Human odour culture: a zoological perspective

Abstract

It has become fashionable in recent years to argue that the dichotomy between man and the animals is unreal, that man and the animals are both products of unifying processes of nature and all aspects of their biology are interpretable according to a small number of common theories. This is all to the good, but it should not blind us to such differences as do exist. Principal among these is that socially relevant instructions in animals are passed from generation to generation at the genetic level, while among humans social action is governed by culturally transmitted ideas and notions of how things ought to be done. Animal culture is not a strict parallel of human culture, though it shares the same social environment.