Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Selects: How Disgust Works
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: How did everybody Ugh Blair, Blair Blair blah. Yeah, I
- 0:10Speaker 1: think you know where this is headed. It's our episode
- 0:12Speaker 1: on disgust. This is a Josh pic way back in
- 0:16Speaker 1: the day. This is March twenty nineteen. And I thought, initially, well,
- 0:21Speaker 1: what in the world are we going to talk about
- 0:23Speaker 1: with disgust? I don't I'm not sure I get this one, Josh,
- 0:26Speaker 1: but he knew, as he always does, that there was
- 0:29Speaker 1: something more to it than meets the eye.
- 0:32Speaker 2: And he was right.
- 0:33Speaker 1: So check it out and learn all about disgust right here,
- 0:38Speaker 1: right now.
- 0:39Speaker 2: Blah.
- 0:43Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
- 0:53Speaker 3: You and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
- 0:56Speaker 3: there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry
- 1:01Speaker 3: and this is discussed on Stuff you should Know about disgust.
- 1:07Speaker 2: You gotta say it like that.
- 1:09Speaker 3: I'm excited about this one, Chuck, And I don't know why.
- 1:12Speaker 2: I have no idea.
- 1:13Speaker 3: I think you do. If you stopped and really thought
- 1:15Speaker 3: about it, that's fine, that's fine. But if you stopped
- 1:17Speaker 3: and thought about it, you would say, yes, I know
- 1:20Speaker 3: exactly why, Josh. And it is as follows Colon quotes
- 1:25Speaker 3: because this is one of those things that science hasn't
- 1:28Speaker 3: fully explained, which means there's a lot of interesting theories,
- 1:31Speaker 3: which means we just get to like talk smack the
- 1:33Speaker 3: whole time.
- 1:35Speaker 1: It's interesting. This is one of those where I was
- 1:37Speaker 1: reading it and I was I mean, it was sort
- 1:39Speaker 1: of interesting. But then I was like, why would anyone
- 1:41Speaker 1: even study this?
- 1:44Speaker 3: I that's I mean, that's a good question. That's a
- 1:47Speaker 3: good question. I think one of the reasons that I'm
- 1:49Speaker 3: fascinated by it, And then I'm sure one of the
- 1:52Speaker 3: reasons of these I mean, to dedicate your career to
- 1:55Speaker 3: studying disgust. It is kind of a bizarre idea, but
- 2:00Speaker 3: one of the main researchers in the study of disgust
- 2:03Speaker 3: is a guy named Paul Rosen. He's kind of like
- 2:05Speaker 3: the godfather, maybe even the father of the field. Yeah,
- 2:10Speaker 3: he says, sure, but he's been doing it longer than anybody,
- 2:14Speaker 3: so he's the He's the pappy as they say in
- 2:17Speaker 3: the hills. He said that to him, discussed is the thing,
- 2:23Speaker 3: the emotion, the experience that makes humans human, that that
- 2:29Speaker 3: it is discussed that separates us from the other animals
- 2:33Speaker 3: that we share the animal kingdom with so much so
- 2:35Speaker 3: that we actually may use disgust to separate ourselves from
- 2:40Speaker 3: the rest of the animals. Okay, that is pretty fascinating
- 2:44Speaker 3: and it's worth exploring too, because I think it says
- 2:46Speaker 3: a lot about us as as humans and as animals. Yeah,
- 2:50Speaker 3: so that's why that's the answer to your question. How
- 2:54Speaker 3: about that?
- 2:54Speaker 2: All right?
- 2:55Speaker 1: No, I get why somebody would want to say, I
- 2:57Speaker 1: guess I'm talking about allocating funds.
- 2:59Speaker 2: Just study it.
- 3:00Speaker 3: Oh gotcha.
- 3:02Speaker 1: It just seems like a strange thing to sink money into.
- 3:05Speaker 3: Well, I mean, if the humanities are going to sink
- 3:07Speaker 3: money into anything, what makes us the most human would be?
- 3:10Speaker 1: It makes it makes sense according to one guy, Right,
- 3:14Speaker 1: I love it. Let's talk about gross things.
- 3:17Speaker 3: Okay, so we're going to So so this, this whole
- 3:20Speaker 3: idea of studying it, of studying disgust, is actually pretty new.
- 3:25Speaker 3: Rosen didn't really start until like the seventies, and it
- 3:29Speaker 3: wasn't until the nineties that it really got it really
- 3:32Speaker 3: picked up, which we'll kind of get into. But prior
- 3:34Speaker 3: to that, it was basically just philosophers who who were
- 3:38Speaker 3: talking about disgust.
- 3:39Speaker 1: Right, yes, I think, and I'm not sure about studying,
- 3:42Speaker 1: But at least as far as I think, it seems
- 3:45Speaker 1: to me like it was more of a like where's
- 3:46Speaker 1: the boundary as far as what can we write about?
- 3:49Speaker 1: What can we talk about, and what can we perform
- 3:52Speaker 1: right and still sell books and tickets right?
- 3:55Speaker 3: Like we want we want people to be tantalized at
- 3:59Speaker 3: the thought of being grossed out or disgusted, but not
- 4:02Speaker 3: actually be disgusted. It is a fine line that's walked, you.
- 4:06Speaker 2: Know, no, of course, and it's subjective, it is.
- 4:09Speaker 3: But the other thing about Discuss that's pretty interesting is
- 4:12Speaker 3: it also appears to be universal. It's like it's a
- 4:15Speaker 3: universal reaction. But what disgusts people is not universal. It's
- 4:19Speaker 3: culturally bound I guess, right, maybe personal too, sure.
- 4:22Speaker 2: I think totally personal.
- 4:24Speaker 3: So the over time, like as you know, Discuss kind
- 4:28Speaker 3: of moved out of the realm of philosophers and into science.
- 4:32Speaker 3: There were a couple people who kind of made contributions
- 4:34Speaker 3: early on in the field. When was Charles Darwin. He
- 4:38Speaker 3: wrote a treatise on it, and his big thing was
- 4:40Speaker 3: that disgust was related to taste, which is true to
- 4:45Speaker 3: an extent, but that was Darwin's big thing, and then
- 4:48Speaker 3: later on there was a guy, a psychoanalyst named andros angy'all,
- 4:54Speaker 3: and Andres Angyall basically said that no, no, no, discuss
- 5:00Speaker 3: is not really related to taste. It's the it comes
- 5:03Speaker 3: from the idea or the thought of putting something horrific
- 5:06Speaker 3: into the mouth, which again kind of makes sense to
- 5:10Speaker 3: a certain extent. But then when Rosen and friends came along,
- 5:14Speaker 3: it really started to take off and they actually managed
- 5:16Speaker 3: to kind of categorize disgust into a few categories, which
- 5:21Speaker 3: is what you do when you categorize things.
- 5:23Speaker 1: Yeah, there's the first one is core discussed, and that's
- 5:26Speaker 1: what you think of if you like, you know, if
- 5:30Speaker 1: poop or I mean, everyone has their own triggers, but
- 5:33Speaker 1: if like vomit or feces or like a like entrails
- 5:38Speaker 1: or something like that's cored discussed. That's an encounter with
- 5:42Speaker 1: some sort of like physical contaminant that makes you, you know,
- 5:47Speaker 1: make that face right, and.
- 5:49Speaker 3: That face specifically, that's another universal thing too, apparently, the faces.
- 5:54Speaker 3: It's called the gape, which is your mouth is open,
- 5:57Speaker 3: your tongue may or may not be sticking out, your
- 6:00Speaker 3: nose is wrinkled, and your upper lip is raised.
- 6:03Speaker 2: Actually I don't do that with my mouth open, though,
- 6:06Speaker 2: so you just.
- 6:07Speaker 3: Kind of do the nose wrinkle in the upper lip.
- 6:10Speaker 2: I guess like this, but I don't open my mouth.
- 6:14Speaker 1: So that's why I sort of like, I don't know
- 6:16Speaker 1: when it comes to stuff like this, I'm a little
- 6:18Speaker 1: when they make these sweeping statements like everyone makes this face. Well,
- 6:23Speaker 1: everyone may make a variation of a face of a.
- 6:27Speaker 3: Like kind of a there's like a universal set of
- 6:32Speaker 3: characteristics to the face that you could choose from that
- 6:34Speaker 3: would fall into disgust like that.
- 6:37Speaker 1: I don't know if you choose anything but maybe your
- 6:39Speaker 1: natural reaction. But like I don't open my mouth, And
- 6:41Speaker 1: when I read that, like everyone opens their mouth, like, no,
- 6:44Speaker 1: that's not true.
- 6:45Speaker 3: So I think one of the reasons why there is
- 6:48Speaker 3: like this idea of it being universal is because evolutionary
- 6:52Speaker 3: psychology is we'll see has said like, yes, this is
- 6:55Speaker 3: our realm, We've got this, we're gonna explain this one
- 6:58Speaker 3: and two fully, it basically has to be universal. So
- 7:02Speaker 3: I think that's another thing about the point where the
- 7:05Speaker 3: study of disgust is right now, Like there's a lot
- 7:07Speaker 3: of good ideas, some of which have kind of been
- 7:10Speaker 3: shown to be probably true thanks to the Wonder Machine,
- 7:14Speaker 3: but it's still it's not fully explained, and so there
- 7:17Speaker 3: are some ideas and descriptions that make it seem kind
- 7:20Speaker 3: of wacky too, right.
- 7:21Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
- 7:23Speaker 1: That second kind of discuss getting back to that, was
- 7:26Speaker 1: animal nature discussed, which is apparently these are things that
- 7:30Speaker 1: anything that reminds us that we're really animals, and that
- 7:35Speaker 1: could there could be a wide range of things there,
- 7:37Speaker 1: from like some people think people eating with their hands
- 7:42Speaker 1: is disgusting, and I think that would qualify under animal
- 7:45Speaker 1: nature because like you're eating like an animal.
- 7:48Speaker 2: Let's say.
- 7:50Speaker 1: Sex, and we'll get into that more later, but apparently
- 7:53Speaker 1: there's a baseline discussed for sex, which I'm not so
- 7:58Speaker 1: sure about that one either. And then hygiene is another one.
- 8:03Speaker 1: Poor hygiene is the animal nature discussed.
- 8:06Speaker 3: Yeah, And another one is the like like you said, entrails,
- 8:09Speaker 3: something that's called the the body envelope, the ideal body
- 8:14Speaker 3: envelope being violated, whether it's like there's a deformity or
- 8:18Speaker 3: there is like some sort of like an open wound
- 8:22Speaker 3: or something like that. They think that this whole animal
- 8:26Speaker 3: nature thing, that all these things remind us that we
- 8:28Speaker 3: are animals and that disgust can be triggered by that
- 8:34Speaker 3: reminder that we are that we are in fact animals,
- 8:36Speaker 3: which is kind of weird. But we'll get into explanations
- 8:39Speaker 3: for that later. I can't wait.
- 8:41Speaker 2: That's right.
- 8:42Speaker 1: And the final one is moral discussed, which and this
- 8:46Speaker 1: is one where you know, you can be disgusted with
- 8:48Speaker 1: someone's behavior or you know, disgusted with like something a
- 8:54Speaker 1: politician does, or disgusted with racism or bigotry something like that.
- 8:59Speaker 3: Right, And that one makes like the least amount of
- 9:02Speaker 3: sense if you think about it like that. Okay, the
- 9:04Speaker 3: first two were just kind of like, all right, we're like,
- 9:06Speaker 3: it's animal related. We might have issues with being animals,
- 9:10Speaker 3: so we're kind of disgusted by ourselves at the thought
- 9:13Speaker 3: that we're animals. Maybe it's a bit more of a
- 9:15Speaker 3: stretch than that core discussed, Like core disgusted makes this
- 9:18Speaker 3: most sense out of all of them. Agreed.
- 9:21Speaker 1: Uh yeah, And I don't even think that the moral discussed.
- 9:25Speaker 1: I think that's a different type of thing altogether.
- 9:28Speaker 3: So that other people have proposed that that like they're
- 9:31Speaker 3: like some people have said, well, English speakers are just
- 9:34Speaker 3: misusing the word discussed. They're actually talking right, well, they've
- 9:38Speaker 3: done They've done studies of people in the Wonder Machine
- 9:41Speaker 3: that shows that the region of the brain, the anterior insula,
- 9:47Speaker 3: that's usually that usually lights up when you're showing a
- 9:50Speaker 3: picture of like dog poop and said you're gonna eat this,
- 9:53Speaker 3: you know your your anterior insula lights up. That same
- 9:57Speaker 3: region lights up when people are disgusted with other people morally.
- 10:02Speaker 3: Remember the ultimatum game. I don't remember. It used to
- 10:05Speaker 3: come up all the time back in the day in
- 10:07Speaker 3: our episodes. Yeah, but so if somebody was given a
- 10:11Speaker 3: really really low offer I take it or leave it
- 10:13Speaker 3: offer that was so low and so unfair that the
- 10:17Speaker 3: person said, I'm just leaving it. I actually don't want
- 10:19Speaker 3: this free money because I find it insulting. That same
- 10:23Speaker 3: part of the brain that is triggered by like fecal
- 10:27Speaker 3: disgust is also triggered, which supports the idea that there
- 10:32Speaker 3: actually is a moral dimension to disgust and that we
- 10:35Speaker 3: experience it in the same way.
- 10:37Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting.
- 10:39Speaker 3: It is interesting, But it is like the it's the
- 10:41Speaker 3: most tenuous of those three, I think.
- 10:44Speaker 1: So the way this all started out, there are a
- 10:46Speaker 1: bunch of theories, but it makes sense that it might
- 10:49Speaker 1: have been sort of an offshoot of distaste, which is,
- 10:55Speaker 1: you know, your body is conditioned thanks to you know,
- 10:58Speaker 1: evolution to if you eat something that's bitter or rotten,
- 11:04Speaker 1: like your instinct, your taste instinct is to throw it
- 11:07Speaker 1: out and get rid of it, and it's a defense
- 11:10Speaker 1: mechanism to save your life. And so the ideas that
- 11:14Speaker 1: discuss developed out of that and that it's just simply
- 11:18Speaker 1: an evolutionary trait that could have you know, saved Tiktook's life,
- 11:23Speaker 1: you know, however many years ago.
- 11:25Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's evidence apparently that this distaste, which is
- 11:30Speaker 3: basically is an involuntary reaction, is like dropping something that's hot,
- 11:34Speaker 3: Like you don't stop and think like wow, this cooking
- 11:37Speaker 3: pan is about five well and five hundred and fifty
- 11:40Speaker 3: degrees fahrenheight, and then you drop it. I should probably
- 11:42Speaker 3: drop it like you just dropped the pant. Distaste is
- 11:45Speaker 3: the same exact thing, and they've actually seen it elsewhere
- 11:48Speaker 3: in the animal kingdom. So we've probably experienced distaste since
- 11:53Speaker 3: before we were humans, and it's just spitting something out
- 11:56Speaker 3: that doesn't seem right in an effort to I guess,
- 12:01Speaker 3: keep the body from becoming polluted with disease, right, and
- 12:05Speaker 3: they think that distaste somehow became a behavior that was
- 12:09Speaker 3: laid over this ex or I'm sorry, disgust as was
- 12:13Speaker 3: a behavior that became laid over this existing structure of distaste.
- 12:18Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's interesting to me because that means that
- 12:21Speaker 1: it becomes all of a sudden. It's not like you
- 12:24Speaker 1: have to eat poop to be disgusted, right, Like the
- 12:28Speaker 1: mere sight of poop now can discuss somebody.
- 12:31Speaker 2: Yes, uh, and that just happened over time, I think.
- 12:35Speaker 3: So that is why Rosen says this is like disgust
- 12:39Speaker 3: is the defining characteristic of humanity because they suspect that
- 12:44Speaker 3: other animals, at the very least almost all other animals
- 12:49Speaker 3: don't have the cognitive capacity to use their imagination to
- 12:53Speaker 3: imagine themselves eating poop and see and being disgusted by
- 12:58Speaker 3: it as a result. Right, So that's why they say
- 13:00Speaker 3: disgust separates humans from animals because it requires imagination to
- 13:06Speaker 3: go from an involuntary reaction of spitting out food to
- 13:10Speaker 3: not even getting to the point where the food is
- 13:12Speaker 3: in your mouth. You can imagine that you would have
- 13:14Speaker 3: that reaction and experience the emotion of disgust. So you
- 13:18Speaker 3: don't have to go through that process, that actually very
- 13:21Speaker 3: dangerous process of eating something rotten to figure out that
- 13:25Speaker 3: you shouldn't be eating it. You can imagine it beforehand.
- 13:27Speaker 3: And that's the function that discussed at least core disgust
- 13:31Speaker 3: provides humanity. It advances us. We don't have to learn
- 13:34Speaker 3: through trial and error over and over again not to
- 13:36Speaker 3: eat rotten meat. We just know on some very basic
- 13:39Speaker 3: level that that is a disgusting thing to do, and
- 13:42Speaker 3: we have a reaction to it.
- 13:44Speaker 1: Or you want to take a break, Yeah, all right, everyone,
- 13:46Speaker 1: we're going to be right back right after this with
- 13:48Speaker 1: more disgust. So I think we should go back to
- 14:03Speaker 1: Tiktook and just like how this actually may have worked
- 14:07Speaker 1: back in the day, Let's say Tiktook and his buddy
- 14:11Speaker 1: Mockmock are strolling along the tundra.
- 14:15Speaker 3: You know, Chuck, after eleven years, I am surprised that
- 14:18Speaker 3: we have a new character, and I am very pleased
- 14:20Speaker 3: Mock Mock.
- 14:21Speaker 1: Yeah, well, don't get used to him, because Mack Mack
- 14:24Speaker 1: is he's about to die for Mock Mak. So TikTok
- 14:29Speaker 1: and Mackmacher walking along the tundra they find an old,
- 14:34Speaker 1: dead antelope, and Mockmock is like, well, this doesn't smell great,
- 14:41Speaker 1: but I tell you what, I'm going to eat this
- 14:43Speaker 1: thing because I don't have this genetic trait because my
- 14:46Speaker 1: mom ate this stuff, uh and it's fine, And Tooktooks like,
- 14:52Speaker 1: I don't know, my friend, it looks and smells gross.
- 14:55Speaker 1: I do have this genetic trait, so I'm going to
- 14:58Speaker 1: pass on that. So Mockmock's like, you're a sucker. I'm
- 15:01Speaker 1: going to chow down on this rotten antelope. And then
- 15:03Speaker 1: Mockmock gets sick and dies before Mockmock can have any babies.
- 15:08Speaker 1: And then if this happens thousands and tens of thousands
- 15:12Speaker 1: of times over a huge population, you can see how
- 15:16Speaker 1: over time it would be like any physical evolutionary trait
- 15:20Speaker 1: that might evolve over time, and all of a sudden,
- 15:23Speaker 1: Tuktook's family is thriving today in the United States, all
- 15:28Speaker 1: healthy descendants of Tuktook and Mockmock is long gone.
- 15:31Speaker 3: Right because Tuktook was able to pass along his genes
- 15:36Speaker 3: of being disgusted by rotten meat, and Mockmock died before
- 15:41Speaker 3: he could pass his genes of not being disgusted along.
- 15:44Speaker 3: So nature or natural selection or revolutions selected for Tuktooks right.
- 15:50Speaker 2: Right, And Tiktook was a prolific lover, as we all know.
- 15:53Speaker 3: And I imagine Mockmock in his dying words gasping, I
- 15:58Speaker 3: regret never having.
- 15:59Speaker 2: Seen the ocean. Yeah. Probably, so.
- 16:04Speaker 3: It's a good mockmch Everyone doesn't know, but it's true.
- 16:07Speaker 3: That was a great so chuck. That's the that's the
- 16:12Speaker 3: evolutionary psychology basis for explaining how disgust came along and
- 16:18Speaker 3: was passed along, right, And it makes sense on a
- 16:20Speaker 3: very basic level, but it starts to get less and
- 16:24Speaker 3: less sensible, as you've already pointed out, as we start
- 16:26Speaker 3: to add more and more inputs of disgust. Right, like, yes,
- 16:30Speaker 3: it makes sense that either somehow the idea of not
- 16:35Speaker 3: eating meat was passed along, either genetically or even you
- 16:39Speaker 3: could say Tuktook went back to the hunter gatherer tribe
- 16:42Speaker 3: and said, hey, let me tell you what happened to Mockmock.
- 16:45Speaker 3: It was crazy. He ate some rancid antelope, which I
- 16:48Speaker 3: guess we all kind of thought was okay up to
- 16:50Speaker 3: this point. But let me tell you, steer clear of
- 16:52Speaker 3: the rancid antelope. You don't want to have anything to
- 16:55Speaker 3: do that because it just killed Mockmack, and everyone trusting
- 16:59Speaker 3: tuktook in, not just assuming that he hit Mockmock with
- 17:02Speaker 3: a rock or something out in the wilderness and left
- 17:04Speaker 3: him to die, that he actually did die from eating antelope.
- 17:07Speaker 3: This became passed along. This is another way it could
- 17:10Speaker 3: have happened, and that this like ancient knowledge. We just
- 17:13Speaker 3: lost where the ancient knowledge came from, that was actually
- 17:17Speaker 3: TikTok seeing Mockmock die, and instead it just became something
- 17:20Speaker 3: that we came to think of as like instinct over time,
- 17:23Speaker 3: you just don't eat rancid meat. But really what it is,
- 17:26Speaker 3: rather than being passed along genetically, it was a I guess,
- 17:29Speaker 3: a meme, an idea that was passed along generation to generation,
- 17:35Speaker 3: and it became so ingrained that we just confuse it
- 17:38Speaker 3: for genes or instinct as well, which is another explanation
- 17:42Speaker 3: of it. But both of them have like an evolutionary
- 17:44Speaker 3: component to it for sure.
- 17:45Speaker 1: Yeah, and then over time that even changes to where
- 17:50Speaker 1: like it's not like humans, like let's talk about a
- 17:53Speaker 1: human body then like a dead a dead human body
- 17:56Speaker 1: a corpse.
- 17:57Speaker 3: Let me get my poking stick.
- 18:00Speaker 2: Well, you probably.
- 18:01Speaker 1: Wouldn't poke it because your evolutionary instinct is to probably
- 18:03Speaker 1: just stay away.
- 18:04Speaker 2: From that body.
- 18:05Speaker 3: Well, that's what the stick is for.
- 18:06Speaker 2: And it's not just because like, well.
- 18:09Speaker 1: Maybe partially because a dead body just might creep someone out,
- 18:12Speaker 1: but there's also an evolutionary basis to avoid that body,
- 18:16Speaker 1: get it out of the house, and bury it because
- 18:20Speaker 1: it may have been diseased.
- 18:22Speaker 2: And they've even done studies.
- 18:23Speaker 1: That was a study in two thousand and four in
- 18:26Speaker 1: Biology Letters, just the greatest teen science mag out there.
- 18:31Speaker 3: The Tiger Beat in Biological Science.
- 18:35Speaker 1: So Biology Letters said that they didn't study where they
- 18:38Speaker 1: found the images of objects that held what was called
- 18:41Speaker 1: a potential disease threat, where rated is more disgusting. So
- 18:45Speaker 1: this is just the idea that, again, because of evolution,
- 18:49Speaker 1: we are have trained ourselves to avoid somebody who looks sick.
- 18:56Speaker 3: Okay, now we get to another big chink in the armor.
- 19:00Speaker 3: Ask me, where did we get the idea that a
- 19:03Speaker 3: body caused disease and that you could become polluted by
- 19:07Speaker 3: some weird magical transference of this disease by handling or
- 19:11Speaker 3: coming in close contact with the body.
- 19:13Speaker 2: Like pre germ theory.
- 19:15Speaker 3: Pre germ theory, germ theory is very new, it's about
- 19:18Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty years old. Almost on the nose.
- 19:21Speaker 3: We're talking about people's aversion to dead bodies and corpses
- 19:25Speaker 3: for eons before that, hundreds of years, if not thousands
- 19:28Speaker 3: and thousands of years, right.
- 19:29Speaker 2: Well, maybe even more like what if, like I mean,
- 19:34Speaker 2: what if someone just going.
- 19:37Speaker 1: Like back in the day where people like, oh, that's great,
- 19:40Speaker 1: come here and give me, give me some sugar, right,
- 19:42Speaker 1: or were people always sort of repulsed by that?
- 19:45Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, and we don't we don't know.
- 19:48Speaker 3: We can't say. We can only go as far back
- 19:50Speaker 3: as any historical references we can find. But you can
- 19:52Speaker 3: make a pretty good case that an aversion to something
- 19:56Speaker 3: like that or a dead body goes back much further
- 20:00Speaker 3: than germ theory. Yeah, so you come to that question,
- 20:03Speaker 3: where did we get this idea? Where did we get
- 20:06Speaker 3: this understanding on a very basic fundamental level that corpses
- 20:10Speaker 3: are to be avoided so much so that we are
- 20:13Speaker 3: disgusted by them. And even if you're not disgusted, like
- 20:16Speaker 3: I want to wretch if I see a dead body
- 20:18Speaker 3: in person, which you may be surprised. I think a
- 20:21Speaker 3: lot of people would be very surprised that if they
- 20:23Speaker 3: actually did see a dead body, they would be they
- 20:26Speaker 3: would probably wretch.
- 20:27Speaker 2: It depends on you know, what's going on the state
- 20:30Speaker 2: it's in.
- 20:31Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's a viscerated or something like that, or
- 20:33Speaker 3: the smell I think also true. But the idea that
- 20:37Speaker 3: there's something that is keeping you from avoiding it, whether
- 20:41Speaker 3: it's the creeps, whether it's discussed, whether it's some form
- 20:45Speaker 3: of a version that is that is acting to put
- 20:49Speaker 3: distance between you and the polluting entity. This dead body.
- 20:54Speaker 3: Where did that come from before germ theory? That's my
- 20:57Speaker 3: big question that I haven't seen it answered anywhere. It's
- 21:01Speaker 3: where did we get that? Again? Was it somebody handled
- 21:04Speaker 3: the dead body and like became directly sick from it,
- 21:08Speaker 3: so obviously that even like took Cook could say, yes,
- 21:11Speaker 3: the dead body caused this, so we should steer clear
- 21:13Speaker 3: of hanging out around dead bodies. Or was there some
- 21:17Speaker 3: sort of awareness on a very basic level that we
- 21:23Speaker 3: haven't figured out how to explain yet that that kept
- 21:26Speaker 3: generations and generations of humans relatively healthy before the advent
- 21:32Speaker 3: of germ theory and our understanding of it.
- 21:34Speaker 1: It is a bit of a mind experiment. It is like, uh,
- 21:40Speaker 1: this perhaps the very sound of someone very ill and
- 21:44Speaker 1: hawking up.
- 21:45Speaker 2: You know, phlegm sounds.
- 21:47Speaker 1: Gross, right, But like like you say, though, before germ theory,
- 21:51Speaker 1: before they knew that that would make that was sickness
- 21:54Speaker 1: or that made someone sick, maybe people were like, oh,
- 21:57Speaker 1: come in here and do that in my face. I
- 21:59Speaker 1: love that sound, right, but it just doesn't seem likely.
- 22:03Speaker 3: It's like ASMR to me.
- 22:05Speaker 1: I don't know, man, It's very hard to wrap your
- 22:07Speaker 1: head around.
- 22:07Speaker 3: And also, if you remember in our Great Stink episode,
- 22:10Speaker 3: right prior to germ theory, there is miasma theory, which
- 22:13Speaker 3: was the smell of something directly polluted you and made
- 22:16Speaker 3: you sick. Well, okay, associated with it. But even that,
- 22:20Speaker 3: it's like, so, okay, what made you think that the smell?
- 22:23Speaker 3: What makes you think that a dead body, which in
- 22:25Speaker 3: and of itself isn't giving off any actual signals that
- 22:28Speaker 3: it will make you sick if it's decayed enough and
- 22:31Speaker 3: you like interact with it. What about that made us
- 22:35Speaker 3: associate sickness a transference of sickness. That transference is it's
- 22:39Speaker 3: an invisible magical transference of pollution from the dead body
- 22:44Speaker 3: to you, the person who's handling the dead body. That
- 22:47Speaker 3: is significant and remarkable that we came up with that.
- 22:50Speaker 3: That's what I think is just so fascinating about all this.
- 22:54Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think this thing about the contingencies plays
- 22:57Speaker 1: into because and it's fun.
- 23:00Speaker 2: I have to admit, when I.
- 23:02Speaker 1: Read this the word contingencies in my head, I was
- 23:06Speaker 1: adding a letter or something and I kept saying in
- 23:08Speaker 1: my head as contingenesis, and I was like, what is
- 23:15Speaker 1: that contingenesis? And finally I saw contingencies correctly. I was like, man,
- 23:22Speaker 1: am I drunk? Like what's going on? So? Anyway, there
- 23:25Speaker 1: are contingenesies.
- 23:28Speaker 3: That's like a facetious I had that same Oh really, yeah,
- 23:33Speaker 3: what'd you think it said? Or sounded like facetious or
- 23:36Speaker 3: something like that, and I kept sounding it out and
- 23:39Speaker 3: then finally I was like, oh, that's facetious.
- 23:42Speaker 1: Yeah, but you were probably like twelve and not a
- 23:46Speaker 1: professional broadcaster.
- 23:47Speaker 3: Yeah, I stink you had something in your eye that
- 23:50Speaker 3: was all So.
- 23:51Speaker 1: These contingencies in humans at any time, there are many
- 23:58Speaker 1: contingencies at work within us, competing against each other. So
- 24:04Speaker 1: if you go back to tuktook and mockmock Mackmack died,
- 24:10Speaker 1: or let's say he did feel some disgust, but it
- 24:14Speaker 1: wasn't like but he was also hungry. So that's the
- 24:17Speaker 1: competing contingenesis and his desire to eat and not desire
- 24:24Speaker 1: his need to eat overcame his low level disgust of like, well,
- 24:28Speaker 1: it doesn't taste great, but I have this other contingency
- 24:32Speaker 1: that says I have to eat, so I'm going to
- 24:34Speaker 1: eat the thing and he doesn't die, right, then it's
- 24:37Speaker 1: a little more complicated.
- 24:39Speaker 3: It is more complicated, and if you step back and
- 24:41Speaker 3: think about it evolutionarily, it would make way more sense
- 24:44Speaker 3: for us to not maintain a sense of disgust and
- 24:47Speaker 3: be able to eat like rancid meat and then instead
- 24:51Speaker 3: learn like basically develop a gut biome that will will
- 24:57Speaker 3: kill any bacterial decay that could make us sick, so
- 25:01Speaker 3: that we we could have like that many more things
- 25:03Speaker 3: that are available for us to eat when we're hard up.
- 25:07Speaker 3: That makes way more sense through natural selection and evolution
- 25:10Speaker 3: than learning to not eat something.
- 25:13Speaker 1: And you know what I mean, that's sort of the
- 25:14Speaker 1: thing too, though, Like the the winning contingency is ultimately
- 25:19Speaker 1: going to be the one that makes you more fit
- 25:22Speaker 1: for you know, replication, right, right, So.
- 25:25Speaker 3: You you for cloning self cloning, so the but yes,
- 25:31Speaker 3: so if you have more available food that you can
- 25:33Speaker 3: gain energy from in the environment, that would make more
- 25:37Speaker 3: sense to adapt to that rather than to adapt and
- 25:40Speaker 3: aversion to a potential food source. Right, So that's one question.
- 25:44Speaker 3: And then you can also kind of lay that right
- 25:47Speaker 3: over sex as well too, Right, So this this explanation
- 25:52Speaker 3: of why we might be averse, why we have competing
- 25:56Speaker 3: contingencies for sex, right, Like, you want to be attracted
- 26:01Speaker 3: to your mate because you're a person you find attractive
- 26:07Speaker 3: is probably going to be a good match for you
- 26:11Speaker 3: reproductive wise.
- 26:13Speaker 2: Right, especially if they smell good.
- 26:15Speaker 3: Right, And then yes, and then if you if you
- 26:19Speaker 3: are trying to reproduce with somebody you're disgusted by, they
- 26:23Speaker 3: might not be a good match reproductive wiy was evolutionarily
- 26:27Speaker 3: it makes sense, that's a that's a that's a mental
- 26:31Speaker 3: gymnastics right there. To me, it makes more sense to
- 26:34Speaker 3: just say, here's an example of evolution screwing us up,
- 26:37Speaker 3: of natural selection screwing us up. We developed an ability
- 26:41Speaker 3: to feel disgusted by sex because it reminds us that
- 26:44Speaker 3: we're animals, and so we're missing out on sex or
- 26:46Speaker 3: at least deriving pleasure from sex because we are possibly
- 26:50Speaker 3: disgusted by the act of sex if we step back
- 26:53Speaker 3: and think about it in the right way. Right, you
- 26:57Speaker 3: see what I'm saying. Sure, So there's a lot of
- 26:59Speaker 3: holes here, which is why I mean, I've got both
- 27:02Speaker 3: of my six shooters. I'm about to start shoot them
- 27:04Speaker 3: in the air out of glee because it's been a
- 27:07Speaker 3: while since we had an episode like this.
- 27:09Speaker 1: Yeah. Another thing that I found interesting too from this
- 27:11Speaker 1: was the just the mere reaction. Apparently most people open
- 27:16Speaker 1: their mouths I keep mind shut. But regardless, we all
- 27:19Speaker 1: have the disgust reaction. I guess if you don't, then
- 27:22Speaker 1: you're probably a serial killer. Like if you saw someone
- 27:26Speaker 1: like open up and smell like rotten meat and literally
- 27:29Speaker 1: just kept this stone face, We're like, hmm, that smells
- 27:31Speaker 1: really bad. Like they're clearly sociopaths.
- 27:35Speaker 3: Right, And that's what Rosen was saying. That's why disgust
- 27:39Speaker 3: is it's the defining human characteristic because that person would
- 27:43Speaker 3: seem non human in that sense, they'd be a robot
- 27:47Speaker 3: kind of.
- 27:48Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 27:49Speaker 1: But so if people make this face like that is
- 27:53Speaker 1: the cue, Like you don't even need to smell the milk.
- 27:56Speaker 1: If I walk in the kitchen and Emily pours some
- 27:59Speaker 1: milk in it, well I was gonna say, I see
- 28:02Speaker 1: it clump out of the the thing, but that wouldn't count.
- 28:05Speaker 1: Like if I see Emily just smell the milk, she
- 28:07Speaker 1: makes her disgust face, I don't need to smell it.
- 28:11Speaker 3: No, but why is it that there is a one
- 28:12Speaker 3: hundred percent chance that Emily or anyone else, yes, who
- 28:16Speaker 3: will say, smell this?
- 28:18Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 28:18Speaker 3: I never feel like, No, that's okay, thanks for the
- 28:20Speaker 3: warning with the wrinkled nose and raised up her lip.
- 28:23Speaker 1: I know, but when you're married, it's like no, true, Suly,
- 28:25Speaker 1: I smelled it, like you have to smell it, right, No,
- 28:28Speaker 1: I don't want to smell it.
- 28:29Speaker 3: I've suffered.
- 28:31Speaker 1: So that becomes like, all of a sudden, a something
- 28:36Speaker 1: that like bonds communities together and cultures together even.
- 28:39Speaker 3: Right, but which which is another? Okay? So this then
- 28:42Speaker 3: we get to the explanation or the moral explanation of
- 28:46Speaker 3: disgust of how seeing somebody involve in cheating or some
- 28:51Speaker 3: sort of unfairness or racism or just something some really
- 28:56Speaker 3: anti social violating behavior that you you experienced disgusted at
- 29:03Speaker 3: the very least people say, use the word disgusted, I'm disgusted.
- 29:07Speaker 2: It makes a face, I mean, is the same thing.
- 29:10Speaker 3: So that's that's I mean, that's what that one Wonder
- 29:13Speaker 3: Machine study said, and the other the other way that
- 29:15Speaker 3: they backed it up. There's a really interesting article by
- 29:18Speaker 3: Rosen Johnathan Height, who actually was a contributor in our
- 29:23Speaker 3: super Stuff Guide to Happiness if you'll remember. And then
- 29:27Speaker 3: a guy named Oh McCauley, what is Clark McCauley. They're
- 29:32Speaker 3: kind of like this big three triad in the study
- 29:34Speaker 3: of disgust.
- 29:35Speaker 2: They're known as the only three.
- 29:37Speaker 3: There's a couple others, but yeah, kind of. But they
- 29:41Speaker 3: in this paper they basically say, okay, so you get
- 29:43Speaker 3: the Wonder machine evidence suggesting that our actual brain, the
- 29:48Speaker 3: part of our brain responsible for experiencing disgust, is lighting
- 29:51Speaker 3: up when somebody gives us an unfair offer of money.
- 29:54Speaker 3: That's one thing. But also they go around the world
- 29:57Speaker 3: and say that in Japan, in in Spain and Portugal,
- 30:02Speaker 3: all over the world, whatever that society or language is,
- 30:07Speaker 3: culture's word is for disgust. They routinely use it to
- 30:11Speaker 3: describe things like the experience of seeing somebody hold poop
- 30:15Speaker 3: up to their mouth and the experience of being treated
- 30:20Speaker 3: unfairly or seeing somebody racist. So it's not just people
- 30:23Speaker 3: in English misusing an English word discuss, which means actually
- 30:26Speaker 3: bad taste in Old or Middle English. It's it is
- 30:30Speaker 3: there is some sort of moral component to disgust. It
- 30:33Speaker 3: seems like.
- 30:34Speaker 1: Well, even the word distasteful like is rooted in the
- 30:37Speaker 1: word taste, right, and that's just a similar thing too.
- 30:39Speaker 1: Like behavior can be distasteful and rotten. Analope can be
- 30:44Speaker 1: distasteful exactly.
- 30:47Speaker 2: Especially if he's a real jerk.
- 30:49Speaker 3: Right.
- 30:50Speaker 1: The other interesting thing about the work that Jonathan Hate
- 30:54Speaker 1: did was this tying it to political ideological ideal ideology.
- 30:59Speaker 2: Geez, what is wrong with me today?
- 31:01Speaker 1: I thought that was super interesting because they did research
- 31:05Speaker 1: and they found that people who are more sensitive to
- 31:08Speaker 1: disgust and tend to be more socially conservative, and that
- 31:13Speaker 1: can be exploited. So when you go to a major
- 31:18Speaker 1: news outlet that may be conservative, that is why you
- 31:21Speaker 1: are more likely to see photos of unwashed or sick
- 31:28Speaker 1: immigrants approaching the border, and not like pictures of like
- 31:33Speaker 1: the handsomest, most fit immigrant approaching the border, because that will,
- 31:38Speaker 1: at least according to this study, they have a higher,
- 31:43Speaker 1: more powerful emotion of disgust.
- 31:46Speaker 3: Right, it's hijacking your ability to experience moral disgust because
- 31:51Speaker 3: apparently it's really really easy to come up and poke
- 31:55Speaker 3: to push a person's disgust buttons. And from what the
- 31:58Speaker 3: study says is that this happens a lot way more
- 32:01Speaker 3: than we're cognizant of and that if we can make
- 32:04Speaker 3: ourselves cognizant of it, we could actually defend against it
- 32:07Speaker 3: a little more.
- 32:08Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they're not going to Fox News isn't
- 32:10Speaker 1: going to put the guy that you said it, you
- 32:12Speaker 1: said it. They're not going to put the guy that
- 32:15Speaker 1: looks like Antonio Banderas in the immigrant caravan Hello as
- 32:19Speaker 1: they're fron okay as their front page lead photo. You know,
- 32:24Speaker 1: it's going to be the person that's on the in
- 32:27Speaker 1: the on the stretcher that's sick and dying, and that's
- 32:31Speaker 1: going to cause this reaction of disgust, like.
- 32:34Speaker 3: The gi they cgi flies like flying around the person.
- 32:39Speaker 3: Can't you see Antonio Banderas walking up in the video
- 32:42Speaker 3: and going this wall is too sexy.
- 32:48Speaker 1: And then the other interesting thing about that that whole
- 32:51Speaker 1: study that he was doing, the hate was doing was
- 32:53Speaker 1: they also found that people make harsher judgments when they're
- 32:56Speaker 1: exposed to a disgusting stimulus sou and it usually was
- 33:01Speaker 1: a smell like the smell of.
- 33:03Speaker 2: A of a two dy booty, a shot duck.
- 33:08Speaker 1: And if you smell this flatulence, you would react more
- 33:13Speaker 1: harshly toward like a photo of something.
- 33:16Speaker 2: Right now that I might discuss you just a little bit.
- 33:18Speaker 3: I want to know the methodology of this study pretty badly,
- 33:22Speaker 3: Like did they Was it just one of those things
- 33:24Speaker 3: where they just kind of suddenly the area between you
- 33:27Speaker 3: and the researcher filled with the fart smell?
- 33:30Speaker 1: Well, where do you get the fart smell? Is there
- 33:31Speaker 1: a synthetic or I think there is?
- 33:33Speaker 3: You probably like a't some novelly joke shop they picked
- 33:36Speaker 3: up like a spinning bow tie while they got the
- 33:38Speaker 3: caned fart too.
- 33:40Speaker 1: Right, They're like, thank you, here's for ten dollars and
- 33:43Speaker 1: have a good day, and they shake their hand.
- 33:44Speaker 2: There's a buzzer, right exactly.
- 33:46Speaker 3: So, But I mean, like, is this so where they
- 33:48Speaker 3: they were talking about something like you know how what
- 33:51Speaker 3: kind of a prison sentence would you, Oh excuse me,
- 33:53Speaker 3: what kind of a prison sentence would you give to somebody?
- 33:55Speaker 3: And like this, this fart smell, this kind of comes up,
- 33:58Speaker 3: but like they're just not talking about it. I would
- 34:01Speaker 3: guess as how, you would have to do it right, dude.
- 34:04Speaker 1: I had a stranger asked me the other night if
- 34:06Speaker 1: I farted?
- 34:08Speaker 3: Oh yeah, had you know?
- 34:10Speaker 1: I was at the Fleetwood Mac concert standing in the
- 34:12Speaker 1: beer line, and this guy in front of me turned
- 34:14Speaker 1: around with his wife and fully just said did you fart?
- 34:17Speaker 2: And I went nope, And I was like, I would
- 34:20Speaker 2: tell you if I did.
- 34:21Speaker 3: Did. He look to his wife and go, did you fart? No?
- 34:23Speaker 1: But then we got to talking and I was like, guys,
- 34:25Speaker 1: I hate to tell you. I said, I don't even
- 34:26Speaker 1: smell anything, so I think you're looking in the wrong direction.
- 34:30Speaker 1: And then he felt like I was a little drunk,
- 34:32Speaker 1: so I didn't care. I was playing along. But then
- 34:34Speaker 1: he felt like really bad and was over apologetic. I
- 34:36Speaker 1: was like, dude, if you're going to ask someone if
- 34:38Speaker 1: they farted, don't then turn around and be weirdly ashamed
- 34:42Speaker 1: of that.
- 34:42Speaker 3: All right, get all weepy, just own it. So Yeah,
- 34:46Speaker 3: does the guy not know the whole he who smelt
- 34:48Speaker 3: it delted.
- 34:49Speaker 1: Idiom nor it was the first date and that was
- 34:53Speaker 1: the deal.
- 34:54Speaker 2: Maybe he did.
- 34:55Speaker 3: Yeah, he really played it off well at sound we
- 35:00Speaker 3: take a break, I think we should. All right, I'm
- 35:02Speaker 3: gonna go fart in the whole way. We'll be right back.
- 35:04Speaker 3: Thank you for that, Chuck, We'll be right back. All right,
- 35:18Speaker 3: it's back. Chuck is back. Now, everything's fine in here,
- 35:21Speaker 3: and we are still talking about disgust. Let me, let's
- 35:26Speaker 3: let's let's just kind of go over this real quick
- 35:29Speaker 3: one more time. Okay. So we started out with this
- 35:33Speaker 3: this mechanisms of distaste where we like, involuntarily spit something
- 35:40Speaker 3: out that's gross that occurs elsewhere in the animal kingdom.
- 35:44Speaker 3: And then over time we figured out how to create
- 35:47Speaker 3: a new adaptation, a new behavior that is overlaid over
- 35:52Speaker 3: that same brain circuitry where we spit something out and
- 35:56Speaker 3: we call that disgust. And it was it originally started
- 35:59Speaker 3: out as an aversion to things like poop and vomit
- 36:03Speaker 3: and that kind of stuff, and then that evolved even
- 36:07Speaker 3: further because at some point we said we're better than animals,
- 36:11Speaker 3: and I don't like to be reminded of an animal,
- 36:13Speaker 3: and I guess that desire to not be reminded of
- 36:15Speaker 3: an animal developed so much that it became overlaid over
- 36:19Speaker 3: that disgusted emotion that had been that had hijacked the
- 36:23Speaker 3: distaste emotion, and then at some point finally it reached
- 36:28Speaker 3: the moral structure, and that hijacked the animal and the
- 36:34Speaker 3: core and the distaste to where now just the idea
- 36:38Speaker 3: of somebody behaving in a certain way can disgust us.
- 36:42Speaker 3: And the whole thing that really kind of changed and
- 36:44Speaker 3: made it human was the addition of imagination and symbolism
- 36:51Speaker 3: to these ideas, so that we didn't even have to
- 36:53Speaker 3: taste or smell or see anything anymore. Just thinking about
- 36:57Speaker 3: this kind of stuff could disgust us. And that's where
- 36:59Speaker 3: we're at discussed research, and that's where we're at in
- 37:02Speaker 3: the podcast too.
- 37:03Speaker 2: Frankly, Wow, that's a nice recap, Thank you, all right.
- 37:09Speaker 1: So, culturally, you know, it depends on where you are
- 37:12Speaker 1: in the world and what you might be disgusted by.
- 37:14Speaker 1: So while while it is universal, it's not like every
- 37:17Speaker 1: single thing is universal. People eat things in some parts
- 37:22Speaker 1: of the world that other parts of the world might
- 37:24Speaker 1: think are disgusting, and that again is a thing that
- 37:27Speaker 1: basically says, I'm a part of this family, I'm a
- 37:31Speaker 1: part of this culture.
- 37:32Speaker 2: I'm a part of this group.
- 37:34Speaker 1: The fact that like Elie eyeballs right out of a fish,
- 37:39Speaker 1: right out of a fish, said, just scoop it out
- 37:41Speaker 1: and eat it, right, I might think that's disgusting, but
- 37:46Speaker 1: that's not like necessarily like taboos are not the same,
- 37:50Speaker 1: and cultures all over the world.
- 37:52Speaker 3: Yeah, whether it's food, apparently they think maybe even you know, well, cannibalism. Obviously,
- 37:57Speaker 3: some cultures don't view incest as taboo as other cultures do.
- 38:03Speaker 3: So some of the things that we would think would
- 38:05Speaker 3: be universally disgusting aren't universally disgusting. And the whole idea
- 38:09Speaker 3: of food too, shows that you can learn to not
- 38:13Speaker 3: find something disgusting or never find it disgusting at all
- 38:16Speaker 3: because you were just raised in a culture that eats
- 38:18Speaker 3: this food and values it. But to somebody else from
- 38:21Speaker 3: outside of the culture, when they see that food, they
- 38:23Speaker 3: are disgusted by it. So, yeah, there's a lot of
- 38:25Speaker 3: lack of universality in disgust that we might assume would
- 38:29Speaker 3: be there that actually isn't.
- 38:31Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean vegetarianism and veganism is a perfect example.
- 38:35Speaker 1: Someone can eat meat until they're in their mid twenties
- 38:39Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden switch to veganism, and
- 38:43Speaker 1: a year later, the mere sight of meat might discuss them,
- 38:47Speaker 1: whereas the year before they were challenged down on it.
- 38:49Speaker 3: Which I would guess that's just like you were structuring
- 38:52Speaker 3: your brain circuitry basically, right.
- 38:54Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so probably, I mean that would make sense.
- 38:56Speaker 3: But so something that never disgusted you before can become
- 38:59Speaker 3: guinely disgusted.
- 39:01Speaker 2: Or the other way around, U I imagine.
- 39:04Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean you can learn to eat other
- 39:05Speaker 3: cultures foods that you were disgusted by previously. And I
- 39:09Speaker 3: know you can learn to eat and eat meat now
- 39:12Speaker 3: right right, Yeah, yeah, you can also learn to eat
- 39:14Speaker 3: broccoli over time.
- 39:16Speaker 1: BROCCOLI's good, it's it's not though it really is roasted
- 39:21Speaker 1: in the oven the lish.
- 39:23Speaker 3: Okay, I will give you that. Roasted broccoli is okay.
- 39:25Speaker 3: But if it's steamed or just like floppy in any way,
- 39:28Speaker 3: shape or form, I've had bad experiences with it over
- 39:31Speaker 3: over the years.
- 39:32Speaker 1: It sounds like someone's overcooking your broccoli.
- 39:35Speaker 3: Not anymore. But yes, I think should Dad used to
- 39:39Speaker 3: used to overcook it quite a bit.
- 39:40Speaker 2: Yeah, I go for al dente when it comes to
- 39:42Speaker 2: most of the vegetables.
- 39:43Speaker 3: Yeah, but roast roasted is good.
- 39:45Speaker 1: Mushy is is a food quality that kind of disgusts me.
- 39:50Speaker 1: So food preparation is important. Like I know, we're just
- 39:54Speaker 1: kind of kidding about the broccoli, but like, let's say
- 39:59Speaker 1: an egg plant or a squash, If you cook that
- 40:02Speaker 1: thing till it's really mushy, it's it's really gross to me.
- 40:06Speaker 1: But I will totally eat an eggplant if it's nice
- 40:08Speaker 1: and firm.
- 40:10Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, texture is enormous with it.
- 40:13Speaker 3: It also affects taste too, which doesn't make any sense
- 40:16Speaker 3: except for like it's part of the experience of it, right.
- 40:20Speaker 2: Yeah, but true disgust happens for me.
- 40:22Speaker 1: I think it's not just like I don't I don't
- 40:24Speaker 1: prefer that, like mushy food really really grosses me out.
- 40:28Speaker 3: Well, there's something that that that Ed actually hit upon
- 40:31Speaker 3: early on in this is that like disgust is it
- 40:35Speaker 3: goes around our conscious thought, right, Yeah, like you're not like, hmm,
- 40:39Speaker 3: this this broccoli is not to my preference. It is
- 40:43Speaker 3: way too floppy and mushy, and i'd be I prefer
- 40:46Speaker 3: to not have it in my mouth anymore so, and
- 40:48Speaker 3: you spit it out and it just falls back onto
- 40:50Speaker 3: your plate instead you put it in your mouth, especially
- 40:53Speaker 3: if you're not expecting it to be mushy and you
- 40:56Speaker 3: start chewing it like you expect it to be good.
- 40:59Speaker 3: You're reaction without even thinking it's going to be spit
- 41:02Speaker 3: it out probably, and you might you might not actually
- 41:05Speaker 3: spit it out, but that will be your first reaction,
- 41:07Speaker 3: and you might have to stop yourself, like bring your
- 41:09Speaker 3: napkin up to your mouth or whatever. And that's one
- 41:11Speaker 3: of the things that like really kind of is a
- 41:14Speaker 3: hallmark characteristic of disgust. When it is experienced, it goes
- 41:18Speaker 3: around our intellect and our conscious thought. It's a basic reaction.
- 41:24Speaker 1: Yeah, and it can also get out of hand as
- 41:26Speaker 1: far as the if the idea is that at its root,
- 41:30Speaker 1: we're trying to avoid disease and dying. We've all heard
- 41:34Speaker 1: of cases phobia is really that developed and pathologies out
- 41:38Speaker 1: of fear of germs or dirt or cleanliness. Anyone who's
- 41:44Speaker 1: ever seen the great movie Safe by Todd Haynes. That
- 41:49Speaker 1: was a movie about that where this woman sort of
- 41:51Speaker 1: slowly unwinds and eventually ends up in a in a
- 41:55Speaker 1: like a community where everyone is obsessed with this kind
- 42:00Speaker 1: of compulsive cleanliness.
- 42:01Speaker 3: Who's the woman.
- 42:03Speaker 2: It's Julian Moore.
- 42:05Speaker 3: I haven't seen that yet. Is it pretty good? It was?
- 42:07Speaker 2: It was great. I mean it was.
- 42:08Speaker 1: It's a long time ago. So it's like in the
- 42:10Speaker 1: early nineties, I think. Okay, like some of her earlier work.
- 42:13Speaker 1: But that's just an example of how how that can
- 42:17Speaker 1: happen and how it can get out of hand until
- 42:20Speaker 1: basically you have a compulsive disorder that may have started
- 42:24Speaker 1: out of a legit environmental like disgust reaction to disease.
- 42:30Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, well that's what they think is the basis
- 42:32Speaker 3: of possibly all of it that has to do with disgust,
- 42:36Speaker 3: a like a drive to to feel clean or to
- 42:39Speaker 3: get rid of germs or to be afraid of germs,
- 42:42Speaker 3: that kind of thing. That it's it's your your the
- 42:46Speaker 3: being indoctrinated into disgust went a little too far and
- 42:49Speaker 3: your brain, your brain's disgust reaction just became too powerful,
- 42:53Speaker 3: and now it has this kind of crippling effect on
- 42:55Speaker 3: your life.
- 42:56Speaker 1: Yeah, but it can also like it's oddly there are
- 42:59Speaker 1: things that have nothing to do with disease and dying
- 43:02Speaker 1: that have been kind of labeled as disgusting and Ed
- 43:06Speaker 1: points out. Acne is one of them that might trigger
- 43:08Speaker 1: a disgusted reaction in some people. And it's really completely harmless.
- 43:13Speaker 3: It is, but it's playing upon in an inadvertent way,
- 43:17Speaker 3: our predisposition to be grossed out by things like as yeah,
- 43:22Speaker 3: a sore, a pox, a pustul It has nothing to
- 43:26Speaker 3: do with that. It just kind of resembles it in
- 43:28Speaker 3: the exact same way. People find slugs and snails disgusting,
- 43:32Speaker 3: and they suggest that it's because they look like they're
- 43:34Speaker 3: covered in mucus. Even though it's not actually mucus, it
- 43:37Speaker 3: reminds us of mucus. So we're disgusted at the thought
- 43:40Speaker 3: of touching one of those things. Same thing. They're not
- 43:42Speaker 3: disease carriers, but they remind us of it. That's the key,
- 43:46Speaker 3: because disgust works hand in hand with human imagination.
- 43:50Speaker 1: I got Emily one of those poppet pals. Have you
- 43:52Speaker 1: seen those?
- 43:53Speaker 3: No? What is it?
- 43:54Speaker 1: You know how she's pretty obsessed with with zip popping
- 43:57Speaker 1: and she doesn't watch She's not one of those people
- 43:59Speaker 1: who watches the stuff on YouTube, but it's just like
- 44:01Speaker 1: a personal thing. But they I saw it on Shark Tank.
- 44:03Speaker 1: There's this thing now looks it's about the size of
- 44:06Speaker 1: a bar of soap okay, but it's made out of
- 44:08Speaker 1: siliconus kind OF's this squishy rubber rectangular bar and you
- 44:13Speaker 1: squirt this like I don't know what it's made of.
- 44:16Speaker 2: It's it's almost like crisco or something.
- 44:19Speaker 1: I think it's plant based, and you fill it up
- 44:21Speaker 1: with that and the top of it is covered with
- 44:22Speaker 1: all these little dimple holes and you pop them and
- 44:27Speaker 1: it comes snaking out just like like the best pimple
- 44:31Speaker 1: you've ever seen.
- 44:32Speaker 3: That's amazing. So I kept like trying to imagine that,
- 44:34Speaker 3: like this was going on the person's face. It's like
- 44:37Speaker 3: just to basically like, here, keep busy with this and
- 44:39Speaker 3: leave my face alone.
- 44:40Speaker 2: Yeah, you just like whatever, you set it in your
- 44:43Speaker 2: lap and just pop away.
- 44:44Speaker 3: That's really awesome.
- 44:45Speaker 2: Yeah, it's It was.
- 44:47Speaker 1: Really satisfying for it too. I thought she might be like, nah,
- 44:49Speaker 1: this is not the same, but she was obsessed with
- 44:51Speaker 1: it first.
- 44:52Speaker 3: That's awesome. A couple of days that's is there any
- 44:54Speaker 3: great human thing that shark tank hasn't give given us.
- 44:58Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 44:59Speaker 3: I can't. I can't think of one you meet has
- 45:02Speaker 3: a thing for cauliflower ear, and she'll sometimes watch videos
- 45:05Speaker 3: of cauliflower ear being drained, and it's like, I can't,
- 45:08Speaker 3: hang man.
- 45:09Speaker 2: You ever date a wrestler?
- 45:11Speaker 3: No, not that I know of.
- 45:13Speaker 2: But she missed your chance. I guess right, she better
- 45:15Speaker 2: have mister chance.
- 45:16Speaker 1: By she comes in and she finds you like on
- 45:19Speaker 1: the carpet, rolling your ear on the floor. Isn't that
- 45:23Speaker 1: how wrestlers get it?
- 45:24Speaker 3: I think they get it from like a trauma to
- 45:26Speaker 3: the ear, like a punch of the ear, like an
- 45:28Speaker 3: impact of the ear, and then like it swells up
- 45:31Speaker 3: and then it turns into like scar tissue or like
- 45:34Speaker 3: just pussy infected edema.
- 45:36Speaker 2: Well, which is why they wear the ear covers.
- 45:38Speaker 3: Yes, well that and to look cool.
- 45:41Speaker 1: This do look kind of cool somehow, so it offsets
- 45:45Speaker 1: the singlet, which is the least cool thing you can wear.
- 45:49Speaker 3: It's pretty uncool. I have to say, sorry wrestlers, but
- 45:52Speaker 3: the entire rest of the world thinks that the singlets
- 45:54Speaker 3: look uncool. It's not just us. Oh boy, So let's
- 45:59Speaker 3: talk about the discuss scale real quick, you have that?
- 46:02Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I didn't even look at this because
- 46:04Speaker 1: I thought it might be fun if you just went
- 46:05Speaker 1: through a few of those with me.
- 46:06Speaker 3: Oh okay, well this is a great idea, Chuck. Take
- 46:09Speaker 3: it into a game still innovating after eleven years. I'm
- 46:12Speaker 3: so proud of us. So Paul Rosen and John Height
- 46:16Speaker 3: and a couple of other people came up with the
- 46:19Speaker 3: sorry Clark McCauley and Clark McCauley. I'm just gonna say
- 46:22Speaker 3: the third person. They came up with a discuss scale. Okay, yes, so, Chuck,
- 46:28Speaker 3: between zero and four, zero being strongly disagree and four
- 46:33Speaker 3: being strongly agree, meaning it's very untrue or very true
- 46:38Speaker 3: about you. Please indicate how much you agree with each
- 46:41Speaker 3: of the following statements, or how true it is.
- 46:43Speaker 2: About between zero and what three? Four okay?
- 46:45Speaker 3: Four zero strongly disagreed, it's very untrue about you. Four
- 46:48Speaker 3: is strongly agree very true about you. You might be willing, sorry,
- 46:53Speaker 3: I might be willing to try eating monkey meat under
- 46:56Speaker 3: some circumstances.
- 46:58Speaker 2: Strongly disagree. Four. That's a zero okay, zero okay.
- 47:03Speaker 3: It would bother me to be in a science class
- 47:05Speaker 3: and to see a human hand preserved in a jar.
- 47:09Speaker 1: Obviously, that would not bother me, because when I saw
- 47:11Speaker 1: the human head in a bucket, very famously, my reaction was, huh,
- 47:17Speaker 1: there's a human head. Where's the person with me? Was
- 47:21Speaker 1: really disgusted, right, yeah.
- 47:22Speaker 3: And I think understandably, so I love that story. Okay,
- 47:27Speaker 3: here's another one. I never let any part of my
- 47:30Speaker 3: body touch the toilet seat in public restrooms. Agree or disagree,
- 47:35Speaker 3: untrue or true.
- 47:37Speaker 1: I'm just going to ditch the numbers because it's confusing me.
- 47:40Speaker 1: That doesn't really bother me that much. I know that
- 47:42Speaker 1: probably really discussed you.
- 47:45Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I just have to go to another place.
- 47:47Speaker 1: Oh see when I do that, I don't mind. Man,
- 47:50Speaker 1: I know that's gross probably, but whatever.
- 47:53Speaker 3: Okay, here's one more from this one. Then we're going
- 47:55Speaker 3: to do another set. You're ready, Okay, I would rather
- 48:00Speaker 3: eat a piece of fruit then a piece of paper.
- 48:03Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I'd rather eat a piece of fruit.
- 48:06Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, I think that's just like a baseline one
- 48:08Speaker 3: that they use. Okay, so then between zero and four
- 48:12Speaker 3: rate these not disgusting? It all are extremely disgusting. Just
- 48:15Speaker 3: say one of those two. Okay, you see maggots on
- 48:18Speaker 3: a piece of meat in an outdoor garbage pail. Very disgusting, you,
- 48:23Speaker 3: I agree, your friend's pet cat dies and you have
- 48:26Speaker 3: to pick up the dead body with your bare hands.
- 48:30Speaker 1: Not disgusted, just sad. Okay, I mean I've done that
- 48:33Speaker 1: with all of my animals that have passed. I took
- 48:35Speaker 1: care of the bodies, right.
- 48:36Speaker 3: I think this leaves out that it was hit by
- 48:38Speaker 3: a car and is now part of the road.
- 48:40Speaker 1: Basically, Uh, yeah, that's a medium disgusting and sad.
- 48:44Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, well, yeah, it's sad. You're about to drink
- 48:47Speaker 3: a glass of milk when you smell it is spoiled,
- 48:49Speaker 3: and then in parentheses, weirdly enough, it says because Emily
- 48:52Speaker 3: just changed it under your nose and said, smell this.
- 48:55Speaker 2: That's weird.
- 48:56Speaker 1: M Yeah, the smell of turned food, ude, it grosses
- 49:01Speaker 1: me out a lot.
- 49:02Speaker 3: Okay, while you're walking through a tunnel under a railroad track,
- 49:06Speaker 3: you smell urine.
- 49:08Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been to New York enough times. It's not
- 49:10Speaker 1: that big of a deal.
- 49:11Speaker 3: It still gets me. Man, I think smelling urine is
- 49:13Speaker 3: worse than smelling poop for some reason. Oh really, yeah?
- 49:17Speaker 2: Interesting?
- 49:18Speaker 3: Okay, two more, you see a man with his intestines
- 49:20Speaker 3: exposed after an accident.
- 49:23Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty high up there.
- 49:25Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think so too. And then last chuck,
- 49:29Speaker 3: you see someone put ketchup on vanilla ice cream and
- 49:31Speaker 3: eat it.
- 49:34Speaker 2: Yeah, that's gross.
- 49:35Speaker 1: Okay, although it's interesting though, when I thought about the
- 49:39Speaker 1: body's entrails, like, I don't love it, but I can
- 49:43Speaker 1: watch like a surgery. It's not my favorite thing, but
- 49:47Speaker 1: I'm not like fully disgusted. But if it's an accident,
- 49:50Speaker 1: I think that so it might be a contextual thing
- 49:53Speaker 1: as well.
- 49:54Speaker 3: So one of the things that I experience when I
- 49:57Speaker 3: see like something in surgery, and I think, yeah, contact
- 50:00Speaker 3: definitely has a lot to do with it in that
- 50:01Speaker 3: case too. But if I see like a surgery, like
- 50:03Speaker 3: remember there used to be that TV network that was
- 50:05Speaker 3: nothing but surgery. You remember, remember it was in like
- 50:09Speaker 3: the late eighties, early nineties, I think, but to see that,
- 50:13Speaker 3: I'll get like faint, right, And it's not necessarily the
- 50:17Speaker 3: sight of blood, it's like the sight of viscera. I
- 50:20Speaker 3: get a little faint, and it never made sense to me.
- 50:23Speaker 3: I think definitely is part of it too. But I
- 50:25Speaker 3: think also part of the disgust reaction is that your
- 50:29Speaker 3: heart rate and blood pressure lower would explain why you
- 50:32Speaker 3: start to feel faint, like I don't feel queasy or
- 50:35Speaker 3: nauseated or like I'm gonna writch. I feel like I
- 50:37Speaker 3: need to sit down for a second, which is, I
- 50:40Speaker 3: guess is still part of the disgust reaction. It just
- 50:43Speaker 3: isn't the the the nausea version of it. But it's
- 50:47Speaker 3: still revulsion, but a weird, fainty version.
- 50:49Speaker 1: So in the med school sitcom that we star in,
- 50:52Speaker 1: when they pull the sheet back, you start saying I
- 50:55Speaker 1: don't feel too good, guys, and you're like, yeah, you're
- 50:57Speaker 1: so funny, and then all of a sudden you.
- 50:58Speaker 2: Hit the deck.
- 50:59Speaker 3: I think the way I would play it is even
- 51:01Speaker 3: more straightforward, where my eyes just go up in the
- 51:04Speaker 3: back of my head and I fall backward in response
- 51:08Speaker 3: to the sheep being pulled.
- 51:09Speaker 2: It's a good move.
- 51:10Speaker 3: I can't wait for that movie to come out. Yeah,
- 51:13Speaker 3: you got anything else?
- 51:14Speaker 2: I don't think so.
- 51:16Speaker 3: I'd be surprised if you did. We've gone on for
- 51:18Speaker 3: a good six to seven minutes beyond when we should
- 51:20Speaker 3: have stopped.
- 51:21Speaker 2: I think I like that game aspect of that one
- 51:24Speaker 2: that was fun.
- 51:24Speaker 3: Oh your score, by the way, indicates that you do
- 51:27Speaker 3: experience disgust from time to time.
- 51:33Speaker 2: I'm not a serial killer.
- 51:34Speaker 3: No no, And I don't know if you guys heard
- 51:38Speaker 3: her enough, but Jerry also gave her answers as well.
- 51:40Speaker 2: That's right.
- 51:42Speaker 3: If you want to know more about disgust, you can
- 51:44Speaker 3: just go look at some weird stuff on the internet.
- 51:46Speaker 3: It's out there for you. And since I said that
- 51:49Speaker 3: it's time for listener mail, I'm.
- 51:53Speaker 1: Going to call this one of the many dyslexia emails
- 51:56Speaker 1: we got. Those are really rolling in people who have
- 52:01Speaker 1: overcome dyslexia and adults living with dyslexia. So this one
- 52:06Speaker 1: is from a fellow Atlanta I'm Audrey Short. She says this,
- 52:12Speaker 1: Hey guys, I have dyslexia, and I was so happy
- 52:14Speaker 1: to hear you talking about my learning disability.
- 52:16Speaker 2: To diagnosed when I was about ten and went to.
- 52:19Speaker 1: The Shank School in Atlanta, which is specifically four children
- 52:23Speaker 1: with dyslexia.
- 52:25Speaker 2: In fact, she sent in a.
- 52:26Speaker 1: Following follow up email used to clarify that we learned
- 52:30Speaker 1: how to read and write using a technique called ortually gilling.
- 52:33Speaker 2: Now when I left after fourth grade, I could.
- 52:36Speaker 1: Actually read more importantly, I'd love to read and devoured
- 52:39Speaker 1: every book I could get my hands on. While I
- 52:42Speaker 1: graduated top of my class, I had to work twice
- 52:44Speaker 1: as hard as my classmates to keep up with who
- 52:47Speaker 1: requires readings and homework. My peers seem to think that
- 52:51Speaker 1: my extra time I received for exams was the reason
- 52:54Speaker 1: I did so well, of the countless hours and late nights.
- 52:57Speaker 3: I spent.
- 52:59Speaker 2: Learning material following This bullying did affect.
- 53:01Speaker 1: Me, did not discourage me from pursuing my education of college.
- 53:06Speaker 1: I attend to Miami University in Ohio, graduating this May
- 53:10Speaker 1: with a two point nine to nine GPA Biochemistry and
- 53:14Speaker 1: physics Wow. I plan to attend a PhD program at
- 53:18Speaker 1: Harvard or U SEE Berkeley. I'm not saying this to brag,
- 53:21Speaker 1: but to tell other children with dyslexia to keep trying.
- 53:25Speaker 1: I know so many students are afraid to ask for
- 53:26Speaker 1: extra time or accommodations because they don't want to be
- 53:29Speaker 1: bullieders stand out. I'm proud of my dyslexia because it
- 53:33Speaker 1: has forced me to learn how to stand up for
- 53:34Speaker 1: my student rights. I've made it to where I am
- 53:37Speaker 1: today by utilizing the tools given to me, like extra time,
- 53:40Speaker 1: and I want to encourage all people with learning disabilities
- 53:43Speaker 1: to seek help because you are intelligent and your unique
- 53:47Speaker 1: perspective just might change your field entirely.
- 53:50Speaker 3: Nice Audrey, Audrey Short, great and Audrey that is great emails,
- 53:55Speaker 3: so that kind of replaces that whole Look, look, this
- 53:57Speaker 3: famous person made it. You can just tell people, let
- 54:00Speaker 3: me tell you about Audrey Short.
- 54:02Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed, Okay.
- 54:03Speaker 3: Way to go, Audrey. That's fantastic. Congratulations early on graduating
- 54:08Speaker 3: with a three point nine to nine. Man, that's impressive.
- 54:11Speaker 3: And good luck in grad school too. If you want
- 54:14Speaker 3: to get in touch with us, like Audrey did, you
- 54:16Speaker 3: can go on to stuff youshould Know dot com and
- 54:18Speaker 3: check out the social links there. You can also send
- 54:21Speaker 3: us an email send it off to stuff podcast at
- 54:25Speaker 3: HowStuffWorks dot com.
- 54:30Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
- 54:33Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
- 54:37Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows