Thanks, and also thanks for posting the link, which I have bookmarked for future
reading. However, a quick search on "pheromone' didn't bring anything up.
He very nicely told me about an early publication in "Nature," which politely
corrected me with regards to his ego driving his attempt go straight to the top and publish in a high impact
journal. Since he had already done so on another topic, I now better understand why he fought the peer-review
process. It also helps to have subseqently gone through the same fight, albeit with the reviewers and editor of a
journal with less impact.
I don't mind entertaining opposite views, but would add the caveat, from experience, that
people on both sides must be willing to discuss their differences. I have not had that experience here.
Another level of self-interest is marketing, though
this may extend past individuals to corporate entities.
I applaud Luca for setting up his blog, and also
understand why he ended it. Corporations are more interested in profit than having their researchers discuss issues
with others--even when its on the researcher's own time.
Unfortunately, no. When I saw that is was not related to pheromones, it deterred me from
purchase. I may rethink this after first reading a forthcoming book by Rachel Herz, whose focus also is more on
odors than pheromones.
Good close. I would argue, however, that
how our noses read them is not as interesting to me as the mechanisms set in place when we do read them--at least
for pheromones, if not all chemical signals. We will learn more about vibration theory and receptors during the next
few years, so there's no reason to wait to learn more about activation of the biological sequence of events that
links pheromones to behavior while we're waiting. That's why I sometimes have trouble abiding by the proponents of
soft science, who don't want to discuss any "hard" science perspective.
I'm biased by what is already known about
ligand-receptor interaction. Too much so to fully consider Luca's more vibrational theory, which is more
complicated and less well-detailed. I would need to learn more about another specialty area: physics before
venturing an opinion that would probably be feeble at best.
If you PM me, or contact me outside the Forum,
I'll send you the .pdf reprint of my most recent article, so that you might better understand my limitations with
regard to taking on another discipline.
James V. Kohl
The Scent of Eros
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