Pheromones

[Flyndaran]

From the very article you linked.

"Researchers (as well as fragrance companies) have been hoping to find a human sex pheromone for decades, but so far the search has failed..."

Again, being able to smell things is not the pheromones this thread is about. It's just basic olfaction.

I could identify people and pets by scent alone. Some smelled better than others, but none of that was pheromonal.

That's like saying finding someone visually pleasing requires a light emitting neurotransmitter.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Transhuman Space - Bioroid Bazaar, p.6 suggests 'Perfume Glands' as a more realistic form of Pheromone Control. Basically, it's giving a racial bonus to Sex Appeal that's Scent based.

I think that TL9+ pheromone tech has about as much in common with the TL7 conceptions of pheromones as a TL9 LASER rifle has in common with the rifling on a musket, despite sharing the name. But of course the name got people to nitpick it to death, resulting in this suggestion of a retcon in TSBB.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Modric

Hi all. I'm looking to develop a race for a DF game where the women have a pheromones that they use to seduce/ control men. Any thoughts how to structure this? Possible an innate attack advantage?

I realize you're probably long past the point where you need anymore advice, but you got me thinking, especially in light of the "realistic" Bio-Tech rules for pheromone control. As such, this is less a suggestion for you and more a general question:

What about just making it a species with a high level of Appearance except with the necessary modifiers to make the character's "attractiveness" scent based? Then having the characters use skills like Sex Appeal to manipulate others (again, based on the scent)? Too subtle for Dungeon Fantasy? If it was a less heightened reality, would this be a decent option?

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Humans don't have pheromones. Our vomeronasal organ is completely vestigial and doesn't even connect to the nervous system for most of us.

I am in no way claiming expertise in this manner but do we know at what point in humanity this organ became vestigial? I confess to being somewhat skeptical, due to all the examples of vestigial organs in humans I learned in school later being revealed to not be vestigial organs. You had things where we didn't understand its actual purpose (the appendix) or things that were actually developmental defects mistaken as something else ("tails" on humans).

It is different if modern humans have no capacity to detect pheromones whatsoever, not even a vestigial organ. Actually, even a lack of a receptor for pheromones wouldn't prove they didn't exist, just that they too are vestigial and not responsible for claims that they influence the behaviors of others. Or did I miss something? >.>

[Flyndaran]

That some of us even have a vestigial vomeronasal organ isn't that old of news. But it can't have an effect if it's not connected to the nervous system.

Sadly, I doubt it's at all possible to determine when our ancestors lost use of such a small tissue. Unless they determine genes for primate pheromones, and then backtrack how long they've been mutating from lack of use.
Even then such genetic time keeping isn't super accurate.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Otaku

It is different if modern humans have no capacity to detect pheromones whatsoever, not even a vestigial organ.

We have genes for a vomeronasal organ, but they're broken. They're just as broken in cappuchin monkeys and in gorillas. There's no remnant physical structure beyond a structure that's homologous to the vomeronasal organ that is only visible at the fetal stage. We also go through a period in the womb where we have structures homologous to gill arches - that doesn't mean adult humans secretly have gills, as those gill arches have turned into our jaw bone and middle ear. The tissue doesn't finish development into the organ, and only looks like the prototype for a vomeronasal organ for a while, before being pruned away instead of completing development. If any part of that structure is left in a baby (I've seen no reports one way or the other), it probably works about as well as your ears do for breathing water. If it's still there at all, it's gone by the time we get to sexual maturity.

--

Extant vestigial organs do do things; every part of an organism "does" things. Vestigial organs are remnants of larger structures that can no longer perform their original (often but not always) essential function, and have been reduced to an interesting side-note because there is not enough evolutionary pressure to keep it.

Your appendix is definitely a vestigial organ. Just because it can act as a (mediocre) shelter for a sample of your gut biome in the face of digestive disturbances doesn't mean it's good enough at this function (nor is this function required often enough) for it to matter much to humans. Humans without appendixes don't have a significant reduction in reproductive success. There's not even a major active pressure against the appendix and its becoming-infected-ways any more because of modern medicine.

Vestigial organs are specifically structures that used to be pretty good at things, and are still good enough at things in other animals that they're being well retained, but in one lineage just aren't contributing significantly to survival any more.

If we have any remnant of the vomeronasal organ itself, it's so small that it's embedded in the bones of our face and can't get in contact with chemicals in order to detect them. It might be doing something if its in there, but it's definitely not doing the same thing it does in my cat.

--

We can still pick up chemicals through our sense of smell and taste, but those senses are NOT the same as the use of the vomeronasal organ, which is neurologically different and derived from different genes rather than splitting off from either sense. We can certainly be affected by smells - some smells make you happy, some smells remind you of people you don't like, etc. but these are learned associations. Some smells have a strong low-level response in humans, but they're not used by other humans to communicate - we hate the smell of rotting meat, vegetation, and feces because we can get sick if we eat it or handle it... and it's a smell not a pheremone, which means that people who have to handle rotting meat or feces regularly don't have the same level of reaction to it (they don't have like it, but they go about their jobs without barfing).

I'd totally believe that humans exude chemicals that do manipulate other humans somewhat. But they have to do it via a distinctly second-class channel to the vomeronasal organ, so it's not reliable - too much of the learned responses are mixed in. The sad-movie tears reduced arousal in a statistical sample of the group, but it didn't kill everyone's boner feelings completely, and it wasn't delivered in the normal context and realistic amounts.

Old-people smell is recognizable, but it doesn't protect elders from abuse. Baby smell is very distinct, but it doesn't protect infants from abuse or neglect, and it doesn't make everybody want to pick up and nurture babies. You can't cover a baby chimp in human-baby-smell and have a human mother immediately bond with it (she may bond anyways, but that's because humans can even bond with a volleyball with a smilie face drawn on it).

What's left in our[1] responses to airborn chemicals is too entangled with our psychology to compare to pheremonal response in other animals. It might nudge someone who was on the line into "OK, I like them" or "Ok, I don't like them". It's below GURPS' resolution.

[1] And by "our" here, I mean "the entire group of primates missing the vomeronasal organ". This isn't special human pleading.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by artichoke

I'm not sure about that (bolded). Although a creature affected by pheromones may becomes more pliable in general, it seems typical for that creature to actively seek the specific source of the pheromones. I just watched a documentary about Atlas silk months. When a female emits the pheromones a male will fly from miles away to find her.

I was talking specifically about how the ability in BioTech functioned. Moths follow a pheromone to the source because they have a good enough sense of smell to do so, and thus this makes the female moth easier to find. The rough equivalent in humans (if pheromones work) would be for the user to release pheromones into a dark room, then light a lantern (red shutter optional) to make herself more visible.

Originally Posted by artichoke

Recent research also found that the "beer googles" effect extends to homosexual attraction involving heterosexual men.

I'm pretty certain pheromones and being stupid-drunk are very different things.

[Otaku]

Bruno, thank for explaining.