View Full Version : Edge smell confirmation
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 04:40 AM
Ok yesterday I
met the first person ever who could smell none really well. I know a few people who can detect a faint trace, but
this one could smell it really well. A few of us have been just sitting in a caffee on the town square and another
guy we knew came to join us. Because I am still researching the percentage and sort of people who can smell none, I
told him to smell my wrist. He said something to the extent of \"god damn it, that\'s like the monkey section in
the zoo\". I was kinda surprised that a guy could smell it while the girls couldn\'t. Later when he left, I was
told that he is gay, so maybe that\'s why?
belgareth
02-07-2004, 04:51 AM
How would
being gay affect his sense of smell? It might cause a different reaction but change the ability to smell none? I
doubt it. Gay people aren\'t inherently different in their olfactory senses, they just seem to respond differently
to a given stimuli.
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 05:20 AM
I would guess
they could be more sensitive to this sort of thing
belgareth
02-07-2004, 05:26 AM
Why?
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 05:35 AM
Well from my
experience, many gay people are more sensitive, either artistically, socially or they just have a keen eye or ear.
I\'m 100% straight but I have gay friends who are great when you need fashion advice, some of them are top artists
(this particular guy is an actor) too.
Sagacious1420
02-07-2004, 05:53 AM
I\'m
w/ you on this one, Bel.
belgareth
02-07-2004, 06:22 AM
</font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
Well from my experience, many gay people are more
sensitive, either artistically, socially or they just have a keen eye or ear. I\'m 100% straight but I have gay
friends who are great when you need fashion advice, some of them are top artists (this particular guy is an actor)
too.
<hr /></blockquote><font class=\"post\">
What does any of that have to do with a purely physical
phenomena?
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 06:23 AM
When they can
have more sensitive ears and eyes, why not noses?
belgareth
02-07-2004, 06:29 AM
</font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
When they can have more sensitive ears and eyes,
why not noses?
<hr /></blockquote><font class=\"post\">
How is an artist\'s eyes more sensitive? It is
perception, not sensitivity. An artist percieves and creates beauty but that by no means indicates their eye is more
sensitive. Only that their brain works differently. The same could be said of an engineer, because we see the subtle
differences in a pattern or structure that others don\'t see, are our eyes more sensitive? Not at all.
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 06:32 AM
We have the
pheromone perceiving organs in our noses as well, but we kind of don\'t use them. Same case.
belgareth
02-07-2004, 06:48 AM
You are
still confusing physical ability with mental perception.
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 06:51 AM
Aren\'t
they tied?
I would say the hardware isn\'t so different between people, it\'s the software that matters. Better
drivers /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
belgareth
02-07-2004, 07:01 AM
If the
hardware is so similar, why do I have to wear these damned glasses? Why can some people eat flaming hot foods and
others can\'t? The hardware variations are huge!
Sag! Help, please! Can you make this any more clear?
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 07:05 AM
I wear
glasses too. That\'s a defect, not a different product.
Flaming hot foods are the best example you could have
used against yourself /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Because that\'s hugely a matter of
training. If you start eating pepperoni and chilli, you will eventually get used to it. Nobody can start eating
vindaloo right away without sweating blood, but after a few years on curry, no problem.
belgareth
02-07-2004, 07:10 AM
I give up.
In my opinion, your argument has no merit but I refuse to discuss it any further unless somebody out there can come
up with a rational argumant based on reality.
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 07:14 AM
I was just
going to give it up too:)
In short, I believe senses can be trained and some people are simply lucky. Maybe it\'s
something hormonal, I dunno.
Sagacious1420
02-07-2004, 07:43 AM
Rakesh-
I must agree that your argument has no merit.
Bel-
I\'m not sure whether it\'s
due to his lack of understanding or he\'s simply attempting to argue his way out of the corner that he\'s backed
himself into. Either way, I see no point in any further attempts to get your point across.
The term
\"phantom logic\" comes to mind. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 07:45 AM
I\'m just
trying to come up with an explanation of my experience. It\'s a theory.
However, trainability of senses is a
fact.
Sagacious1420
02-07-2004, 07:48 AM
Whatever, dude.
Where\'s that \"rolling eyes\" graemlin when you need it.
</font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
I was just going to give it up too:)
In short, I
believe senses can be trained and some people are simply lucky. Maybe it\'s something hormonal, I dunno.
<hr
/></blockquote><font class=\"post\">
No. Sense of smell is one of the hard-wired functions, and is not related
to sexual orientation (which is also hard-wired). One example of excellent olefactory perception are the
professional \"noses\" who work for the perfume industries.
I have a friend-- straight, married father of two,
parole officer. Has an extremely developed sense of smell. He can name every, single ingredient in food, for
instance, and the proportions of each. He can also sometimes tell when people are ill.
Back when we lived in the
trees, we relied on our sense of smell. It deteriorated over time, but some people still have it.
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 08:09 AM
Still, I
believe it\'s trainable, to a certain degree.
There was a post in this forum a while back when somebody was
trying to train himself to smell none. Winemakers have to train their sense of taste and smell as well, even though
there are people who will never smell anything and people who smell everything without training. And then there\'s
the vast majority inbetween which has an average, but improvable sense.
This is probably not so much a matter of
improving the actual sensitivity of the organ, but knowing what to look for in the already perceived information.
This can be trained. I agree that there prolly isn\'t a way to add more sensory centers to your nose.
TopDawg2050
02-07-2004, 08:12 AM
Trainin
on bein a scientist rakesh? lmfao
Pancho1188
02-07-2004, 08:14 AM
I got you
covered, Belgareth...
What Rakesh is suggesting is that since he noticed that since a gay man could smell his
-mones, gay men some how are better at smelling -mones than everyone else. This is a fallacy. One term is false
generalization, but there are others. My favorite is correlation doesn\'t necessarily mean causation, but with
this incident there isn\'t even a correlation because it was one instance. However, to humor everyone, we\'ll
just say that you can\'t generalize a whole people based on one response and based on stereotypes. It\'s called
prejudice.
The fact that the man who smelled your -mones was also gay has no statistical basis unless you
polled thousands of gay men and thousands of straight men and found that significantly more gays could smell the
-mones than straights. I\'m sure JKohl is becoming an expert on the subject, and I\'m sure he could give you
the answer. However, I bet the evidence is lacking that gays somehow have a heightened sensory perception than the
rest of the human race. They are just people like everyone else, and the fact that they have \"Queer Eye for the
Straight Guy\" doesn\'t make them any better at fashion or anything else than straight men. Anyone can learn
about fashion and be stylish, it\'s just many people don\'t care... Many gays don\'t care about
fashion, either.
In summary, until you test at least 30 different gay men at random and 30 different straight
men at random and compare the differences between the percentages that smell -mones and find that there is in fact a
difference, there\'s no base for your argument.
However, as to try not to deter someone from posting their
ideas, I say keep experimenting and see what else you come up with. Just because one idea doesn\'t seem plausible
doesn\'t mean that your next one won\'t rock the pheromonal community.
Edit: Oh, and you\'re right
about one thing: you can train yourself to detect smells better, just as you can train yourself to do
anything. My fingers type lightning fast on this keyboard because I\'ve trained myself to know where the keys are
and what to type when. You can train your nose to smell different scents and detect certain smells better than
other people. This all, however, has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It\'s in all human beings, and some
are naturally better than others. The only difference in regard to race, sex, religion, and sexual orientation is
sex. Women are generally better than men with the sense of smell theoretically due to evolution. I don\'t know
how much that applies to -mones, though.
Good enough? Nice.
Pancho
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 08:24 AM
You are right
about the correlation and causation.
After testing the ability to smell none on about 20 people with no result, it
struck me as more than mere coincidence that the first person to smell anything was gay, considering the percentage
of homosexuals and the percentage of people who can smell none. It appears that after all, it was a coincidence. A
huge one, but only a coincidence. However, it seemed too huge at first so I tried to find an explanation. Go sue me.
Rakesh
02-07-2004, 08:30 AM
Hmm I got an
idea...
Let\'s make a poll here (this forum has a good number of registered users) and find out whether
hetero/homosexual males/females can smell pheromones.
Because I\'m really interested whether there is any
connection, and this is the quickest way to find out.
What do you say?
belgareth
02-07-2004, 09:27 AM
</font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
Edit: Oh, and you\'re right about one thing: you
can train yourself to detect smells better, just as you can train yourself to do anything. My fingers type
lightning fast on this keyboard because I\'ve trained myself to know where the keys are and what to type when.
You can train your nose to smell different scents and detect certain smells better than other people. This all,
however, has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It\'s in all human beings, and some are naturally better than
others. The only difference in regard to race, sex, religion, and sexual orientation is sex. Women are generally
better than men with the sense of smell theoretically due to evolution. I don\'t know how much that applies to
-mones, though.
Good enough? Nice.
Pancho
<hr /></blockquote><font class=\"post\">
Kari used a
good example about the guy who can smell everything in a food. My favorite hobby is cooking. While my sense of smell
is average I can detect the seasonings and most other ingredients in foods and can usually duplicate a recipe based
on that. It\'s simple training and a lot of years of practice. I can also detect none but didn\'t know it until
starting to play with mones.
belgareth
02-07-2004, 10:18 AM
</font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
I\'m just trying to come up with an explanation
of my experience. It\'s a theory.
However, trainability of senses is a fact.
<hr /></blockquote><font
class=\"post\">
Try applying Occam\'s razor. The simplest possible explanation is usually the most likely to
be the correct one. In other words, he is more sensitive to the smell of none than average. Nothing special about
it.
Gossamer_2701
02-07-2004, 10:25 AM
Great
discussion. I for one agree that one can train themselves to detect smells better, as I have trained myself to
smell none quite well. But that wasn\'t the original argument... uh.. I mean, discussion
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif It was that \'gay\' men can smell mones better than
\'straight\' men. I agree with most everyone here in the view that its an individual trait having nothing to do
with sexual orientation.
Oh, and great post Pancho /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Goss
</font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
Still, I believe it\'s trainable, to a certain
degree.
There was a post in this forum a while back when somebody was trying to train himself to smell none.
Winemakers have to train their sense of taste and smell as well, even though there are people who will never smell
anything and people who smell everything without training. And then there\'s the vast majority inbetween which has
an average, but improvable sense.
This is probably not so much a matter of improving the actual sensitivity of the
organ, but knowing what to look for in the already perceived information. This can be trained. I agree that there
prolly isn\'t a way to add more sensory centers to your nose.
<hr /></blockquote><font
class=\"post\">
Agree that it i also tainable. Not sure why an actor would do olefactory training for mones,
though.
Papageno
02-07-2004, 12:31 PM
Sucks being
unable to smell the -none.
I have an excellent sense of smell, but the smell of TE... seems nothing more than
alchohol. Tried practicing with drying it on paper...just don\'t know what to smell for
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