Hi All

Peter quoted Stephen Hawkin on theory:
'... it must make definite predictions about the results of
future observations.'

You can make the following prediction if honeybees use the
information in the dance.  If you take naive recruits that
have just watched a dance, and release them in an
environment where odour cues are impossible due to the wind
direction, they will still fly according to the vector and
distance encoded in the dance.

An elaboration of this is as follows.  Displace such bees
before release and they will not fly to the coordinates
originally indicated, but still fly according to the vector
and distance indicated in the dance.

Allen: to me, this experiment serves to prove **or to
disprove** the use of the dance language.  It bees
continually fail to follow the dance cues offered, how can
the dance language be sustained?

This approach was taken by researchers using radar, and the
resulting letter in Nature convinced me which side of this
debate is right.

The archives have a lot more debate and here's one message
I'd recommend:
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0603&L=BEE-L&P=R1517&I=-3

This is the location of the crucial paper:

http://www.neurobiologie.fu-berlin.de/menzel/Pub_AGmenzel/Riley,Greggers,Smith,Reynolds,Menzel_Nature_2005.pdf

If you haven't read it, give it a go.  It is short, easy to
follow and describes high quality science.

best wishes to all

Gavin.

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