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Subject:
From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Tue, 30 Jan 2001 22:32:57 -0500
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In a word,  **NOT**.

Intelligent creatures seeking specific items, such as odors
and colors, or returning to known sources of water, nectar, and
pollen that they have visited before, or even responding to bee dance

       <insert standard disclaimer here to avoid argument>

       (or whatever bee-to-bee communication, if any,
        might be used by bees, if it is)

information are not even roughly approximated by any equation.

Since many experiments have shown that bees can focus their
foragers on an even slightly more concentrated nectar source
in less than an hour (see the book "The Wisdom of The Hive"),
there is not much chance of using statistics to predict much
of anything here.

This sort of "modeling" with very inappropriate models is
common among mathematicians.  Good math guys have
little contact or expertise with any reality with less than 11
dimensions.

A story about mathematicians:

  Two mathematicians meet at a conference, and one
  mentions that he spent 3 days on the train traveling
  to the meeting.  The other asks "why did you not fly?"

  The non-flyer explains that he did a statistical job for
  the FAA, and once he saw the odds of a bomb being
  on a plane, he could never fly.

  The next year, the two meet again, so the non-flyer
  was asked about his train ride.  "Oh, I flew"  he said.

  "But I thought that you were afraid of the odds of a
  bomb on the plane!"  said his friend.

  "Oh, yes, I was.  But then I looked at the statistics
  again, and realized that the odds of TWO bombs
  on a plane were nearly impossible.  So now, when
  I fly, I simply bring my own bomb!"

Disclaimer - I am a physicist, and physicists make fun
of all fields, including their own.

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