Rivka - I'm no Andrew Einstein, but I suspect there's something wrong with
this computer.
Statements that seem saucy and pertinent when I type them in somehow turn
snide and imprecise when they get to the list.
I had read your whole post,
and the specific lines I was reacting to were:
"However, there are lots of plants, including plants which are eaten by
humans and plants eaten by animals which are then eaten by humans, which are
not dependent on bees for pollination; and many plants ordinarily pollinated
by honeybees are also pollinated by other insects, though not always as
efficiently."
What I meant to imply by my lame jape was "ask not for whom the bell tolls".
Whatever is killing the honey bees now will, to my way of thinking be just
as likely at some point to (if not already) to be killing the other
pollinators.
People keep bees, therefore we notice bee populations crashing
first, and care more. Who knows what is happening to wild pollinators?
I must admit the wording of the last sentence of that paragraph bothered me
most. I have no idea if Einstein ever said anything about bees, but your
challenge to this prediction credited to him, "We might well lose some
population; but it's not likely that the disappearance of honeybees would
wipe out the entire human species." struck me as glib and dispassionate. I
can accept the fact that you don't believe that loss of the honey bee will
wipe out the human species, and maybe you're right, but to callously concede
"We might lose some population..." as if to imply that "losing some
population" was somehow relatively acceptable, is taking scientific
objectivity someplace I don't want to go. The actual day-to-day mechanics of
death by starvation are too awful to objectify, whether it applies to all,
most, many, some or just the unlucky few.
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