Hi Venus–

I’ll put it out there for anyone to answer.  I don’t know the answer.  We always used bees.  I can tell you that the bees will preferentially go for the orange trees instead of the avocado trees, so you may have to resort to hand pollination.  But don’t take my word for it; I would contact someone knowledgeable and trustworthy in your own area for advice.

Good luck.

MRE 

As when I was dismissing the question of whether Einstein said humanity would die out without bees as irrelevant, I actually believe (and therefore assert here) that the arguments of all people are of equal value, at least in regards to their authority on the topic.

All of the value in someone’s argument, as far as I’m concerned, comes from the argument, itself. If my favorite living economist, Walter Williams, makes a specific argument, or a particularly stupid (and I don’t simply mean uninformed) third grader down the street makes the same point using the same (however more poorly worded) logic, they are identically valid.

Not because of some kind of irrationalist subjectivism on my part, but because it’s the logic, itself, that matters. This is why argumentum ad vericundiam, or for that matter the opposite and more famous argumentum ad hominem, are fallacies. WHO says a thing is irrelevent to the validity of their logical argument.

In fact, while I respect your twenty years of effort, learning, and experience in medicine, when I read your medical posts it is purely your reasoning that I am concerned with. If you don’t convince me with your logic and facts, then your documentary authority is irrelevent. Likewise if you post about Bush being a political genius and/or sociopathic threat to American well-being, the value will be in your arguments, not your authority.

This is probably a good thing not only because (I argue) it is the correct way of examining all knowledge, but also because otherwise you’d be screwed: “Medical experts” (et allum) with far more experience and fancier credentials than you disagree with most of what you would bother blogging about here. Which is why you bother writing it, of course. It’s a good thing I (we) examine their arguments, then yours, and conclude YOU are correct, despite their forty years of medical experience and six PhDs.

/chuckle

I refuse to remove the phrase “quick comment” from the top of this post…it shows that even I appear to be fallible.

I agree that arguments should be based on their merits, not on the credentials of the arguer.  But, I’m more likely ot listen to someone who has mega-credentials than someone who is uneducated on a subject in which the person with the mega-credentials is an expert.  The uneducated person could be right, however, and the mega-credential-er wrong, but I wouldn’t bet it that way.  The uneducated (let’s say self-educated) person has a higher barrier to overcome to get his arguments heard, but if he makes them valid enough, then he’ll be heard, and may even change the world as Einstein did in his annus mirabilis 1905 with his five famous papers.  It’s hard to realize that at the time Einstein burst onto the scene, he was a total unknown, given up by his academic peers as a failure.

Cheers–

MRE 

But I think such discussions are worthwhile, if only we could afford the time to engage in them…society grows more from such debate than from any bureaucratic, organized means, formal education coming to mind as an example of the latter.

Society has undergone several information revolutions…the classical era, renaissance, enlightenment, and the current Information Revolution being examples. And, in each case, it was the widening of debate and opinionation to encompass more participants that was at the core, although always facilitated by some new information technology (literacy in the classical era, the restoration of literacy when the crusaders brought Arabic translations of the classical philosophers back to spark the Renaissance, the printing press for the Enlightenment, and now the Internet).

Debate, as much as you have time to, and consider yourself a modern Renaissance man on every topic you can master, and be proud of it.

Hi Kaz–

I understand your point.  And I do consider myself something of a Renaissance man, but the depth of knowledge on most topics right now is so vast that it requires much time and study to master much of anything, otherwise one is simply a dilettante.  Maybe a Renaissance dilettante, but a dilettante nevertheless.  There are many opinions one can have on religion, politics, sociology, etc, but they are just that: opinions.  My opinion on whether Bush is a swine or is one hell of a president or is somewhere in between is meaningless.  I can argue until I’m blue in the face (and at about 40 wpm on a good day it takes me a while) and will accomplish nothing but annoying those who disagree with me.  I won’t change anyone’s life.

If, however, I simply post my thoughts (that Bush is a swine, is a helluva guy, whatever), then let those that give a flip argue over it, and spend my time posting on subjects that can change a person’s life and/or health, I would say that was a better use of my energies.

Cheers–

MRE 

Intelligent people are better than that. They are perfectly capable of being “renaissance men”, with strong knowledge of a wide range of subjects, and being well-informed and opinionated on almost everything they find important.

We might not all be Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, Da Vinci, or Isaac Asimov…but we can certainly move in the same general direction, to whatever extent our abilities allow.

There’s absolutely nothing to stop someone from being a professional whatever, yet also being an autodidactic expert in economics, music, chess, sociology, furniture building, and anything else, at the same time.

Your knowledge of medicine, at the very least, has clearly translated as an understanding of the logic and processes necessary for the sciences, which allows you to rationally criticize any scientific debate. In a sense, socio-political subjects are just a different set of logic and methodology, one that seems to still be best learned spontaneously, instead of academically. No reason for anyone to not consider himself as informed as every expert on those topics, if he’s willing to take the time to ensure he actually is.

Hell, I’m teaching myself physics, right now. Nothing’s off-limits, really.

Hi Kaz–

I ended up teaching myself physics as well.  I actually took a couple of classes in college, but I may as well have not been there for what little I learned.  When you go to school to learn, you have to take what you get professor-wise.  When you teach yourself, you can turn to the best minds around–at least the ones who have written on the subject.

But learning basic Newtonian physics and being able to understand a little quantum mechanics and work through the development of some of Einstein’s ideas (which is actually fairly easy and a lot more fun than I thought it would be) does not a physicist make.  Same with a doctor, a lawyer, a mathematician, or virtually any other field.  It’s like the difference between being able to say a few words in a foreign language and being totally fluent.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for autodidactery.  In fact, the more the better.  But it takes a long, long time to become truly skilled in a field, and, as I wrote before, what I have to say about physics carries much less weight than what I have to say about nutrition and medicine because I’ve spent the last 20+ years working on the latter and a few months of bedtime reading working on the former.

Cheers–

MRE 

If Einstein said that, it’s just proof that even the most notoriously smart people can say dumb things. It’s not like he was an entymology/agricultural expert. I was quite disappointed by his writings on philosophy.

As for the question of the bees’ importance in the biosphere, they’re quite important in their native environments, to the native plants…but there isn’t the slightest hint of them being in an erg of danger in that capacity.

I hope I don’t qualify as one of the hostile commentators, RE “Islamists”. Although I am likely to be, as someone put it, “contrarian” about that, mainly out of the “equal time” perspective of feeling like it’s overdone enough in neocon culture already. Even “Islamist” originates among the hatemongers who’re trying to create another -ist to dehumanize and treat as monolithically evil. Since you (Dr. Eades) clearly do agree with how two-sided the issue is, RE my diatribe on how culpable we are for our part, surely you find dislike for such typification unsurprising.

On the other hand, why on earth would you be concerned with nay-saying replies to your blog posts? Those are the best sign that you’re having an impact. It’s akin to how publicists measure success by how much hate mail you receive; the truly worthless stuff gets ignored, not hated.

One should take angry replies as (A) an opportunity to show the flaw in the opposing side’s argments or (B) an opportunity to learn from one’s mistakes, to the limited extent that one’s critics are actually (gasp) correct, and/or are pointing out a mistake one actually made, whether rhetorical or logical.

Personally, I could use some pissed-off retorts in reply to my blog entries, to liven things up a bit.

Hi Kaz–

It’s not the pissed-off retorts to my blog that I mind.  Nor is it the replies that contradict or argue with whatever it is that I happen to say.  The problem is that all the pissed-off retorts and long, long arguments come about political or social issues I’ve posted on.  I could simply post these comments as they come in and be done with it.  But, since I’ve gotten into the habit of responding to most posts, the lack of a response would imply that I have simply agreed with whomever wrote the comment taking me to task for my post.  Then I write a long reply (long because most of these comments are long) arguing my position, which then inspires the commenter to write back and even longer reply.  Then I feel compelled to reply to that.  My problem is one of time.  I can’t spend all day engaged in debate with people over political or sociological issues, when I’m not an expert in either one.  Nor, I’m sure, are the people who are commenting.  It’s all opinion.

My expertise is in nutrition.  I have a number of thoughtful posts I would like to make on issues in which I have real expertise and in which what I have to say makes a difference.  But I spend so much time in debate over non-nutritional issues that I run out time to deal with the nutritional issues.

I’m left with a couple of choices.  I can post my political thoughts on a particular issue just as a way of saying, hey, this is how I feel about this.  Then anyone who wants to disagree can comment, and I’ll simply post the comment as written with no rebuttal on my part.

Or I can stick strictly to nutritional issues and never post anything of a politically or sociologically controversial nature.

But I don’t want to do the latter, because I find issues all the time that I want to post on, and it’s my frigging blog, so I’m gonna post on them.   So, I guess that if I don’t want to quit posting occasionally on political issues, and if I don’t want to have all my time eaten up in debate over them, I’ll opt for the first option and simply post the responses as they come in.  If readers want to fight it out amongst themselves, I’ll be happy to provide a forum for them in the comments section, but count me out as a combatant if you want to read about more of the stuff that I have to say that really matters.

Cheers–

MRE 

Amazing what I learn from your blog. Even more amazing what I learn from the comments!

Maybe dealing with the mass of comments will get easier over time. Once you’ve exhausted all your knowledge and theories you can just provide the link to each comment…. it shouldn’t take too much longer.

Also, I read an article recently that said increased cell phone use might be impacting the mechanism that bees use to navigate. I’ll try to post the link:
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/56901.html

Interesting that they use the Einstein quote, too, as Bill Maher did recently, too. I wonder if it’ll turn out like the story about Super Bowl Sunday being “the biggest day of the year for violence against women.” Link:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp

Hi Bob–

An earlier commenter posted this to yet another blog post questioning the existence of the Einstein quote. If you follow the links in this post you come upon a post by Glenn Reynolds, whom I read occasionally, complaining about the shifting content of wikis (where many people go to snag quotes) and his less than stellar opinion of them:

This is why wikis suck. That quote has been there for years — then I link it [a quote attributed to Freud] and it vanishes. I think the quote’s real — at least I’ve seen it elsewhere before. But either the quote was bogus when I linked it — which means that wikiquote sucks — or the quote was real and has been deleted/marked as misattributed for political reasons — which means that wikiquote sucks. And there’s no obvious indication that it’s changed since I cited it. Which means that wikiquote sucks.

Cheers–

MRE

ref African Killer Bees..this is bizarre American news tripe… you are quite right I worked on an 800plus hive in the Cape of South Africa with these so called bees and they can be a bit lairy in the heat of summer but they don’t go around attacking all and sundry.

ref being alarmist…blah blah yakety smackety/SARS/Sheep gone blind etc..in one ways i think you are right vis mass hysteria about the latest threat and in another seriously misguided.

You’re comparing apples to oranges and even thats a wrong analogy actually as it in no ways qualifies the importance of bees globally and their foundational part in the biosphere.
And to linearly imply that almonds or lack therof would be yr/our greatest loss is to fundamentally misunderstand how systems go awry and how those fingers of instability manifest.

I have to admit, I like Kaz’ streak of contrarian skepticism. Eric Scheie has a long blog post that takes a similarly gimlet-eyed look at the honeybee issue. All is probably not lost in the bee world–I think we can go back to worrying about nukes and Islamists, sad to say.

Hi Rose–

Thanks for the great link; I enjoyed it and learned a lot.

But I can’t possibly go back to worrying about Islamists – at least on the pages of this blog – without being inundated with hostile comments.

Cheers–

MRE