Dear Adrian and All

I'm left with the impression that we are discussing two well-organised sets
of experiments, Riley's and yours, and that the data in both essentially say
much the same thing despite being set up to look at different things.  Your
studies were not designed to prove or negate a role for the waggle dance,
but to investigate the discovery of dishes by recruits.  Riley and
colleagues were not concerned with the discovery of feeders, just the flight
trajectory of new recruits.

Both your and Riley's data suggest that bees have a hard time discovering
the exact location of a food source with no odour.  It is likely that they
would also use visual cues, and in one of your papers you noted that without
these visual cues bees were often reluctant to land.  But your studies can
say nothing on the question of whether bees are also using the information
in the waggle dance.  The study of Riley et al can do this, and does.

In no way am I 'enthralled' by the technology in Riley's paper and I don't
think other contributers are either.  I prefer elegant studies whether they
use the latest technology or not.  What is impressive here is the quality of
the study and particularly the well thought out experimental design.

I joined this discussion in response to a contribution from a supporter of
yours which attempted to rubbish the study of Riley et al.  This attack was
unjust and unjustified, and it is my belief that most of the points you made
in your most recent post on the paper are also unjustified.  Let me go
through them:

1.  You said that Riley and co. 'assumed that one can catch a bee after it
leaves a dancing bee' and 'they then glued a weight onto its back, released
it, and expected that bee to behave as if nothing had happened'.

They designed the experiment so that they *could* efficiently identify and
catch bees that had just watched the dance, using a clear plastic tube as
the escape route from the experimental hive to make capture of numbered bees
possible.  We have already discussed at length the behaviour of the bees
with the transponders.  No one has made *any* suggestion as to why any kind
of artifact could cause these bees to fly in the direction indicated by the
dance which they had just watched.  I don't see a valid objection here.

2.  You said that 'they ignored basic tenets about experimental techniques'.

Again, this is untrue.  Their displacement experiments would have shown two
informative outcomes: i, the bees flew on a bearing indicated by the dance;
ii, the bees flew to the feeder for some reason other than the information
in the dance.  The other possible outcome, an uninformative one, would be
interference manifested by some element of randomness in the flight taken by
the bees.  There is *no* indication that the researchers were biased.  They
interpreted their data as support for von Frisch, that is all.  They were
perfectly right to do so: their data does provide this support.  Conducting
an experiment, collecting data, interpreting it, and coming to a conclusion
that says that one particular earlier researcher was right does not
constitute bias.  You have no justification for declaring that they were
'seeking everything that may support it [the dance language theory]'.

3. 'Their experiment lacked adequate controls.'

As I said previously, controls of radar-tracked bees which had not watched
the dance would have been useful, but may have been difficult to achieve as
not all surfaces of the two frames in the experimental colony could be
watched.  Controls of bees watching an alternative dance might also have
been hard to identify in the sparse forage environment in which the
experiment was performed.  Not having these controls does not negate the
study, unless you have a reasonable alternative explanation as to why the
displaced bees flew in the direction they did.  If you have such an
explanation, you haven't yet told us about it.

4. 'They erroneously presumed that their conclusion (that bees had "used"
direction information obtained from dancers) was the only interpretation
that could be reached from their results.'

If you are going to declare their conclusions as 'erroneous', you really
have to tell us why!  What other explanation is there for the results they
presented?

5. You also said that the 'most egregious' was that 'they set aside all
evidence that might weaken their mind set.'

I have no doubt that you feel strongly about this issue, but you really have
no justification for besmirching the reputation of these researchers in this
way.  They are not here to defend themselves, so I will try. Again, I do not
know of any evidence to suggest that they were in any way selective about
evidence that would 'weaken their mind-set', and there is absolutely no
justification for saying that they 'tried mightily to prove the bee language
hypothesis true' (they could just as easily have disproved it in their
experimental design).  The displacement test was as close to a 'blind' test
of competing hypotheses as was possible in a watched observation hive.

Your experiments show clearly that odour is an important cue for the precise
location of feeders.  I have no doubt about that.  But you go on to say that
your study was designed 'a priori' and you said that my interpretation of
Riley's results is 'a posteriori'.  The authors of the radar-tracking paper
made the interpretations, not me. Their 'crucial experiment' design was just
as 'a priori' as yours, and their interpretation, as always, was 'a
posteriori', just as your interpretations are.  Scientific papers are
published so that the a posteriori intepretations can continue, just as we
are doing now on the radar-tracking study.

Lastly, you quoted Peter Medawar on the common failing of those who fall in
love with a hypothesis wasting years of precious time through a stubborn
aherence to a favourite view.  I really don't mean to be unkind, but it must
be obvious to many reading this that these comments, of course, could apply
equally to both sides of this debate.

best wishes to all

Gavin.

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