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While watching M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" we see Elliot Moore (Wahlberg) asking his bored class to explain why honey bees have begun disappearing world wide. Global warming causing disorientation, perhaps? Ah, no, the conclusion is an act of nature that none of us will fully understand. After the class has gone, the camera comes to rest on the blackboard, where a quote, ‘If bees disappeared from the face of the earth, man has just four years to live’ is attributed to Albert Einstein.

http://insects.suite101.com/article.cfm/bee_crisis

We rely heavily on agriculture and thus the disappearance of bees may very well contribute to the fall of man.

This thread reminds me of Twelve Monkeys for some reason. The extinction of the human race would be good for the planet.

mobile phones are the problem. they can't take the waves that the phones emit. if a bee falls directly in a strong wave, there's a chance it would just fall.

I have too many questions it seems and not enough answers. In other posts I've spoken about the problem I see with how evolutionary theory doesn't explain how insect populations could be expected NOT to eat all the plant-life while they were waiting for their primary predators, birds and bats to evolve.

Now I'm wondering how plants reproduced while they waited for bees to help. With this post comes my hope that we don't find out? Is it okay to say, "I don't know?" Mankind wants to think that we can understand these types of questions. What if mobile phones are killing the bees? Watching that movie made me want to hug a tree and tell it everything will be okay, but what if trees don't like being lied to?

Seems that 32% of the bee population have died and about 1/3 of those died due to colony collapse disorder, a mysterious disease that causes adult bees to abandon their hives. Beekeepers who saw CCD in their hives were much more likely to have major losses than those who didn't.

YIKES What if one outta every 3 cows or 1 out of 3 chickens died? What kind of alarm would be raised? How come we don't hear constant updates about the bees? I don't like it when the plants are threatened. Not one bit.

~Granps

http://vegetablegardens.suite101.com/article.cfm/thehoneybeecrisis
http://www.celsias.com/article/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-where-is-it-heading/
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Grandpa wrote:I have too many questions it seems and not enough answers. In other posts I've spoken about the problem I see with how evolutionary theory doesn't explain how insect populations could be expected NOT to eat all the plant-life while they were waiting for their primary predators, birds and bats to evolve.

Now I'm wondering how plants reproduced while they waited for bees to help. With this post comes my hope that we don't find out? Is it okay to say, "I don't know?" Mankind wants to think that we can understand these types of questions.

Coevolution.

Many plants can reproduce with themselves, put in the shortest terms possible. That would be a matter of wind aiding reproduction. As bees evolved, coevolution over time made the plants and their respective pollinating insects dependent on one another.

Many fungi reproduce with themselves today, who knows when the break between plants and fungi was and what differences accompanied it?


Remember, evolution is just a theory. No organization has been able to fully observe evolution and eliminate every lurking variable, or be 100% sure of evolution's existence. Therefore, the theory of coevolution is equally as valid as the theory of evolution, both being impossible to prove yet widely supported.
If I've spoken incorrectly, PLEASE prove me wrong! I much prefer being corrected than believing the wrong thing.

My ex girlfriend died if she got stung by bees.
She will be pleased with this news.

Can't say much about bees, but i can say that it was one dam good movie.

tedtwilliger wrote:Can't say much about bees, but i can say that it was one dam good movie.

Didnt like it at all.

For the most part I like movies that engage me with character development. This one didn't, but it did leave me with an eerie feeling and I'm sure that is what it was going for. One of the better ones I've seen recently.

@co-evolution advocates: It does make us feel better to pretend we know but when we try to cover our fears with words it just brings more questions to mind. Symbiotic relationships don't make sense in a "survival of the fittest" world but everybody is afraid of the dark so it's easy to understand why we try to explain things beyond our understanding even when we fail.

~Granps

0l3n, nice use of color in your sig

Grandpa wrote:0l3n, nice use of color in your sig

Kinda random but thanks

More on topic - a quote from an article posted in the University of Chicago campus news entitled, "You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide: Mass Extinctions Spare No One", paleontologists David Jablonski and David Raup show that mass extinctions wipe out all types of life forms, without regard to special survival strategies they may have developed during times when extinction rates are relatively low.

Jablonski and Raup studied an 8-million-year slice of geologic time leading up to the end of the Cretaceous Period.

“Unfortunately, this study doesn’t allow us to narrow down the time frame of that extinction event,” Jablonski said. “We don’t know if it happened over 5 million years or one bad weekend.”

We just don't know. The time of the plankton crisis might have been a "bad weekend". Pardon the pun, but the bee crisis is bugging me.

~Granps

Grandpa wrote:I have too many questions it seems and not enough answers. In other posts I've spoken about the problem I see with how evolutionary theory doesn't explain how insect populations could be expected NOT to eat all the plant-life while they were waiting for their primary predators, birds and bats to evolve.

Now I'm wondering how plants reproduced while they waited for bees to help. With this post comes my hope that we don't find out? Is it okay to say, "I don't know?" Mankind wants to think that we can understand these types of questions. What if mobile phones are killing the bees? Watching that movie made me want to hug a tree and tell it everything will be okay, but what if trees don't like being lied to?

Not all plants depends on bees to reproduce, in fact most don't. Only a few have evolved this fuction, probally due to the fact that bees and other animals are much more reliable then natural methods of reproduction. Besides wind, theres always gravity and water dispersal methods used by the Mangroves.

im pretty sure the co-evolution thing was right. Plants might not have started off needing bees but as bees became more widespread a dependency was probably created, more flowers=more bees, both sides are happy. The loss of bees will probably have many flowers resorting to more primitive methods of reproduction and while they won't die out there numbers in certain areas will probably drop.

Grandpa wrote:While watching M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" we see Elliot Moore (Wahlberg) asking his bored class to explain why honey bees have begun disappearing world wide. Global warming causing disorientation, perhaps? Ah, no, the conclusion is an act of nature that none of us will fully understand. After the class has gone, the camera comes to rest on the blackboard, where a quote, ‘If bees disappeared from the face of the earth, man has just four years to live’ is attributed to Albert Einstein.

http://insects.suite101.com/article.cfm/bee_crisis

Did you watch the new Simpsons or something ?

Who cares, you really think if bees die out mankind will end ? I think not, where theres a will theres a way.

Crumpets wrote:

Grandpa wrote:While watching M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" we see Elliot Moore (Wahlberg) asking his bored class to explain why honey bees have begun disappearing world wide. Global warming causing disorientation, perhaps? Ah, no, the conclusion is an act of nature that none of us will fully understand. After the class has gone, the camera comes to rest on the blackboard, where a quote, ‘If bees disappeared from the face of the earth, man has just four years to live’ is attributed to Albert Einstein.

http://insects.suite101.com/article.cfm/bee_crisis

Did you watch the new Simpsons or something ?

Who cares, you really think if bees die out mankind will end ? I think not, where there's a will there's a way.

lol I thought that was kinda weird, cus shortly after reading this topic, I saw that episode.

Grandpa wrote:I have too many questions it seems and not enough answers. In other posts I've spoken about the problem I see with how evolutionary theory doesn't explain how insect populations could be expected NOT to eat all the plant-life while they were waiting for their primary predators, birds and bats to evolve.

yay here we go again with the evolution vs. religion war. If debating this is so interesting why don't you join an evolution or christian forum and debate there, because these threads are likely to end up full of flames.

Don't you claim to be a middle aged man? So why are you asking such a mature question to a forum where the average age is probably 17?

Grandpa wrote:@co-evolution advocates: It does make us feel better to pretend we know but when we try to cover our fears with words it just brings more questions to mind. Symbiotic relationships don't make sense in a "survival of the fittest" world but everybody is afraid of the dark so it's easy to understand why we try to explain things beyond our understanding even when we fail.

~Granps

The theory of coevolution sprouted from Darwin's "survival of the fittest theory", I don't understand how you believed that "survival of the fittest" eliminated the possibility of coevolution. The example many textbooks use is the hummingbird and the flower. The evolution of one can affect the evolution of another, and not necessarily in a symbiotic or "good" manner.

(Depending on your definition of symbiotic. Some people view symbiotic as profiting both organisms, some people view it as merely the interaction between two organisms. I couldn't tell which definition you tried to use, sorry.)

And about your philosophical beliefs... an opinion is an opinion. What if mankind was merely curious of, not scared of, the unknown? Nobody can answer this, they all have their beliefs that would somehow return an at least slightly biased answer. So please, no philosophy... too much opinion, not enough true, definite facts.

I'm still eager to be proved wrong, but I love an intellectual debate so I'm probably going to be defensive. :D

Another science topic in the Off Topic Lounge of a Gaming Forum. Serious business cannot be serious.

They're fun once in a while but to stir an academic discussion, there are better forums to post this in.

My take: Coevolution.


And I'm out.

Jstar1 wrote:

Grandpa wrote:I have too many questions it seems and not enough answers. In other posts I've spoken about the problem I see with how evolutionary theory doesn't explain how insect populations could be expected NOT to eat all the plant-life while they were waiting for their primary predators, birds and bats to evolve.

yay here we go again with the evolution vs. religion war. If debating this is so interesting why don't you join an evolution or christian forum and debate there, because these threads are likely to end up full of flames.

Don't you claim to be a middle aged man? So why are you asking such a mature question to a forum where the average age is probably 17?

Why are you so anti-discussion/debate/intellectualism? I understand this is a gaming forum and all, and some of us probably aren't up to the task of keeping up with Gramps here, but that doesn't mean it - the discussion - shouldn't be posted.

"4 years to live"

2008+4=2012?!?!

could this relate to the predicted apocalypse? =P
just a thought

ranger4life wrote:"4 years to live"

2008+4=2012?!?!

could this relate to the predicted apocalypse? =P
just a thought

Considering Bees haven't actually disapeared lol, Nope.

ranger4life wrote:"4 years to live"

2008+4=2012?!?!

could this relate to the predicted apocalypse? =P
just a thought

think we live little more then that is only BS like always..
dont worry LOL

Grandpa wrote:‘If bees disappeared from the face of the earth, man has just four years to live’ is attributed to Albert Einstein.

I Dont think the ever disappeare this bees ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GXlvP4kLHg
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Video that tedtalksdirector uploaded recently on the subject. :p

A March 23, 2011 post updates my concern.


http://blog.targethealth.com/?p=58
The official blog of Target Health asks the question, "Are honey bees the canary in the mineshaft?"


They go on to state, "Agronomists estimate Americans owe one in three bites of food to bees.”

Diana Cox-Foster, a professor of entomology at Penn State University, has been working on the problem for months now. She says the die-off is unprecedented, and she’s made some dramatic discoveries. For example, the normally resilient bees she dissected showed traces of not one or two diseases, but nearly every disease known to affect them over the past century. They had all the diseases at once, a sign their immune systems have been compromised. “The bees are immuno-compromised, being stressed somehow,” she said. Some could be related to the severe weather swings we’ve seen over the past few years. But many questions remain unanswered.

I had hoped (back in 2008 when I fist posted) that the problem might resolve through the combined efforts of multi-disciplinary teams who had "mobilized to confront this global problem". Seems like the solution (if it can be found) is still a ways off.

~Gramps

Locketart wrote:This thread reminds me of Twelve Monkeys for some reason. The extinction of the human race would be good for the planet.

The existence of anything on any planet is of no consequence.

Love wrote:

Locketart wrote:This thread reminds me of Twelve Monkeys for some reason. The extinction of the human race would be good for the planet.

The existence of anything on any planet is of no consequence.

I don't always agree with Love, but when I do, I agree fully.


Also, holy bump batman.

Did he actually log back in after 3 years to update this thread?

He logged in to say "hi" to friends, to find an old quote and yes, also to necro the post found in the "View your posts" link on top. So, yeah... but only kinda.

Cordially,
~Granps