Somewhere along the line we gave up on smell. I mean perceiving odor. We gave up devoting all those genes to it, gave up on including it in the conversation, gave up on using it much and began to pretend not to use it at all. It may be that some of the things we were using it for, like gathering personal information about each other, are the real taboo.
Social speculation aside, our big mistake was probably standing up. Useful as that has been in so many ways—need I say how pleased I am about being able to grab stuff off the top of the refrigerator?—it has torn us away from our roots as sniffers and snufflers.
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