Pheromones

I am a believer in Evolution.  Not to say that I do not believe in God, I do.  I don’t want this post to become a little too religious or philosophical but I want to point out how I see the beauty and messages of Science pop-up in everyday life.  Even when I’m doing a reading for your Biological Psychology class, I see evolutionary evidence that reinforces my Darwinist perspective.  Apparently, the vomeronasal organ is a set of receptors located near, but separate from, the olfactory receptors.  And VNO receptors are specialized to respond only to pheromones.  Adult humans have a VNO, but it is very small and doesn’t have receptors.  So why is it there?  Well, maybe it is vestigial, or left over from our evolutionary past. 

It’s not the only thing that humans have or can have that is vestigial.  We just recently learned about goose bumps and why we even have them? What purpose does it even serve? Well think about any time you might have gotten goose bumps, maybe you were a little scared or nervous?  Something might have spooked you or made you feel uneasy?  Then you get all these little bumps all over your body.  Our ancestors, maybe the Neanderthals or some primate, probably had more hair on their body than we do now.  They might have developed this trick to scare or ward off a dangerous animal or threat, because making yourself look bigger and scarier by fluffing out your body hair seems like a pretty clever thing to do.  In any case, we do not need to do that anymore because we have less hair now, at least on our bodies.  Oh and we have weapons like guns.  But it is still a function that we have and don’t necessarily need anymore.  There are others, like our appendix, which was believed to be an extra place for digestion of leaves in earlier versions of humans. 

Which brings us back to the VNO in humans.  Since there are no receptors there, why do we still respond to pheromones?  It’s been discovered that part of the human olfactory mucosa contains receptors that resemble other species pheromone receptors. Some of the best evidence of human response to pheromones is when two women who spend a lot of time together often have synchronized menstrual cycles. LOL this is Science!  I found this to be true, when I lived with a roommate and shared the same bathroom.  There are lots of studies that show evidence that human body secretions act as pheromones, the effects are probably not as strong as they are in animals but they are present.  They have a lot to do with finding and attracting mates.  And you need to ask yourself, “Why?”  The answer is a lot more complex than you might think, and involves a lot more science and history of human beings.  Do not dismiss it, it’s there and it’s real.  It does not discredit God or his teaching.  Science and Religion should be able to coexist, but it would be foolish to embrace one and ignore the other.