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"Long known as the angels of agriculture, honey bees have received global attention due to losses attributed to a combination of factors: Colony Collapse Disorder, mites, deforestation and industrial agriculture. Honey bees provide pollination for crops, orchards and flowers; honey and wax for cosmetics, food and medicinal-religious objects; and inspiration to artists, architects and scientists.
While there are thousands of insects in the Hymenoptera order (for example, wasps, sawflies and ants), honey bees are the only living members of the tribe Apini, within the family Apidae. The one genus of honey bee Apis can be divided into three branches based on how honey bees nest: the giant open-nesting honey bees Apis dorsata and Apis laboriosa; the dwarf, single-combed honey bees Apis florae and Apis andreniformis; and the cavity-nesting honey bees Apis cerana, Apis koschevnikovi, Apis nuluensis, Apis nigrocincta, and Apis mellifera. These nine species thrive in environmental extremes like deserts, rain forests and tundra, but most people only know Apis mellifera, the agricultural darling." Honey Bees: A History By TAMMY HORN "Virtually all living things, from the smallest organisms to humans, are vulnerable to infectious diseases. Most humans know they have to stay away from other infected people if they don’t want to get sick themselves. But how does nature figure it out?
The social behavior of honeybees may provide some important clues." Understanding Honeybee Diseases Health and social structure play role in crop production By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation "They were almost obliterated by disease nearly a century ago but it looks like the native black honeybee is making a comeback.
Research reveals that the native bee is still hanging on in parts of the UK where it was believed to be extinct — including Northern Ireland’s north west region. The bees were largely wiped out by acarine disease in the 1920s, after which beekeepers were forced to rely on imported honeybee subspecies to maintain their hives. Beekeepers in Ireland have now found populations of the native black bee clinging on in pockets of the west and are using these to revive the breed across the island." Black honeybee back from the brink of extinction By Linda Stewart Misery loves company. Just look at the DMV, or any other government office for that matter. And, just like people, miserable bees tend to stick together, this report says.
"'Infectious agents often drain the host of nutrients, and hosts need energy to fight these infections, so when a bee is sick, it becomes hungry,' Naug says. 'Hunger alters their smell, just like we have keto smell [the bad breath caused by hunger or exercise] when we’re starving. And this makes sick and hungry bees drawn to other sick and hungry bees, while healthy and well-fed bees hang out with other healthy and well-fed bees. And, once again, this might restrict the spread of a disease.' In other words, because hungry bees are sick bees, they tend to interact with other sick bees that smell like them, and avoid the healthy bees that don’t smell like them. 'Maybe that’s nature’s way of preventing disease transmission,' Naug says. Naug is studying the social structure of bees and its influence on disease transmission under a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, which he received in 2009 as part of NSF’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act." Understanding Honeybee Diseases By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation Taking scientific facts and turning them against evolutionists is always fun to do, but there are many people who excel at that more than I. Today, I would like to tackle the philosophical arguments against the verity of evolution.
Atheists/evolutionists face two major logical problems to their worldview... good vs. evil and right vs. wrong. If an atheist or evolutionist believes in evil, then he also believes in God. Evil is God's opposite, philosophically speaking. Without God, evil doesn't exist. Much like dark is the absence of light, so is evil the absence of God. If God didn't exist, we wouldn't know what evil was. Evil things would still happen, but people would have no way of knowing if they were evil or not. We would have no word for evil, just like if light didn't exist then there would be no word for dark. If one believes in the existence of evil, then he believes also in the existence of God, though he may not realize it. Furthermore, if you believe in right and wrong, then you cannot believe in evolution, at least not rationally. If humans are nothing more than highly evolved animals, then nothing we do is wrong. All of our actions are simply a part of our animal nature. They cannot be wrong, as such. For example, when a grizzly bear kills a salmon for lunch, we don't consider that act of killing wrong. It's just a part of the bear's nature. So global warming, for instance, if it is indeed caused by humans, wouldn't be wrong. Humans polluting the earth wouldn't be wrong, it would just be humans being human according to our nature. If an atheist believes in evil, then he is not an atheist. If an evolutionist believes in right and wrong, then he is not an evolutionist. Someone who believes that global warming is caused by human error can not believe in evolution. Someone who believes that homosexuality is right can not believe in evolution. Why? Because nature would eliminate homosexual behavior, if it was genetically linked. Those genes would be long gone due to the scientifically observed phenomena of reproduction. Philosophically, an evolutionist can believe that homosexuality is okay because an evolutionist doesn't believe in right and wrong. But, they would be forced to admit that sexual behavior is a choice and not something that someone is born with. The attraction of the evolutionary theory is that it absolves humans of their sinful behavior. The flaw is that most humans, including members of the pseudo-scientific cult, still believe in right and wrong anyway. The two don't mix. Animals don't sin. Animals have instincts; they don't think about right and wrong. Humans are acutely aware of right and wrong. Humans are not animals, nor are we descended from animals. Still, if you prefer to ignore all logic and rationality, feel free to do so. By all means, be a monkey! Embrace your monkey-hood! But, please, keep your feces away from me. |
AuthorBilly Craig 
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