Disgust, Morality, and Kinship with Deb Lieberman
2025-07-15 12:00:00.000 +00:00

David, this is Evolutionary Psychology the Podcast. Who are you? I'm David Pinsoff. And I am David or Dave Petrozowski. And uh what do we do in this podcast? Well, we uh are actual evolutionary psychologists and we talk to actual evolutionary psychologists who do actual evolutionary psychology. That sounds actually pretty fun. Yeah, it is. Enjoy. Hey Dave. David, good to see you. We have with us a veteran evolutionary psychologist, Deborah Lieberman, who is the editor of the premier journal in the evolutionary social sciences, evolution and human behavior, working on the textbook for evolutionary psychology. She is a fascinating scholar, uh, with incredibly interesting ideas. Uh, we get into all sorts of topics.

We get into disgust, disease, pathogens, covet nineteen, uh how the pandemic changed our perspectives on human nature. Uh it's I like yeah, I like how we uh address earlier in an episode you were wondering what is disgust doing in morality. And I feel like Deb just really hits that nail on the head. Yeah. This this one was a really fun conversation. Uh I think I think you'll love it. Enjoy. So I I think I successfully found the recording button. So um today we have Deb Lieberman, Dr. Deb Lieberman, University of Miami, graduate of the Center for Evolutionary Psychology. Deb, you and I, I think, overlapped for a year at the CP. You know, my sense of time is awful. And so I I just know you were there.

How long? Yeah. I don't know either, but I feel like uh you were a bridge to many people who I did not overlap with. Um but uh and I think between the two of us, I think we we we captured a lot of people and we're going to have other people on. But it's good to see you. We've already been talking before we even started about a bunch of cool stuff you're working on and new projects. But one question we wanted to, and we we sort of start with often is some people have origin stories in science, almost everybody in evolutionary psychology, evolutionary behavioral sciences has an origin story. Yeah, me me personally, uh, I got bit by a radioactive evolutionary psychologist. Yes. Um, and and you're now

working on um uh the screenplay for that with with with somebody else in LA to uh uh to sell the rights to that. But uh but Deb, I actually I don't I know I have a couple stories in my head about you getting like physically to Santa Barbara that are crazy stories, but I don't know if I know I don't I don't know if you I know your origin story. Um the origin story. I have you know how far back do you want to go? We both everybody yeah we David and I literally started from our childhoods. Okay, 'cause I was gonna start with my bot mitzvah. Awesome. Mosletov, let's do it. Play it on us. Yes. No, I uh I'm I've always been interested in the materialistic explanations for things. So um I'm only kind of joking, but if in um in Hebrew school, I would ask I was told that

you said like the twelve names of God that you would like combust or something. So every week I'd ask for another one. So I'm really empiricist. So I just uh, but I was very interested in the physical stuff. Um, I in it was really undergrad that started everything. So I was off to med school, uh, interested in being a neurosurgeon. And then I took a course by David Sloan Wilson entitled Evolution in Human Behavior. It was a senior graduate, you know, cross-listed course at Binghamton. And it sounded so interesting. It was in the biology department talking about humans, and I was like, this is exactly what I'm interested in. And I sat in that class, I learned a lot. I said very little because I was so intimidated, but I learned about game theory.

We read uh the adapted mind and homicide. And so it was um It was a through the looking glass kind of moment that you won't, you know, you're lucky if you get one. So I've had a few being at the CEP. But from that class, you know, what's funny is when I first learned about evolutionary psychology, I thought everyone, all the interesting questions had been answered. Like I'm gonna go to grad school, but why? Like they seem to have nailed it. And so I it ends up that the human behavior and evolution society meeting uh was planned to be at Binghamton that summer. So kind of the stars aligned. And I helped out with that. I got to meet a lot of people. I saw um oh where'd he go? David left. That's okay.

We'll do that. Did I bend him? There's something you said. Well occasionally, uh who knows? David maybe had to get some groceries or coffee or something. We'll we'll we'll he'll come back. Would you like me to continue though? He's gonna miss part of the story. And so but I'll continue. Uh we'll fill him in later. Yeah, yeah. Or if you want me to Oh he's right back. Yeah, we can Hey. Hey, sorry, I don't know what happened there. That's okay. Inter internet just randomly cut out. You might be a superhero and you went and did something at Lightning. Neptune. You're back from Neptune. Welcome back. Yes. Good to be back. You're not even winded. So Um So I I will I will make a long story very short.

Um, but basically, David Sloan Wilson was I said, I want to go to uh grad school. Actually, there is a little bit more. I wanted to go to grad school, and at the time, where do you go? And so obviously I had the book in my hand, and I was like, John Anita, I was like, clearly, these are the two people I want to work with. I had homicide in my hand. I'm like, Canada? Like, I don't know if I'm allowed to leave the country. So I I put that down. And then we had read a little bit about um in the adaptive mind. There was some stuff by Kenrick, Um, and my sister was at ASU. So I was like, hey, it's you, sure, why not? I applied to ASU and accidentally must have checked off the wrong box. I got a free ride to the in the biochemistry program because I was a biochemistry major,

not a psychology. But they when they said major, I was like biochemistry. So apparently that was what they thought uh I was going for. Um and then I applied to New Mexico to work with Thornhill. He took a different student. Um, you know what I'm blanking Paul Andrews. He took. No, I I applied to New Mexico. I still haven't heard back from them. Well, actually, I applied to the University of Michigan to work with David Buss. I still haven't gotten accepted or rejected from them. I'll have to check in with these folks, yeah. But uh, but I got accepted to Santa Barbara and it was it was the happiest day of my life. It was well, one of them. And so it was really, it was just a an incredible opportunity.

Um, and so it's crazy the path. But yeah, so that's my origin story. Yeah. What do you think um when you were in medical school and what you were you were reading about homicide and the adapted mind, do you do you have an articulation or have you thought about like what it is that you were wanting to find that you found in that stuff? Uh in terms of the shift from medical school to grad school. Or just there's something about, I mean, look for both David and I and almost everyone we talked to, you know, there's something about this that appeals to us. And some of it it may not even be we're not aware of. Like, do you have an idea of what that is for you? Like what's yeah. I do actually. So um there were there were two things.

So uh I had so from David Sloan Wilson's office, I hung out in the biology department. So I would go over to the biology professors next door, one was studying spiders, but I would go talk to him and he'd be like, Why are you talking to me about humans? And then I go talk to another biologist, like, Why are you talking to me about humans? And I'm like, Wait a minute, I'm confused. And then I went to the anthropology department, and they're like, why are you talking to me about biology? I was like, oh, so you know what kind of anthropology department or whatever uh office I landed in. And then I was like, well, maybe I should like take a psych course. And I remember signing up for biological psychology.

That seemed to be that like that would be the crossover. And I I think I lasted all of like a lecture, half a lecture. I was like, this is boring. And so um, So I quickly learned that it was very controversial. And so you know me. I'm like, hey, you know, there's a controversy. There's a lot of people on that side. There seems to be a real few people on this side, and they're really, really smart. And I'm kind of agreeing with them. And I'm not gonna like, so chances are I'm gonna like what's happening over here. So I was like, put me in coach, you know. So I saw a controversy and I just kind of ran straight into that. But the other thing I've asked myself was um I remember sitting with all the textbooks on

my bed, like GR, you know, MCAT GRE time. And I it was at that moment I asked myself, you know, in 10 years, I'm gonna pretend like that I am a neurosurgeon. I am rich. I've got my ski house. I've got my Porsche Targa. I've got everything I want. Would I look back and regret not having, you know, tried to become a professor and effective researcher and teacher like David Sol Nilson. And I said, yeah, I think I would. And I said, okay, now imagine 10 years, you're a full professor, you're driving your Prius. Sorry. You know, like, you know, just kind of like making do and you know, doing your thing. Do you think you'd look back and regret not having, you know, a large bank account and the ability to kind of do all these things?

And I was like, nope. So the bow of you know poverty was taken, I guess, right there. Um but uh but so th those are two big things. The idea that it was controversial and I didn't know whether I could do it. Like becoming a writer and a researcher, that was the hard part. Becoming a mechanic and sawing open a brain and fixing things and you know, like that's easy. That's just you need a manual and can memorize stuff, but how do you actually push science forward. That was challenging. Yeah. It's I I one of the things I think that's like a theme of EbSych is it's like courageous because like we're doing things that are uncertain. Like especially when you're exploring new areas. And it really takes a lot of courage.

Like we've both David and I talked about and I'll speak for myself like one of the things that appealed to me about John Alita was it was not just controversial, but it was courageous about what was true, regardless of what other people thought about it, or maybe didn't even understand it, or was off their radar. Um, and that was really exciting. And like, I don't know, like being at the CP during that time, it was very special because it really felt like we were sort of on the frontier of science. Did you feel that? I mean, yeah, I felt like it was us against the world. And I think I think there are times I think there are times that we could have probably been advised a little bit better to not be so combative.

Right. I I I think they'd argue they didn't advise us to be combative, but yet I like what was I feel like the culture I grew up in was like, you know, on guard. You know, like get ready. And so I feel like martial arts should have been part of our training as well. Um But it's but I would say, but here's what I found exciting. And at the time, it took a while to learn, which is what are what are the issues, what are the debates? And then what are some really good arguments to address it? And what are people likely to say? And what are some good responses? And it's only been recently that I can do all this calmly without like my hair going, you know, lighting on fire. But it's uh because it at first it's like, you know, you know, you're coming at me and you

know, don't take a shot at my science and this is so important and you don't know anything and move over. Um, but it was good to have a it could it felt good to have a team. It was more like a family. Yeah, yeah. I mean one of the things I don't know in uh uh David, I'm sorry. Well, one of the things I remember Deb, I think the first time I met you, and we can cut this out if you want. It's not, I mean, was depending on what you're about to say. Yeah, yeah, I'll let you, you'll hear it. Um I was so I was like a very you know you were already at the CP and I was an early grad student and I was very nervous and we all as you know Deb and um David I think you know this too is like what a lot of John Alita's students would do is go to their house

to like work, right? Because they were writing always in their house. And I just open a can of worms for Deb. And then uh so I'm very nervous. And uh I go and Deb is there and Lita's there. Um, but when I get to the house, neither Deb nor Lita are there. John lets me in. And then um Deb is coming down the stairs with with uh with Lita's daughter. Um, and Lita's daughter at the time is pretty young, and um they're both um doing quote unquote reconnaissance with Lita. So immediately I'm sort of like Deb is playing with with Nike, and it's wonderful because it's it's like a family, right? Like it's like you're visiting somebody's house and like there's like aloe parenting happening. And then um Lita starts talking to me about science once she comes down.

And Nike, there's this game barrel full of monkeys. And she's dumping that over Lita's head as Lita's talking to me. And like with parenting brain, she's like just ignoring it as as they're doing that. And it that always stuck with me, Deb, like you doing reconnaissance with Nike. But what I love about that is like it really felt like a family. And it was just this, it was just this like we're comfortable in our science. And part of our science is people being organisms and like, you know, parenting and that kind of thing. That that's sort of like baked into, of course, that's just part of us. And then we're also doing like really cool science. And I wasn't nervous after that. But Deb, that was like you, you helped me like be like that that was like a real moment for

me of like, oh yeah, no, these are like good people really doing science to the point where they're like playing with their kids while we're doing science. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And for the record, Nike's still someone I'd I'd enjoy doing reconnaissance with. No, totally, yes, yes. Oh, well, this is making me think that the evolutionary psychology story isn't in the Marvel universe, but it's uh it's a kind of sitcom, you know, where everyone's hanging out and Lita and John's house, and you know, the kid has her cute one-liners. Maybe it's a kind of like full house vibe. Um you know, I guess it's like it it's it isn't like Marvel. So I would agree with that. But I'm I'm not sure that I'm happy with the full house.

Now that you've said that, I'm gonna have to think about something a little bit different. But uh Brady Bunch. Um it's uh it it was it was it was unique and it was special and um and I enjoy it. And even though my first job was to Hawaii, uh people were like, oh my god, you must have loved it. I actually got a bit depressed because just leaving the mothership, I was like, oh my God, like this is awful. And um, you know, being there at the same time, I was ready, definitely ready to go uh and to and to branch out, uh leave the nest. Uh, but it was it was sad because you had a what you didn't know was how little support you have out there and uh how lonely, how intellectually lonely it can be. So uh but it's it's it's funny how technology and even things like this have

made life far more enjoyable. Yeah, yeah. So uh as a leader in the field who sort of began, you know, in the literal home of Leda Cosmones and John Tuby, uh how do you think the field has changed? The public's impression of it has changed. You mentioned there was a spirit of combativeness, us against the world. Do you think the temperature is still that high or has it come down a bit? How has the vibe changed regarding evolutionary psychology since you began? I would say the temperature has come down quite a bit. Um, and I'm I'm really happy about that. So it's what was it uh was it Gould who talked about the three stages of science and you know, kind of like it's it's garbage and then it's it's not

important, and yeah, we knew it all along. Um I think we're still in the like we're 2.25. Like I don't think it's like it's not quite halfway to you know we've known it all along. But it's it's just kind of like yeah it just doesn't really matter. Like I but I think that people see that it doesn't matter because they don't know how to do it. They don't know the science of it. They just and so it's like I can't I don't have the I I I'm smart enough to know that it matters but I but I don't know how to actually apply it to my particular field or science. And I and so it actually is a skill. It's a skill set and set of tools, and there's ways of doing it wrong. And uh and that's also now, you know, I think that I think the field is quite healthy

in its teenage years, um, but I think that I would love to see better training across the board. I don't necessarily know how that happens. So part of it is I'm writing this textbook as one effort to kind of uh provide at least another reference for it that hits on a lot of the cognitive science that I think is missing from the field. I also so I think it's I think the field is doing great. I am excited about the different areas it's going in. I think that there's a lot more room to grow. So I mean development should be an area. I mean it's it's come a long way but I think that there the idea that there are no that there's so few places you could go to study evolutionary psychology uh with a developmental

psychologist other than uh UCSB, uh Yale, a couple of other places, right? So it's um it's very limited. But then you talk about political science, the clinical side of things, which is super important. Um I can I mean I think that a lot of the social sciences uh that there's a lot of room to grow, I guess. And so, but I think it's hopeful. I think more and more people when they hear evolutionary psychology, the disgust face, it's only slight. It's not like, you know, it's not like you, you know, like they have to walk away from you anymore. It's not like I can't be seen with you. Now it's a huh, hmm, I don't know. So uh and I'll take that any day. So I so I'm actually quite hopeful. Plus, you know, the emotions and all the great work that's being done on the emotions, it's

such an easy way to start to introduce the field that people are like, oh well that makes really great sense. Um and so I think that's a a great vehicle to start to begin conversations and introduce the many areas, you know. And so in any case, my general idea, my general take is that the field is it's come far. I think that there's there's scattershot, you know, always, but by and large I think I think we're doing quite well. I'm just I get concerned about the future in terms of number of people training the number of people. And so I I mean my my university, you know, they haven't replaced key evolutionary people who um and that every turn they refuse to even, you know, engage. And so that it's hard to have a lab of, you know, a person with you know, just one person

taking on graduate students. So maybe we can come up with ways of working together across multiple kind of solo sites to help kind of put together graduate programs and and and collect collect graduate students to train. Yeah. Th there's there's a a bit of a a decline in the reproductive success of the field in terms of training uh professors uh to occupy key positions uh uh around the world who who have this perspective and can in turn train new scholars in it and you know leave more descendants uh intellectually. Yeah. And yeah Deb, one thing I'm hearing you say too is that and I think David and I have talked about this with with past people on is that the early first generation, like the Martin and Margot and Homicide or John and Lita, it was sort of uh they had to fight for

it was existential, like it was proof of concept. But now, sort of currently it's well, how do you actually do it? So if you're already past the point of acceptance or at least curiosity and you're not immediately running away, um, how do you do it well? Do things like task analysis or the cognitive part. Is that it sounds like that's something you're sort of focusing on with your textbook? Yes. I don't think that any of the current textbooks have done a good job introducing the evolutionary cognitive science. So how do how do how do you do it? Like what what is it what are the what are the questions we ask in terms of the algorithms you know the information processing structure like really in the weeds I know but to me

it's like you gotta go there in order to zoom back out and have a better handle on macro behaviors and patterns. Yeah when I when I teach you Evpsych actually this after I talk about Lita's waste and task I actually talk about your um Kin detection and disgust and incest avoidance work. And I think, I mean, if you if you if you'd like, we can always talk a little bit about that. Because I, you know, the people who are listening, there's presumably a large range of people, people who know us, or and then people who don't know anything about us or this. And I think it's really cool work. For me, what I like about it is it is very much at that software level, right? Where it's sort of you're taking modern people who, for them sort of incest

is something that's like they read about in Greek mythology, or it's sort of this thing, you know, that you just hear about fictively. It doesn't feel like a day-to-day concern, right? Um, but yet thankfully, yeah, no, exactly. Um but but it's a it but it's a really good example of and even kinship, I think sometimes when people hear kinship, especially for like high SES academics, it feels like very um, you know, oh, that's like what people growing up in places where they're still around their family, like kin, you know, it just sounds like kind of yokal y, right? It's sort of like um and and I've I've I've like I've detected that. Like it it doesn't feel um it doesn't feel sort of like high status or high

class to talk about kinship or incest, right? Like it's just sort of this um um but what I love about this work is your work is that um it's it's not something people would intuitively think would be part of their day to day thinking, but it's so powerful and you're getting like this beautiful results. Um and so like I I actually think oftentimes as much as Lita's waste and selection task work, which we actually haven't talked about yet, and we can talk about another time, but I actually think your work will sort of always be really important in that initial work. I mean and obviously a lot of your work since then, but I think it's one of the things that gets people thinking the right way at this software level.

I I think so. I mean I just asking the question of, you know, how do you know who your close relatives are? So you're right, there are a lot of people who might be listening who haven't uh you know, haven't heard about this this research but so i offer the question like how do you know who your genetic relatives are like how did you come to figure it out and you ask a class of students this and they're like oh you're told and I was like yeah but other animals figure it out and they don't have language you know and they're like okay and so you know you smell them well that's not exactly how humans seem to uh to snip out relatives. Um and so that then they're kind of some of them get stumped to like, oh, you know, you

know them from early on and this and that. So they're we start to kind of very quickly narrow in on the possibilities. But you can see that it's it's just something they haven't really thought about. So but the idea that uh the two cues that we've at least found that influence and affect how you uh whether you categorize someone as a sibling is whether you saw the woman who breastfed you caring for and you know giving birth to and and breastfeeding another young uh young infant that has a that infant has a very good probability of being your sibling. But then if but that that's only good for younger siblings. How do you know of the array of kids out there who's possibly an older sibling and that

also tracks parental investment, but it's over the long haul. So, who else are my parents investing in throughout the period of childhood dependency? And so, also known as co-residency duration. And so those two cues really predict how your estimate of relatedness and not only how gross you find them as a sexual partner in general, but also how nice you are in general. And I'd say in general for a variety of reasons. So I think that these systems aren't foolproof. and I think that there are factors that can push them around and situations that would cause some people to find a close genetic relative potentially more attractive under certain circumstances than other circumstances. But by and large, cultural universal is this inbreeding avoidance system that allows us to

detect kin. And that what I like about what I like about the incest avoidance stuff is not only does it really get into like you can map it out in terms of inputs, how things get integrated, because a lot of stuff has to get integrated, but you gotta figure out what and then go and test it. And then the emotion of disgust to regulate the aversion. But then it also allows you to to figure out how does this, how does this kind of get um get displayed in the array of culture, cultural variations in terms of the taboo? So from this one psychological system, you then get a cultural, uh, a cultural set of norms that can vary. Um and what I so what I like about this particular example is you can take it

through each of its different kinds of questions. So what is you know what are the selection pressures? Like why does it exist? How does it work in terms of the programming? How does it develop? How does it break down? What are the neural kind of uh you know the neural regions or the you know where is it actually seated in the brain? How does it get displayed and reflected in culture and so forth. And so you can actually take it through all of the different levels of analysis and answer questions at each level. Uh, you know, I think that it's each question is pretty much one academic's life's work, but at the same time, it's just I think we could do this with everything. Uh I mean that's the idea of being able to map the human mind um and culture.

So Uh I'm interested in that last part of the causal model, the culture part. Um, because simply doing the task analysis of how do I figure out who my genetic relatives are, how to I uh uh be nice to my relatives and avoid having sex with them. Um that all makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. You wanna um help people who probabilistically share the genes for helping kin. Uh you want to avoid uh reproducing uh with genetic relatives to avoid, you know, the the costs of inbreeding. Um, but the moral part of the equation isn't to me as obvious. And I still think that's kind of a live area of research and a mysterious aspect of this psychology, which is it's not merely that I'm grossed out by having sex with genetic

relatives. Um, I'm also inclined to judge it as morally wrong. Um, and cultures around the world have judged it as morally wrong and have had various taboos uh and rules against it. Um and so what I'm curious about, and may you don't need to have the final answer to this question. I still think it's an interesting area of research and and lots of questions remain here, but but what drives me uh to the point of I'm grossed out by having sex with my relatives, I won't do it myself, to this is unethical, this is morally wrong, I'm going to punish, condemn, or shun other people who do it. What how do you explain the the the bridge between those two points? Um well, I think it's a great question. And I um I do have an answer, whether it's the answer, it's a whole different story.

So I'll I'll leave that to you. Um so we have a natural inbreeding aversion. And so our value of close relatives registers as a an intense disgust. And I think that disgust is an interesting emotion because it becomes now available to a psychology that's looking for Behaviors that others are doing that are of low value. Why? Because we are evil humans and we form coalitions and we are interested in protecting scarce resources, so we form coalitions, determine which groups have the lowest leverage, and go after them to prevent them from taking and acquiring and and defending those resources. And who do we want to do that to? Well we don't want to do it to people we cooperate with and people we find valuable and so

forth. We do that to the people we find and do things of low value. And so disgust just happens to be one of those emotions that signals it's like a really, really, really loud bell to the kind of coalitional system to say, you know, we've got a winner here. You know, we've got something that's registered as extremely low social value. Is this a potential coordination point for how to get, you know, to rally the troops in order to go after people who do this, who think that, um, in order to marginalize them and exploit them and pr and kill them and, you know, whatever. I mean, like I I think it's a very dark side of human nature, but um so it's funny that it it's all labeled as morality. But I just uh um that's a whole other fun see I like controversy.

So this is like naturally where I'm preaching to the choir. Yeah. I've I have a blog post called Morality is not nice, where I I I write about the the dark sides of morality. And I think they uh it is if you just look at you know the anthropological record, the historical record, um, and even just recent psychology studies, like it it is becoming increasingly clear that morality is a very dark force uh in humanity. Uh I get yeah, words like this is good, this is bad, you know, like make me very nervous. It's like who are you trying to coordinate? Like what's going on? Like, hold on. But but but by and large, I mean, so I I I mean, I'd like to leave aside the question as to whether there are like certain ethical laws and moral law.

Like I'd like to put that aside for a second and just focus on how it is disgust ends up informing and coloring our sense of morality. Like there might be there, I think there are other aspects of morality that are worth talking about, but in terms of how disgust colors it, my sense is that it just there's it does no good. And there are folks who think that, you know, listen, disgust is a moral compass. So Leon Cass, disgust is a moral compass and we need to use it in order to guide, you know, our moral decision making. But Martha Nussbaum basically said no, you know, that's uh the wrong thing. And Carlton Patrick and I, we both also have said, you know, disgust is not the answer to uh our our our our norms and legal systems.

Uh At least that's my opinion. What should be is a whole other fun story, but uh disgust, I would argue, should not be there. Um, but in any case, so how does it get in there? Low social value, which makes it just available to systems sifting for groups to go after, uh, to marginalize and to outcompete for resources. Um, it's an get them before they get us mentality, and disgust is used in that effort. The idea. Oh, sorry, David, go ahead. Uh I'm wondering if an additional aspect of it is the contamination logic of disgust. So uh if you're trying to avoid things uh that have that are contaminated or that are are you know have pathogens uh on them, uh you not only want to avoid the thing itself, you

want to avoid anything that has come into contact with that thing. You know, uh even a tiny droplet of fecal matter uh could uh uh ruin an entire meal. So it's not really the quantity of the contamination, it's the contamination itself. Uh and if I'm sick, you not only want to avoid contact with me, you want to avoid contact with other people who've been in contact with me. Um so if I elicit disgust, I'm going to have a hard time mobilizing allies to my side because people will not only not want to associate with me, they're going to not want to associate with other people who are associated with me. And so because disgust elicits this contamination psychology, it makes it particularly useful for rallying coalitions.

Because if I can elicit disgust about you as a target, I'm not only motivating Avoidance of you, but I'm uh depriving you of the ability to mobilize allies in response. Uh whereas with other emotions, you know, if if you elicit anger, maybe your allies will come to your side and try to justify uh your transgressions. But if you elicit disgust, that's really cutting off all of your means of social support in a way that's really useful for me if I'm trying to rally a winning coalition against you. Do you buy that logic? I do. I think there's something to that. I mean, I think the psychology, if you're sick, it's a very different psychology of me dealing with you. Right. It's not a coalitional, it's not the moral social value side of things.

I mean, it is the social value, but it's it's more of directly transmission of you know pathogens that I'm concerned about. But when it starts to get used at the coalitional group level, team level, I think that disgust is sticky and it is dangerous. Like that anger, listen, the thing with anger is if I'm angry with you, I'm angry with you because I'm trying to change your way and how you value me. And that's the whole function of it, right? So improve the way you value me now. So but with disgust, it's I I doesn't you can do whatever you want. It's like, you know, say whatever you want. You know, there's no amount of social value that's all that, you know, well, I don't know that that's the case, but it would be very interesting to find out how much social value

you need to bring to the table to erase disgust, like what what actually bleaches out disgust, how much goodness and value. Um it's kind of hard to get out the stain of disgust. Like with anger, it's very easy to, you know, alleviate someone's anger, just apologize. To apologize, you know, make amends, you know, you know, help help them out, whatever you need to do to make sure that they know that you're not going to behave that way in the future. But with disgust, there's really not much you can do to, you know, you just kind of have to hope that people forget about it, you know? Take a shower. Yeah, take a shower, but like even that, I don't know. It's like it's hard to wash off, you know. No, no, no, of course.

Yeah, yeah. It's a physical thing in denotable. Yeah. I find what's very interesting is if you go back in just like even in Hollywood, we're all like some interesting stories, although I have and an out and that I just brought that up. I I just remembered something. So but a lot of the stories that we talk about over time, like people like run into problems. Like Rob Lowe, he had he had some problems. Like he had some problems back in the day taking and but he's great now. Like he's like love now. And it's like that amount of time took the stink off. Right. So some things are manageable uh over time. There's one that's not. So have you heard about what is his name is Arnie Army Hammer, the guy who um

it's a great movie, Man from Uncle. But then I I heard that he like likes to eat people. Like he didn't you hear about this? No I think I think one of you should look it up right now. But basically but if you um why am I why am I forgetting the name for this? What's it called? Cannibalism. Thank you. So yeah, he like said something favorable about cannibalism or something. Oh wow. So he does he so he said something he doesn't actually eat people, but he said something favorable about it or he actually does eat people. You know what? I do not know the answer to that. I'm I'm I mean that itself is an interesting psychological phenomenon that the the distinction between you know verbally approving of something and actually engaging in

something is so often easily conflated. Uh well all all I have to say is that he got caught in the crosshairs of um exactly I'm just looking it up of you know of this d highly disgusting kind of behavior. And I when I heard about it, I mean I was I I guess because I'm me, I laughed because I was just like it's odd. Of course, there's a human out there that does this, right? But the idea is like I also laughed because I was like, there's no coming back from this. Like, there are some things that you could do that cross the moral boundaries. Yeah, there's certain things you do that just can't know no amount amount of cleansing time or showers. Yeah. Okay. That's so so super interesting. I mean, like it it makes this point that disgust is really uh a powerful

social weapon. That because there are so many ways to uh alleviate people's anger via apologies, making amends, concessions, whatever, but there's basically no way to alleviate disgust once it's been activated. Or it's it's really hard to do. Um, it's a much more potent and powerful social weapon to wield against your enemies. Um so I I I just find that really, really interesting. Um anyway, you were gonna say something, Dave? Well, I don't know. Uh Deb, what were you gonna say? Um well, so one of the things that uh that Carlton and I tried to map out was the ways that disgust is used um by the moral psycho by moral psychology. And uh we came up with three different ways it seems to be used. So first it it is a kind of internal register of what I find

disgusting and therefore what norms wouldn't be costly for me to back. Right. So if people were if I didn't like stewed tomatoes, um, if I didn't like foie gras, right? Because California went after foie gras, right? So if I didn't like foie gras and they and and that those rules, I would have been like, I back it 100%, doesn't affect me. I'm on board, right? And so it just tells you kind of the kinds of things that are that are less cost costly to back. So that's one thing. Disgust also uh you can take other people's temperature, right? In terms of you hear disgust and you now know what kind of moral um uh moral campaigns they're likely to initiate and back and so forth. But third and perhaps most important, given now this new landscape of coalitions that can

form, disgust can be used and strategically in order to say, I'm with you, not against you. Right. So um, you know, I can use the language of disgust to show my allegiance to the current group and so forth. And so they were like the enemy. Disgust at the enemy group you mean. That's right. I mean listen, when I was coming up through high school and college, you know, there were a lot of senators who were not heterosexual, but were railing against, you know, gay unions. And then you discover, oh my God, they're gay. It's and so it's just but they would come out like with such disgust language. And it's like, but why? And it's almost like, don't look over here, look over there. And so this kind, I mean just classic um that classic strategy.

But in any case, so I find disgust is very useful in order to kind of show allegiance to one's uh. I mean, do you bring it bringing it back? I mean, do you think the reason why it is such a good way to signal one's allegiances is number one, when you're disgusted toward someone, you're also disgusted toward anything associated with that someone. And so if you're trying to signal your allegiances, it's good to signal that they're my enemy and anyone who has allied with them is my enemy. Uh and the other reason why it's a particularly good uh signal of allegiance is that um is precisely the reason we just talked about, which is that it's very hard to uh alleviate other people's disgust once it's been activated.

Or if I if I say I'm angry with Deb, you know, there are things you can do to uh win me over and apologize. But if I say I'm disgusted with Deb, there's very little that Deb can do to uh change that. And so that's a much more effective way of signaling my enmity toward Deb if I say I'm disgusted with her than if I say I'm mad at her. Do you buy that? I agree. You know what's interesting. I do buy that. I I think that it's also who's motivated to use disgust language? Like if you have, if you are someone in the social hierarchy who's got very low leverage and you're not trying to convince anyone, like you, you're not, you're not, who are you gonna convince that you're very you're less likely to use the moral language?

But if you feel that you there's a there's something to be gained for you or you're there's an interest in you and being you're like you're gonna start spouting stuff and getting to kind of I always think about Othello like turning all the chips next to you you know the same color and so I guess that um I I find it what I find in would would find interesting in this area would be studies on who's motivated to use discussed language and does that correlate with for instance some of Aaron Cell's you know like indices of um leverage um social leverage and power so that that it would be interesting to kind of or who's in the hub of a social network um so and as anyway difference too like i mean i remember when i moved to berlin i sort of did

a deep dive into like third reich history because i was like this is a weird crazy history interesting and um and like by all accounts like Hitler was a I mean just a lot of attributes can be applied to him obviously but he was just like he was just oozing with like moral condemnation, even when he was just a a a lonely person, you know, with no social support. So you can just imagine just an individual difference too, of just there are some people who are just carving up the world with moralization and disgust. Many of them never succeed from a coalitional perspective. I'm not saying he succeeded. I mean, but obviously from a from like coordinating people, he was quite successful, unfortunately, for a while.

But it but yeah, you can just you can see that it's it's it's almost like you know there's there is just part of that expression of moralization. Um it's just it that individual, that phenotype, then interacting with cultural dynamics or social dynamics, being in the right place at the right time is just like, oh no, yeah, it's just a fountain of what's the moral outrage, what's the disgust narrative and the right one at the right place, it just sort of fits. No, it does. I think there's a lot of stuff. I mean, I've been um I've been reading a lot of Churchill recently. And so I've I've been enjoying that history as well. And I will say, like, you know, short, you know, unattractive. And, you know, um not very formidable looking, you know,

dark triad narcissist psychopath, like Napoleon complex. Yeah. So it's just I find it very interesting uh because it's not just it's not just all the factors of that. Like you have to actually, I think, get into like who this person is and their psychology and if it's off, you know, like is it on is it on the tail ends of any one of these continuums that are important to to assess? And I think that um that's certainly that's certainly important when looking at personalities and and leaders. Right. Yeah. I I I really like that idea, Dave. I I I would be very curious to look empirically if this individual difference dimension of, you know, proneness toward moralizing, if that correlates with, you know, leadership

ambitions or political ambitions. Cause I would imagine that people who are really prone to carving up the world into good and evil are especially likely to seek uh positions of leadership and and and political power because one of the functions of leadership itself is to solve coordination problems. And one of the coordination problems that we're constantly trying to solve as coalitional primates is who are we going to gang up on? Who are we going to exploit, exclude from resources, and dominate? And that is an extremely challenging coordination problem because the possibility the combinatorial possibilities are enormous. J If you just look in, you know, the uh I was actually I'm working on a Game 3 paper on

alliances. And if you just look in like a group of five, and the number of possible alliances that could be formed in a group of five is like 625. It's it's so the the combinatorial possibilities of what alliances we can form and whom we can gain up on are enormous. And so what groups are constantly trying to look for is a way to collapse the space of all possible alliances down to a manageable number. And uh what I think one of the big functions of leadership is to help groups do that, is to collapse that space down to imagin manageable number. And the way to do that, the most powerful way to do that is with morality and with disgust. And so I think it's no coincidence that um people with leadership ambitions are prone to

carving the world into good and evil, because that is precisely the service that coalitions uh need to be uh provided. Yeah, like what Deb said, it's sort of like people are coordinating evaluations, right? Like that's sort of what that phenotype is doing or what that design is doing. Yeah, no, it's it's an I I love this topic. I mean, I know it's definitely the third rail, but uh it's it's certainly one that I think is uh it's important to know about the dark side of who we are. Um the third railness itself is part of the psychology, right? You know, if you go if you study this topic and and you violate certain norms about discussing it, you yourself elicit disgust and taboo and coalitions forming against you,

which which is a kind of interesting irony about this topic. Um Yeah. And one of our themes for this podcast has turned into like humility, right? About that the superficial take on something, the sort of like pat pat somebody on the head, well, yeah, no, of course it's simple, it's associationism, or like, you know, who cares about kids or hunter-gatherers or like, you know, all these aspects of life, or like, you know, these don't matter. Um actually they really do. And and like just taking a pause and being like, actually, what is morality? Uh is it all good? Um, like, you know, that's not that's not like um it's a it's a virtue of of like Deb your work that that it's doing that, even if it does come with this cost, as

David's saying. I'll just keep smiling and waving. Like there'll be less discuss, but more value, right? So the editorship and then the the textbook. I'll keep doing service. Um well actually one one thing we had Michael Moncrof on Minecraft. I keep uh Michael, I'm sorry, your name. I like I know I always say it's the opposite of what I think and so yeah, I know. But Michael does um of of psych and law And we were we were talking about there's not a lot of people who do that intersection as well. But you, you know, you're you're the sort of one of the, and probably the in my mind, you know, person doing that. Can you talk a little bit about either in the context of the incest? I mean, because work or just the the work that you've done at that intersection, because

it's so important and it's a really good example of real people, real stakes, real terrible stories, or like, you know, just horrible things that were sort of unnecessary if you take a more sophisticated scientific view of people. Um, yes. So I was thinking while you were talking, so I apologize. So I'm actually doing work with Keela. So Keila Williams and I are doing some work at the intersection. So there's, I would say that there are three people who are uh more directly in that space. So you have Owen Jones, who's been doing a lot of that work, right? And so, and then Carlton, my student Carlton Patrick, uh ECF. And then uh at Hamilton, you've got Keela Williams. And so, but there's a few others.

So at ASU, there's Jess Salerno, although she's kind of more from the social psych uh tradition. And so, but she's but she's another person doing some some interesting work, uh, to be sure. So Keila and I are have been very interested in how you take the Ash style paradigm, right? And bring people around a table, and you just see how disgust starts to, you know, work its magic, you know, in influencing or extra influencing the way people respond and coordinate. So the question is: even in a jury setting, does disgust help coordinate people against things that might not necessarily even be disgusting or immoral? So that's one of the questions that we're asking there. So you're actually studying juror jurors?

Right now it's just undergraduates who are serving. And it's it's a lot of the work that Keela and her team at Hamilton have been doing. So that's um so that's kind of in progress. And but you know, getting out there to try and examine how so I I tr wanted to do a test of judges uh at some point. So one of the earlier findings on the disgust stuff or the inbreeding avoidance was we had a measure of how so it's really hard to get variation when you ask people how disgusting is it to kiss your brother and sister, all this stuff, right? So there's less variation. So we removed it and kind of went towards a morality like how if how how morally wrong do you find these behaviors? But now you're not asking about a particular opposite sex sibling.

And so what we did is we basically looked at how activated your entire disgust psychology is towards siblings. So if you have no if you are um okay well if you're heterosexual and you're a female and you have no brothers, right? And so the idea that you don't have very that would be me, which is allows me to study this stuff and smile and laugh. Do you have an opposite sex sibling? Uh I I have two sisters. Yeah. I have a sister too, yeah. Okay. Um shall I continue? Please. Okay. So anyway, so but it ends up that your you the so if they are older siblings, the total duration of co-residence with all of them would actually kind of uh give a better good index of how overall grossed out you are. So if you had one sibling, you live them for older siblings 10 years versus two older

siblings you live with combined 20 years, you'd expect a little bit more grossed outness for the person who had a total of 20 years of living with opposite sex siblings. And so that's exactly what we found: the idea that how morally wrong you found incest in general was predicted by how grossed out the level of disgust that you develop towards your own family members. And while it would be just an extension into a different realm, I was always very curious, like, could I get a bunch of judges to fill out this questionnaire? Because I would then be very curious about, you know, I don't know how often you it has happened. I've been called and you know provided uh expert testimony and discuss things, but

it's rare. But when judges do come across cases of incest or abuse within the family, the question then is, which is obviously far more common than just incest, but you have does the sexual aversion that's activated in the judges or the people making decisions influence at all uh the outcomes and the sentencing and so forth. Um so that's always that was always been an interesting question as to how our psychology um kind of gets into the legal system. I started this work with uh John Lene a long time ago, but we I don't think we ever finished it and or got enough data. And so that was that was a long time ago. But that's an interesting question that I've always wanted to answer. For for those cases where you were called in, um, did you, and you I mean you definitely

don't have to go into specifics, um uh, but did you feel like there were there was there sort of a naive realism or naivety about the psychology that, you know, did you feel like, boy, it's a good thing I'm here to tell these people and to disabuse them of this idea? So for example, like, you know, if they were re people were reared apart, there's nothing wrong with them per se. It's just they don't have this evolutionarily valid cue of co-residents, or or was it more complicated? Like, did you get a sense that like, you know, the lawyers or the judges were doing, doing okay, or really the science needed to be informed or to be in there. The law needed to be informed by the science much more than it was.

So one of the first cases that I was asked to write a brief for was uh a brother and sister had met each other during adulthood um and then realized that they were siblings and but they had fallen in love, had had kids actually. Um one of them wasn't as healthy as the other others, but um but there you go. That can happen anyway, just by luck of the the draw, so to speak, but more common, more probable with inbreeding. and so he they he was jailed because of it. And so uh kids were taken away. And so one of the lawyers on the case was like, you need to be able to explain this to the judge, saying, you know, they didn't grow up together. There's no disgust. And so, you know, what crime has been really committed here?

And um, so I wrote this and I never heard back. Um, and then it was a long time, like years after I had seen the name of the lawyer, or I'd looked but gotten curious what happened. I emailed him and said after that, after the case, it didn't, we didn't get get anywhere. Like he's still in jail or was in jail. And the lawyer quit. He like got so upset about like the system. Um, because you had two like decent human beings. And I mean, imagine someone knocking on your door and uh you and you know, I know it's not gonna happen, but like like, oh, you and Annie end up being sister, you know, like you'd be like, What? It wouldn't change how you felt about her. It might you might like say, like, maybe we shouldn't have any more kids, you know, like

maybe we should hold here, but like it wouldn't change how like laws don't change and that kind of explicit knowledge doesn't change necessarily how you feel about someone. I mean, the laws against homosexuality didn't change how, you know, gay men felt about one another. And so the so but it's just to me it's always been it's like I'm like the poster child for, you know, legalizing adult inside. But it's at the same time, I guess I just wanna be the the poster child for legalizing uh sexual decisions among d uh consenting adults. And um and I think that it's a very interesting uh that was interesting. The other two cases actually, one was grandparents who were very concerned about their grandkids who were being abused by a father, a stepfather.

And so they had read something of mine and they just wanted to understand what was going on. And then another guy was from from the UK and and was wondering if there was something wrong with him because he had read my stuff and then had was was sent away for boarding school. But in the meantime, their parents, his parents have had another child, never really interacted with her. He comes home and there's like a kind of cute girl. And he's like, you know, is it wrong of me to have these thoughts? And I was like, listen, I don't want to deal in right and wrong. I really don't like those words. But I can tell you at least one explanation for what might be happening. Like you never really know. But like, here's one possibility in terms of the aversion that likely didn't develop.

Um, you know, you weren't she to your mind, she's effectively a stranger. You're evaluating her as you would any other uh female of that age. And so, in any case, those are the kinds of things. But I have found that talking to people and walking them back from the ledge like that guy just kind of was like, okay, there's nothing wrong with me, but here's the situation, and now here's how I can move forward making decisions. The grandparents who were concerned about their grandkids, I was like, you know, there's abuse, you know, yeah, the you the daughter, you yeah, things probably need to happen fast. So I wasn't part of any legal case there. And then the guy who was jailed for, you know, being in love and having marrying his

sister. I don't know if they got married, but um, but certainly having kids with a sister, that's that's that stings. Yeah, it's pretty tragic. I mean, you think about the what is just from an objective perspective, you understand the function of the disgust from a biological perspective. Yeah. Um and I mean, what what is your understanding of the the legal thing as sort of if if or making it illegal, aside from the the the the moralization of it, is the idea that if people are doing this, there's something wrong with them and they need state or institutional intervention. Like, is that why would it be, you know, like is that in the law? Is there some explanation? Have you talked to lawyers about that?

I don't think there's. I think it's just a general, it messes up the family system. But I don't understand, like, but you know, I'm not sure. They don't need a moral argument over and above the disgust itself. No, you don't. And so, but the thing is, it's like, but one could come up with the argument, it's like, but you're all more genetically related. You're like a beehive. Like, shouldn't that bring you closer together? Taking the kids away also breaks up the family system. Yeah. Yeah. No, listen, I think that um here here was the here was the more here was the argument that that I that I uh asked Carlton if it was okay to to put in the book, which is this whether or not there's reasons to outlaw that type of union.

Put that one aside. But you can't use the genetic abnormalities in children as the reason for it, like the increased chance of having kids that are gonna have problems because we let a lot of other people reproduce. And so that's a slippery slope, right? So women over 50 are reproducing, and that's an increased chance of autism and a whole bunch of other abnormalities. And it's like, you know, what so what where are you gonna where are you gonna stop that? So that to me is is a very, very bad argument, right? That's that's starting to open a can of worms. So um, but then the question is as a society, what do we feel are rules that people will would want to adhere to, uh, want to respect, uh, but the question is why are we instantiated, like why are we putting them in place?

And and I just think that if discussed as part of the equation, not saying it shouldn't be, but we should take a careful look at it. Right. It's not a good uh moral compass in the quote unquote moral sort of it's not a good uh objective compass. Um no, it's not so I can I to share with you a funny story about disgust. Um so the development of this kind of moral system is really interesting. Like when kids start turning on their that moral psychology, like seven, eight kind of thing, like they're just like suddenly it's an interesting, like they're a social member. And now they probably for you know out hunting and foraging and helping. And so now it's like they can be responsible for stuff. But it's very interesting how this kind of starts to turn on.

And I remember my my son, um he was I used to make him eggs and I used to I grew up having jelly on my eggs. You might all find that disgusting or or ketchup or something, whatever jelly or ketchup. Yeah, ketchup's great thing. Yeah, yeah. I like it on eggs. My son loves ketchup on his eggs, yeah. But it might have been maybe it was ketchup, but maybe it was jelly. I don't know. But it ends up jelly and eggs actually turn eggs green. So your green eggs and ham. But I so maybe I had some, but it was probably ketchup, doesn't matter. But my son had a friend over coming over, and I am eating eggs with something that's not typically at the table with eggs. Like I forget if it's jelly or ketchup, it doesn't matter.

And out of nowhere, in front of this new friend, my son goes, Mom, that's so disgusting. And I I was like, I I didn't know which direction to run in, like being proud, being like, what's that? Like data? Like it's like new kid. And I just was basically like, why you like it too? So I was like, if I'm going down, you're coming down with me, kid. But it was, but the idea that it was just very interesting, like something that was abnormal. So that he had to point out, like, I don't do that. Like, that's disgusting. Um, and so I think every time I hear those terms, I'm always very cautious or I kind of bring it to the surface, like, you know, well, why is that disgusting and why why can't I do it?

Like, you know, like Yeah. You know, anyway. Really interesting. Yeah. So Where do you want to go? All right. I I got a direction we could go. So uh As you know, uh, we recently, a few years ago, came out of a huge global pandemic. I didn't hear about this, Tom. I must have woke up. Um so here is a really good example of uh an environmental stimulus with with huge relevance to evolutionary psychology. It happened before our eyes. Um coming out of this experience, what do you think we learned from it as psychologists? I mean, we obviously we learned a lot of things about ourselves and about our you know capacity to you know be indoors and be away from uh social life. Uh but you would think that this would be a good natural experiment to study

you know responses to pathogens in real time. Uh what do you think uh you learned from this experience? What did the evolutionary psychology uh community learn from it? Uh has there any been any interesting data coming out of it? So what what's your take on this I have takes at many levels. So at the scientific level, I th I've found it very interesting to kind of look at some of the effects of COVID. But I will also say that I wasn't impressed by much of the data in terms of like how like I I don't know that I saw anything that convinced me that the pandemic caused shifts in disgust sensitivity across the board. Like I don't think that I but but that said um people were across the board, I think, more reactive uh to

everything and just on a heightened sensitivity to every type of fear. So I mean, like, so I I don't at EHB we got tons of papers about COVID and disgust. And so I my memory of things is basically an average of all those papers, and many of them just didn't really weren't all that great. So if there are some really good studies out there that showed how disgust kind of really did move push things around. So at Cornell, you have um David Pizarro, right? Who's done these great things about you put you put a fart spray or you do things that disgust people and it pushes people's morality around. But it's like it's not really that big an effect. It's not like I cause you to be disgusted and then like you're gonna pick up all the signs

and start marching. Like that's it's not like that, but it it does, it does push on the gas ever so slightly. So yeah, so from a scientific point of view, I think we found that it pushes things ever so slightly. More jarring to me during COVID was the coalitional stuff and just how just how nasty people got. So it actually people were nastier, but then to their own group, they were nicer. Like I think you saw both things happening. At least that that was my sense that I just sensed that there was a lot of, a lot more kind of just just the rhetoric, just I couldn't even watch the news. It was awful, right? And then, but then of the people in your social circle, like bonds were forged, they were strengthened, they were, you know, some relationships were you cleaned out some

relationships that perhaps you know you got good information that they were no longer there for you during times of actual need. So I I I see it as like both things happened. Like social bonds strengthened in if you had them because if you didn't then I think you were in trouble. And then but also I think that the coalitional aspects of what is this? How dangerous is it? Where did it come from? You know, can it really spread? And then, you know, the personal freedom stuff, you know, is always that's something that's that that bugged a lot of people. So it was a disaster. I I'm impressed we came out of it. Yeah, I think it I think it affected everything. It it affected everybody and everything.

And and I I will say, like, it was it was scary. It was really scary. I remember thinking at the beginning of the pandemic, like, we need to get another fridge. We need to go like get meat and start freezing it. And you know, my husband at the time was like, What is wrong with you? I'm like, human nature like watch out like the everything's gonna be gone like have you seen have you seen apocalypse movies yeah I was so scared just thinking about how bad it could get and you know I'm in Florida and like you know it could go off the rails really fast here and so it I was it really made me think about like oh my gosh this is like this is the wild west, this event, like, we know, like hunker down.

Where are our like kin? Where are our weapons? Like, where's our food? Um, and it really, it really put my mind. I mean, maybe that's where the female mind goes. And he was just like, you're off your rocker. And so um maybe I was, but I it certainly I got nervous. I got very nervous initially. Um, but in any case, yeah. Well w what what do you think? I mean, I I I don't know. I mean I I I remember so I mean so my my take on it. So I mean I was looking at it through the lens of my theoretical preconceptions. Uh and so as you know, I have this paper uh in Psychinquary called The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems. And the argument there is that uh political ideologies don't really emerge from these

deep-seated individual differences and core values that are posited by a lot of psychologists. So there's a lot of work from by, you know, Jonathan Haidt and his collaborators arguing that uh one of the key bases of conservatism is disgust, that conservatives are higher in disgust sensitivity. They're more sensitive to contamination and pollution and purity, uh, and and it's all stemming from this disease psychology. Uh And so for me, like a big prediction of that approach is that you would expect conservatives to be the ones who would be really up in arms about the the pandemic, wanting to shut things down, wanting to be the conservative ones. And yet the opposite happened. And for me, that was a huge victory for my theoretical approach.

Uh which suggests that these kinds of political opinions are about uh shifting alliances and the and the strategic interest interests of each each coalition, uh, which uh can at at times be be uh random and can shift around unpredictably. I think w you know the parties could have easily taken uh uh opposing stances depending on who who was in office at the time that the pandemic started and and what positions they happened to take. Uh, you know, people follow the leader. So I think we the uh the polarization around this issue could have easily been flipped. Um and so for me it was a big victory uh for for Alliance theory and that no one was was everyone was predicting that conservatives would be on one end of this issue and they were

on the opposite end of this issue. Um so that was that was what I took away from it. But uh I I also remember I was pretty surprised I saw what what what is what is what are some of the explanations or the pushback that you've gotten, like well, what you saw was actually because like what what did you hear that was in that tried to contradict your findings? I agree with you. I I think your findings are beautiful. Like I I think that's perfect. But what did people say against it? Like to say, oh well, actually, you're wrong because uh I haven't actually uh mostly I've I've I've found that people just kind of surrender. They're just like, yeah, that that uh I haven't yeah, it's really hard to like You are charming.

People are like, I'm so tired from COVID. It was just like, yeah, no, I we Yeah, no. It's a pretty hard case to make that like, yeah, conservatism is all about disease and contamination purity, but yeah, they they're the ones who are, you know, avoiding vaccines and wanting to be, you know, more out there you know out there in in the midst of a pandemic yeah it's just really hard to square that circle I haven't seen anyone do a convincing uh uh case for it um so well we don't we don't include data that doesn't um support our theory it's the not my what is that the um Douglas Adams that's the not it's someone problem cloaking device where it just sort of puts it just is a cloaking device where it just

creates some it's someone else's problem, right? So things that are inconsistent with the way you think, you just kind of don't see it. So that was the the conceit of the invisibility cloaking device in Douglas Adams. True, but so David, but the thing is is that well, whatever, I can't say David. Um and so we've been going with I'm Dave and and David is David, just for clarity. Yeah. Two So David, the uh the but the thing is you still see I s you still see reports about, you know, disgust sensitivity and political spectrum, you know, and it's like so apparently the the um so now I know who's gonna be a reviewer on all those papers, thank you. Oh no. Uh yeah, no, that's there. No, so I have a story about that.

Um so I think most of that is driven by sexual disgust. And sexual disgust in turn is a marker of one's reproductive strategy. So if you're pursuing a particular kind of monogamous, committed, high fertility, uh traditionally gender division of labor reproductive strategy, um, which is more common among social conservatives than social liberals, um, sexual disgust and disgust toward promiscuity and short-term sexual relationships, that is a fundamental part of that reproductive strategy. Uh, and that is a fundamental part of the uh uh conservative political coalition. I think that is I think we should we ought to think of people pursuing that reproductive strategy as an interest group, um, as a a voting block within the Republican Party that is

driving uh policy. And so that's the story I would tell there, that it's really just sexual disgust that the that these correlations are are picking up on. And insofar as as you know baiting strategies are correlated with other kinds of disgust, which you would expect them to be, you know, if if you are more grossed out in general and more, you know, you think you're more vulnerable to disease in general, well, you know, a big transmitter of diseases is sex. So you're gonna, you know, want to be less promiscuous. So I think it's all it's all connected to uh mating strategies, reproductive strategies, and that would be the story I'd tell about it. I like that. Super cool. Um, Deb, you mentioned EHB evolution human behavior, which is one of, if not the, the

preeminent flagship journal of evolutionary psychology, also evolutionary behavioral sciences. There are other journals, but EHB is very much the really in many ways the home, the home of HBES, the Human Behavior Evolution Society. It's the journal. You have been the editor for how long now? A long time. I'm coming to the end. I'm curious, you know, You that's a unique perspective that not many people get. Um, it gives you some perspective sort of on the process of a journal and what that's like. And not everybody gets a chance to do that. It gets you a sense of um the trajectory of people trying to publish at this journal. Um, there's actually, I can think of several questions, right? Like, like, but uh but I think, you know, one of the things we've talked about in this

whatever the this podcast is is how DevSec is going or how the evolutionary brainhavel sciences are going. We talked about that earlier in the and when we were talking. Um your experience as being the editor, are there certain things that you feel like as you send your minding down that you've been reflecting on or that you think are are useful or interesting for people who don't have that perspective to know that we wouldn't know or maybe even wouldn't wouldn't know to ask? Like are you are you looking and being like, wow, I can't believe all these people who do X are trying to like publish here. I've really noticed a change in this or you know is there anything like that? Um no is fine. Yeah.

There are certain like hot topics that keep kind of coming at EHB. So um but as with any particular topic, like there's there's like the meat, right? And so, and then once the main finding has been found, and there's then there's a lot of n plus one studies that kind of just you know, I'm doing I'm replicating. So replications are of course always valuable. And so in general, I've been very pleased with the quality that's been submitted to EHB. I I would like to see more work from anthropologists, you know. And so I had a couple special issues that I hoped would spark some of that initially. So there was that weird um twenty years since that weird paper was published that uh that Corinne and uh Joe and uh Aura and Norwin Zion, they had all uh come in to

guest edit. And that was one of the most successful special issues. I mean, that's one of the reasons why our impact factor skyrocketed. Um and so then but then we had um Aaron Lukashewski, he did a whole bunch of, you know, from the field special issues that also were really wildly successful but i i have been going out to i've been going out to the areas that i find interesting and um trying to you know market and add like you want to do something here and would you organize something and so forth and so i mean that's what's led to what's coming up in terms of the number of special issues So I'm going to tell you because I'd like to advertise all of them so that people know what's coming up, which is so we have a special issue on uh friendship uh that Jamie Krems

is is organizing. There's one that's focusing on Latin America research, so all the evolution, uh evolutionary behavioral science that's coming out of uh Latin, not all of it, but a lot of it that's coming out of Latin America, South America, and then um there's also One on cognitive development that I'm extremely happy about, and I'm looking forward to because that's an area that we desperately need more of. Um, there was there's one on I put out a call for like personality and clinical kind of individual differences, clinical aspects, um, just to kind of see what was out there. It's it's not a huge collection of papers, but there's been a lot of interesting papers on dark triad, psychopathy, uh, and so forth.

I have another one on singlehood uh that's being put together. Um we'll see we'll see where that goes. Uh that was the proposal, so I'm also very interested in what people would propose. And then my goal really as the editor was to start more conversations and to get people engaged in talking back and forth. So there's a great new paper on the evolution of culture and or what cultural evolution means and what it means to study culture. And so I was hoping that we have a nice back and forth. And so it's just a matter of whether the main players actually want to engage and start start the dialogue, right? Because if everyone's saying the same thing, it's not fun. But for future generations, it's really nice to kind of see where the disagreement is.

So in a BB BBS style format, you know, having these conversations, I think, is a lot of fun. There was just one about war, the evolution of war. Like, is it a social construct that's based on the need for modern resources, or is it more of a or uh just a function of like modern nation states or whatever, uh, versus more of a deep psychological history? And so actually, um, Lita just republished the evolution, uh, the cognitive foundations of war. Did I say that right? And so great paper. And so that'll be part of that as well. So there's kind of a nice chunk of papers now talking about and debating about the psychology of war and warfare and team psychology. So that's actually really exciting.

So truth, that's been the that's been the great part about being an editor is just being saying, you know, what areas do we need more of? So I I think that I mean I'm all ears in terms of like what what could we do? And especially now that they're doing virtual special issues. So what would be interesting? You know, I think that the application, so application of evolutionary psychology is something we haven't yet talked about. Well you have we have in terms of the legal stuff, but um but one of the things that for instance I have found really impressive with some social psychologists, particularly uh Bob Cialdini, right? So he has he has a model of full psychology, right? So you go out there, you look out in the world, what's going on, bring it into the lab,

studying it, study it, put it back in the real world, see how it performs. And it's really a great model. Um, I know it's difficult because we tend to be in the weeds, like can't take a WTR ratio out like you know and like take it for a spin in the real world but the question is can we come up with strategies and research programs that allow us to be slightly more applied and then do and and I think that's the next step of things because then it's like oh, it matters, right? So I think that takes us into level three of, oh, we knew it all along and we do been doing it all along. And so I think that's where that would be important. And I think that there are areas that need evolutionary psychology.

So leadership and other types of uh even kind of adding evolutionary tones into the social influence literature, I think, uh is is important. So um, but taking that model of full psychology and looking at how we can actually get out there into the real world, um, I think is important. Obviously, evolutionary medicine is doing all, you know, and evolutionary psychiatry, but where how are people getting trained in those areas? Really cool. Yeah. Um So in my opinion, uh Evolution and Human Behavior is the best evolutionary social science journal uh in existence. I'll I'll pay you double pay you later, uh David. Um it's the one that I think has it puts out the highest quality stuff. Um I I won't name names, but I'm occasionally embarrassed uh by some of the stuff that

comes out and uh some of the other Evo Psych journals. Um, I consider evolution human behavior to be a cut a cut above the rest. Um get really good reviews. I always know at EHB I'm gonna get good reviews. Yeah, totally. Um we try, it's hard. People say no a lot. Yeah. Um I'm curious at you know how you have done it. Like what what has your strategy been for maintaining quality control and making sure that you don't publish garbage uh and and just maintaining the integrity and reputation of of the journal because it doesn't seem like an easy thing to do. How do you do it? Um so I think the main answer is that it's actually a good question. And um Two balancing questions I ask myself. One is, does this push our knowledge in this area forward in a

substantial way? Or enough so that it it rounds out something that is, you know, that I think people would find in interesting. I get I get nervous about uh poorly designed studies. And truth be told, a lot of papers get rejected because A, they're not evolutionary. B the there's no rationale for the hypotheses, and or the rationale is is incorrect, um, or it's been outdated in the sense of that's been a controversy that's already been established and we've already solved it. So you don't there's this this there's no basis for this particular hypothesis. Um every now and then I'll get a paper that says I've got a new theory of human nature. Let me tell you about it. And so oh I have I have a good file drawer of special papers.

Or there are figures of uh this used to happen at the this used to happen at the conference too. There would just always be there'd always be a poster of sort of like glowing chakras. Um that doesn't happen anymore, but the early days when when there were let me tell you, I look over my shoulder uh now more than I ever used to. Like, I don't know who's taking their medication this morning or not. So anyway, but the thing is like there's also a lot of people like reinventing the wheel, like evolutionary psychology that those Santa Barbarians think that they figured out. That's all crap. I've got a new theory. And I'm like, oh, that looks exactly like what I learned. And so I I enjoy those. Um, and so, but I I'm just happy we've all kind of you know triangulated onto the same

ideas. Uh but here's here's actually really where I balance it all out. So I I I'm an adaptationist, and so and I am, and so I realize that's There's an adaptationist running the journal. So I am very concerned about having things that contribute to understanding the design of the mind. Every now and then there'll be a paper that I think, ooh, it's not adaptationist, but boy, is this cool. Like it's kind of cool stuff. And I will send it out for review as something like extra. And so typically reviewers are like, what is this? No. And so, and then it's usually a decision where I decide whether it goes in or not. And sometimes I've decided yes, and sometimes no. Ultimately, I think about the history of science and I think about I

the gatekeeper, I am the gatekeeper of some sort, but let the history of science, you know, sort it all out. So if papers come in that, you know, every now and then there's one that's only incrementally or might have, you know, one study with only 40 people in it, like, but it was done really well. Like, let the history of science figure out whether or not that's something that's gonna actually um, you know, move forward or not. So I I am very cautious because I realize I'm biased in terms of my view on the world. By biased, I mean discerning. You know, like I'm I I'm discerning in terms of what I think um, you know, contributes to to cognitive science in that in that way. So, you know, like there's a lot of research you haven't seen in the journal.

Like, when was the last time you saw a facial resemblance paper? Like, yeah. And so I'm not saying facial resemblance isn't interesting. I'm just saying that I I think that the idea as a kinship system, it's just wrong. It's it's wrong, and there's good reason why it's wrong. And uh, and then so and I'll write a paper as to why it's wrong. And so I just don't think it's a good kinship cue. And I have not been convinced of any of the data that are explained otherwise. And I just I feel I just don't like if I thought something was so like history theory is another interesting like topic. Like that seems to have taken over the journal in some respect. And I I don't, I mean, as a as a scientist, listen, as evolutionary psychologist, I think, isn't that what I do?

Like I just I don't know very confused about life history theory. I think to myself I'm an adaptationist. I'm concerned about how it develops and how it calibrates. Isn't that what this is? Like, so I I get I get a little bit confused, but I realize there's a vernacular out there, there's people having a conversation. So life history theory gets its, you know, gets its papers out there and there's a whole special issue out there right on life history theory that dealt with a lot of the debates I don't know how much more we need on life history theory right so in in terms of those types of conditions and I and until someone starts and I've almost like added up to here with it so until someone actually gives me a model of what the hell they're talking about like I'm

just like I've let you guys play around enough like hasn't someone come up with a model like what is this that we're talking about I and so that's and so I get I I if I can't imagine a model, that's kind of one of my litmus tests of like, you know, is this is this a thing? Is there is there there there? You know, and so but again, I would say if either of you stepped into the role as editor, it's not that difficult to see the kinds of papers that are, you know, even I mean, like there's certain ones that you're just like, you know, that's not off topic. That's just it's just not even wrong. And so, and then there's some ones that are like, it's good, but there's problems with it. And I guess this is I this is what I wanted to say.

I'm getting older and so I'm getting softer in my older age, but I I believe that there are a lot of papers that are valuable and they might not have gotten it all right, but they've gotten a lot of it right. And that's why I say the history of science will start to kind of shape all of it up. Meta-analyses and other techniques and other AI functions that have yet to been be born, you know, we'll try to kind of sift through all this stuff. But so long as it's been done in good faith and actually done well and can be replicated, like I even if there's a little theoretical, like I wouldn't have written it like that, but and I would have come up with this hypothesis. And there's not like, you know, so long as they include nods to those kinds of things, I

tend to be very happy with getting people's hard work out there. And so I I see it as a gatekeeper, but also promoting the next generation of scientists, right? So making sure that there's publications that are getting junior scholars jobs. What do you think is the challenge for not our generation collectively, but those young junior evolutionary psychologists or people who maybe are outside or adjacent who are going into it? If you if you had to say something to them, um, or like what do you think their their mission is in their cohort? I would like to see greater engagement with this the information processing side of things. I think a lot of good evolutionary psychology gets done without it.

I think better evolutionary psychology can get done with it. Um I don't know if that's just because that's what I like. So it's very possible. So and I I fully admit that and very I'm very self-aware. So I just want to like I fully understand that I again I have these uh biases. But the next generation of scientists, of evolutionary psychologists, it's really critical they understand the level of cognitive program. And that that's real, that's where that's what's important. My goal at EHB is to potentially try and publish some of the greatest hits again. So the war paper, you know, so I'm looking for everything. I'm trying, I'm digging through drawers, like, you know, other like we have if there's an

anniversary coming up of a particular paper, like I would love to have um I would love to have a discussion between, and I'm hoping this paper by uh Nicholas Bombard um is actually um on culture in instigates a conversation about culture because I think that would be a great back and forth between like Rob Boyd, Pete Richardson, and Lita and Pascal, like and you know, and and so being able to have that conversation. The thing that frustrates me a lot is why haven't we moved past this learning and culture speak? I couldn't be more frustrated by it. Like I like it's due to culture. I just want to be like, I don't know what that means. Like, I don't know what, like, give me like flush that out. Like at all?

Like, like, and I I I what's more more importantly, like I'm I'm more frustrated with people being rude to me for for for for you know for actually asking that question uh of you know saying like what like I'm I'm on board, like I understand I I get what you say culture is, but that isn't that something to be explained? That's not an explanatory, you know, that's not powerful as an explanatory force. That's to be explained. Um and that's and I I I would like if I if one breakthrough for the field would be to say, you know, we are the field, evolutionary psychology is the field of culture and learning. And we specify how all that happens. Like, you know, I adopt all their language and start using it.

It's like they forget the adapted mind, you know, psychology and the generation of what? You know, like culture. Exactly. And it's like, I I'm frustrated when people are like, you don't consider culture. It's like, no, we're the science of culture. And that's what I'd like to see people take, but from a cognitive science perspective. So that's what that's what I'd like to see far more of. So that I think there's a lot of room to grow there. And I'd love to see it spread into anthropology. I'd like to see us take back anthropology and actually have a real science of anthropology. Um yeah, we've had we've actually I've been struck with because you know the way we've been or uh you know David and I have been doing this is just inviting interesting, fun people

that especially people who um are either well known like yourself or maybe even some people who are we're less well known, especially for people who are not, you know, um monetizing EP on the on the internets or things like that. You know, in a lot of people, hey don't fault people for monetizing. You cannot fault people for monetizing. Joint please uh we might have a Patreon by the time this comes out. So um or better, you know, uh no for sure. No, no, not a faulting at all. But I mean what I mean by that is um my point is uh we've had a lot of anthropologists on. you know, like I've been struck with how much, and maybe this is uh, you know, part of you know, John Tuby was in an anthro department, the CP was in an anthro building.

Um, so much I was an anthro minor, you know. If you look down in the CP, in the same way as UCLA, David, right? I mean, you were talking about you know, it's just anthropsy, anthropsy, sociology, communication. I mean, it's just it's really in the water and you really lose something in depth. I mean, I I talked about this a little bit before, but you know, I I have been after I left UCSB, I was other places. And if I was in a psych area department where there was not anthro, people would just say things and I'd be like, oh, I became the amateur anthropologist. Or I'd be like, no, actually, there's a culture where this isn't true, right? Like you're not getting at human nature, you're not getting at the level of the underlying

design. You're so very particular to a particular culture. Um so uh so yeah no there's been a lot of to have anthro connected I think is even showing up in this um in even what we're doing here more than I even realized. Well that's that's good. I mean I was uh I've been reading a lot of Tubi's edge pieces. Um and but this those are bangers they're all bangers yeah I know I made a little booklet of them and so they're they're fantastic. Yeah and so it's the idea that you know looking you're not looking at the right layer. So the right layer and the universe universality is going to happen at the layer of the cognitive programs, right? Not at the layer of whatever is manifest. And so Yeah, such a deep, deep principle, that layer of invariance.

Dave and I talked about that uh one of the episodes, just like understanding what it is. That's such a deep d insight that I think John put so well what you just said. It's so easy to say, but and it sounds kind of jargony, but that you have to capture the right layer, the right level to find the the principle. But to get there, you need to consider biology and physics. And you know, it's like, and I I just I would love to see the social sciences slightly more well well-versed in those areas. And I don't mean I don't mean any type of like reductionism. I don't. I think that there's a lot of things to be studied at all different levels of organization. But I think appreci how could it hurt? Right.

And so in any case, I think that's one of the things I like most about EpSec is the physics of it. And that that was something I'm always, you know, John even said he wanted to be or thought about doing physics. Um, I think. Um, I don't know, you tell me, Deb. Um you guys did a you did a um uh a sort of tribute thing for John in EHB, is that right? I think I can, yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah, no, it was a um I tried to I tried to coin, I don't know if it's gonna take, but kind of the modern cognitive synthesis right which is what I'd like to think of EP as right so it's not the modern synthesis it's not the cognitive revolution but it kind of joins the two into the next big thing so that's modern cognitive synthesis you start using that term

yeah modern cognitive synthesis I'll say it a lot um was there anything in the course of doing that um you know, uh you know, John passing away, we've been reflecting on a lot about that. Was there anything in in the course of doing that special issue that sort of surprised you? Or there was there anything that sort of stood out that either was like, oh yeah, no, that's John, and that's something I want to like embody going forward. Like, for example, for my, I mean, you know, I think this is normal when somebody passes away. You think about like, okay, there's a whole in the universe, their shape, and what do what there's certain things about them that need to continue, and what in my measly way can I

do? Like, you know, that's something I thought about. I've been thinking about. And what did you come up with? um you know uh ultimately it's that it's the it's theory first adaptationism you know of just sort of like when I sit down with a decision about like what paper to write you know it's sort of how would John start this paper or how would he think about this uh and maybe write it W W J D what would John do? Maybe maybe edit the complexity of the sentence down a little bit more towards how Lita would would would do um But I I like to think, you know, I I heard on the YouTube video like Marvin Minsky talked about like he had uh a couple people in his head, um, like um when he would write a paper, like he would sort of

channel different people. Like what he learned, he said what he learned from working with people, like very famous people, um, was how they fought. And so when he writes something, he'd like, well, you know, how would um how would this, how would Isaac Asimov write this, you know, or or people like that. Um, and for me, like I have a Tubi, you know, like what would Tubi write here? Or how would he think about this? Um, for for for my part. And I think that for me, that is the as as David kind of laughed about one episode or a couple ago, you know, start with the Big Bang first. Like I think one of the things for me, listening to John, and I watched some videos again after he passed away just to like listen to him.

Um it's really the for me at least, the main, the huge distinction was without Eve Psych and before and John really did this thing, was you don't accept the uh built-in assumptions of the world that are delivered by our folk psychology. So something is intrinsically beautiful, you know, like no, you're not allowed to think that. You have to start replicator dynamics because there's no such thing as beauty. You have to build beauty. Beauty has to be explained. It's just like you said what you said about culture. And so for me, what John really did was just eviscerate the idea that you can have a good science that starts assuming that beauty is intrinsic and doesn't need an explanation and doesn't even

need a definition. It's just obvious, you know, and that idea that you have to take everything, you have to deconstruct every psychological essentialistic idea to replicate our dynamics to a to a relationship out in the world and build it up that way. For me, that's that's what John was embodied, I think. Like that's that's my two cents. Yeah. You know, Brad Duchesne, who was in the lab maybe before you got there, he um he said something in if you can imagine I actually rema read his comprehensive exams in this second so because they all got kind of passed down. But he made he had a great saying um that I think embodies a lot of Jean. He said, you know, there's no such thing as a computational free lunch.

And I I remember that. It's a great saying, but the idea that there's nothing comes for free here. And so if you're not specifying how it happens, then you've missed something and/or something's incomplete. And so I was working on the disgust stuff with Josh Hyber for a while. And we had you know the three functions of disgust, and we talked about at that point in time it was you know pathogen, sexual, and moral. And I'll tell you that paper actually was two-thirds done for a very long time because pathogen disgust, sexual disgust. It was very clear as to I I hadn't started modeling anything, but it was very clear, at least in my head, how one possibly could. But the moral disgust, I was like, I don't even know, I don't even know where what to

begin. You know, like this is and then Carlton and I got a book, the book deal to write objection. And then we started off. And there was actually a whole different book before the one that came out. It was the basically pathogen, sexual, and moral. And then we started to write all of it. And I got to the moral section and I was like, well, first off, first off, I realized pathogen, sexual, that wasn't exactly the sex stuff worked, but it was more the pathogen was the eating. Yeah, it's food psychology and contact psychology. But then when you start to write about the moral disgust, I was like in the same like nitty-gritty information processing way, and thinking about like how I would build it.

I I came to a complete blank. I was like moral disgust. I was like, I don't even know, I don't even know what the inputs are. Like I don't even know what the external inputs are in order to kind of generate this moral disgust. I was like, I'm thinking about this all wrong. And so then I just kind of and so and that's when I read their groups in mind paper. and uh and that's yeah and that started me off as on a completely different that's that's such a great paper like that's the key that's like the key to the universe and so um but I would say that's what got me thinking a lot about social value and these moral projects and how disgust can kind of get in there that way. But from but with John, listen, I mean I it's you asked me about the EHP

special issue. I'll be honest with you. I I I'm like amnesic. I I I think it was so traumat it was traumatic. It was emotionally stressful. Had a lot of other stuff going on in my world. And I but I I just I just don't it's like losing a parent. It's like how do you it's it it was it was substantial, it was profound, and it's like I can't, I still can't believe it. Like I just I didn't really get to talk to him except at conferences, but I knew he was out at work. So I'm in my mind I'm like, he's still working somewhere. We'll see that book someday. So um but it's uh but it's it's really sad. But for me, I think the tradition that I, you know, just it it is the the physics of it. Right. So really kind of breaking things down in in terms of not

like not assuming any, not not assuming anything, assuming nothingness. And so that's how I but that's how I come to altruism too. Like we're not killing and eating each other. So let's start instead of like morality is cooperation. I want to start with, I don't want to start there. I want to start with how come we're not killing and eating each other? Like I'd rather start there and kind of come from a very different angle. And I think that his perspective allowed us to kind of you know uh entertain that stuff but his idea of entertain all hypotheses right and start from all angles I think was also something that was uh that was pretty critical but it's it's just it's it's super sad. But then you know listen there's with you have Don Simons, Don Brown, Knapp, you

know, and then more recently Helen Fisher. Yeah, it's just a lot of a lot of folks, you know, from the general area. So I think traditions need to how do we we're at a new stage of like, oh my gosh, like there's a lot of ideas and suddenly now like there's people who are not around to discuss them with how do we make sure that they get memorialized and catalogued so that they can be taught. I think that's new for our field right now, that this is kind of what's happening. So the idea of this podcast is fantastic. Um, and so, and David, I know you have your, you know, everything is bullshit, uh, which is fantastic. But the idea that these ideas are living on in a variety of different ways, you know, and

so being more creative and doing things like this, I think is is going to be great. And there are other folks doing podcasts, interviewing people from evolutionary psych, but you know, bringing doing this, I think, is a is a great service for the for the field and for students who are actually gonna get to hear from from folks. Yeah, it's it's strange to think. I know John had what it he had something everything we know think is right is wrong or something to that effect on uh on his computer. Feels like that every now and then. Hey man, everything is bullshit is just uh echoing that uh yeah exactly exactly um uh and the other one I remember was um that the truth like every generation of scientists like

the truth resides w way further out than any you know, fight in science typically is. So there's usually like two sides to a scientific debate. And usually the argument is, well, truth is somewhere in the middle. And, you know, I'm not putting it eloquently, but the idea is that actually reality is so far outside the bounds of what either side is arguing. And that was another thing that, you know, John, he just always had that wry smile of sort of, you know, I think whenever he sort of saw that, you know, there'd be like a student presenting something and there'd be a debate, and then John would just sort of have his wry smile and and sort of proceed physics first to say why, in fact, probably the whole debate um doesn't capture in a nice way, like not in a deflationary

way at all, but just sort of like, no, in fact, you know, the reality is way further out than we than we think. Yeah, I think he will be missed. He will be missed. So no, but the edge, the edge stories are, you know, stories literally from the edge. I think it's it's great because that's him raw. That's that's no peer review, you know. It's no Lita, like you know, you can't say it that way. It's just pure raw, you know, John. Yeah. You get the raw, you know, you get those those lists. My favorite part of the the Tubi Cosmide's writing is they'll have a list of examples to illustrate a point, and the list will always go on five times longer than you expect it to. And you see that especially in his his edge pieces.

He just um just the deliciously long winding lists of examples. Uh that's something that I've tried to emulate a bit uh in in my writing. But I I was always the lists. Yeah, I've always been a fan of that that rhetorical technique. Um No, it's good. I think the one trap we all have to be careful about is not writing exactly like him. Like I think you need to write for like, you know, mere mortals. That is true. I personally love the his writing and and but I definitely recognize that it's not for everyone. Uh and a lot of people are alienated by it. Um there's not a lot of colorful uh ticks style figures uh in the in those uh papers. There it's a lot of black and white text, you know. It's not a crazy no, it's it's meaty.

It's all meat. And so uh but I I appreciate that. You know, one area that I think would be really interesting, Vita actually uh was the author of it. And I I think it was in the internal regulatory variables paper. She talks about consciousness as a data, as a data format. And so I mean, she's busy doing a whole bunch of other stuff. The idea of asking her, hey, do you mind writing that up as like a that bigger you know piece, but I would love to see at EHP like someone tackle you know consciousness um as what does it mean that consciousness is a data format? Like that's just like that's really kind of a cool sort of, you know, like there's certain things that uh that are required to be noticed.

I don't know. It's I it's it's very interesting. And so I I would love to see that. But then Dave, you are tackling free will. Is that do I have that right? Yeah we actually I just wrote the response to the uh reviews um at Psych Review. We'll see what happens with it, but um because there were I don't mind negative reviews, but those were the negative reviews were were actually like i inaccurate, right? So it was it was a pretty um uh that's what you that's what you get for not going to EHB. No, exactly, exactly. I d I'm actually writing an EHB. Um uh it's I'm actually writing a a paper for EHB right now. So um the title is The Evolution of Autonomy. So Ooh looking forward to reading that one.

Uh speaking of consciousness, I'm also I'm I'm taking a crack at it. I have an uh I have a paper. By being conscious first and foremost. Uh although occasionally I like to be un unconscious in the evening if if I can manage with my daughter. Um but uh sleep is hard to see by it is. Uh but yeah, no, I got an outline, I got a theory. Um I got maybe twenty cent twenty percent of the paper written. That's great. Yeah, so I you know. I look forward to it. Well then then I see this this is this is the fun part about it. And so having fun with ideas and I think entertain floating things and seeing where they go. I have no problem with EHB publishing all theoretical stuff. Like it doesn't need to be like as long as it's good and interesting, like there's no

limit. People are always like, Can I write it? Is it okay if it's theoretical? I'm like, it's great. It's fantastic. Like, you know, like this is this is the theory journal. Like we should be, um, we should be making sure we pin down a lot of stuff uh solidly here. So I I find that interesting. But in terms of the I'm just curious, Dave, what you think about I so I I've been very interested. So obviously in the morality stuff, but will and responsibility, like terms, like responsibility and blame, just to take two. Yeah. Like if it's the case that there's cause and effect in the universe, and if it's the case that you couldn't have done otherwise, like you just all lined up, like cause and effect, like you just wind up toy.

Bring there you go, there's Deb. And so you can predict what she's gonna do in an hour. That would be me. I'm talking about myself in the third person. And so I would say, where did these terms come from? And if that had to fit them into my framework about what I thought morality was and social value and coordination points and all this stuff, then they're really just ways of allowing people to easily coordinate. Um, it's just, I mean, so what would it mean to say that a person who does something wrong couldn't have done otherwise because the universe was set in motion and Adam A affected Adam B. Like you know, like in in in a in a exactly causal sense, yeah. Then you can't blame anyone for anything.

And responsibility is bogus and weird. But because we seek and are thirsty for ways to figure out how to go after people, that these are fantastic terms that hook into the psychology of you're responsible, that's blame, this, you know, like, and so, but I guess I'm wondering like, is that what those words are? Just easy coordination points. Yeah, I think, I mean, yes, um I think there's uh an additional thing, which is that um it's about intervention and what can be intervened upon in particular ways. So for example, um, if I'm treating you not well, Deb, my welfare trade-off ratio is too low for you. That's one scenario. Another scenario, a good example, a counterexample is something like I have a broken bone,

let's say, right? There are things, Deb, that you can do to me to try to change my welfare trade-off ratio with respect to you. So for example, you can talk to me, communicate in any number of ways, you know, punch them in the face. Exactly. You can we could uh you can either impose costs or or upregulate cooperation or say, hey, like I'm a more valuable partner, whatever. You can you can talk to me, you can try to convince me, you can do all kinds of things um to change the setting in my head that is my welfare trade-off ratio with respect to you. And then if you do that, that will change my behavior and the outcomes for you going forward. Okay. None of those apply to the broken bone. So no matter what you try to do, I mean, assuming I'm doing everything that will heal my

broken bone as quickly as possible, there's nothing you can do to convince me, for example, to heal my broken bone, right? I can't convince myself, right, to like heal my broken bone. It's just going to take time. It's not within the purview precisely of like my planning and motivational systems to be able to do anything about the speed at which my bone heals, you know, leaving aside these things of like, you know, don't walk on it, put it in a cast or a doctor, whatever. And the idea is then that even though it's true that everything is sort of causally the full nexus of causal determinism or things going forward, we have evolved entries for the kinds of things that if we do intervene upon, we can change outcomes.

And so, for example, what it means that somebody is responsible, or we're blaming them, we're communicating an attempt to intervene upon them such that we're either communicating to the person uh it's an attempt to actually change, for example, motivation, planning, goal weights, et cetera, for the future. Why? Doesn't my anger do that? Well, I guess I'm wondering what's what what what does it do above and beyond my anger? Um well, in this case, it's just that what the entry is for is an evaluation of, like, for example, is the person responsible or not? Um, which is which is a which can come into anger, it could come into coalitional things, but it's part of uh the evaluation of whether or not, for

example, you're making a claim about if you're saying, I mean, there's a difference between the representation and like saying something out loud. But if you're saying, like, Dave, no, you're responsible, you're treating me badly, you're responsible for it, it's doing a couple things. One is it's um telling me I'm I'm not doing this, treating you well. And so that that has the effect of like the anger thing, right? You're trying to recalibrate that too. But it's also a claim about it's not falling into the broken bone um category and that might be a a if you're saying it out loud then that's also that gets into this coalitional thing right where um and and this is where you have groups of people who differ

in sort of saying like should we are are people who commit crimes responsible meaning is it efficacious or moral to use punishment to intervene upon them to try to change how they're behaving going forward, you know? And so, um, so the the attribution that somebody's responsible entails certain implicit often consequences, like we should punish them or do something different um as them as an individual as opposed to like social thing right like so change social institutions so there's people who aren't desperate enough to rob people versus you have to punish somebody severely so they don't punish or they don't um rob again. Um does it answer the question I mean it's the reason why there's that entry the claim in

the paper is the reason why something like responsibility or will um has to do with the attribution of where the uh a leverage point in changing that outcome exists. And there's strong selection pressures on, or there would be selection pressures to sort of note the WTR kinds of things that you can intervene upon by planning and deliberation and things, motivation versus things like broken bones, roughly speaking. I am gonna have to be further convinced because I I guess I I see what you're saying. Yeah. And I just I guess what I'm thinking is I don't care about your rehabilitation. I don't think I don't think blame and responsibility are for your rehabilitation. I just think it's it's for my usage to coordinate people to come after you.

Like and if you're responsible and then we can get rid of you and ship you off to an island. there's no rehabilitation there. There's no chance of like I so I I but I do wonder I do wonder the extra the extra thing that you're talking about. We agree in terms of it's a coordination thing, but the idea that it's a mechanism that then says it's for your readjustment, your re education. Yeah, I I mean I think I don't disagree. a larger the the the attribution that the agent is responsible is the is the full subset but then you know that might apply to you like your child and you know your child the planning and assessment systems that led your child to get injured the attribution they are responsible for getting hurt as opposed to it was an accident or somebody else did

it to them then evokes in you the hey, by the way, you know, the causal chain of things. You should you should have paid attention to this, pay attention to it more. There's another part of that then diagram then is not your child, but also like people that you already are in a coalitional um antipathy with, and then you can use it exactly in this way. So I don't disagree that one of the outcomes of the responsibility attribution can be alliance alliance e. And in fact, the other way around, where if you're already interested in having an alliance, uh go aga go after these people, there's an appetite for, just like there's an appetite for disgust, to even hallucinate disgust, it's to hallucinate

responsibility or blame, right? To in order to for then to be a basis of ganging up on them. So um so no, I don't think it's a good thing. So what what led to blame and responsibility is a way to pinpoint causality. Well I think cause in like a tube way to highlight causality is just the um it's a what the mind is doing is highlighting a leverage point in changing behavior. It's not the full nexus of of causation. So you know, when if I if I pick up a cup and pour it over, we focus on like, you know, pour the pour the water out or the coffee out. The thing that will change that happening again is convincing me and my planning and representational systems not to do that, not to like, you know, um uh you know,

boycott the person who made the mug or see. I see it as you pour something over the mic and you cause it, you cause the mic to get wet. Yeah. And there that's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. You bring in a third party. He's responsible for ruining that. Like I I'm I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna have I'm gonna think about what you're saying. But my point is is that why what what else what else do why what's why the extra colorful language? I guess is all I'm saying. It seems to be interesting, colorful language rather than this is what happened. Like let me explain to you the cause and event. Like you did this and then this is what happened. Like and and so don't do that again. Right. Why why this extra layer of is it it does it does it come for free?

Is it just extra? Are they synonyms? I don't know. That's I guess my that's what I see. I see. I think that's yeah, no, no, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Very deep into the weeds. No, it's fun. It's fun to think about. I mean, it's almost co-opting this language of ownership. Like to be responsible for an action is almost to own the action as a possession in the same way that, you know, if I uh have, you know, I I'm responsible for the behavior of my dog. If my dog bites you, I'm responsible. I own the dog. Um, and so I'm you know I should be held responsible if the dog bites you. Um and it's almost like applying that ownership psychology to the behavior itself. The way I'm thinking of it and translating your ideas in my head, Dave, is just to have

free will and to be responsible for my actions is just to be responsive to incentives. And if I am responsive to incentives, then it makes sense to incentivize me. It makes sense to offer rewards and punishments to change my behavior. And if I'm not responsive to incentives, if I'm just behaving compulsively or helplessly or under the influence of a drug or or someone who has a gun to my head, then it makes no sense to offer rewards and punishments because they're going to have no influence on me. So what it means to be free and responsible is it is to be the type of agent that is sensitive to the types of rewards and punishments that other can others can offer. Um is that basically what what you're saying, Dave?

Yeah, I mean, it's it's there's actually a definition of free will that is reasons responsiveness. And the idea is, I mean, the the paper, the core idea is that why free will, what free will is, is sort of a representational entry. It's not an objective feature of the world. And it's a representational entry that's basically assessing to what extent what we're calling an intentional intervention, which is sort of appealing to motivations, goals, desires, those kinds of things, either in you or in a third party is effective. So the degree to which an intentional intervention is effective, that is what the free will representation. I mean, I don't think in the evolved system it's it's like tagged as the free will system.

But I think when people talk about free will, in large part it's a result of that system and that representation of the efficacy of intentional interventions for yourself and others. And a concomitant of that, or one way to explain why reason's responsiveness is part of the theorizing and the debate about free will, is exactly what you've said, which is that if um if i'm doing something uh i have free will about it if i have reasons for doing it and if you can change the reasons for why i'm doing something like let's say i have a certain political ideology and um the reason why i have it is for a certain reason x and you say actually if you're really interested in x you should have this other political i ideology right um to the degree that

I am right that I'm choosing political ideology because of X, I should be able to, you should be able to change my mind. Right. And so that's the idea that in a in I can, I'm free to change that. And I can even change my own, you know. If I say I really care about X, um, like let's say I'm devoted to my government um and I'm free to choose to do that. And then somebody convinces me my government isn't good. If I if I still feel like, oh, for some reason I still can't, you know, be be disloyal to my government. I mean, I don't experience myself as free. Like there's something compelling me that isn't me, right? Within me. Or like, you know, my own deliberation, motivation, reasoning systems are not

under the control of this motivation system that's sort of autonomous from me. And it's just compelling me to be like loyal to my government, even though I don't want to be, meaning like the I, meaning like these planning and motivational systems. So um so yeah, reasons responsiveness, the idea behind why that is coming up in free will, and that's not our idea about reasons responsiveness, but it's that it's it's ultimately informing it's what it's because it's about this adaptation for assessing this efficacy of intentional interventions, if that makes sense. I I just want to I'm gonna throw at the same time I totally agree with Deb that this psychology is often co-opted and exploited by coalitions.

Oh totally. Yeah. Yeah. I well I actually I just in the spirit of entertaining all hypotheses here, my particular, I mean like I'm having a hard time moving off the position of the more parsimonious explanation of I need in order to coordinate people, I need to have them enter the matrix. And the matrix is everyone gets to choose. And if we all agree everyone gets to choose, then anyone can be gone after. Because I have to make sure that I get away from as far away from the idea that of a causal physics in order to ensure that I have every right to be able to go after everyone. And free will is the motherlode of like it just basically says you could have chosen otherwise, and that is anything goes now.

And so the idea, as soon as I can get everyone to agree that everyone can choose, that's it. Interesting. Then then my coordination, then the coordination psychology takes off, right? Because then it's as if as soon as you're like, well you couldn't choose. And so that's an interesting part, like, you know, people don't like people who wanna rail against gays, they don't like to hear like they couldn't choose that, just like you didn't choose heterosexuality, right? They don't they're like, Man, I don't like that argument. And so I I mean, but the idea like they couldn't choose, and it's like that prevents them from coordinating. Yeah. So and and I just I find that interesting. So, anyway, so that's that's my only that was that's where I come to free will.

I know it's a very lovely, cheery side of free will, but I see it as the requirement for coordination. Yeah, cool. So anyway, it's almost like a god uh it's like a God of the gaps argument where like people try to put God into any uh area of scientific inquiry that we don't yet understand. Oh, God did it. And as soon as we understand it, then they they find a different gap to sneak God in. It's almost like what you're saying is um if we're trying to coordinate a coalition against someone, there are all these causal stories we could tell to uh uh cancel the uh the the justification for attacking that person. Um and we're looking for some gap to fit the justification into. And that gap is free will, just as y you know, w it's it's this area outside of causal

determinism that we can that's uncorruptible and that we can use that as a as a coordination point um for for going after this person. Is that basically what you're saying? Yeah, pretty much. Like I like in order to coordinate, it's like, let's see, disgust gonna work. All right, maybe not here, although it works everywhere. Anger, maybe fear, like you go down your list of stuff. And I think that just free will is one of those things that allows you to it's just like, you know, you could choose. It's like it's like the ultimate it's it was it's the ultimate kind of uh, you know, lightning rod, you know. It's the conversation stopper. It's the God did it, you know, be you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's interesting.

Well, I I really look forward. We haven't had a lot of that kind of conversation. That's a topic that just has not been in any journal for a while. It's going to be exciting to see what happens. And so uh, and hopefully some philosophers will chime in too. Too bad Dennett's not around. Yeah, Christian Liszt has some great work, and we we actually talked to him. We had went back and forth a lot, and he's a big fan of this work. So I look forward to it. And I'm looking forward to, I know you know David is one of the other people doing this, um, is sort of the evolutionary psychology of philosophy of mind. Like I really think that the fact that all of philosophy and most like a lot of philosophy is predicated on ideas prior to the

notion of how information gets into phenotypes over multiple generations. So a lot of it was sort of stuck with like, what what does a blank slate, what can a blank slate know by the time it dies, right? Like just with an individual lifespan. And so if you read like even um Hume, for example, a lot of the ideas of Hume, if you actually read association not as a within lifespan time, but but sort of this idea of over multiple generations, it's actually like of psych, right? So in other words, like there's a lot of prior to Darwin without understanding how historical time can show up in organisms, there's a lot of ideas that once you just add that, oh no, multi differential reproductive success is how

structure gets into the individual phenotype. I think a lot of philosophical issues sort of change. And I think there's this enormous um um thing still to be done of sort of um integrating evolutionary psychology with philosophy of mind, not just for like feckless uh bookkeeping reasons either, but like there's tons of studies that are predicated on, like, for example, there's all these LeBay studies on free will. And one of the things we point out in our paper is like these might all just be for nothing. Um, for example. So it's like, you know, more money than you or I or all three of us have ever gotten, and grants have been spent on the neurocognitive activity prior to a decision for this label

study, and it might not be for any good reason, right? So these have important theoretical implications or like empirical implications too. So I look forward to that as a new area. Absolutely. Can I can I ask? I know that we're probably going to need to wrap up soon, but I just want to ask the two of you, like where you see the field of EbSight going. Like, what are you most excited about in addition to the things you just talked about? Uh I would echo I would echo Dave's uh I would echo Dave's excitement about um using evolutionary psychology to shed light on philosophy and philosophy of mind. I see a large part of the discipline of philosophy as you know uh making arguments that appeal to intuitions, uh where while the philosophers are uh in the dark about the origins

of those intuitions. Uh and I think the the best way to do philosophy is to figure out where those intuitions come from. Uh and only then can we say whether we should uh you know trust these intuitions or but not these ones, right? We need to actually do some good evolutionary psychology to figure out uh where these intuitions are coming from. Um there's an interesting uh so I'm I'm bringing this into the the study of consciousness, for example. Uh the philosopher David Chalmers uh talks about the hard problem of consciousness, which is how does consciousness arise from mere brain activity? Um, and he also talks about the meta problem of consciousness, which is why does it seem like there's a hard problem?

Why do we have these intuitions that brain activity and consciousness are fundamentally different things? And so I think the way to solve the hard problem is to first solve the meta problem. Um, and I think that is true of uh all if not you know most or or all of philosophical problems, uh that we need to first translate them into meta problems and solve them, and then we can begin to solve the actual problem. Um so I'm excited about uh you know Dave's work, the evolutionary psychology of psychology, the evolutionary psychology of philosophy and our philosophical intuitions. I would love to see the field do more mathematical modeling and more and more game theory. I know uh we we had Dan Conroy Beam and Bean on, and he was uh you know he's an evangelist

for for more math modeling in the field, and I think he's right, and we need to uh do more of that. Um what else am I excited about? Um those are those are the two big ones. Um I I I want I want evolutionary psychology to take over uh in addition to philosophy, I want it to take over political science. Um there are there are too few uh evolutionary uh minded people in in political science. I'm trying to change that. I tried to change that with my paper uh on on the alliance theory of political belief systems, but I think there's much more work to be done there. Do you go to any A SI um conferences? Like is that something that you're may I've been I was invited to a couple of them I ultimately decided not to go but I I'm maybe maybe I'll try to uh go there and uh and you

know spread the good word of uh of what what what would John do um but uh yeah I'm excited about that I think uh economics I think we we should bring more evolutionary psychology into economics. Uh consumer behavior, rationality, you know, uh uh there, I mean the sky's the limit. Anything that stems from a human is ultimately within the the purview of evolutionary psychology. Humans are animals, they're products of the Darwinian process. Anything that comes out of a human has to be uh subject to uh evolutionary psychological reasoning. I mean people people talk about it as as reduction reductionism or reductionism gone too far. I don't view it as reduction at all. It's it we're already animals.

Like that there's no reducing. Like the human mind already is an evolved organ that's been shaped by natural selection. There's no reducing to do, right? It's all there on the surface. We just gotta, you know, take the right lens to view it. Um if we change their vocabulary from reduction, if someone if anyone says that to you, I say that sounds like you're denying it. I think that's that's how you kind of get them off that. Right. So it's like, are you denying that there's a because I think that's all that we I need to ask. And then like, well, no, like well me neither. So we're on the same page. It matters. So no I think the political science, Casey Klofstadt is here at UM. Uh, and he's a he's one of the very few political scientists, I think, that has and well,

in addition to Michael Bang Peterson, sir. Michael Bang Person. Yeah, he's knighted. We've never had a knight on um, unless you're knighted, Deb. I um are can women be knighted? Is that a strange question? That's not a that's a very good question. And if not, that's a problem. What could we be if not knighted? Somebody's gonna have to Google that. Don't think I'm not gonna ask as soon as we get it. Yeah. Okay, sorry. Yes. Um have no titles. Yeah. Those are great, those are all great directions. And so uh, you know, in the like I said, I'm stepping down from EHB in uh I think I have like another year and a half or something like that. I think it's technically two years, but in a year and a half, I think I'm gonna have to

bring someone else on to at least help train them up. Although it's like like I said, it's not, it's not that hard. Um it's just time, a lot of time. And so uh but if you in the meantime in the next 18 months you want to put something together on this philosophy, political science, economics, even a hodgepodge of ideas or evolution evolutionary psychology into the future, like, you know, please take me up on that offer. I'm concerned that the next whoever takes it over after is is not going to take the time to to do some of these special um features. And so I really want to kind of um take full advantage while I am while I'm doing it. So if you if you if you have any ideas, I I really am all ears.

But again, even bringing people in who might not get it right, bringing them in for the conversation and have the have it be a conversation, or picking one person in the field of philosophy or economics or political science. Let's write a paper and let's go back and forth, have some commentary just to kind of see whether or not there's any um there's anything that we can take from it and any any anything that can be used, you know, for re programs of research or future work or whatever. So think about it. And also pass it along to other people that on the, you know, that you find are saying some interesting stuff who might not be exactly evolutionary, but are interested in learning. Awesome. How about start keep the conversation going?

We have uh one question we usually ask towards the end, um, sometimes as a stumper, which is uh, is there anything we should have asked you? I think we went from like one end to the other. I mean we covered uh we covered a wide range of related free will. Yes, you actually there is something you should have asked me. You didn't ask me about tears. Tell us about tears. No. Oh, you're gonna make tears. Um have you had Daniel on here? Uh we we plan to. We plan to. Yeah. But uh no, the dance newser's great. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you I'll tell you one of the what I mean, this is why being at EHBU is so fun, is because uh Asmir uh Gorsanin, I don't know how to pronounce his last name, so I apologize for messing that up, but he he's done a lot of work on tears and he was talking

about how emotions, um, having adding tears to emotions makes them a little bit easier to recognize and so forth. But I was reading through his paper and it dawned on me like this is WTR. Like it was just like I it struck me over the head, and I'm like, but I have no time to do it. So I like, Daniel, like you want to start a project because he's so good at thinking about stuff and putting stuff together and writing stuff up. And so, but basically, the idea is that, you know, what are tears? You know, we kind of never really had an evolutionary idea of what tears were, but it's like the it's it's the opposite of the scream and the yell, which can be used for good and bad, but tears can be the kind of signal positive and negative sorts of things.

But the question is tears do seem to be a signal of either value or benefit kind of thing, depending on the particular uh context. So it's just an amplitude. Um it it's an it's the amplifier for the low leveraged. Isn't that awful? But I think that's true. Interesting. That's a really nice example of taking a really an an obvious thing and not accepting we don't know about it and trying to push on what's up with tears. Yeah. So the idea is that everything ranges from negative to positive value for me psychologically. And what tears are is signaling uh the tails of that distribution, the two extremes, either extreme positive value or extreme negative value. Is that the idea? Yes. But it's only it's it's not, it's, but it's communicating, you're imposing a lot of costs

on me. And I don't have the physical leverage as, you know, or you know, the formidability, the attractiveness, or the status or whatever, in order to kind of convince you to stop. And so it's basically a signal of, you know, don't hurt me more. Like I and I, it's intense. Like you've intent, like otherwise, if I'm big and I'm and I can bop you over the head, I'm not gonna use tears. I'm gonna use my I'm gonna scream, I'm gonna use my permidability and I'm gonna deny you benefits and all that. So impose costs. So I would say that the lower leverage person who is kind of caught in a situation um that tears communicate the imposition of costs. And I also think that on the positive side of things, you know, the

intense happy ingratitude sorts of things also tend to be done by, I'll have to think about the the similar kind of um the similar explanation in terms of the lower leveraged, but it does seem to be that, you know, you don't you have it does seem to be that people of lower leverage, by which I will define as smaller arm like circumference or something like this have small arms kids you know they're gonna be more likely to weep at the positive right and so and I would say as a so if you've ever seen a very like strong man like begin to cry like or or or like tear up it is it's it means it like it's either it's really on the tail ends of either good or bad and it's substantial. Like it's something things are extremely bad.

Like or extremely good. But my point is that, you know, but the idea that, you know, weepiness is a kind of thing for the is typically left for the lower leverage. So you really have to be out leveraged and uh in order to make a very large formidable beast so it's the i the the interaction of extreme value and low leverage i think so i think that's exactly interesting so if you're writing fiction i can't help but oh sorry david go ahead i was just gonna say like if you're writing fiction a king crying would be would be interesting but a little kid crying would not be and it's social emotions right so it's not like your hamburger really disgusts you and you're gonna cry right it's not it's not the so it's even disgust you can partition out when to expect

it so social disgust you know versus a pathogen disgust that is um, you know, like a hamburger. Like you're not gonna, even though it could be intense, like it that would be like satire, like seeing someone cry at their hamburger, right? And so it could be that your parent didn't value you enough to make you the hot dog. Like that could be why you're crying about the hamburger, but it's not the right. So uh it's interesting. Yeah, no, it's definitely communicative. And I I can't help but ask this this question. I know we ha we're we have to wrap up, but I'm uh I have uh fun an inkling of of suspicion here of the story. So um you're crying. So I'm let's say I'm hurting you in in some way. Uh may maybe I'm I'm bad mouthing how horrible evolution in human behavior is and how much

of a terrible job you've done with it over the years. Uh and you're and you're weeping, right? Probably not, but go ahead. No, you probably wouldn't. You're you're one of the ballsiest people I know. I'd try. You're more formidable than me. I I'd probably be the one weeping. Um so so you're you're weeping and uh and and uh the the tears make me stop and and apologize, right? Why? Why should that work? Like what what they do What reason do I have as the signal recipient to respond to that signal. Uh to the extent that you value my welfare at all. So you won't care if you don't value my welfare at all. Right. So I actually, so I like to go very far out on the ledges, and this is not where I want to

end it. So we'll bring it back to probably something positive. But I was I you think about the like the the uh I was watching Black Mirror. So you think about these crazy people who are like doing such awful things, but like the the BTK, like the crazy killers who like get these girls and then like they do awful things and they kill them, like these girls are crying. Like they they're probably like everything's funny. I don't even care. Right. So the tears aren't doing anything. So like if I don't have any empathy or idea of your welfare or any, you know, I don't care about your your, you know, it's to me, it's funny. You know, it's like strange, that's a strange kind of reaction to be having.

Like you think I care. Like, you know, like um and so that's gross. Yeah. I know, I know. No, no, but I'm saying like that's an example of morality, disgust right there. I just felt the the verse, the the use of morality using disgust and morality. But no, that's right. Yeah, yeah. I see. So it's a okay. So it's a signal of the m the magnitude of the harm I'm inflicting you that I might not have been aware of. And it's really only gonna work on me insofar as I do value your welfare. And if I don't, the tears aren't gonna work. That's right. Okay. Interesting. Cool. So I mean, I mean, and that would be like if you ever saw your enemy crying, it's like hee hee hee. You know, it's not you know, it's like not that I've ever done that.

Yeah, here let me let me let me lick them. Ooh, taste those sweet tears. So yeah, like like the mugs of in the tears about engineering psychotic. We should sell those for speaking of monetizing. We'd make a lot of money. Yeah. I mean you talked at the beginning of the episode about you you had you fantasize about having the ski chalet and the Porsche. Maybe this is your ticket. Good throwback to you. I mean, I'm writing a textbook. Isn't that the way you do it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I hope so. That would be great. You know, it would be great if you can reflect on your life and you got the Porsche and the Ski Chalet and the sweet evolutionary psychology gig together. That would be plus I'm starting up a separate business that will hopefully bring in the

money and all the funding for our research. So that's no regrets. That's not that's wonderful. Yeah, we'll see you at H Mess. Um, one thing John Tuby always said was that as important as any of his theory papers, as good as they were, as long as they were were good, as as important as those were, the most important thing he produced was students. And Deb, you are one of those students and we uh that's like a a way of saying thank you for existing your work has been incredibly important um and the field would not be what it is if you did not exist so thank you for everything you've done and all your service to the field. Thank you. Well listen I I couldn't be more grateful. I mean how lucky are we that we get to do this so quite a life.

Um so thank you for having me on. It's been it's been a pleasure. We should do this every week. This was so fun. Yeah. Yeah. We're trying to do that. We'll have you back. I'm sure. We'll definitely have you back. David, uh, we finished up another episode and um we haven't had enough reviews. Um, so we're encouraging people to um submit content. Um, even mention, you know, like what you would like to have on the um Yeah. Uh if you have any ideas for topics, for bits, for people to bring on, anything you'd like us to do in an episode, if you, you know, want me to to sing uh I will always love you, um, I'm happy to do that. Just, you know, give us some feedback. Um I didn't know you oh yeah, you sing.

I didn't know that. Yeah, I'm I'm actually a a really great singer. Is that a joke or is uh for real? No, but you you do sing. You are a singer, aren't you? Like you did the music for this. That's true. But that was not s singing. That was that was synthetic instruments. But do you don't you when you were in another band, were you the singer in the band? I was not the singer. I actually don't have a very good voice. Um I can maybe muster a a a tune, but it's uh if we get if we get uh when we reach a thousand dollars a month, David will sing yeah Patreon. Totally. That's a great incentive for you. If if we make a thousand if we get ten whatever you want ten thousand, I will sing, and you really don't want that to happen.

I think we may have just disincentivized our listeners. I'm confused about how this works. So you want a good thing to happen. I'm confusing the carrot for the stick. Okay. Uh yeah. That's no, no, that's the thing. If you don't give on Patreon, I'll start singing. That's that's the there. There you go. Okay. Now we got now the incentives right. Okay, good. Okay. Now I understand how coordination works. Okay, good. Um got it. Um well thanks for listening, and uh we'll see you next week. Bye David. Bye