What is life?
A few centuries ago when I was in Grade 11, my biology teacher wrote that question on the board at the start of the year. We learned a few concepts that year and memorized a bunch of definitions, but we didn’t answer that question, even just in a strict biological context.
What is life?
A week or so ago, Jim Taylor wrote a post about life that evoked some of my high-school confusion. Is an individual ant or termite or bee alive, given that the characteristics we generally associate with life–including the ability to reproduce–are vested in the collective?
A bee landed on my arm the other day. She didn’t sting. I assume she was a “she,” because the worker bees who gather nectar that the bees inside the hive turn into honey to sustain the queen and her children are always female.
This particular bee wasn’t aggressive. Or defensive. She just clung to my skin and looked around.
We had a pleasant little chat before she flew off.
I think of her as an individual. A lone bee, foraging on behalf of the hive, able to choose for herself which flowers – or persons —she would visit today. But those who study bees – called Melittologists or Apiarists or Apiologists – say I’m thinking incorrectly. The living organism is not the individual bee but the hive as a whole. (See pdf below for the entire post.)
It got me thinking.
