Chriss Shaw wrote:

 

>>>>Teaching bees would seem to me to require breeding,<<<<

 

Not true. Bees respond to reward. When rewarded with syrup bees were
"trained" to care for queens that were low on pheromone production. (Hazy on
details, it's in a book by J B Free) I think the training would be the
easiest part. Run some syrup through a land mine and the bees, having
learned that landmines give nectar-will go looking for them. The former is
called behavioral (Operant)conditioning and the latter is called classical
(Pavlovian) conditioning. 

 

On the subject of DARPA wasting money, truth is sometimes stranger than
fiction. In the early stages of WW-2, a young psychologist received a grant
to teach pigeons to fly guided missiles by pecking at buttons. Remember,
radio was just becoming common and portable radio had a long way to go. I
was told the project was successful but was scrapped because of development
in radio. The psychologist, BF Skinner, went on to write the theory of
operant conditioning which moved the science into a great leap forward and
is used daily to understand human and animal nature. The money wasn't
wasted.

 

Dick Marron  


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