Phil Wood insightfully writes:
>
>  Do I understand it correctly, though, that the consensus is that bees
> do not communicate with pinpoint accuracy via the dance and that
> therefore it's not a "language?" It would seem to me that it might be
> more precise to say that the dance is just not a very precise language.
>
There seems to be reluctant agreement that the bees don't communicate (if
at all) as precise as the original works of Von Frisch suggested they
do.   VF used words like "directly" and "quickly" which don't stand up
too well under test.  MOre modern research focuses on whether the Dance
Language information "biases" the bees to search in a certain area.
 
CRitics of the theory take this to be a major retrenchment.  For instance
Adrian Wenner, on this list, thinks that recent Dance Language work is
all ad hoc:  That is, there is no clear and precise statement of the
hypothesis being tested.  Of course, all one needs to do to answer this
criticism is state a hypothesis; and the "bias" versions, which accept
some inprecision in bee behaviour, are still precise hypotheses.  That
is, a precise hypothesis can predict inprecise behaviour.
 
>
>  I guess the upshot to me, a layperson, is that I really don't
> understand what is meant by the phrase "language" here as used by the
> experts. Anyone care to fill me in?
 
Ah, there's the rub.   Most biologists take "language" in the bee world
to be metaphorical.
 
Philosophers, such as myself, wonder what differentiates bee language
from human language.  And whether bee language, and indeed human
language, genuinely constitutes language at all.
 
Human language is generally thought to have these important features:
1.  Generative nature:  A finite number of symbols (words or actions) can
be combined to generate a infinite number of denotations.
 
2.  Grammar:  The rules by which the symbols are combined.  The bees
combine the components of the dance according to rules.  When we know the
rules, we know what the dance allegedly says.
 
3.  Information carrying: Symbols can be combined according
to the rules of grammar so that the symbol combinations contain
information.  Information has been minimally defined as non-random
organizations of symbols.
 
Anyone who thinks that these three things are all there is to language,
and who thinks the DL hypothesis is true, probably thinks that bees have
a language.  Of course, many researchers think that human language is
much more complicated, and so they might think that bees don't have
language.
 
I don't think that precision is a huge issue within the "is the bee dance
behaviour a language?" question.  Your example is relevant here:  human
language behaviour often has imprecise effects.
 
Hope this helps.
 
 
 
 
 
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Phil Veldhuis           | If I must be a fool, as all those who reason
Winnipeg. MB, Canada    | or believe any thing certainly are, my follies
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                                                David Hume (1739)