'Quantum smell' idea gains ground

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
No, you aren't. You are acting self important giving me information that has nothing to do with my questions.

Giving you information you don't want to hear, because it contradicts what you want to be true, more likely.

As I explained, I had only just heard of Turin and the entire idea. I could care less about whether it's true or not. I would be very interested if you had any actual evidence one way or another.

Now who is emotional? I had never heard of Turin before today. Zero emotional investment. One person said unicorns, I guess due to your emotional investment that becomes the rest of the field. Here is what others have to say.

In addition to the repeated "I'm rubber and you're glue" arguments, you become very heated when any evidence to the contrary is presented.

Sorry, you are unable to elicit an emotional response because I care nothing about the topic or your opinion. I was in no way 'heated', I did find your pompous attitude revolting though.

Tim Jacob, a smell researcher at the University of Cardiff, said the work was "supportive but not conclusive".

"But the fact is that nobody has been able to unequivocally contradict [Dr Turin]," he told BBC News.

And according to Keller and Vosshall, "Whether because of skepticism or 'scientific conspiracy' (as alleged in the book and echoed in most reviews) his predictions have failed to generate empirical tests by other researchers", meaning, not many people have been interested in it enough to try contradicting him.

Lack of interest does not mean anything. How do you call yourself a 'professional' and believe interest has any bearing? The fact is Turin has not been contradicted, and Turin is not based out of someone's basement, but MIT. The wheel always turns more slowly at first. Pretty much every new idea works in the same way.

Columbia University's Richard Axel, whose work on mapping the genes and receptors of our sense of smell garnered the 2004 Nobel prize for physiology, said the kinds of experiments revealed this week would not resolve the debate - only a microscopic look at the receptors in the nose would finally show what is at work.

"Until somebody really sits down and seriously addresses the mechanism and not inferences from the mechanism... it doesn't seem a useful endeavour to use behavioural responses as an argument," he told BBC News.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing off this theory, but I need data and it hasn't been presented."

Another who sees no problem with the research, but doesn't think any behavioral response is enough to say either way.

And I agree with him. What I don't agree with is that deuterating substances does not cause steric changes - it does.

Yet you have failed at every opportunity I have given you to show the change is significant. If you really were a professional you would understand change is meaningless unless the change is significant. Significant in this case would mean the change is large enough to prevent the receptors from firing.

But, you know better than the experts, including a Nobel prize for physiology winner, who find no flaw with the study.

That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying it's equivocal, and doesn't properly determine anything, which again, I do agree with.

Wrong, that is what he is saying. He is saying the results do not matter. Only an examination of the receptors themselves will convince him. No behavioral test no matter how thorough or conclusive is enough in his mind.

Apparently you do since you liken the research that has been peer reviewed and has interested serious people who are well known in the field to a fringe non-scientific website. Either you do have a dog you are invested in, or you are just being a complete tool.

You are revealing your inability to read for understanding. Here, let me help you:

"It's not like I'm getting this stuff from Alex Jones, Educate Yourself or bibliotecalyapades."

You may note that I did not say "your cite is the equivalent of Alex Jones", when you disagreed with the differences in hydrogen bond lengths and angles in deuterated substances, I said that I am not getting my data from Educate Yourself or bibliotecalyapades. And I'm not. I understand on ATS that those are considered legitimate sources, but I am citing peer reviewed information.

Then why bring them up, since I cited legitimate peer reviewed information? The only explanation is you are linking my reference to those other references. Otherwise, there is zero reason to bring them up. Once again, it's your self important puffed up ego leading you to attempt to belittle someone else for no reason. Your arrogant attitude, as I said earlier, is quite revolting.

reply to post by darkbake


My thoughts exactly. Whether it is true or not I have no idea. It's very interesting that quantum mechanics appears to play a larger role in every day life than we thought. Photosynthesis is a great example of this as well.

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
I did find your pompous attitude revolting though.

What pomposity? You became angry when I stated that it was odd they'd say that deuteration doesn't change conformation. How DARE I question a paper! But it's a confounder. That's not pompous, that's being discerning.

Lack of interest does not mean anything. How do you call yourself a 'professional' and believe interest has any bearing? The fact is Turin has not been contradicted, and Turin is not based out of someone's basement, but MIT. The wheel always turns more slowly at first. Pretty much every new idea works in the same way.

If the fact is that he's not been contradicted, and no one's trying, it might not mean his idea is incontrovertible, but just uninteresting. You seem to be trying to state that it hasn't been contradicted because it's correct, when it's more a shortage of people trying. THAT is what I stated, and it's true. If you state that the moon is made of green cheese, and no one replies, it doesn't validate your conjecture.

Yet you have failed at every opportunity I have given you to show the change is significant. If you really were a professional you would understand change is meaningless unless the change is significant. Significant in this case would mean the change is large enough to prevent the receptors from firing.

In the case of ototopic receptors, again, it's not a condition of "prevent from firing" as much as "change the proportions of what fires". You at first denied that it did change whatsoever. I presented you with refereed papers that showed it did, and one that states the bond angles and lengths change 1 to 3% per bond, which you refused to consider.

Let's go farther and look at one cite you endorsed - the one about chiral molecules. That one alone should indicate to you that shape and not QM resonance is at least one sense modality going on, although it may be a combination of both.

That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying it's equivocal, and doesn't properly determine anything, which again, I do agree with.

Wrong, that is what he is saying. He is saying the results do not matter. Only an examination of the receptors themselves will convince him. No behavioral test no matter how thorough or conclusive is enough in his mind.

As we're basically agreeing here, you're just saying "YOU'RE WRONG!!" to be contentious. He's saying that the data is equivocal, and that the experiments don't tell you what you need to know. He's right. That's what I've been saying since the first post, when you went all non-linear because I didn't agree that the shape was retained and that the experiment was designed badly.

Then why bring them up, since I cited legitimate peer reviewed information?

(sigh) One...more...time.... you said that the bond angles and lengths changed only in some miniscule way which you refused to believe could be anything but trivial. I posted a legitimate peer reviewed refutation that they changed from 1-4% per bond. You then started squawking about why you had to accept ANYTHING that you didn't agree with, and I said "it's not like I'm getting it from alex jones". This is my way of trying to point out to you "I cited legitimate peer reviewed information". Apparently that's only valid to you when it agrees with your OP.

Look, I'm sorry your original story included a bald-faced confounder that wasn't addressed. There are at least some papers that refute Turin. They're peer reviewed too. The chiral molecule thing seems to spit in the eye of "QM and only QM". It's possibly both. My gripe, and it's the only one, is that the deuteration experiment is badly designed to prove that olfaction is solely QM. And the chiral molecule thing pretty much seems to obviate it for me as well.

That's my viewpoint of this thing. It could be both, but cannot be strictly QM. You may now have the last word.

reply to post by Bedlam


I never stated there was no shape change. I stated it was not significant. It only becomes a confounding variable if it is significant. You have not proven it is significant. The idea for using deuterium did not start with the QM side. Deuterium was used to REFUTE the QM side. The bar was set by the traditional side. The QM side believed the vibrational change was simply not enough for humans to detect, but proved flies could. They then set up an experiment using the same procedures as the traditional side and increased the vibrational difference.

If you have access to a paper refuting the QM side and proves shape change was significant I would love to see it, please link it. As I said, I have no vested interest either way.

As I showed, people ARE trying to contradict him. The quote was not no one is trying to, it's no one has been able to. The fact Dr. Vosshall published a paper trying to refute QM is proof of that.

The QM side is not saying QM and QM only. They are saying QM plays a role, that it is not SHAPE only. The Shape side is the one saying their side has all the answers and it's 100% shape 0% anything else. The QM side says shape matters, but it's not all that is at work, there is something more going on here.

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
If you have access to a paper refuting the QM side and proves shape change was significant I would love to see it, please link it. As I said, I have no vested interest either way.

Someone linked one upthread supporting you - it's the arxiv one. Since I don't know your level of understanding, I'm not trying to be insulting here when I explain it, if you know then maybe other posters do not:

Some molecules demonstrate chirality. This means that the same molecule comes in more than one shape, typically two that are mirror images of each other. Most amino acids, for instance, are chiral. Thus you get l-aspartic acid and d-aspartic acid, which are exactly the same structurally, with the exception that one is the mirror image of the other, like your left and right hands.

Chiral molecules that have a scent, have enantiomers that smell quite different from each other. One's dextro counterpart may smell like burning plastic while its levo version smells somewhat attractive, like food. They have exactly the same QM characteristics, because the bonds are identical, just flipped over. However, the shapes are very different in terms of receptor fit, since they're mirrored. In general, a receptor will not dock its dextro counterpart, although you can occasionally get mis-docks on other receptors - for example, your body can't use d-aspartic acid, although for some reason it seems to dock at least partially in LH receptors.

If smell were QM and QM only, or shape change wasn't significant, then chiral molecules would smell identical, since they have identical size, mass and QM characteristics. They don't, and thus shape alone can be the primary determiner, or at least that seems to obviate QM-only.

But it's a complex field, and no one study's going to be the final determiner, the real question is what are those receptors actually doing, in the end.

reply to post by Bedlam


I completely understand. As I said, the QM side does NOT say it is QM and QM only. They say shape is a huge part of it, but shape is not ALL of it. They believe it is an interaction of shape and QM that produces the final smell.

The shape side says no, it is shape ONLY. There is nothing else. In my opening post I showed how shape alone has serious flaws in it.

Now it seems you are under the impression the QM (or more precisely QB for Quantum Biology) side is saying vibration is the only cause for smell. That is not the case. They say that shape obviously plays an important role, as that determines what receptors are fired, but shape alone does not explain smell. They believe it is shape AND another process, which they believe is QB, that determines actual smell.

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
They believe it is shape AND another process, which they believe is QB, that determines actual smell.

Given the fact that a number of apparently decent studies seem to conflict that it's either shape, QM or (x), my gut feel is that it's probably multifactorial.

My real gripe is that the deuteration test, applied by EITHER camp, is going to give you an equivocal response since you're changing both aspects. Changing isotopes on the other elements, say the carbons, will give you less percentage change in shape, but less percentage change in QM resonance as well.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
They believe it is shape AND another process, which they believe is QB, that determines actual smell.

Given the fact that a number of apparently decent studies seem to conflict that it's either shape, QM or (x), my gut feel is that it's probably multifactorial.

My real gripe is that the deuteration test, applied by EITHER camp, is going to give you an equivocal response since you're changing both aspects. Changing isotopes on the other elements, say the carbons, will give you less percentage change in shape, but less percentage change in QM resonance as well.

I agree with the only solution that appears to address all the questions is a multifactoral one.