Ok, let's phrase it differently. In response to well-evidenced critique, raised after that 2002 book, the vibration theory of olfaction has been watered down so

Ok, let's phrase it differently. In response to well-evidenced critique, raised after that 2002 book, the vibration theory of olfaction has been watered down so far that it is now arbitrary. The wikipedia entry for the vibration theory of olfaction has plenty of links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibration_theory_of_olfaction?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibration_theory_of_olfaction?... It didn't help the scientific debate that Turin's 2002 book contains some ad-hominem insults to scientists who had voiced challenges to his theory. If the vibration theory has ever succeeded to uncover structure-smell relationships (like in the application with the US military that you quote), the it is because the vibrational spectrum of a molecule encodes its shape and internal flexibility. It does not mean that all olfactory receptors perform spectroscopy, as Turin claimed (note the past tense).