On a Lighter Note: The Smell of Poop

Several years ago I was walking behind this elderly oriental couple at the supermarket when I suddenly detected this rich aroma of soy sauce. It was a delicious smell that I assumed emanated from the pores of this couple because of all of the Chinese food that they ate. I felt blessed that I could experience a different culture is such a sensory fashion. It was only sometime later that I realized that one of them had probably farted, and the soy sauce aroma had probably come from that.

Anyway, time passed, and this lesson from life bounced around in the back of my head and never quite settled permanently. Did I really, secretly, like the smell of poop? Is there something intrinsically unpleasant about the smell of poop, or is this unpleasantness something that we learn?

Today, as I was walking between buildings today at work, I detected a particularly strong, yet definitely pleasant, odor that reminded me of pancakes with maple syrup, and that started me thinking again. Suddenly it occurred to me that, of all the smells that we can smell, the smell of poop is one of the strongest. I'd never thought of it that way before. The strength of that smell can only have come about one way. Somehow, we must have evolved to become particularly sensitive to that smell. Somehow, being able to readily detect the smell of poop increased our chance for survival.

This takes us back to our original question, is our dislike of the smell of poop inherited, or learned? This is important because if it is inherited, then it probably evolved as a warning to keep us away from poop. This could be because poop can carry disease, as incentive to keep poop out of our living areas, or because the smell of unexpected poop might be a signal that pottentially dangerous strangers could be about.

On the other hand, if our distate for the smell of poop is learned, then it's quite possible that our ancestors actually liked the smell of poop. Dogs really like the smell of poop, especially that of potential prey animals. My dog used to go crazy when she smelled some particularly intoxicating pile of something, and she used to love to roll in it. I think I heard it explained once that dogs did this to disguise their smell to their prey.

I don't have the answer to this one, but I can't escape the memory of that oriental couple's smell, and when I really think about it honestly, it's not really the smell that bothers me so much as what I know it means.