Ruth Rosin said:
> James Fischer who still believes that honeybees have a
> "dance language...
This sounds somewhat like "still believes in the Easter Bunny".
"Faith" and "belief" are simply not valid components of science.
Our currency is evidence. I am convinced by the evidence at hand.
So is most of the rest of the scientific community. If some
individuals are not convinced, that is their business, but it is
very unwise to dismiss someone else with phrases like "still believes".
> It turns out that their [AHB] foragers do dance, which makes it even more
> unlikely that they do not recruit dance-attendants that invariably follow
> dancing foragers.
Yes.
a) AHB DO dance.
b) AHB DO recruit foragers.
c) They simply do so less often than other types of Apis.
d) I agree that it is unlikely that a dance would
not recruit "dance-attendants". (Some less vigorous
dances don't recruit any bees, but this is a well
understood part of the process.)
> If no dance-attendants of Africanized bees found any of the sources visited by
> the dancing foragers,
This is NOT what is understood to be the case.
The dances simply happen less frequently.
> this is most probably simply due to the fact that all honeybee
> recruits are generally very inefficient, which is exactly what is to
> be expected from use of odor alone all along.
Here's the basic problem. Again. (Long-term Bee-L subscribers can skip
this, as you have all read this sort of thing before.) I have said this multiple
times. If anyone wants to claim that "odor" is a superior explanation for the
actions of bees, they should be able to do so without EVER MENTIONING "dance".
In other words, they should be able to simply explain how "odor" works, how it
might describe a place where forage is good, and how bees navigate to the food
source using it. Once "odor" can stand on its own as a mechanism, it can be
discussed, tested, and documented. There is no need to critique "dance", nor
does any critique of "dance" imply that "odor" is the only possible alternative.
No critique of "dance", no matter how impressive it may seem to the layperson,
can be used to support "odor" any more than it could be used to support
"telepathy between bees" as a communications method.
In regard to "flower odor", it should be obvious to any beekeeper than bees
fly both with and into the breeze, so there is a serious problem with the
claim that bees follow an "odor plume" from hive to target.
In regard to the highly entertaining "locality odor" speculation, it has yet
to be shown how a unique "locality odor" might exist for different areas
with similar or identical mixes of flowering plants.
> I am very skeptical about Fischer's claim of other examples of abstract
> thinking in honeybees,
Not my claim. Girrfa, Zhang, Jenett, Menzel, and Srinivasan did the work,
and deserve the credit. I was also amazed.
> but I have been unable to access the website he provided regarding this
> issue.
Sorry, the URLs were "wrapped around" into two lines by the listserver.
Here are the links in a shorter, more bulletproof form
http://shorterlink.com/?LR0PEG
http://shorterlink.com/?W2U29Y
The full text version requires a subscription, but the abstract is free.
For public library users, the article is in the April 19th, 2001 issue
of "Nature" and the citation is:
"The concepts of 'sameness' and 'difference' in an insect"
M. Giurfa, et al
Nature 410, 930 - 933 (2001)
> Conducting an open dialog with "DL" supporters in scientific
> publications has however become almost impossible, especially
> since the 1973 endorsement of the "DL" by the Nobel Committee,
> because "DL" opponents have been too often simply denied access
> to print.
Exactly how and when were you, or anyone else "denied access to print"?
Specifically which journal or journals were involved?
If I could get papers published, anyone can. Yes, peer review
can be harsh. Yes, it sometimes takes multiple passes. But if
any of the journals were to do what has been claimed, that would
be a VERY big story, one that would shake the scientific community.
So, let's either have some specifics, or a retraction.
The Nobel Committee does not "endorse" work. They hand out awards.
Once they do, multiple parties will often waste their entire careers
flailing away at the research of the winner, in the misguided belief
that overturning findings that were grounds for a Nobel Prize will
earn them a Nobel Prize of their own, or at least a measure of fame,
respectability, whatever. Nothing could be further from the truth.
> Wenner's latest publication on the DL controversy... still took
> an inordinately long year and a half to be accepted for publication
> in J. Insect Behav. (2002).
Funny how he was NOT denied "access to print", eh? A year and a half
is not really a "long time" for papers that need work. Clearly, the
length of time, combined with the undeniable fact of publication,
indicates nothing more than a paper that need significant revisions
before it met the minimum standards of the journal. This kind of thing
happens all the time.
The stark contrast between a wide-ranging and highly organized conspiracy
against "the truth", and a more mundane case of a paper that needed
extensive revisions should be clear, even to a person like me, who has a
habit of thinking he sees gunmen behind _every_ grassy knoll.
Also funny how the only people to call it a "controversy" are those who
want to somehow "disprove" dance. "Controversy" is like the tango.
It takes two.
> Incidentally, the freedom of the Internet has made it impossible to
> block "DL" opponents, but I know of no free scientific Internet forum,
> which is what is really needed in order to freely, openly, and properly
> deal with the "DL" controversy.
I agree that Bee-L, composed mostly of mere beekeepers, is not the correct
forum for discussion of such claimed "controversy". Perhaps you might wander
over to yahoo groups ( http://groups.yahoo.com ) and create one? It is free,
and it is not difficult to do.
jim
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