Imagine you are dining at a friend’s home. Your host is excited because she has prepared a special dish for you. When dinner is finally served, you are surprised to see a whole egg on your plate and when you open the egg, you are even more surprised to see this:
That’s balut, a dish of [...]
Tags:ablution·atheism·aversion·balut·cleansing·contagion·disease·disgust·Erika Salomon·fairness·filth·germs·Gross Gods·Icky Atheism·ingroups·Jesse Preston·Koran·outgroups·pollution·priming·Quran·Richard Dawkins·Ryan Ritter·The God Delusion
What makes people pay large sums of money for apparently mundane objects such as JFK’s golf clubs ($772,500 at auction) and rocking chair ($453,500)? Although a portion of the price is related to investment value, this cannot account for the exorbitant amounts paid for these items. Something else is at work. According to a recent [...]
Tags:Adam Biran·Adolph Hitler·association·Camelot·celebrity objects·Charles Manson·contagion·Darwinian medicine·dirt·disease·disgust·essence·fetish·fetishes·George Newman·germs·Holy Grail·Holy Prepuce·immune response·immune system·intuitive microbiology·Jeffrey Dahmer·JFK·Journal of Consumer Research·kosher·magic·medicine bundles·memorabilia·murderabilia·parasites·pathogens·Paul Bloom·relics·sacred objects·Shroud of Turin·Spear of Destiny·Steven Pinker·transitive property·Valerie Curtis
By my reading of history, the turning (or tipping) point for humanity was the domestication of plants and animals, otherwise known as the Neolithic Revolution. Before this occurred — at different places in the world at different times, beginning approximately 12,000 years ago and largely the dominant mode of production by 5,000 years ago — [...]
Tags:agriculture·civilization·demography·disease·domestication of plants and animals·environmental destruction·foragers·hunter-gatherers·Lakota·Marshall Sahlins·Native Americans·Neolithic Revolution·Original Affluent Society·Paleoterrific·Pandora's Seed·Paul Rincon·population explosion·sedentism·sickness·specialization·Spencer Wells·Stone Age Economics·stratification·surplus
