Ross Crozier writes



      Slavery in ants is a heterogeneous phenomenon, including what would more properly be called domestication but also, in the case of brood raiding, as direct an analog of human slavery as could occur in such different creatures. I recall various popular writings in which the killing of, say, one monkey species by another has been called 'murder' or 'cannibalism', betraying a grand delusion that all monkeys are one species. I see the use of 'slavery' for ants as having come from such a delusion in centuries past. It's an interesting psychological question why we talk of ant slaves but not of aphid slaves.
     Joan is clearly right that most of the time slavery in ants is a completely different phenomenon to that in humans. The question is whether this matters, and if it does, what might researchers care to do about it.
     I don't believe that any scientists, except for early Science for the People propagandists, showed any confusion because of the use of the term slavery for both ants and humans. Furthermore, from Joan's account, which we should not dismiss but take as data, this seems to be mostly a US problem - we know that slavery is not really a racial term over history [or today - see Bales in Scientific American for 2002], but it has very much become seen as one in the New World. Even if all the arguments from intuitive social theorists appear bizarre and misplaced, that they are made ought to be considered. We should not ignore this North American problem, given the huge importance of this area in social insect science.
     Joan points out that sensitivity about one term was met by replacing it with its dictionary definition. There was no change to our understanding of the act involved, nor of the continuity of biology, but a political objective was met. How can we apply that lesson?
     Joan's suggestion of a new term, leistic, is a possible solution. I don't think that "piracy" is applicable to the ant case, which is domestication rather than intraspecific plunder. But the inappropriateness of the original etymology is not a real problem, because we don't need to define the term etymologically to use it.
     I suggest however that we retain "dulosis", to give continuity with past usage. I agree that, especially in North America, we should avoid "ant slavery" because of the sensitivities of non-scientists [and be grateful that such sensitivities have not extended to terms such as fitness!]. If pressed, we should use the definition that dulotic ants capture pupae of OTHER ant species and rear them as workers in their own colony. What to do about the brood raiding case I would prefer to fudge [but then, it could just be called "brood raiding"].