Eusocial insects and the research questions that target them: How to let go of ‘division of labor'

In 2016 Deborah Gordon proposed that the term ‘division of labor’ was misleading and ought to be abandoned. The problem with the term, as she saw it, was that it implied a division of labor among specialized castes of workers to explain colony behavior. In a series of experiments in the 1980s, Gordon discovered that observed colony behavior could not be caused by such a division. Gordon proposed ‘task allocation’ as an alternative description that allowed for a broader range of possible explanations, one of which involved inter-individual interaction among ants acting in a dynamic network. These interactions can happen on short time scales, and Robert Jeanne took Gordon to mean just those short-term interactions when she proposed ‘task allocation.’ Jeanne has fiercely rejected Gordon’s proposal on the mistaken grounds that she has called for the abandonment of developmental explanations. The term ‘division of labor’ has been entrenched in the study of eusocial insects since Oster and Wilson presented it as a defense of sociobiological methods in 1979. Gordon’s work shows how the methodological criticism of Wilson’s human sociobiology also applies to the study of eusocial insects. This finding has been obscured by confusion over four distinct types of evolutionary questions. The reasoning in this controversy can be clarified by applying a framework Elisabeth Lloyd has called “The Logic of Research Questions.” This framework involves identifying what answers are possible and responsive to a given research question, and can be used to distinguish what restrictions the terms ‘division of labor’ and ‘task allocation’ imply. By applying this framework I will show how Gordon’s proposal has been mischaracterized, and why it is compelling.