Barry Donovan said: > In his 2002 paper The Elusive Honey Bee Dance "Language" > Hypothesis Adrian quotes Popper and Lakatos as saying in > effect that a theory must be falsifiable. Popper's rule of thumb is a good one, but it is not an absolute. Specific subjects in some branches of science deal with subject matter that appear to defy "testing" (formation of the universe, the development of life on Earth, etc), but this does not imply that the theories developed in these areas are automatically to be dismissed as bunk. In a matter of "animal behavior", such as bee foraging, we see significant "variable behavior" that in many cases can overpower the "controlled situation" we try to create. Think of swarming as a good example. There is NO foolproof method that can prevent swarming. No matter what we do as beekeepers, we would be fools to make flat statements about swarming. Given this sort of situation, it should be clear that experiments in "animal behavior" are not as reliable as they would be if one were working with inanimate objects. So, there may well be a large set of "bee behaviors" that would be frustratingly difficult explain with strictly "falsifiable theories". Also, one must recognize the shades of distinction between theories that are: a) logically inconsistent b) empirically falsifiable c) contradicts observations A theory that is logically inconsistent can be disproven without any experiments. The theory "disproves" itself. "Falsification" is a structural thing. One can develop a theory that is falsifiable, and be forced to wait decades for technology to advance to the point where experiments are possible. But if the technology never matures to the point where the proposed test(s) can be done, is the theory "Unfalsifiable"? Of course not! On a practical level, it really is, but the theory can claim to simply be "waiting" for "better equipment". Theories that contradict observations are simply "wrong", even though they may not be logically inconsistent or empirically unfalsifiable. (There are a very tiny number of theories that have contradicted prior observations and have later been proven correct by superior experimental technologies. In these cases, the prior observations were "wrong", or more often, not as accurate as the newer observations. This seldom happens in any area of inquiry other than those that can be summarized as "hair splitting".) In science as a whole, most theories are offered as explanations for existing sets of observations, rather than offered in advance of observations. In these cases, the whole issue of "falsifiability" can get a bit confusing. To make matters worse, the theorists rarely do the experiments and make the observations first hand. > Wenner and Wells in their 1990 book showed how the > criteria that are generally accepted as indicative > of the truth change about every 30-50 or so years. I'm not sure which specific "criteria" are claimed to have changed at what points, but this sort of claim is a very telling verbal parting shot, one only taken from debating positions that are going down in flames. It should be made clear that while technical advances allow us to be ever-more demanding in terms of accuracy, the basic steps for finding "truth" have remained the same for far longer than any of us have been alive. As a practical example of this, one might say that Einstein "proved Newton wrong", and thereby made the "criteria for truth" more rigorous. One saying this would be wrong. Newton was RIGHT! Nearly every physical object you can see or touch was designed using nothing more than Newton's view of the universe. While relativistic effects are important in a very small number of areas, no one who designs a skyscraper or even plots a interplanetary trajectory for a space probe needs use more than Newton's laws. Newton was not only "close enough" for his time, he was "close enough" for the foreseeable future for the overwhelming majority of human activities. As for the specific falsifiability of either "odor" or "dance", I offered a practical test of "odor vs dance" just this week: http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0306c&L=bee-l&F=&S=&P=5487as as an example of how the "not falsifiable" argument is nothing more than rhetorical "dance". The silence that met this proposal has been deafening, which is exactlt what I expected. jim (Theories exist describing him as a paleoconservative about theories. These theories lack proof.) :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::