> Ms. Sánchez Blanco said the company has given the test only three times in the last 20 years. She, Mr. Vega and Rocío Ortega Velázquez, 46, the deputy technical director who is Ms. Sánchez Blanco’s superior and who spot checks Mr. Vega’s work, are the only three people to have gotten a perfect score.
So basically every single one of the test takers got a perfect score? Or am I misreading this?
I have to say the article left me a bit skeptical about there being any sort of scientific basis for the sniffing.
> So basically every single one of the test takers got a perfect score? Or am I misreading this?
Three sessions, not three takers.
> I have to say the article left me a bit skeptical about there being any sort of scientific basis for the sniffing.
I don't know about super scientific basis... but you question peoples' ability to smell food and make decisions about how good other people will find its smell and taste after it is cooked?
I think people generally underestimate the power of smell. For example, Parkinson's disease can be detected by smell of certain molecules that start to seep into the sebum.
It is not unthinkable that certain people can have better sense of smell than others and possibly train it. We are mostly a sight-oriented species, but mammals in general sniff a lot.
> When I was at Los Alamos and would get a little time off, I would often go visit my wife, who was in a hospital in Albuquerque, a few hours
away. One time I went to visit her and couldn't go in right away so I went to the hospital library to read.
> I read an article in Science about bloodhounds, and how they could smell so very well. The authors described the various experiments that they
did--the bloodhounds could identify which items had been touched by people, and so on--and I began to think: Itis very remarkable how good
bloodhounds are at smelling, being able to follow trails of people, and so forth, but how good are we, actually?
> When the time came that I could visit my wife, I went to see her, and I said, "We're gonna do an experiment. Those Coke bottles overthere (she
had a six-pack of empty Coke bottles that she was saving to send out) --now you haven't touched them in a couple of days, right?"
> "That's right."
> I took the six-pack over to her without touching the bottles, and said, "OK. Now I'll go out, and you take out one of the bottles, handle it for
about two minutes, and then put it back. Then I'll come in, and try to tell which bottle it was."
> So I went out, and she took out one of the bottles and handled it for quite a while--lots of time, because I'm no bloodhound! According to the
article, they could tell if you just touched it.
> Then I came back, and it was absolutely obvious! I didn't even have to smell the damn thing, because, of course, the temperature was different.
And it was also obvious from the smell. As soon as you put it up near your face, you could smell it was dampish and warmer. So that experiment
didn't work because it was too obvious.
> Then I looked at the bookshelf and said, "Those books you haven't looked at for a while, right? This time, when I go out, take one book off the
shelf, and just open it --that's all--and close it again; then put it back."
> So I went out again, she took a book, opened it and closed it, and put it back. I came in --and nothing to it! It was easy. You just smell the books.
It's hard to explain, because we're not used to saying things about it. You put each book up to your nose and sniff a few times, and you can tell. It's
very different. A book that's been standing there a while has a dry uninteresting kind of smell. But when a hand has touched it, there's a dampness
and a smell that's very distinct.
> We did a few more experiments, and I discovered that while bloodhounds are indeed quite capable, humans are not as incapable as they think
they are: it's just that they carry their nose so high off the ground!
> (I've noticed that my dog can correctly tell which way I've gone in the house, especially if I'm barefoot, by smelling my footprints. So I tried to
do that: I crawled around the rug on my hands and knees, sniffing, to see if I could tell the difference between where I walked and where I didn't, and
I found it impossible. So the dog is much better than I am.)
You're assuming each time the test was given, it was only given to one person. It could have been given to many people over the years, if it was administered to multiple people at once.
So basically every single one of the test takers got a perfect score? Or am I misreading this?
I have to say the article left me a bit skeptical about there being any sort of scientific basis for the sniffing.