RE: Stupid bees. Well, my off-hand estimate of the intelligence of bees has ruffled a few feathers, and since I happen to be writing a thesis on the subject at the moment, I'm all warmed up. Here's some thoughts stimulated by 2 of the comments forwarded to me. 1. I thought some Bee liners would be unhappy about bees being called "stupid". Maybe a single bee does not have much brain power but I think it is important to regard the whole colony as a single individual especially in terms of brain power. This is exactly my point, except that it seems prettly clear that our normal use of 'intelligence' is as a function of single organisms. When we say that "the faculty of harvard are intelligent" we mean "the individuals that constitute the faculty of harvard are each severally intelligent". We might say that "the faculty of harvard made an intelligent choice" if they collectively chose wisely, but then what we mean is that the choice is one that typifies those made by an intelligent person. The point: intelligence ranges over single organisms, but can be used descriptively of the actions of groups. To say that a beehive is intelligent is descriptive of its actions, not an evaluation of the individual bees. To speak of the collective intelligence of the beehive is just one way of committing the fallacy of composition. Nevertheless, there may be some heuristic value in supposing the beehive acts "as-if" it were a single intelligence. That is, managing a bee-hive might be simpler and easier if you suppose that there is a collective intelligence at work. Serious reflection of the matter should tell you that this cannot be the case. (philosophers call using a false theory to obtain results instrumentalism, the theory is an instrument, but not something you believe in itself). 2. "Bees are stupid little thing" With all due respect I object. Bees communicate communication is intelligent ,intelligence is NORMALLY an absence of stupidity. Whether communication is intelligent is really very controversal. consider the following excerpted from my thesis: It is clear that animals communicate with each other, and with humans; but not all communication is linguistic. "A dog accompanied by a particular pungent odour communicates to us the fact that it has accosted a skunk. …yet we are not tempted to suppose … the dog is using language" [Hiel p. 400]. Males of different species go through elaborate displays of behaviour in attempts to gain sexual access to the females of their species. Their behaviour communicates their fitness for mating, even though it seems implausible to think that they intend to communicate their fitness. For instance, elk roar, and this roaring requires significant lung and chest muscle fitness. Female elk tend to select as mates males who have the best display of roaring behaviour. Since any elk that can produce a decent display of roaring is undoubtedly a healthy specimen, male elk communicates fitness by roaring. Clearly, however, this is not a case of language even though the message the male sends is his relative fitness and the message the female receives is his relative fitness. In linguistic communication, ceterus paribus, the communicator intends for the communicatee to get the message. Philosophers refer to this feature of language as intentionality; and many (such as Donald Davidson) think that it is a crucial feature of language. Whether any animal communication is genuinely linguistic is an important question to cognitive ethology because there is clearly a version of the apartness thesis which is predicated on language. According to the linguistic apartness thesis, language use is at least a crucial symptom of the difference in kind between animals and humans. According to a strong philosophical tradition, only genuinely linguistic communication is intelligent... Anyway, I hope this helps clear a few things up. BTW, the bee-relevant sections of my thesis are basically complete, I guess I could email it to anyone interested... Phil