On Mar 1, 2006, at 5:49 AM, Mike Griggs wrote (in small part):
> Could any dance language opponents who have seen Tom's publications
> on this explain to the group how the directional & distance cues
> (angle of the dance from vertical & intensity of the waggle ) relayed
> to the other home scouts does or does not convey information. Is not
> the conveyance of this information not a language? This system
> presumably removes odor from the equation.
>
> Tom's study, conducted on a remote island, with only his hive
> locations seem to prove that he can judge from the dances which
> distance & hive location the dancers are selecting.
No one disputes the fact that the dance maneuver contains distance
and direction information. We human beings can read that information,
but it is extremely inaccurate. Tom Seeley and co-workers have
published data about the amount of error in that information, just as
did earlier.
Jerry Bromenshenk's extensive input on BEE-L today about the
sensitivity of bees to odors has real significance here, particularly
his postscript comment, "What does the dance do? Frankly, I don't
know. But I do know, the bees don't need it to direct foraging."
My co-workers and I formed the same conclusion long ago, as
indicated in my BEE-L posting of yesterday (more on that presently).
Our results also indicated that bees don't need the dance maneuver
information during swarm movement. In fact, the American Bee Journal
published an article of mine on that very subject back in 1992: now
available on BeeSource.com:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/abjjan1992.htm
BEE-L subscribers by now should not be surprised that bee language
advocates do not cite or mention that 1992 swarm movement article its
content does not fit in with the bee language belief system. (As I
wrote earlier, the controversy is not about evidence.)
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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The more persuasive the evidence against a belief,
the more virtuous it is deemed to persist in it.
Robert Park (Voodoo Science, 2000)
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