Let me say that I've really enjoyed the thread on the dance language controversy. I've also forwarded some of the posts on to a philosophy professor who had been using von Frisch's work as an example of scientific discovery. It's been a better example of scientific inquiry and how we learn things in science than he could have anticipated. Do I understand it correctly, though, that the consensus is that bees do not communicate with pinpoint accuracy via the dance and that therefore it's not a "language?" It would seem to me that it might be more precise to say that the dance is just not a very precise language. (One could, for example, write a similar argument entitled "Do parents of little league baseball players use language?" and make similar arguments that the information communicated is extremely gross in nature, is not followed reliably by the recipients of the information, is affected/contradicted by the activities of other foragers on the field, etc.) I guess the upshot to me, a layperson, is that I really don't understand what is meant by the phrase "language" here as used by the experts. Anyone care to fill me in? thanks! Phil Wood [log in to unmask] (all five hives are doing well so far this winter!)