h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A question: What are tonsils really for, anyway?

Surgeons to practice on?

I fear it is so, however I mean, what do they do for the person who has them? Looking at the pictures of them in Grays' anatomy, for example, they are rather intricately structured, I'd suspect as olfactory or pheromonal receptors. I get a distinct feeling there's considerable emabarrassment about this out there somewhere.

Ah so! Indeed, your intuitions may be onto something. There has always been some equally vague lack of comprehension in my mind regarding both the tonsils and the appendix. To simply say they are 'ancient' and 'useless' organs that we've evolved beyond does smack of some sort of conspiratorial censorship, some sort of (religiously?) organised cover-up.

The suggestion that tonsils are now dormant accessories of our olfactory senses makes a lot of sense. But then, god only nose.

~jwf~

The part that worries me is the possible behavioral effect related against pheromonal activity.

Oh I dunno, it seems like human behavior is about as bad and stupid as it can get these days. A little punch up the snout with some serious olfactory reality might just bring some folks back to their senses.

I dare to postulate that the rise of violence and anger in our world is the direct result of unresolved subconcious awareness of the ungodly smell of urine that pervades a whirled where all of us just piss on just about everything.

~jwf~

Kind of reminds me of one of my failed attempts to quit smoking. I was passing by the local bus station (since demolished and replaced with a more modern facility) and resumed. The most recent occasion I was swarmed by frenzied movie stars and resumed on the principle that tobacco keeps evil spirits away.

Evil spirits have a way of coming back to haunt us. This morning on telly I saw Britanny Spears in a short flimsy black nighty being carried away on a stretcher and flung into an ambulance while still wearing her very fetching long black wig which stayed on her head despite the paramedics best efforts to just toss her.
peace
~jwf~