Secrets of Math From the Bee Whisperer

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It might seem a little strange — bees are insects, after all; what do they know about mathematics? A lot, it turns out. These eusocial flying insects can add, subtract and even comprehend the concept of zero.

Quite an interesting article (to me anyway) and she is looking to investigate whether they can comprehend division or negative numbers next.

Wait — some bees are better at math than other bees?
We actually have quantified it. We’ve got a theoretical physicist on our team who is working on bee numerical ability. He ran some Bayesian analysis on my results. We were hoping to find a moment where we could say, “OK, bees switch from not being very good at the arithmetic task to understanding it at this certain point.” But we found no consistency between the individuals. The moment when an individual bee switched from doing really poorly to doing really well happened at a different stage for each bee.

So just like people some are better than others.

So if you’re right that number sense really does transcend language and culture, what does that mean for our own understanding of numbers?

We’re only beginning to ask about the implications. Still, my team just got a paper accepted in a teaching journal. Our paper suggests that the way we train bees to develop numerical abilities has implications not only for human learning but also for artificial intelligence and design.

I don't have much more to say, just thought it might be of interest to some and some relief from all the political crap

a reply to: johnb

Interesting premise.

I always liked the ending of the movie "War Games". During the ending, Professor Falken says if we were to wipe ourselves out with weapons of mass destruction, that Mother Nature would start over at some point maybe using the bees this time as the basic initial building blocks for intelligent evolution - instead of monkeys and apes.

Really cool idea...

a reply to: Riffrafter

If cats ever evolve fingers it's game over for all other species.

originally posted by: AnodeOrCathode
a reply to: Riffrafter

If cats ever evolve fingers it's game over for all other species.

Bite your tongue!

They are evil, malevolent creatures!

I know - I have one.



Oh wait, that's DBCowboy's...

a reply to: Riffrafter

I don't see them being able to master fire nor learn to control it in a similar manner to the way our ancestors managed.

So if nature did somehow promote intelligent evolution in Bees you have to wonder how far they could go?

Then again they do have wings.