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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:54:07 -0500
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I have discussed the debate between the dance language and olfactory view
proponents from a particular perspective: I argue that the controversy
centered on divisive disagreements about background assumptions. If ‘one
*really does not believe* that a small honeybee has language capability’,
then apparently no evidence may ever suffice to prove its existence. This
seems a reasonable explanation for why a minority of skeptical scientists
has renounced evidence that the preponderance of the honeybee research
community have found amply persuasive.  

The employment of the dance as a symbolic code has foregrounded questions
about cognition and awareness, and enabled the use of mental concepts (like
remembering, interpreting, or understanding) in the scientific literature to
describe what the honeybees are doing. The implication of mind has both made
the dance language problematic within behavioral science, and contributed to
strengthening the case that mental capacities may be more generously
distributed than we are inclined, or inculcated, to believe.

from
Can an Insect Speak?
The Case of the Honeybee Dance Language
By Eileen Crist 

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