Hi,
James Fischer has signed his latest message, of Sept. 12, as Jim (Who reminds all that “science “ is the art of infallibility perpetrated upon non-scientists.)
In earlier messages he already attributed to DL opponents motives they never did or could have, ignored all the published evidence (which he might or might not have read) in favor of the “odor alone all along” hypothesis and against the DL hypothesis, claimed that the DL hypothesis does not require use of odor (in spite of the fact that the hypothesis does, and always did require use of odor), and discounted (without proposing any additional hypotheses) my claim that the DL hypothesis and the “odor alone all along” hypothesis are the only two (plausible) alternatives.
He also claimed that these two alternatives have an equal status. This has never been the case, because the “odor alone” hypothesis is much simpler (in terms of fitting within everything we know about how insects in general and flying insects in particular, find food in the field.) The discovery that honeybee recruits use odor alone (and no information about the location of any food), made by v. Frisch in 1923, would never have won anyone a Nobel Prize, or any other prize. (V. Frisch’s 1923 discovery also meant that the DL hypothesis was stillborn, which, in turn, means that it never was a viable alterative in the first place.)
I e-mailed a detailed response to all of Fischer’s arguments, which was not posted because it was inevitably too long. I do not know whether I want to bother to revise and divide my response into several separate short responses.
However, as far as his signature in his Sept. 12 message is concerned, I don’t know about “scientists”. But scientists (without the quotes) take it for granted that all their hypotheses, theories, and even ruling paradigms, accepted by all, are not infallible! All these may be temporarily used with great confidence, but they are never accepted more than tentatively, because they could always be toppled by a future scientific revolution.
Fischer is shocked by the revelation that scientific review-boards may be affected by consideration of commercial ads. So am I. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that such considerations never played any role in the gagging of DL opponents. DL opponents were gagged because their stand constituted a scientific revolution against what had already become a revered ruling paradigm. (No one knew then that the DL hypothesis was a revered stillborn ruling paradigm, and many staunch DL supporters are still unable to face that. Sooner or later, they will have to.)
Sincerely,
Ruth Rosin ("prickly pear")
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