16 May 2007

Free will in fruit flies

I've never claimed to be an evolutionary biologist. Or a neurologist of any kind. Or a puh-sychiatrist. But unless the actual study says something that this summary doesn't say, I think that Dr. Bjorn Brembs is reaching for a conclusion that he wants to...uhm...come to.

He says that his experiment demonstrates that fruit flies can make decisions about their flight paths independently of sensory input. He demonstrates this by putting the flies in a barrel with the inside of the barrel painted white to deprive them of sensory input. They are also glued to a torque meter to measure which way they try to fly. Doesn't gravity give them a certain orientation? And doesn't pulling against glue probably give them some more sensory input?

This obsession that humans have with free will is really kinda funny. But then, you all knew I was going to say that. :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The arena around the fly is not painted white it is illuminated in white from around the fly. Gravity is constant and perpendicular to direction of the behavior we measured. Check out our website and you'll see what the behavior and experiment looks like.
Cheers,

Bjoern