If
I hear ONE MORE TIME that it is impossible for bumblebees to fly I will lash
out irrationally. When people say this,
they clearly have no idea what the word “impossible” means. Spoiler Alert! If a bee can do it – then IT ISN’T
IMPOSSIBLE!
I
keep getting emails about this, and inevitably some stuffy know-it-all brings it
up at a party. Usually people are sneering at science when they bring up this
topic. It’s as if they are saying,
“Everyone knows that bees can fly and yet science can’t explain it. Take that science!” To make it sound more “science-y” they’ll
throw in words like ‘aerodynamics’ and ‘quantum theory’. Well in your face, know-it-all, sanctimonious
jerk! Nothing that you have said is
true.
Who started this load of baloney?
The story goes something like this:
There was a party in Germany in the 1930s. (That’s where all the smart people
were). One of the guests was an aerodynamicist. Someone asked him about the flight of bees
and to answer the question he did a quick calculation. Since he was just doing a quick calculation
at a party, so he calculated the lift based on smooth, rigid wings and made a
guess on the surface area of the wings.
Then he compared the lift to the bee’s weight. It was no surprise that the lift he calculated
was insufficient to carry the bee.
Naturally, the idiot asking the question took that quick calculation based
on limited assumptions to mean that “bumblebees can’t fly”. Then every wide-eyed science nay-sayer in
the world somehow heard about it and now the idea just won’t die. They use it to illustrate the power of the
mind over body, or that we should ignore science that we don’t agree with.
The science
Well guess what? The calculations
were wrong. Bee wings aren’t rigid. Bee wings aren’t smooth. They flex, bend and twist as needed and beat
about 130 times per second. None of
those things were accounted for in the calculations that were done. If you add those factors into the
calculations, bees CAN fly. Big
surprise, huh?
The only thing the calculation proved was that bees don’t fly the same way
that airplanes fly. It’s not as exciting
when I say it that way, huh?
Science is a process of discovering truth in a systematic way. When one guy says aerodynamics show something
can’t fly, the proper conclusion is NOT, “Then it must be impossible”. The proper response is, “Since I know that
Bees DO fly, upon what principle can it be explained?”
Conclusion
Bees can fly (obviously). Science
CAN explain it. It’s actually not that hard. When you hear people make crazy
claims about science, you have good reason to be skeptical.
