15:59.920 you could say tuk Tuk went back to the hunter 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.600 gather tribe and said, hey, let me tell you what 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:05.240 happened to mock Mark. It was crazy. He ate some 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.120 rancid antelope, which I guess we all kind of thought 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:09.680 was okay up to this point. But let me tell 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.040 you steer clear of the ransid antelope. You don't want 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:14.880 to have anything to do that because it just killed 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.680 moch Mock and everyone trusting took took and not just 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.880 assuming that he hit mock Mock with a rock or 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.360 something out in the wilderness and left him to die, 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.480 that he actually did die from eating antelope. This became 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:28.920 passed along. This is another way it could have happened, 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.120 and that this like ancient knowledge. We just lost, um 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:35.680 where the ancient knowledge came from that was actually took 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.200 took seeing mock mak die, and instead it just became 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.960 something that, um, we came to think of as like 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.000 instinct over time you just don't eat rancid meat. But 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:46.520 really what it is, rather than being passed along genetically, 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:50.280 it was am I guess a meme uh an idea 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.320 that was passed along generation to generation and it became 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.000 so ingrained that we just confuse it for genes or 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.560 instinct as well, which is another ex nation of it. 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.320 But both of them have like an evolutionary component to 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.200 it for sure. Yeah, and then over time that even 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:11.000 changes to where, um, like it's not like humans, Like 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.280 let's talk about a human body, then like a dead 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.600 a dead human body, a corpse. Let me get my 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:20.520 poking stick. Well, you probably wouldn't poke it because your 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.720 evolutionary instinct is to probably just stay away from that body. Well, 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:25.800 that's so the stick is for. And it's not just 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.680 because like well it maybe partially because a dead body 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.440 just might creep someone out, but there's also an evolutionary 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.720 basis to avoid that body, get it out of the house. 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.840 And bury it because it's may have been diseased. Uh 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.000 And they've even done studies. There was a study in 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:48.080 two thousand four in Biology Letters, just the greatest teen 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:53.679 science mag out there, Tiger Beat in Biological Scientists. Uh So, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.600 Biology Letters said that they didn't study where they found 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.520 the images of objects that held what was called a 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.800 potential disease threat. We're rated as more disgusting. So this 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.720 is just the idea that um again, because of evolution, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:15.600 we are have trained ourselves to avoid somebody who looks sick. Okay, 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:18.120 now we get to another big chink in the armor. 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.760 If you ask me, where did we get the idea 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.560 that a body caused disease and that you could become 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:29.400 polluted by some weird magical transference of this disease by 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.240 handling or coming in close contact with the body like 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.640 pre germ theory. Pre germ theory. Germ theory is very new. 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.359 It's about a hundred and fifty years old. Almost on 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:42.280 the nose. We're talking about people's aversion to dead bodies 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:46.000 and corpses for eons before that, hundreds of years, if 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.800 not thousands and thousands of years, right, maybe even more 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.159 like what if like, I mean, what if someone just 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:58.000 going to like back in the day where people like, 0:18:58.240 --> 0:18:59.840 oh that's great, come here and give me, give me 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:02.840 some sugar, right, or were people always sort of repulse 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:05.639 by that? Yeah, I I don't know, and we we 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:07.600 don't We don't know. We can't say. We can only 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.159 go as far back as any like historical reference as 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:11.920 we can find. But you can make a pretty good 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.960 case that an aversion to to something like that or 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.920 a dead body goes back much further than germ theory. 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.760 So you you come to that question, where do we 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.480 get this idea? Where do we get this understanding on 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.760 a very basic fundamental level that corpses are to be 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.760 avoided so much so that we are disgusted by them. 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.320 And even if you're not disgusted, like I want to 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.200 wretch if I see a dead body in person, which 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.280 may be surprised. I think a lot of people would 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.600 be very surprised that if they actually did see a 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.240 dead body, they would be they would probably wretch. That 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.680 depends on you know, what's going on the state it's in. Yeah, 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.119 if it's viscerated or something like that, or the smell 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.600 I think also to um, but the the the idea 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:59.520 that that there's something that is keeping you from avoiding it, 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:03.800 whether the creeps, whether it's discussed, whether it's some form 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.280 of a version that is that is acting to put 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:12.679 distance between you and the polluting entity. This dead body. Um, 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.840 where did that come from before germ theory? That's my 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.600 big question that I haven't seen answered anywhere. It's where 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.919 did we get that? Again? Was it somebody handled the 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.560 dead body and like became directly sick from it, so 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.159 obviously that even like Took Took could say, yes, the 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.359 dead body caused this, so we should steer clear of 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.120 hanging out around dead bodies. Or um, was there some 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:41.240 sort of awareness on on a very basic level that 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.600 that we haven't figured out how to explain yet that 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:50.119 that kept generations and generations of humans relatively healthy before 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.879 the advent of germ theory and our understanding of it. 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:58.600 It is a bit of a mind experiment. It is like, uh, 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:02.840 that this perhaps the very sound of someone very ill 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.480 and hawking up, you know, phlim. It sounds gross, but 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.080 like like you say, though, before germ theory, before they 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.679 knew that that would make that was sickness, or that 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.520 made someone sick. Maybe people were like, come in here 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.760 and do that in my face that I love that sound, right, 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.240 but it just doesn't seem likely. It's like a s 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.960 MR to me. I don't know, man, It's very hard 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.159 to wrap your head around. And also, if you remember, 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.160 in our Great Stink episode prior, right prior to germ theory, 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.040 there was miasma theory, which was the smell of something 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.560 directly polluted you and made you sick that associated with it. 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.400 But even that, it's like, so, okay, what what made 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:42.480 you think that the smell? What makes you think that 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:44.880 a dead body, which in and of itself isn't giving 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.160 off any actual signals that it will make you sick 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.560 if if it's decayed enough and you like interact with it. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.119 What about that made us associate sickness a transference of 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:01.640 sickness that transferences. It's an invisible magic transference of pollution 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.080 from the dead body to you, the person who's handling 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.560 the dead body. That is that is significant and remarkable 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:09.640 that we came up with that. That's what I think 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:13.080 is is just so fascinating about all this. Yeah, and 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:17.480 I think this thing about the contingencies plays into because uh, 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.560 and it's funny. I have to admit when I read 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:25.560 this the word contingencies in my head, I was adding 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:27.359 a letter or something, and I kept saying in my 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:33.359 head as content genesis, and I was like, what is 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:38.800 that content genesis? And finally that's all contingencies Correctly, I 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.760 was like, man, am I drunk? Like what's going on? 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:48.040 So anyway, there are content genesies. That's like facetious. I 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.879 had that same uh facetious when yeah, what do you 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.480 think it's said? Or sounded like fastidious or something like that, 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:58.760 and I kept sounding it out and then finally I 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.560 was like, oh, that's facetious. Yeah, but you were probably 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:07.520 like twelve and not a professional broadcaster. I think you 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.200 had in your eye that was all. So these contingencies 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:17.160 um in humans at any time, there there are many 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:22.239 contingencies at work within us, competing against each other. So 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:24.120 if you go back to Tuk tuk and mock mock 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:30.520 um mock mock uh died, Let's say he did feel 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:35.160 some disgust, but it wasn't like but he was also hungry, 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:40.919 So that's the competing content genesis and his desire to 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:44.440