Episode Transcript
Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
Back on the 6 February 2019, there was a press release by RMIT University. So that's the Royal Melbourne Institute, Technology University. And the statement was, researchers have found bees can do basic mathematics in a discovery that expands our understanding of the relationship between brain size and brain power.
And I thought, wow, that's pretty interesting. So looking into it a little bit further, the press release and some of the media associated with it went on to say that researchers have found that bees can do basic mathematics, and that, building on their finding, it seems that honeybees can understand the concept of zero. And this was in some research that was a collaborative study between Australian and French researchers where they set out to test whether bees could perform arithmetic operations like addition and subtraction.
It appears that they could actually do some basic mathematics, which was quite interesting because they say solving math problems requires a sophisticated level of cognition and fairly complex mental management of numbers and so forth. And so one of the reasons they were studying it, of course, was that they're looking for research or doing research that can help them in the future development of artificial intelligence, and particularly looking at ways that they can improve rapid learning in the areas of artificial intelligence. So it's interesting that the researchers from RMIT University of Melbourne said that the new study showed that bees can be taught to recognise colours as symbolic representations for addition and subtraction, and that they can use this information to solve arithmetic problems.
Associate Professor Adrian Dyer said that the numerical operations like addition and subtraction are complex because they require two levels of processing. You need to be able to hold the rules around adding and subtracting in your long term memory while mentally manipulating a set of given numbers in your short term memory, Dyer said. He went on to say that on top of this, our bees also use their short term memories to solve arithmetic problems as they learn to recognise plus or minus abstract concepts rather than being given visual aids.
And he went on to say, our findings suggest that advanced numerical cognition may be found much more widely in nature among non human animals than previously suspected. And of course, bees are quite fascinating little creatures and of course, probably everybody, not everybody would have seen a bee, of course, necessarily, particularly if you grown up and living in cities and this sort of thing. But bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants.
And of course we best know them for their role in the pollination of flowering of plants and also the western honey bee, of course, for producing honeys, all the different types of honeys that we can buy. When I looked it up. There are about 16,000 known species of bees that occur in seven different types of families, including the honeybees, the bumblebees.
There are stingless bees, and these bees live in colonies. While. And this is something that I didn't know until I actually started doing some looking into it, that most species are actually solitary.
More than 90% of bee species are actually solitary. And they're like mason bees, carpenter bees, leaf cutter bees, and all these other different types of bees. And the article I was reading also said that they're found on every continent except Antarctica.
The whole idea, of course, of the bee construction of the beehive is also quite fascinating and involves quite a bit of mathematics. It's interesting that I was reading another article in the book Design and Catastrophe that pointed to, again, the mathematics and design in the realm of bees was the article by Dr. Luciano Gonzalez, who's a professor of mathematics at a university in South America.
And he writes that Pappus of Alexandria, who lived 290 to 350 AD, was a great Greek geometry. And he put together a collection of works on Greek mathematics. And he is reported as being the originator of the phrase bees, by virtue of a certain geometric forethought, know that the hexagon is greater than the square and the triangle, and will hold more honey for the same expenditure of material.
And it's interesting, this author, Dr. Gonzalez, says that tessellations or tilings that are a collection of polygons that fill the plane with no overlaps or gaps, and that regular tessellations, those that use identical regular polygons to fill the space. And there are semiregular tessellations that use two or more regular polygons, each with the same side.
But there are only three regular polygons that can be used to tessellate the plane to form regular tessellations. And that's the equilateral triangle, the square and the hexagon, and the angle around each vertex of a tessellation must be 360 degrees. Therefore, the exterior angle degree of a regular polygon should divide into 360 degrees evenly, and the interior angles of an equilateral triangle, square and hexagon, 60, 90 and 120, respectively, which fulfils that requirement.
And so these are the only regular polygons with this property. And it's interesting that the bees, of course, use the hexagon, because, as it was pointed out by that ancient greek geometry, that the hexagon provides the maximum area for a given perimeter. And so, you know, I mean, obviously, bees have not studied geometrical intricacies of a tessellation theory or the principle of optimal construction design.
But Dr. Gonzalez points out, nevertheless, some of their behaviour patterns when building a hive can be explained mathematically from the perspective of tessellation theory and optimal housing design. And so this is another fascinating thing related to, again, to mathematics.
And Dr. Gonzalez goes on to say, well, one such behaviour that makes me think about God as the creator and universal designer is the innate ability of bees to use the least expenditure of energy and materials. He goes on to argue that although the bees are surely unaware of the geometrical intricacies of tessellation theory, they were created with the ability to use the optimal design for their honeycombs.
He says that it can be mathematically demonstrated that of the three polygons, the hexagon has the smallest perimeter for a given area. So when bees are constructing hexagonal prism cells in the hive, they use less wax and do less work to enclose the same space than if tessellating space with prisms of square or triangular bases. And the fact that they use a very accurate geometric shape, to me, is quite astounding.
I mean, in many cultures, even humans didn't do that and hadn't struck on that discovery. The honeycomb walls of. The walls in the honeycomb are made up of cells that are about 3200 of a centimetre thick, and yet they can support 30 times their own weight, has amazing strength.
Bees create these hexagonal prisms in three rhombic sections, and the walls of the cells meet exactly 120 degree angles. Dr. Gonzalez goes on to say what is truly remarkable is that bees work simultaneously on different sections of the honeycomb, which shows by their behaviour a strong feeling of collectivity, communication and unity of purpose throughout the hive.
So they can be working on different sections all at once and they all align, he concludes. That's Dr. Gonzalez.
I think God shows himself in several ways in our universe, both in the animate and inanimate world, particularly through bees' behaviour when building their honeycombs, we can think of God as an artist who loves order and beauty, since honeycombs are highly ordered, ascetic structures. Beyond that, we can ponder God as the mastermind who not only created bees as wonderful insects, but also created us as his masterpiece. Yeah, so that's just one of many chapters, of course.
In the book that came out in May 2021, titled Design and Catastrophe: 51 Scientists Explore Evidence in Nature. And so there clearly is amazing evidence for design in nature. One of the things that amazes me about bead design as well, is that or the design that when the bees are building the parts of the hive for the eggs to be laid in, where the little larvae hatch and then fed and everything, they eventually become sealed.
And the wax that they use to seal over is a porous wax so that the little arbi can breathe, of course, until they cut their way out of the cell when they've fully matured. So, again, here, the bees can differentiate between the composition of the wax when they're building the sides of the hive and also the areas of the hive where they're capping the honey. And yet they use a different wax for where they've got the eggs and the little baby bees.
I think this is really amazing. Another area, actually, that has been discovered quite recently, of course, is that there's been some work done on the honeybee's ability to navigate, and it has a built in compass. As it turns out, the bees orientation is influenced by the earth's magnetic field.
And they've found that bees can detect minute fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field, which are only discernible by sensitive magnetometers. And scientists believe that why bees can build a new hive, starting from different parts in a new area without any bee directing them. And all the bees orient their new comb in the same direction as their old hive.
And it's interesting that bees build cell walls with a slope of 13 degrees to make sure that the honey should not be running out before the tops are capped with the wax domes. Of course, they understand that the honeybee, and this is the fascinating part, gets its mathematical training from its genetic code. And so I think when you think about that, this ability that the bees have is in their genetic code.
It's really, really fascinating. There are so many fascinating things that people find associated with the bees. The other thing is, of course, with the bees, that when the queen bee laser eggs, she can actually decide whether she has both fertilised and unfertilized eggs in her body.
And she can differentiate whether or not she's laying a fertilised or an unfertilized egg. And the unfertilized eggs, of course, become males, and the fertilised eggs become females. And the worker bees decide by their feeding which females decide to or can become a queen.
Now, actually, they do build larger cells for the queen to lay potential queen eggs in. And when this happens, the queens are fed only royal jelly. And now this is a special compound that is secreted from the glands on the heads of young worker bees.
When the little eggs hatch, the little larvae are fed only royal jelly. Now, the worker bees, which are the majority of the bees, are fed some raw jelly for the first few days after hatching, but then they're fed a bee bread, which is a mixture of nectar and pollen. And as a result of the difference in the diet, the queen will develop into a sexually immature female.
Unlike the worker bees, they're females, but not sexually mature. It's quite fascinating the biochemistry that is involved in these changes. There's enormously complex biochemistry involved in the reproductive systems and also just the physical structure of the reproductive systems and how the queen bee stores the sperm in her body and so forth.
And all these different aspects are pre programmed into the genetic code. And we have to ask a lot of questions. How do the bees know to feed some bees from this excretion? From their heads and that that is meant to be a food and that they're to feed some of the lava that and yet they're meant to feed the other bees only for a couple of days, that excretion, and then change the diet.
It's quite fascinating. And also when you just think of the biochemistry involved and the structure to make the glands that excrete the royal jelly, to make the biochain of biochemical reactions that is responsible to create the compounds that are in the royal jelly and that these compounds affect the biochemistry in the larvae, so that it goes on to develop into a much larger bee which is sexually mature as a female. When we look at the biochemistry that is involved in these processes that involve hundreds of different types of specific molecules that all have to be synthesised through enzymatically directed chemical reactions, in stages and synthesised.
And some of these compounds are quite complex. To attempt to synthesise them in the laboratory would be a very involved process. And all this information is encoded in the genetic code.
And yet bees play an important role in pollinating flowers. And it's very interesting that from my understanding of research into the claim theory of evolution, insects appear just fully developed with flight, fully developed in the geological record. We don't see them solely evolving and the same flowering plants as well.
So for me, there's a major. It points to major problems with the theory of evolution, as claimed, because the bees need the nectar and the pollen for their development and the flowers need pollination from bees. And admittedly, it could be other insects like wasps and so forth.
But we see the important role in this whole ecological system. And that's why, to me, the biblical account of creation in six literal days makes so much sense so you have the plants being created on day three, and of course, the atmosphere is being created on day two that provides the oxygen and carbon dioxide and water vapour and all this sort of thing. Then on day four, you have the sun created that provides the energy then to grow the plants, for the plants to synthesise carbohydrate, they become the food for all the other things.
And then day five, we have the different life forms that are created in day six, of course, more life forms, and humans, of course, too, with the role of caring for creation. But in terms of ecology, it all happens very quickly. And we know when we look at the systems out in nature, they had to be created over a short period of time, because there's so much synergy is required between different systems.
And they're ecological systems. That's why we have ecology. We have a whole lot of systems that are interrelated and interdependent.
And it's fascinating studies that are done where you disrupt the basic balance of one particular species and the whole ecology of the system can change and you can get a lot of imbalance and certain other species die and so forth. But I find it quite fascinating. There are so many properties about honeybees.
Honeybees are a good one to study, because so much study has gone in to honeybees. But when we extend this and realise, well, there is so much that we're still studying and discovering within just the insect kingdom itself. And to think that the enormous variations in the genetic code that all work together, and the theory of evolution claims that these amazing properties, these amazing biochemistry that works, that works in harmony, that fits together collaboratively to make a whole process that works, arose by blind, random chemical mutations that occurred.
I mean, we can see it's staring us in the face. It's absolutely impossible. It didn't occur.
It had to be created. It had to be created also by a super intelligent mind. And I find it fascinating that the Bible talks about on day six how God remade it, humans, in the image of himself, of God.
And I think not so much in the physical form because we know God is spirit, but in the mental form, because, as I've pointed out many times on this programme, who we are is non material. In a sense, it's our thoughts. Our thoughts define who we are. Sure, we're in this particular body that we're in, and it has certain unique characteristics that are us, our colour of our hair, our eyes, our stature and so forth. But who we are, our personality is in our mind, in our thoughts, which are non material. You can't weigh your thoughts, you can't measure the volume of your thoughts, they're non material.
And this is the way that we're made in the image of God. And what fascinates me is that we've been able to learn these things, we've been able to study God's creation and see the amazing design features there, the intelligent design, and we've been able to go ahead and design certain things. We've been able to build buildings and machines, and then of course, in the world of electronics and computing, we've been able to create beautiful works of art and pottery and so forth, and sculpture.
And again, this all requires a creative mind and humans have that ability, particularly where they've learnt and they've language and they've developed civilizations and they've preserved this knowledge. And it's fascinating that when we think about so many of the, particularly in the area of science and the advancement of science that took place from a thousand years ago onwards was on the basis of scientists that were christians and believed in a creator God and who had created this planet for a purpose, and that God probably was like a mathematician as well and could design things. And of course, the Bible also tells us of God's plan for salvation, that there was wickedness came into the world and God has a plan to destroy the world and recreate again.
And I guess the important thing is we all know we're going to die, but where will you spend eternity? That's the important question. The Bible gives us answers, that there will be a new heavens, a new earth, and God plans for those people that choose him to live on that system that will last forever. So that's what the Bible invites us to do and why it is so important.
And I would encourage you to get a Bible and read this amazing plan. And remember, if you want to relisten to these programmes, just Google 3abnaustralia.org.au all one word au and click on the radio and listen button. And remember to put links up on your social media pages to your friends.
And also remember you can listen to other programmes such as Science Conversations and Evolution Impossible as podcasts and also Evolution Impossible on the tv catch up link as well.
You've been listening to Faith and Science. I'm Dr. John Ashton. Have a great day. You've been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia radio.
