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How can something "smell bad" before it is culturally declared as such? Maybe some smells like rotting food and corpses are hardwired to be unpleasant, but prob

How can something "smell bad" before it is culturally declared as such? Maybe some smells like rotting food and corpses are hardwired to be unpleasant, but probably not the smell of sweating bodies.

rayiner 13y ago
What makes you think the smell of sweating bodies can't be hardwired to smell unpleasant? It's the result of bacterial activity. Can your nose tell the difference between the bacterial activity in this case, and in more harmful cases?
- llamataboot 13y ago
  Anecdotally, absolutely. I don't find body odor to smell bad, nor do many people I know, and being a bit of a hippie, know a lot of people that don't wear deodorant. Given that there's no advantage to avoiding healthy sweating bodies the way there is to avoiding rotting meat, I think that evolutionary pressures are quite different. Objectively, much (most?) of the world doesn't find body odor particularly unattractive. Most of the world finds rotting flesh and feces to smell terrible.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >What makes you think the smell of sweating bodies can't be hardwired to smell unpleasant? The fact that people forgot about it and get used to it pronto, as you already admitted above.
  - wanderr 13y ago
    Olfactory fatigue works for all kinds of stenches, it doesn't mean they aren't unpleasant.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Not really. Some stenches bother you less due to it, but they still bother you. Also, who said people found the smell of a sweaty human unpleasant in first contant (before olfactory fatigue)? This pressuposes an essential "badness" of the smell, regardless of if someone perceives it as bad or not. Where would this "badness" essense lie?
- Hellenion 13y ago
  > What makes you think the smell of sweating bodies can't be hardwired to smell unpleasant? Because smells are not hardwired [1], we are nurtured into being distasteful of the scent of sweat. One nice example of this that I like is that you can find infants happily playing in faeces without being disgusted by it, it doesn't bother them the sligthest. [1] http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Nurture-plays-powerful-role-in-smell-appeal http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Nurture-plays...

How can something "smell bad" before it is culturally declared as such? Maybe some smells like rotting food and corpses are hardwired to be unpleasant, but probably not the smell of sweating bodies.

rayiner 13y ago

What makes you think the smell of sweating bodies can't be hardwired to smell unpleasant? It's the result of bacterial activity. Can your nose tell the difference between the bacterial activity in this case, and in more harmful cases?

llamataboot 13y ago
Anecdotally, absolutely. I don't find body odor to smell bad, nor do many people I know, and being a bit of a hippie, know a lot of people that don't wear deodorant. Given that there's no advantage to avoiding healthy sweating bodies the way there is to avoiding rotting meat, I think that evolutionary pressures are quite different. Objectively, much (most?) of the world doesn't find body odor particularly unattractive. Most of the world finds rotting flesh and feces to smell terrible.
coldtea 13y ago
>What makes you think the smell of sweating bodies can't be hardwired to smell unpleasant? The fact that people forgot about it and get used to it pronto, as you already admitted above.
- wanderr 13y ago
  Olfactory fatigue works for all kinds of stenches, it doesn't mean they aren't unpleasant.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Not really. Some stenches bother you less due to it, but they still bother you. Also, who said people found the smell of a sweaty human unpleasant in first contant (before olfactory fatigue)? This pressuposes an essential "badness" of the smell, regardless of if someone perceives it as bad or not. Where would this "badness" essense lie?
Hellenion 13y ago
> What makes you think the smell of sweating bodies can't be hardwired to smell unpleasant? Because smells are not hardwired [1], we are nurtured into being distasteful of the scent of sweat. One nice example of this that I like is that you can find infants happily playing in faeces without being disgusted by it, it doesn't bother them the sligthest. [1] http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Nurture-plays-powerful-role-in-smell-appeal http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Nurture-plays...