I have just read an article regarding the bees. The article mentioned of a study conducted to determine whether bees find their foods instinctively or analytically. Scientists shifted the sources of bee-foods from point to point using a procedure that would interpret their response as based on instinct or mathematics. Surprisingly, the bees were able to locate their foods using compass, err... in a precise mathematical calculation!
Yeah, bees actually know mathematics! I tried to tell this to my colleagues who told me in a “sabayang pagbigkas” that they have never heard of such a story. The only bee they know is the plaster bee in front of fast-food chains at conspicuous locations in Metro Manila apparently opposite or very near another chain with the big letter M. And these colleagues were supposed to be idiots who knew everything stupid like this one.
“You don’t know?” I blurted. “That’s how your brains work? All you know are hamburgers, and fries, and palabok?”
And these friends never even use mathematical calculations to locate these fast-food chains. How they find them? There are two ways. First, they use their eyes to search for that big M. And when they find it, they knew that the fast-food chain with the plaster bee is somewhere near. The other way is to use their nose. Yeah, their eyes and noses are more intelligent than their brains!
Really, I mean I thought that bee-bodies were only composed of the head, the thorax, and the abdomen all stuffed up with dried snot and sticky phlegm! Only recently did I realize how imbecile I was. I couldn’t imagine now how these little intelligent brains really look like and function. I know of people with really huge skulls and small IQs and people with tiny skulls and gigantic worthless brains, and they function no different from my own. I mean we all are afraid of numbers and we have the same craving: to rid the world of math, math teachers, and anything related with math!
Anyway, if bees have this intelligence, they must have known what they’re doing when say, they sting or chase you or perch on your hair. It’s not by accident that these things happen! When I was seven, I was stung by a bee while in deep sleep. In the middle of my dream of trees, and birds, and flowers, and butterflies, and bees, the damn insect got into my ear waking me up in total panic and pain. My mom rushed to pacify, telling me that the innocent insect never meant to kill me; that it probably had mistaken my ear for its hive and the earwax its honey. And I had totally accepted that explanation despite the fact that that sting had left a scar and a tiny depression in my ear canal. “That bee was stupid!” I wheedled myself.
But now, it’s all coming back. Knowing that a bee’s IQ could probably be higher than mine, I now believe that there was a conspiracy; with my beloved mother playing accomplice to the crime. The bee knew it was me, it knew it was my ear, it knew that the wax in my ear was not honey, it knew I was the one who stoned its hive, and it knew I was the one who suggested to Mang Cardo to suck out all the honey from its hive. See my point here? Bees do think, plan, analyze, get revenge, and know exactly the difference between the taste of earwax and a honey.
So, if bees have intelligence, it follows that other insects may also have. And if the insects know mathematics, it follows that they also know how to read and write! Could it be that some insects actually read and write journals, even answer trivia? Could it be that some of the top ten trivia players are actually, er... insects? Well, I know of some. But they are not exactly six-legged; they just have tiny eyes and it’s pronounced “Intsek” (Chinese).
The next time a fly lands on your food, don’t just swat it. First, remember that as it has intelligence and must have read the “Iliad”, listened to Beethoven’s music, or strummed miniscule guitars, it is also good in math. In fact, it must have reached there using advanced algebra and algorithm.
Now that’s the time you have to whack it; coz everyone hates math.
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