Sniffing out the truth (New Scientist Opinion)
My colleague, Richard L. Doty provides a synopsis of his book “The Great Pheromone Myth.” With 20 comments posted, including mine, no one seems to agree with his take on this topic. He may be left defenseless, unless someone can help. Does anyone else think that mammalian pheromones are a “myth”? Comments may still be open. Here’s mine:
Knowing the truth when we see it (comment #20)
Minimally, using Doty’s logic, we must wait until someone details which combination of visual cues affects what part of the brain that links the stimuli to the elicited behavior. If not, how can we say we are visually attracted to the visually appealing physical features of other people when we don’t know what features elicit our response or how they elicit any endocrine or behavioral response?
I have absolutely zero backround in biochemistry but I have seen time and again just how the magical mystical molecules I’ve sprayed on seem to change the behavior of others (as well as myself)!
I think that Dr. Doty would attribute the changes to the power of suggestion in humans, or perhaps to statistical analyses. But that leaves his approach hanging unless he can explain how the power of suggestion is influencing non-human animals, or why the statistical power of studies on thousands of other animals shows us something that does not happen in humans.
Firstly, my own experiences and secondly the experiences of thousands of people here on this forum is enough proof for me. Although I’m sure the scientific community would argue that is simply Anecdotal evidence and based purely on placebo. My reply to that would be, that even the scientific method has to rely on the interpretation of subjective experience in order to reach an objective “fact”.
Investigating pheromones with the scientific method, must be a murky area as there are just so many variables, i,e; the interpretation of body language is highly subjective, the interpretation of behaviour and how it may differ to usual non-pheromone effected behaviour is a subjective, personal assessment, and so on. All the things we use to prove - or convince - ourselves that pheromones work can easily be dismissed by the scientific method because they are highly subjective. To truly prove human pheromones scientifically, a different approach would be needed, like the measurement of brain activity when exposed to certain molecules - I could write on the back of a post card what I know about this subject though so I’ll leave it there.
Anyway, I used to totally, 100% believe in science. And everything that contradicted it was wrong in my eyes. Science has always fascinated me. I’m a very logical, yet quirky person. I’m Einstein minus all the genius. But the past few years has seen some erosion of my previously, unquestioned belief in science. With my personal view on: pheromones, subliminal, Chinese medicine, but in particular spirituality (or as it really is the investigation into conciousness). The main scientific beliefs on those subjects seem to contradict my own personal experience.
Science widely accepts that new born’s are born with a transpersonal state of conciousness, yet don’t consider what mystics have been saying for thousands of years that the transpersonal state is the natural state of conciousness - not a brief state before the self/ego is manufactured. In fact science can tell us very little about conciousness and how it fits in with the rest of matter/the universe. I’ve gone way off topic, but the point I was trying to make was that the scientific method gets tricky and muddy, when subjective experience is needed to prove something as fact - after all I can only see and determine ‘truth’ with my own subjective eyes, not anyone else’s. The same applies to everyone. I can emphasise with the apparent, mild frustration Ken Wilber shows here when talking about the scientific method and it’s application:
I can understand that the placebo affect might have something to do with it but at least for me personally, if I’m testing a putative that I have no information on and others have the same experience it does seem to validate things for me.
I’m not in the business of proving or disproving things to others (come to think of it, providing proof is my business just in a different way) but I do know that the pheros have made a positive impact in my life and that is good enough for me.
Great comments; wish I had more time to address them all. For now, just wanted you to know that the subjective interpretation of body language is made more objective by something called inter rater reliability (IRR). Basically, the more people who rate the body language on a standardized scale the more likely you are to have IRR, which means that at least some of the raters agreed on what they observed. Flirtatious behaviors are an example. Timothy Perper and Monica Moore set the stage for additional observations of well-detailed behaviors. Add pheromones to a staged male/female interaction and if the flirtatious behaviors of the female change, you can explain that the change is probably due to pheromones. Eventually, you get enough feedback from peers to better define your goals, and repeat the study with additional control measures. Then, if you are so inclined, you publish your findings. I’m not so inclined, yet.
I could write a book about what I know, but I take the easy way out and put notes on my domain that address brain activation (for example–that occurs with androstenol). My colleague Ivanka Savic just published in an open access format on this, so you might want to read about her most recent work. You seem to be right on top of the theory, and how it is progressing to actual study findings that are very significant.
I am reminded of members of the sexology community who remain unconvinced that menstrual synchrony exists, which is something that Dr. Doty mentions in his book. For him, and a few others, the phenomenon of synchrony has nothing to do with human pheromones, it is merely a statistical misrepresentation of data. For women who have experienced changes in the timing of their cycle attributed to their associations with other women, there’s no question that it’s the pheromones. But they can’t prove it to the researchers. A colleague with a wife and 4 daughters learned to stay in the lab for about one week of each month during which the mood at home was less than friendly. But his anecdotal evidence counts for little, as does the anecdotal evidence from anyone – at least with most researchers.
Yeah, that makes sense. If enough people statistically agree on differences in body language or behaviour their collective, shared, subjective opinion become more ‘objective’. I guess you would need a lot of funding to carry out such a peer study large enough that it would actually carry enough weight to make a noise and get heard within the broad scientific community. As far as I understand funding for science is tight and hard to come by. It seems more and more that science - much like politics - is posturing towards media bias. A little bit cynical of me but it seems that if someone put in a petition for a grant to study:“the effects of pheromones on climate change” they would have millions thrown at them. Off course I’m only joking, but it does seem science sometimes can only get the money it needs when it meets either media or political agenda.
So having said that, respect must be given to your friend for his hypothesis that human pheromones don’t have an effect. At least he has got involved in a subject that the majority of scientists don’t seem to want to even give the time of day.
What has always struck me as odd, is that it seems reasonably easy to prove the effects that pheromones have on other species, be it insects or mammals but not to prove human pheromones. Like I said in my previous post, I know very little - hardly anything - about how you would go about scientifically proving pheromones, but I fail to understand why the method used to prove the effects of pheromones, in say pigs, can’t be directly transferred to prove the effects of pheromones in humans. Perhaps some peoples own humanness scares them a little - I don’t know.
I’ve bookmarked this and will take a look at it tomorrow, when I’ve got time. Thanks for the link.
It’s always great to hear from you, James. It’s one thing to be a member of the fledgling pheromone community, but it must be another thing entirely to actually be involved, and at the forefront, of the science side of it. Zeitgeist is constantly moving. Science has often criticized religion for been stuck in the past, but even the scientific Zeitgeist has to progress eventually or it risks becoming stuck in the past itself. I suspect in the not to distant future we’ll see a ‘pheromone-boom’ as they become more popular as social tools, and taken more seriously by the scientific community. You must be very proud of yourself to be at the forefront of all of that.
Its funny because the other day in Psychology class my teacher was talking for a couple minutes about Pheromins (This is the way she pronounced it). She said that this is how we signal to each other socially/ mating wise and that our accepting of people and choosing of partner’s was a more deep seeded process than simply looks/personality/ background. The most fundamental thing she said concerning pheromones was the fact that we spend so much time using products/ chemicals such as deoderant/ Axe and take so many showers using many different body wash and soap that our pheromins are pretty nonexistant as our paranoia to be clean has ruined the natural order of things.
At that point I wanted to go to her office and tell her about mones but I thought better not to because I know it would be hard to make her believe such a thing as synthetic pheromones.
I think your idea to watch/ measure brain activity (probably in the Hypothalamus area) would really shock scientists into seeing the effects of mones on a individual. From what you said earlier I agree, I don’t think any “regular” scientific method experiment could justify mones being real. Pheromones might as well be a religion in this respect because it isn’t as cut and dry as A + B = C or A x B = AB. Theres just nothing absolute about mones that make it solid enough like that of Newton’s laws or the boiling and freezing point of water. Although I think that if the whole world knew about mones that they won’t be as potent as we perceive them right now. That is a big fear of mine I’ll admit.
Heres food for thought on my part. In nursing homes where the folks there are usually quite decrepit and feeble minded (no offense to any grandparents anywhere) they always talk of the phenomena of using music to stimulate the minds of the individuals there in order to help them feel some enthusiasm/excitement/ some will to live. Music is a wonderful thing and has always been a stress reliever/ anti depressant of mine in its own way. I think mones have the potentiality of having this same effect on people who seem lifeless and full of pain due to mountains of different complications with many medications trying to maintain what they have left. I think doing a study specifically on these individuals by itself will lend a great deal to proving pheromones are just as apparent between humans just as they are with insects/ mammals.
It helps that I am already trusted by my colleagues. A small study is all it took to pique the interest of others who may someday attempt replication. I got funding from a consultant position I held temporarily, and a student researcher and her professor did nearly all the work. The study design was mostly my doing but the student followed up on suggestions by other experts at a conference presentation. She used her own grant money for a summer project.
I enjoyed the ruse.
I agree that the animalistic connection is frightening to some researchers. But it is even more likely that the “old schoolers” who were told there’s no such thing as human pheromones are reluctant to learn that they’ve missed such a huge influence on behavior during their academic careers. That’s a big “whoops” in many disciplines. But if these folks can make it to retirement, their students will be familiar with the new perspective, and progress can be made. Doty’s a bit of an old schooler, though at least he’s taken an interest in the new information. The problem is that he thinks his way out of any human pheromone research. Therein lies the problem in working with human subjects who think about how they should respond to various challenges in their social environment. We can’t control for the thoughts of others, and their thoughts influence their behavior.
I’m pleased with the expert status I’ve achieved, but consider myself more blessed than talented to have begun looking at behavior from a different perspective than most–at about the same time as things started moving forward with initial pheromone research. Now that some of the garbage research has been tossed out, I’m happier that I’ve stayed up on the latest developments. Minimally, I can compare my perspective with Doty’s and others like him at the Association for Chemoreception Sciences conference (next month). We had a few laughs last year, at the marketers expense. This year I’ll be asking him about some missing comparisons and data that didn’t make it into his book. It’s interesting that there is no mention of me or my work in his book. On the other hand, this may be because he really couldn’t discount anything I’ve done or written.
No more time for discussion here–at least during the next few days.
Dr. Doty has added a comment on disclosure. But he failed to mention his position with the company called Sensonics that markets smell tests. Whose commercial interests are most involved; someone who develops and markets products for testing the sense of smell, or someone who develops products for pheromone enhancement? I hate it when people imply that my commercial interests take precedent over the truth.
As Robert Anton Wilson put it, “The easiest way to get brainwashed is to be born.” You come out the womb a blank vessel, and then the programming of the neural algorithms that make up your mental landscape begin. Some of it is your own doing, but most of it comes from the disposition of your environment. Until you gain a self awareness of your ego structure and realize it can be altered at will.
