The question of "language" in honey bees appeared last spring on the
HPSST network and last fall on BEE-L and SOCINSCT.  Within the last two
weeks the topic once again surfaced and may have spilled over into the
SCIFRAUD network.  People in only one or two of those networks thus may not
get the whole picture of what has been transpiring.
 
   During the most recent exchange, some subscribers asked me to provide
input about some specific questions that arose.  Before doing so, I would
like to clarify what I meant earlier by the statement "evidence doesn't
count during controversy" with a personal anecdote --- an experience of
mine with Ronald Ribbands (renowned author of The Behaviour and Social Life
of Honeybees, 1953).
 
   I had visited Ribbands' laboratory (England) in 1964 while I was still
an avid bee language advocate (having just published a Scientific American
article when I had such an attitude).  We got along famously at that time.
He repaid the visit two years later.
 
   When Ribbands came to Santa Barbara in the summer of 1966, my co-workers
and I were conducting our double controlled experiments (as described fully
in chapter 9 of our book*).  By then, our religious fervor in favor of the
language hypothesis had been shaken --- the results of that experimental
series clearly violated predictions of the von Frisch dance language
hypothesis, as well as his conclusions.
 
   Ribbands watched us conduct the experiments and saw that we could not
have "rigged" the design in any way that would yield the results we
obtained.  Although we both agreed that the results were real, the two of
us could not agree on interpretation.  For three days we remained at
loggerheads.
 
   Then I thought of an appropriate question and asked, "Do you think it
conceivable that bees do NOT have a language?"  He replied immediately,
"No, that is not possible."  When we realized that we lived in different
worlds on that matter, philosophically, we thoroughly enjoyed the last few
days of his visit.  (I deeply regret his death shortly thereafter - I think
he would have become an advocate of our position with time.)
 
********
 
   Hopefully, by tomorrow I can provide the sort of input requested by
other subscribers.
 
                                                Adrian
 
*  Wenner & Wells, 1990, Anatomy of a Controversy:  The Question of a
"Language" Among Bees (Columbia University Press)
 
 
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* Adrian Wenner        E-Mail   [log in to unmask]  *
* Dept.Ecol.,Evol.,& Mar.Biol. Office Phone    (805) 893-2838 *
* University of California     Lab Phone       (805) 893-2675 *
* Santa Barbara, CA  93106     FAX             (805) 893-8062 *
*                                                             *
*"Discovery is to see what everyone else has seen, but to     *
* think what no one else has thought." - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi *
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