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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