Barry Donovan disagreed in part with my comments about von
Frisch's early odor-search hypothesis, which some of us stumbled onto
only after having independently come upon much the same hypothesis
through extensive experimentation.

    In his posting Barry included his "comprehensive hypothesis," the
weakness of which I had already covered in my 2002 forum paper in the
JOURNAL OF INSECT BEHAVIOR -- starting in the middle of p. 870 now
available at:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/jib2002

    Unfortunately, Barry confused the issue in a paragraph of his
latest posting when he wrote:

>But, the point is that when von Frisch discovered the dance language,
>this new hypothesis supplanted his odour hypothesis. In the light of new
>data, von Frisch rejected his odour hypothesis in favour of his dance
>language hypothesis.

    Note Barry's comment:  "...when von Frisch discovered [THE] dance
language, this new hypothesis supplanted his odour hypothesis".

    That sentence contains an inherent contradiction.  Hypotheses
don't become facts (as implied in the first part of his sentence) and
a hypothesis doesn't disappear because one favors a new hypothesis.
Science is a process, not a series of rigid accomplishments that are
"not open to question" (as some like to believe).  On that point see:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/biossep1993

    I thank Barry, though, for the opportunity to clarify this point.
The root of the bee language controversy rests on disagreement about
assumptions.  Those who use expressions such as "their language,"
"bee language," and "the language of bees" reveal their commitment to
that interpretation as fact, not as the hypothesis it is.

    Facts are something else again -- such as:  bees do a dance, that
dance has distance and direction information (but terribly
inaccurate), recruits search for a long time before they find the
"target" food source (but most of them don't make it), recruits
cannot find a food source without odor.

    That last point is why the topic is so difficult.  One cannot
conduct an experiment to support the dance language hypothesis
without using an odor cue  (though a few have claimed to have done so
on a limited basis).  Hence, one can never conclude from results
obtained that the searching bees had not found the source by using
odor (whether intentional or inadvertent) instead of physical
information obtained from the waggle dance maneuver in the dark of
the hive.


                                                        Adrian


--
Adrian M. Wenner                (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road                 [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA  93103        www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

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*
*    "We not only believe what we see:
*  to some extent we see what we believe."
*
*                           Richard Gregory (1970)
*
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