On 9 Oct 1995, Walter Ogston wrote:
> Added to that as Kathy mentions our language is very poorly
> equipped to describe smells, and it is no wonder that this
> ability is not a regular part of microbiology training. If it
> were to be so, students would have to spend a lot of time in
> labs smelling known and unknown cultures and figuring out what
> is what. That could be fun and profitable, provided that a
> majority have the genetic constitution to discriminate.
Actually, there are some professions where the smell is a very important
fact. As we ask for methodological mind, perseverance o whatever (sure
there are some characteristic things needed to be a microbiologist or
scientist in general), it asked to wine samplers special smelling skills;
which can be developed, trained and, of course, described. This wine
sampler slang is indeed sophisticated, as complex as the smell sense.
Years of expertise may take a person's nose to distinguish between wine
from different sides of a mountain in a vineyard, for example.
I reallly think that smell is not well considered now in science (it was
in the past, though) because it is not sound very "scientific". We need
some kind of cryptic languague and very expensive machines to look like
scientific and important. And smelling is... not serious.
Rafa
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|
Rafael Maldonado | La cita ha sido
room 6160 Eccles Institute of Human Genetics |
Department of Human Genetics | retirada por respeto
University of Utah |
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Rafael.Maldonado at genetics.utah.edu |
Rafael at howard.genetics.utah.edu | intelectual.
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