Bee's, the ultimate engineers

[A.K. Boomer]

This last spring i went to fire up the barbie and when i opend the lid i found a little bee hive, i closed the lid and turned the knob of the grill to high for awhile, then i removed the hive and was about to pitch it when i couldnt help but notice what amazing engineers these little fellows are, every wall of there hexagon pod sharing a wall with another pod (unless on the outer parimeter) why this shape, because bee's are practical too, round would be best for those ugly little maggot bodies but round would also be a waste of material with some parts of the round not sharing with another pod, and a little dead spot inbetween them, but wait, with square you could have all the walls share with another pod also, but lets face it --- this would be very uncomfortable for the little round maggots plus all those unused corners would not only be a waste of space , they would also collect dust and therefore increase the need for added staff in the form of room service, honeycomb is strong also, it is still used to this day for certain structual aplications ------------ how amazing -- i mean these little fella's have a brain that can fit on the sharp end of a thumbtack -- today that little nest sits on my speaker shelf about two feet from my Mill, I keep it there for an example of engineering perfection, we should all be so gifted as to use our resources so well....

[Evan]

Hexagonal packing is a least energy configuration and is assumed automatically by various materials including crystals and marbles on an inclined plane. It isn't suprising that the bees make a honeycomb this way. Bees that don't don't survive as well.

[lynnl]

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Bees that don't don't survive as well.

How do we know for sure, if the bees won't try something else?

It's just the age old resistance to change thingie!

But actually, in yellow jacket nests that I've found dug up in the woods (by skunks I think), the compartments seemed to be round. There was hardly any noticeable hex shape to them.

Regardless, round, hex, or whatever... if you're looking for good fish bait, those larva are just the ticket! Fish go crazy over those.

[Evan]

How do we know for sure, if the bees won't try something else?

Because the ones that made some other shape didn't survive. Wax is metabolically expensive to make.

[garyphansen]

It is truly amazing that our best computers do not come close to what God programed into the bee's brain that is the size of a head of a pin. I believe that the idea that we all evolved from from one cell organisms is so foolish I can not understand how orthewise smart people could believe it. Gary P. Hansen

[Evan]

I tend to agree. The only thing I find even harder to believe is the idea that a single entity could have created all that we see. That is really a baffling concept. How anyone can fall for that is beyond me.

[BobWarfield]

The bees nest is an ideal example of what very simple behavior sharpened with Darwin's razor can produce over time.

DNA is a computer program (or CAD program if you prefer for this site's orientation). Evolution plucks out the pieces of the program that work well with greater likelihood than the pieces that don't. Over time, it all adds up signifianctly. Exactly the same gene that produces the light sensitive dye in your eye that enables you to see can be traced all the way back to genes in primitive sea critters. It worked so well that it was kept around and embellished. There are many similar structures that abound as DNA is being decoded more and more.

It is surprising that the differences between humans and chimpanzees are very slight (less so for some individuals even!). Even more surprising is how much similarity exists between humans and many single celled organisms.

Lasers are another beautiful example of seemingly random activity being focused into amazing coherence and power when the right conditions exist. The laws of the universe are constructed to make these things so. They even allow Evan to measure flatness in the comfort of his home workshop using a laser level to a precision one would have thought took a zillion dollars in a Moore Jig Bore Company lab.

I have worked in the past with computer programs called genetic algorithms that simulate evolution in order to find the answers to problems. It is amazing to see how efficiently they can converge on a solution that would have seemed nearly impossible to do by ordinary means.

The real question to debate (far off topic here so let's not go too far down that road!) is not whether single cells evolved to people, but whether it is more devine to have manually forced each thing to be created independently without benefit of evolution, or to have concieved and set forth in motion a universe with a set of laws that enabled unbelievable complexity and diversity that resulted in the world we see around us.

I happen to think the latter is far more clever for such an omnipotent being. To have created such an elegant thing as the quantity Pi, which is a number even the ancients knew much of the nature of from geometry, which is embedded into the fabric of our existence, but which we cannot write down the value of in digits or as a fraction--why that is just diabolically clever! What if it had been 3 for Heaven's sake?

Doing it as it was is far more clever than, "Today I shall create the dog, tomorrow the cat, perhaps people on the next day."

Best,

BW

[A.K. Boomer]

Good stuff you guys, I have to believe in evolution because personally i think there is to much evidence out there that supports it, How this ever gets misconstrued that this means a God does not exist is beyond me, maybe God created evolution, anyways --- thats why im agnostic i guess, yeah you got it--- my entire philosophy is a "maybe"...