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You And Me Baby Ain't Nothing But Mammals: Disgust, Evolution, And The Transcendence Of An Immaterial Soul, Sara G. Gottlieb

Psychology Honors Projects

Materialist theories of mind are disturbing for those who endorse the idea that an immortal soul is distinct from the material body. Many argue for a uniqueness of the human spirit that transcends bodily qualities. The present research focuses on the rejection of human evolution from the perspective of disgust, which has both a physical (body) and moral (soul) component and is elicited by objects that remind us of both death and animals. Study 1 asked whether those primed to feel disgusted would show an implicit preference for creationism over evolution on an Implicit Associations Test but failed to find …