OK, I\'m here\'s my viewpoint. I\'m a scientist, no doubt, like many others here. Isolated \"hits\" don\'t mean anything to me. This happens with and without pheromones. Moreover, female interaction can be improved in many ways besides getting hits. My only question is whether pheromones improve our interaction with females in a subtle or pronounced way.
Regardless of James Kohl\'s criticisms, Winifred\'s Cutler\'s study is a step in the right direction. From what I understand, the study had subjects record a two week baseline on all types of interactions with members of the opposite sex (formal and informal dates, sex, conversation, etc.). Then one group received a placebo, and another group the phero product. Based on subsequent logs regarding interactions with members of the opposite sex, it can be statistically determined whether significantly more subjects in the phero group reported improved interactions on some dimensions. The improvement could be insignificant, small but stastically significant, or overwhelming.
Unfortunately, I can\'t do a blinded study with other people, so I just observe whether there\'s an overall improvement over baseline using an n of 1. If the improvement is subtle but real, I may never be convinced. There are many other factors like my mood, etc., that can affect my interactions with women.
I also do rely somewhat on forum feedback as, though I know it gives a biased perspective. The fact that people are reporting differences between products is actually more convincing evidence to me than the number of hits. If it were all placebo, I wouldn\'t have expected such different responses between products. Something is going on here...
The minimalist perspective makes sense to me, but the idea also worries me in some ways. Perhaps, pheros don\'t improve anything, but they may repel at high doses. Maybe, long-time phero users see improvements in female interactions when the dosage is lowered because the pheros don\'t repel as much. They would have seen the improvement if they had gone off the pheros all together! Reverse baseline!
Worse case scenario: Phero results are a balance between positive effects from placebo and negative effects from the phero smell. Minimalist manifesto brings the positive balance in your favor. =).
Bookmarks