Hi Adrian

> And now, what about the significance of the results
> (that no one mentioned) of the honey bee genome
> analysis (170 odor receptor sites but none for bee
> language — despite it being touted as an
> "instinctual signaling system")?

I discussed this in two messages!  You don't just bin mine,
do you?!  Essentially, classes of genes already known from
Drosophila and other organisms are easily spotted,
completely new types are not, and genes in any organism for
behaviour are very hard to find.  Here is the main paper on
the honeybee genome:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7114/full/nature05260.html

in which the authors admit that there are likely to be
thousands of genes not even recognised as genes, never mind
the genes recognised but with no known function as yet.

Quoting from the paper:

'However, achieving a comprehensive understanding of social
life in molecular terms will require extensive analyses of
the honeybee as well as other social and non-social species.
A genome might be a blueprint for some aspects of biology,
but most mysteries of sociality appear to be encoded subtly
in the genome, at least based on our study of honeybee and
Drosophila, as well as recent analyses of human and
chimpanzee.'

Keep reading and you will see that the honeybee genome
researchers have no qualms about accepting the existence of
a dance language.  Why shouldn't they, its existence is
widely accepted amongst scientists!

'They communicate new food discoveries with 'dance
language', originally deciphered by von Frisch, the only
non-primate symbolic language. Recent studies revealed that
honeybees can learn abstract concepts such as 'same' and
'different'.'

I'll end with a quote from the message you wrote on 23 Feb:
'Likewise, anyone committed to dogma should not be the
person to write a review about a controversy; yet, that is
done all the time.  For example, Emily Smith and Gard Otis
...<snip>...  rounded up all the confirmation evidence and
positive commentary they could find.'

Hmmnn.

best wishes

Gavin.

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