> I am afraid that the whole measurement thing is a dead end, because
> we cannot measure combs from the 1880s ourselves. Therefore, we do
> not know if the combs were different or the method of measuring was
> slack.
>
> When someone says 5 cells to the inch, what is the level of accuracy?
> Were it 4.9 or 5.1 cells to the inch, would they round it to 5? When
> someone writes 5.01 mm, they are signalling a high level of accuracy,
> but Root refers to 5 to the inch, and 3 1/2 to the inch, indicating a
> rather broad brush -- not very subtle differences.
It seems to me that quite a few of those writers then carry on to discuss
how
close to 5 per inch they are seeing, and the range of size. It also seems
that the path is the same whenever someone science-trained, well-read, and
critically-minded (a Good Thing) comes across this whole topic. I can see
here that Peter's examination of this topic is following mine almost
exactly. His comments mirror mine almost exactly. My journey from total
sceptic to curious onlooker is well documented on BioBee
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BiologicalBeekeeping/ and here on BEE-L.
http://www.internode.net/honeybee/BEE-L/
I will be very interested to see where Peter winds up, since he has more
experience and much better access to resources, second opinions,
periodicals, books, and documents than I ever have -- or will. I suspect
that his critical faculties are more acute and persistent than mine.
I'm very glad to see Peter wrestling with this topic using an honest
approach, research, and reason. The whole matter definitely deserves such
close and careful examination, and the historical claims need to be proven
or disproved, although I still consider them to be a red herring,
distracting us from examining the mechanisms behind the Lusby success.
(BTW, Kim tells me that May Bee Culture will include an illustrated article
of a January visit to Lusbys' operation by two commercial beekeepers).
I hope we all understand that people travelling on the same highway share
the same views and recognise the same roadsigns and landmarks. Someone
travelling the same country, with the same destination, using a back road
only a few miles away and parallel may have a completely different account
of the scenery -- and some real down-to-earth experience along the way.
Education is a highway and gets us to where we want to start work in
a hurry compared to travelling cross-country. Nonetheless, those of us who
took the highway ignore at our peril the observations of those who arrived
by a different route.
In a world where many cultures and beliefs are in collision, language,
grammar, jargon, and job description must be considered a less reliable
criterion of a speaker/writer's credibility than the ultimate consistency of
his or her observations. This consistency is not always immediately
apparent, and careful examination is necessary to discover it, especially
if there are many strange and unfamiliar ideas involved. (It seems that, to
many, Einstein was initially, at least, a lowly patent clerk with strange
and heretical ideas. (see postscript)).
The results of such examinations often depend as much on the patience &
insight of the examiner as on the examined. We must sometimes dig for
meaning when strange words and phrases are used in place of the handy
shortcuts to understand that we use daily with our friends and colleagues.
The truth is out there.
allen
http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/
>From http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/einstein.html
The light came on in 1905. Pushed to the fringe of physics by his prickly
pacifism and an academic career that seemed designed to annoy his
professors, the future emblem of genius was, at the time -- the very words
have become an Algeresque cliché -- just a Swiss patent clerk.
Preternaturally confident and suitably unkempt, the 26-year-old Einstein
sent three papers, papers scrawled in his spare time, to the premier
journal, "Annalen der Physik," to be published "if there is room."
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