Perfuming Basics

[jvkohl]

Nice

review James.

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.

I've read

Turin's writing extensively and can understand his disinclination to follow the well-trodden path "within the

system". He's a maverick, and suffering fools lightly would not be one of his personal

characteristics.

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.

Not that his detractors or stonewalling adversaries are

fools, but it does seem somewhat foolish for anyone in any field to deny the possibility of others having valid

contributions and/or differences. I think its even more important to entertain views that are opposed to your

own.

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.

My dad was a research Engineer, and I grew up hearing about "Vested interests beat

out new ideas. Egos smother creativity. Personalities clash". Its just too bad that self-interest (and ego) trumps

open discussion and progress at so many levels.

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.

BTW, have you read Turin's

book? If so what do you think? Last I read he's working for a company that designs and manufactures chemical

scents.

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.

Close with a quote from Turin's book that has as much to do

with pheromones as it does with scent. "though we now know almost everything there is to know about molecules, we

don't know how our nose reads them." (emphasis his).

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.

PPS forgot to

ask, what's your take on Turin's vibrational theory?

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