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Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

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Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#21

Post by gnkyfrg »

> we humans and nearly all other mammals certainly don't have a singular queen and a sterile caste of workers.

No we have many queens and many sterile workers. Almost all women have children and increasingly more men don't father children. We've outlawed polygamy, but society is trending that way anyway, especially considering online dating statistics. 80% of women are choosing from the top 20% of men.

Men die in war. Look at ukraine. A million men dead, while women dance in clubs. Vietnam, on the American side: 55,000 men dead, 8 women dead. Most women stayed home, like the queen bee. Most of those men were sterile for all intents and purposes.

If we don't introduce artificial measures, the natural tendency is toward fewer women mating with more men and the end result is one to many. There's a British lady trying to mate 1,000 men.

We are more like bees than we like to think.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#23

Post by gnkyfrg »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #20

Can someone answer this without an evolutionary presupposition?

Dying worker bees ensure survival of the group without a measurable impact on death of the colony, which when seen as a super organism, means only a part of the organism, leaving the reproducing parts intact, since workers don't mate anyway.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#24

Post by s1artibartfast »

LASR wrote: post #13

This concept blew my mind when I internalized it. Same reason why honest signals exist. A peacock with very rich feathers is a fitness disadvantage. But they find mates more successfully. These traits persist in the gene pool. It’s so much easier to just evolve a cheating trait that does the job of finding a mate even without the required fitness. But the signals stay honest for the most part. Why? It’s because ultim…

I think you are missing a few points. First, is the adversarial nature of mate selection.

A female peacock who falls for a trick will have fewer offspring that survive. The discerning hen will do better. Honest communication works because it is backed up actual fitness. It doesn't require group selection.

Second, I think there is a lot more going on with respect to taxes. Taxes have existed for maybe 10,000 years. An armed man demanding half your stuff or they kill your family is a tax too. Same for a mature lion that eats what another animal killed. I would argue taxes are an inherent result of power imbalances among humans. Differences give rise to power differentials, which give rise to security concessions, which consolidate into kingdoms and nations.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#25

Post by n8henrie »

WalterBright wrote: post #14

A fascinating read about such things is "The Red Queen" by Ridley. https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0... It's all about the propagation of the genes, not the survival of the organism.

Read this in my early 20s and loved it. Many ideas that have stuck with me. Hoping to reread it with my wife soon, nearly 20 years later, and see how it aged.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#26

Post by Salgat »

pfdietz wrote: post #15
LASR wrote: post #13

This concept blew my mind when I internalized it. Same reason why honest signals exist. A peacock with very rich feathers is a fitness disadvantage. But they find mates more successfully. These traits persist in the gene pool. It’s so much easier to just evolve a cheating trait that does the job of finding a mate even without the required fitness. But the signals stay honest for the most part. Why? It’s because ultim…

> It’s because ultimately the species survives, not the individuals. No, this is wrong. "Survival of the species" isn't a basis for selection. It will not lead to a gene becoming more prevalent in a population of interbreeding individuals. Bees sacrifice themselves because they share genes with the queen; genes that are involved in this sacrifice increase their relative abundance in the bee gene pool by increasing th…

That's not entirely true. For example, being gay is hypothesized to give an evolutionary advantage because you can provide care for your sibling's children, who share their dna with you. Same goes for early menopause. That can extend to small villages where individuals may give up their own resources for a greater survival chance of their kin within the collective.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#27

Post by derektank »

WalterBright wrote: post #17

Why do humans live long enough to be grandparents? It's because grandparents take care of the grandkids while the parents work.

I find the grandparents hypothesis compelling at first glance but it sort of begs the question, why don't we live indefinitely in the first place? There are obvious answers, we make tradeoffs to improve performance early in life at the expense of long term function, but it doesn't seem like the reproductive benefits of caring for a grandchild that only shares a 1/4 of your DNA necessarily tips the scales of selection towards longevity. Especially when, in theory, men remain fertile their entire lives and thus there should have always been some selection for longer life spans. You would expect the reproductive benefits of a 70 year old caring for their own child might be at least comparable to 70 year old caring for a grandchild.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#28

Post by krisoft »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #20

Can someone answer this without an evolutionary presupposition?

It is in the article "A honey bee dies when it stings you because its stinger is covered in barbs, causing its abdomen to get ripped out when it tries to fly away. And surviving with your guts spilling out everywhere is pretty bloody hard."

That's the baseline answer. It is a simple observation, and at this level of question you don't need to worry about evolution at all.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#29

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

derektank wrote: post #27
WalterBright wrote: post #17

Why do humans live long enough to be grandparents? It's because grandparents take care of the grandkids while the parents work.

I find the grandparents hypothesis compelling at first glance but it sort of begs the question, why don't we live indefinitely in the first place? There are obvious answers, we make tradeoffs to improve performance early in life at the expense of long term function, but it doesn't seem like the reproductive benefits of caring for a grandchild that only shares a 1/4 of your DNA necessarily tips the scales of selection…

> why don't we live indefinitely in the first place?

It doesn’t seem to be necessary for the survival of our genes.

> You would expect the reproductive benefits of a 70 year old caring for their own child might be at least comparable to 70 year old caring for a grandchild.

They’re competing with 20-30 year-olds with better physical fitness for a mate. This would be relevant for ~99% of human existence even if it’s not totally relevant today.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#30

Post by meindnoch »

pfdietz wrote: post #15
LASR wrote: post #13

This concept blew my mind when I internalized it. Same reason why honest signals exist. A peacock with very rich feathers is a fitness disadvantage. But they find mates more successfully. These traits persist in the gene pool. It’s so much easier to just evolve a cheating trait that does the job of finding a mate even without the required fitness. But the signals stay honest for the most part. Why? It’s because ultim…

> It’s because ultimately the species survives, not the individuals. No, this is wrong. "Survival of the species" isn't a basis for selection. It will not lead to a gene becoming more prevalent in a population of interbreeding individuals. Bees sacrifice themselves because they share genes with the queen; genes that are involved in this sacrifice increase their relative abundance in the bee gene pool by increasing th…

>"Survival of the species" isn't a basis for selection. It will not lead to a gene becoming more prevalent in a population of interbreeding individuals.

Well, "species" is but a loosely defined set of genes.

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