Hi, to those interested,
I have just come across another "proof" for the existence of the honeybee
DL that I did not know about. The "proof" was published by Wehner, R.,
Stulzer, W. & Obrist, M. (1985). *Experientia *, 41: 1223.
I was able to obtain from Wehner's office a reprint of that publication,
which turns out to be only half a page long. The authors claim: "Here we
show that honeybees really use the spatial information encoded in the
direction and velocity of the waggle dance." The authors made the foragers
provide misdirected information indicating another site than the one the
foragers were visiting. According to the report recruits arrived at both
sites. The report, however, provides no data whatsoever about the location
of any of the sites, or the number of recruits that arrived at each site.
The absent data, therefore, can not in any way confirm the authors' claim
that recruits that arrived at the site indicated by the misdirected
information actually used that information. This is obviously so, simply
because even according to the DL hypothesis recruits are often expected to
arrive also at other sites than those indicated by their foragers, even when
the foragers provide correct DL information.
Initially I suspected that the half page I had received was just an
abstract of a far more detailed report. Wehner, however explained that what
I had eceived was the full report, and that the report was based only on
preliminary tests, which were not pursued any further. He stressed,
nonetheless, that: "It would be really promising, if one were to continue
these experimental approaches, because I am completely convinced that the
result would be the one we deduced from the preliminary experiments."
In other words, the report provides no evidence whatsoever for the authors'
claim, but Wehner is fully convinced that the missing evidence would be
materialise, if the experiments were only to be pursued further; which the
authors did not do.
The authors' utterly unsubstantiated claim is, however, already cited as a
fully substantiated claim, by Tautz & Sandeman (2003). in *J. comp.
Physiol.;* which is, in turn, cited in the radar-tracking study by Riley et
al. (2005) *Nature* (May, 12); which is how I found the
*Experientia*publication by Wehner et al.
The case is interesting only because it illustrates the incredible tricks
that what Thomas Kuhn called "paradigm hold", can play on the minds of
staunch DL supporters.
Sincerely,
Ruth Rosin ("prickly pear")
--
Sincerely,
Ruth Rosin ("prickly pear")
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