Monday 9 September 2024

why do some people believe bees shouldn't be able to fly?

Bees can clearly fly - but no one could understand why!

This Myth About Bees Is Scientifically Incorrect — Here's Why - Business Insider

With a nice little explanation from the BBC:

Bees should *NOT* be able to fly - BBC World Service #shorts - YouTube

Simon Barnes writing in the New European looks at why some people would prefer to stick with the idea that bees can't fly:

The bumblebee conundrum

Why do some people believe bees shouldn’t be able to fly? For the same reason others believe in Nessie or that climate change is a hoax 

It’s one of the most comforting ideas of our turbulent age: that according to science, bumblebees can’t fly. The 2007 film Bee Movie began: “According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat body off the ground. The bee of course flies anyway. Because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.”

The bumblebee conundrum - The New European

This is the 'bumblebee argument':

Bumblebee argument

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According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible.
—Opening narration, The Bee Movie

The "bumblebee argument", or argumentum ad bombum, in pseudoscience, states that the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumblebee can't fly, as it does not have the required capacity (in terms of wing area or flapping speed). Consequently, therefore, science can be shown to be in error, providing a loophole for pseudoscientific "explanations". Arguments like these are occasionally used by creationists to claim that it's impossible for bees to be a product of evolution,[note 1] though they're quite common in more general anti-science circles that like to cry "look at science, it knows nothing!"

Unfortunately (for the pseudoscientists), the laws of physics do not in any way forbid bumblebee flight; there are no papers that deny bumblebee flight, and no scientist has done so in a lecture, except, perhaps, ironically. To put it simply, it is possible to "prove" that a bumblebee cannot fly if you perform an extremely crude calculation (like forgetting to take into account things like the rate of flapping, the rotation of the wing, or the action of vortices), but a full aerodynamic calculation (to say nothing of getting all empirical and watching a bumblebee fly) will show that the bumblebee's flight works perfectly well.[note 2]



Bumblebee argument - RationalWiki

It seems clear that science has not proven that bumblebees cannot fly. This myth began after attempting to use the equations of aerodynamics, which beautifully describe the flight of manmade objects, to describe the flight of nature’s best aerialists, the insects. But when the differences between planes and bees are not accounted for it leaves one with the feeling that either science knows nothing or there is something magical about insect flight. Neither is true.

Scientists Report: Bumblebees Can’t Fly - The NESS

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