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My Culture Friday article on the Blackawton Bees paper attracted a fair amount of interest, and some comments.

Such as

There is nothing new in their hypothesis or findings at all…

Ignorance of past work is the only basis for the claims of originality here and that so many others should be swept up with enthusiasm over the display of this ignorance is a pity for science in general.

—Anonymous coward

F1000 Member Daniel Chamovitz said something similar in his evaluation, although he did also say You must read this article to be reminded about why we do and teach science.

The instigator of the study under discussion (in brief: bunch of schoolchildren talk about bees, and come up with an experiment to see if they can teach the bees to solve a puzzle; school children write it up and publish in a peer reviewed article), Beau Lotto at University College London, came back to answer these criticisms:

it was peer-reviewed by several anonymous experts, and is accompanied by a commentary written by two respected researchers of vision who explain why the findings are novel…

—Beau Lotto

Daniel Chamovitz gracefully accepted this correction. As Steve Summers at the CF article says, “Mean spiritedness is as counterproductive as plagiarism.” And personally, I think it’s great that we can host open and transparent discussions such as this.