September 18, 2002, 09:18 PM
After having just read the article on bees, and ID, it seems to me that the author has the right ideas, but not enough meaty-evidence to really pount out the flaws in ID.
I saw a documentary on the Discovery channel that had a segment on bees, which covered nicely how a "complex" hive can adapt. There are many simpler pre-beehive bees; really easy to connect the dots. Also, the queen bee is not a manager of any kind; this is a human perception. She really is the point of it all, because all of her children are clones, but she "manages" nothing. When she lays eggs, and scents are released as a result, she doesnt notice that she had eggs, there is nothing "human" and "managerial" about the process.
Nature selects her to survice and pass on her genes. She, of course, doesn't "know" what she's doing - a rock with her scent on it will get the same attention from the workers that she gets.
Also, very complex systems can be represented by a few, really simple rules. A computer animator tried to animate a flock birds. The thought of animating each indivudual bird seemed like a daunting task - keeping them information, let, allowing each bird to not always be in perfect formation at all times, ie, making it look real, seemd almost impossible!
Welp, turns out, that the same simple set of rules, when applied to each "bird", made the whole animation work! Simple and elegant, the solution was...
Bees are the same way. They manage themselves. Each bee does what it's DNA-instinct tells it to, and together, they do their thing. Just like a jumping spider will jump at a fly if the fly is close enough and the spider is hungry, so will a bee or an ant feed another bee or ant of the right smell that passes near. A simple rule; put enough together, you get a "complex" system of little animals feeding each other!
Why moles are mostly blind is actually a much more intersting scenerio to explain - and has already been done very well by an excellent article in Discovery magazine...bees? Bees are easy.
I saw a documentary on the Discovery channel that had a segment on bees, which covered nicely how a "complex" hive can adapt. There are many simpler pre-beehive bees; really easy to connect the dots. Also, the queen bee is not a manager of any kind; this is a human perception. She really is the point of it all, because all of her children are clones, but she "manages" nothing. When she lays eggs, and scents are released as a result, she doesnt notice that she had eggs, there is nothing "human" and "managerial" about the process.
Nature selects her to survice and pass on her genes. She, of course, doesn't "know" what she's doing - a rock with her scent on it will get the same attention from the workers that she gets.
Also, very complex systems can be represented by a few, really simple rules. A computer animator tried to animate a flock birds. The thought of animating each indivudual bird seemed like a daunting task - keeping them information, let, allowing each bird to not always be in perfect formation at all times, ie, making it look real, seemd almost impossible!
Welp, turns out, that the same simple set of rules, when applied to each "bird", made the whole animation work! Simple and elegant, the solution was...
Bees are the same way. They manage themselves. Each bee does what it's DNA-instinct tells it to, and together, they do their thing. Just like a jumping spider will jump at a fly if the fly is close enough and the spider is hungry, so will a bee or an ant feed another bee or ant of the right smell that passes near. A simple rule; put enough together, you get a "complex" system of little animals feeding each other!
Why moles are mostly blind is actually a much more intersting scenerio to explain - and has already been done very well by an excellent article in Discovery magazine...bees? Bees are easy.