Edge smell confirmation

[Rakesh]

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]

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]

I would guess

they could be more sensitive to this sort of thing

[belgareth]

Why?

[Rakesh]

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]

I\'m

w/ you on this one, Bel.

[belgareth]

</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]

When they can

have more sensitive ears and eyes, why not noses?

[belgareth]

</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]

We have the

pheromone perceiving organs in our noses as well, but we kind of don\'t use them. Same case.

[belgareth]

You are

still confusing physical ability with mental perception.

[Rakesh]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Whatever, dude.

Where\'s that \"rolling eyes\" graemlin when you need it.

[Kari]

</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]

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]

Trainin

on bein a scientist rakesh? lmfao

[Pancho1188]

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]

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]

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]

</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]

</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]

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

[Kari]

</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]

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