One of the most fiendishly complex mathematical computations is the so-called ‘Travelling Salesman Problem’. Given a list of locations (e.g. cities) and the distances between them, it involves finding the shortest possible route in which each location is visited only once. As the number of locations increases past anything more than a handful, the complexity of the problem increases dramatically, to staggering proportions.
‘In nature, bees have to link hundreds of flowers in a way that minimises travel distance, and then reliably find their way home—not a trivial feat if you have a brain the size of a pinhead! Indeed such travelling salesmen problems keep supercomputers busy for days.’—Professor Lars Chittka, University of London
Such computations “keep supercomputers busy for days”, says Professor Lars Chittka, from the University of London.1 Yet scientists from that university, using artificial computer-generated flowers, have found that bees learn to solve such problems, in effect, and extremely quickly.2 They are the first animals found capable of this—and they solve it for hundreds of locations.
Chittka says that bees are able “to link hundreds of flowers in a way that minimises travel distance, and then reliably find their way home—not a trivial feat if you have a brain the size of a pinhead!” Using artificial computer-controlled flowers, the researchers found that bees can do this “even if they discover the flowers in a different order”.
Dr Mathieu Lihoreau, the co-author of the study, says this shows that, despite a limited number of nerve cells in their brains, bees obviously have “advanced cognitive capacities”. The researchers express the hope that one day it might be possible to understand how such amazing processing feats are achieved with such apparently minimal ‘hardware’.
But if the best computer hardware engineers and software programmers have yet to design a supercomputer that can match the bee’s “advanced” computative performance, let alone one with the space efficiency of a bee’s brain, what does that say about the bee’s designer? One doesn’t need to be good at mathematical computations to work that one out (Romans 1:20).
Readers’ comments
P. B., Korea, Republic of, 9 September 2012
Typical explanations of this behaviour are instinct and collective intelligence, but we really have no idea how they can do it. These terms are not as scientific as they might appear at first glance. Yet invoking an all wise and knowing God who cares for and instructs his creation, and imparts the knowledge each needs to live is rejected on entirely philosophical grounds. Truly God has chosen some of the most humble things on this planet (bees, ants, termites etc.) to shame the wise.
Alex F., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
“But we really have no idea how they can do it.” Surely this is just an argument from incredulity? As so often in the past, the apparently inexplicable has been understood as more is learned. To dismiss it as ‘God did it’ in this cavalier fashion is not only bad science, it is bad theology, reducing your faith to mere idol worship!
Carl Wieland responds:
Alex, if you were to become familiar with our site, you would see that we are not ones to promote the God of the gaps, or arguments from incredulity. I suspect you are reading more than is warranted into the words of the commenter whom you were quoting, who presumably meant to imply that we have no idea ‘yet’ (his shorthand would be meant to be read in conjunction with the article itself, which makes this clear, I think, that we are not in any way disapproving of the researchers’ hope to one day understand how they did it. The whole point of the article was that however it turns out to work, it will clearly be a highly ingenious piece of machinery, and using that as evidence of design is a legitimate argument, far removed from wandwaving. I.e. ’God did it’ is legitimate if one can demonstrate evidence of something which requires intelligence, since no human intelligence was present when that programming was first imposed upon matter. Now a materialist will have faith that a naturalistic explanation can be found—not for how bees do it, because we agree that there will be such an explanation, as God created the natural mechanisms—but for how it arose in the first place. There is where we part company, of course.
P. B., Korea, Republic of, 9 September 2012
Typical explanations of this behaviour are instinct and collective intelligence, but we really have no idea how they can do it. These terms are not as scientific as they might appear at first glance. Yet invoking an all wise and knowing God who cares for and instructs his creation, and imparts the knowledge each needs to live is rejected on entirely philosophical grounds. Truly God has chosen some of the most humble things on this planet (bees, ants, termites etc.) to shame the wise.
Alex F., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
“But we really have no idea how they can do it.” Surely this is just an argument from incredulity? As so often in the past, the apparently inexplicable has been understood as more is learned. To dismiss it as ‘God did it’ in this cavalier fashion is not only bad science, it is bad theology, reducing your faith to mere idol worship!
Carl Wieland responds:
Alex, if you were to become familiar with our site, you would see that we are not ones to promote the God of the gaps, or arguments from incredulity. I suspect you are reading more than is warranted into the words of the commenter whom you were quoting, who presumably meant to imply that we have no idea ‘yet’ (his shorthand would be meant to be read in conjunction with the article itself, which makes this clear, I think, that we are not in any way disapproving of the researchers’ hope to one day understand how they did it. The whole point of the article was that however it turns out to work, it will clearly be a highly ingenious piece of machinery, and using that as evidence of design is a legitimate argument, far removed from wandwaving. I.e. ’God did it’ is legitimate if one can demonstrate evidence of something which requires intelligence, since no human intelligence was present when that programming was first imposed upon matter. Now a materialist will have faith that a naturalistic explanation can be found—not for how bees do it, because we agree that there will be such an explanation, as God created the natural mechanisms—but for how it arose in the first place. There is where we part company, of course.
John C., United States, 10 September 2012
Of course bees are smarter—they’ve been evolving for millions of years, computers have been around a mere fraction of that time.
Bruce W., Australia, 10 September 2012
It seems logical that individual cells have quite a lot of processing ability inside them. The average human neuron has thousands of connections, many with the ability to communicate multiple data strands via different neurotransmitters and ion channels. This would only generate data noise if the individual cell were not a mini computer in its own right. It seems we are only scratching the surface of the complexity that is present.
Alex F., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
Hello Carl. Thanks for your reply (although I would like to hear from the contributor what they meant rather than your opinion of what you thought they meant!). It is not possible to infer design from appearance alone. A quartz crystal, for example, looks designed but isn’t; we understand the essentially simple naturalistic processes that produce crystals. On the other hand a cut diamond looks designed and is, because we know who cut it and how it was done; we have evidence for design. Similarly, mathematical complexity alone is not evidence for design. A tornado is mathematically complex and difficult to model but we know it is the product of natural processes, even if we do not fully understand them; there is no actual evidence of ‘design’. So, faced with the mathematically complex nature of bee foraging, is it acceptable to assume design in the absence of evidence for design, just because we don’t yet understand how it is done? I think you need positive evidence for intelligent input before you can claim that something has been designed. Inferring design from appearance won’t do.
Carl Wieland responds:
All of these points have been thoroughly discussed in our writings on design arguments. Let me recommend to you as a powerful summary the book by physical chemist and master logician Dr Jonathan Sarfati, By Design subtitled The evidence for nature’s Intelligent Designer, the God of the Bible. Regards.
Of course bees are smarter—they’ve been evolving for millions of years, computers have been around a mere fraction of that time.
Bruce W., Australia, 10 September 2012
It seems logical that individual cells have quite a lot of processing ability inside them. The average human neuron has thousands of connections, many with the ability to communicate multiple data strands via different neurotransmitters and ion channels. This would only generate data noise if the individual cell were not a mini computer in its own right. It seems we are only scratching the surface of the complexity that is present.
Alex F., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
Hello Carl. Thanks for your reply (although I would like to hear from the contributor what they meant rather than your opinion of what you thought they meant!). It is not possible to infer design from appearance alone. A quartz crystal, for example, looks designed but isn’t; we understand the essentially simple naturalistic processes that produce crystals. On the other hand a cut diamond looks designed and is, because we know who cut it and how it was done; we have evidence for design. Similarly, mathematical complexity alone is not evidence for design. A tornado is mathematically complex and difficult to model but we know it is the product of natural processes, even if we do not fully understand them; there is no actual evidence of ‘design’. So, faced with the mathematically complex nature of bee foraging, is it acceptable to assume design in the absence of evidence for design, just because we don’t yet understand how it is done? I think you need positive evidence for intelligent input before you can claim that something has been designed. Inferring design from appearance won’t do.
Carl Wieland responds:
All of these points have been thoroughly discussed in our writings on design arguments. Let me recommend to you as a powerful summary the book by physical chemist and master logician Dr Jonathan Sarfati, By Design subtitled The evidence for nature’s Intelligent Designer, the God of the Bible. Regards.
Richard M., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
john C from the USA says that bees are smarter than computers because they've been around much longer. So by his logic if I were able to leave my laptop in a suitable and secure place for a billion years it would evolve into a smarter computer. Oh I forgot bees are living things and therefore capable of coming into existence and getting cleverer all by themselves without any intelligent input. Evidence for that? Nil.
Veli-Pekka N., Finland, 10 September 2012
So this is unverified. If even the supercomputers can’t verify that the bees indeed solve the travelling salesman problem optimally then why claim it?
That’s not science—that’s “NEWS”
Alex F., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
P.S. “Now a materialist will have faith that a naturalistic explanation can be found.” Faith has nothing to do with it—I’ll go with the evidence!
Carl Wieland responds:
I’ve been around long enough to see how materialists deal with contrary evidence, such as the discovery recently of soft tissue and identifiable proteins in dino fossils that should be gone long ago by all the laws of physics and chemistry (and of course millions of years is indispensable to materialism). It is the normal human response: “I can’t explain this evidence that seems to contradict my preferred paradigm, so I will have faith that an explanation will be found within that paradigm. In that way I can continue to kid myself that I’m following the evidence wherever it might lead.”
R. T., Latvia, 10 September 2012
If I'm not mistaken then the aforementioned comparison of the capabilities of bees and computers wasn’t exactly correct. I think there were just a few flowers set up and even then the route that was chosen by bees was not optimal. Of course, it doesn’t take away from the fact that insects are amazing at what they can do.
Carl Wieland responds:
Please see my response to Mark K. below.
john C from the USA says that bees are smarter than computers because they've been around much longer. So by his logic if I were able to leave my laptop in a suitable and secure place for a billion years it would evolve into a smarter computer. Oh I forgot bees are living things and therefore capable of coming into existence and getting cleverer all by themselves without any intelligent input. Evidence for that? Nil.
Veli-Pekka N., Finland, 10 September 2012
So this is unverified. If even the supercomputers can’t verify that the bees indeed solve the travelling salesman problem optimally then why claim it?
That’s not science—that’s “NEWS”
Alex F., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
P.S. “Now a materialist will have faith that a naturalistic explanation can be found.” Faith has nothing to do with it—I’ll go with the evidence!
Carl Wieland responds:
I’ve been around long enough to see how materialists deal with contrary evidence, such as the discovery recently of soft tissue and identifiable proteins in dino fossils that should be gone long ago by all the laws of physics and chemistry (and of course millions of years is indispensable to materialism). It is the normal human response: “I can’t explain this evidence that seems to contradict my preferred paradigm, so I will have faith that an explanation will be found within that paradigm. In that way I can continue to kid myself that I’m following the evidence wherever it might lead.”
R. T., Latvia, 10 September 2012
If I'm not mistaken then the aforementioned comparison of the capabilities of bees and computers wasn’t exactly correct. I think there were just a few flowers set up and even then the route that was chosen by bees was not optimal. Of course, it doesn’t take away from the fact that insects are amazing at what they can do.
Carl Wieland responds:
Please see my response to Mark K. below.
John M., United States, 10 September 2012
The article is erroneous as the title is nonsensical. Computers (any and all computers, including supercomputers) are not smart. Computers are faster and more efficient at performing mathematical operations. That is all a computer does, regardless of the output, it all comes down to math and speed. The title indicates that either the author does not have even the basic knowledge of rudimentary computer science, or just being cynical by thinking that the readers are dumber than they are.
Carl Wieland responds:
John, in choosing the title for this layman’s article, rather than assume that readers were ‘dumber than they are’, I actually assumed that the average reader would be aware that both the mechanisms of a computer and whatever the mechanisms in bees are that solve this problem are not applying intelligence in the normal sense of the word. Especially when the actual article content says nothing of the sort.
I also assumed, I guess, that they would be very comfortable with the usage, especially in a title seeking to be compact, of such perfectly acceptable everyday expressions as referring to a computer today being ‘smarter’ than those of ten years ago (in fact, we even talk of smart phones, yet everyone knows that they are not ‘intelligent’ as such.) And most readers will know that insect behaviour, even when described as ‘smart’, like a spider spinning its web, is largely the outworking of programmed instincts. But that is precisely the point, so thank you for helping me make it—that since it took a very high level of intelligence to both design and program the computer, it is clear that the design and programming exhibited in bees is strong evidence for intelligence, not randomness, involved in the origin of bees.
I suspect that the real issue for you is not that you don’t understand this point, but that it offends you and hence the seeming need to find some point around which to make an ad hominem attack on the writer, rather than address the point of the article itself.
Michael S., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
Evolutionist said;
Of course bees are smarter they’ve been evolving for millions of years
The only explanation for design which exceeds human-design, is a smarter designer. Why? Because you forget, that logically, in order to get the inferior human design, you need a designer.
But the bee-design is infinitely superior.
If you need a human to get an average design, then logically, what do you need to get an infinitely more brilliant design?
The only sound logical answer is;
An infinitely smarter designer.
It’s like saying; “if we need a fool to figure out that 2 add 2 is 4 then we do not need a mathematical expert to solve a difficult maths problem".”
That is what evolutionists have to argue, and it makes no sense because if you even need a fool to add 2 and 2, then the more complex problem will certainly need someone smarter.
Think about it, it makes no sense to say that you would not need someone smarter to get the bee design when it required a lot of human work just to get inferior human designs!
Mike J., Canada, 10 September 2012
Alex F. said;
“But we really have no idea how they can do it.” Surely this is just an argument from incredulity? … To dismiss it as ‘God did it’ in this cavalier fashion is not only bad science, it is bad theology, reducing your faith to mere idol worship!"
Why call the reader’s comment cavalier? Is everyone who disagrees with you guilty of a cavalier approach to things? Sounds like you’re pretty cavalier yourself in that you accuse him (without warrant) of idol worship.
Christian liberals apparently want to present a version of Christianity that can’t be rationally defended … and claim that any attempt to do so is idol worship. Apparently the God of all creation has left himself without a defense of any kind … and no trace of Him can be seen anywhere in the universe.
Biblical creationists in no way raise the creature to the level of the creator. It’s the Darwinist who makes a god of the created order (i.e. nature) by making it the ultimate source of all things.
Is it your opinion that Romans 1:20 is bad theology?
I suggest you read Without Excuse by Werner Gitt, as your view of biblical creation seems hopelessly out of date, based more on Darwinist critiques than reality.
The fact one can understand how something works doesn't mean it wasn't created. e.g. a computer.
John C. said: Of course bees are smarter they’ve been evolving for millions of years, computers have been around a mere fraction of that time.
The article is erroneous as the title is nonsensical. Computers (any and all computers, including supercomputers) are not smart. Computers are faster and more efficient at performing mathematical operations. That is all a computer does, regardless of the output, it all comes down to math and speed. The title indicates that either the author does not have even the basic knowledge of rudimentary computer science, or just being cynical by thinking that the readers are dumber than they are.
Carl Wieland responds:
John, in choosing the title for this layman’s article, rather than assume that readers were ‘dumber than they are’, I actually assumed that the average reader would be aware that both the mechanisms of a computer and whatever the mechanisms in bees are that solve this problem are not applying intelligence in the normal sense of the word. Especially when the actual article content says nothing of the sort.
I also assumed, I guess, that they would be very comfortable with the usage, especially in a title seeking to be compact, of such perfectly acceptable everyday expressions as referring to a computer today being ‘smarter’ than those of ten years ago (in fact, we even talk of smart phones, yet everyone knows that they are not ‘intelligent’ as such.) And most readers will know that insect behaviour, even when described as ‘smart’, like a spider spinning its web, is largely the outworking of programmed instincts. But that is precisely the point, so thank you for helping me make it—that since it took a very high level of intelligence to both design and program the computer, it is clear that the design and programming exhibited in bees is strong evidence for intelligence, not randomness, involved in the origin of bees.
I suspect that the real issue for you is not that you don’t understand this point, but that it offends you and hence the seeming need to find some point around which to make an ad hominem attack on the writer, rather than address the point of the article itself.
Michael S., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
Evolutionist said;
Of course bees are smarter they’ve been evolving for millions of years
The only explanation for design which exceeds human-design, is a smarter designer. Why? Because you forget, that logically, in order to get the inferior human design, you need a designer.
But the bee-design is infinitely superior.
If you need a human to get an average design, then logically, what do you need to get an infinitely more brilliant design?
The only sound logical answer is;
An infinitely smarter designer.
It’s like saying; “if we need a fool to figure out that 2 add 2 is 4 then we do not need a mathematical expert to solve a difficult maths problem".”
That is what evolutionists have to argue, and it makes no sense because if you even need a fool to add 2 and 2, then the more complex problem will certainly need someone smarter.
Think about it, it makes no sense to say that you would not need someone smarter to get the bee design when it required a lot of human work just to get inferior human designs!
Mike J., Canada, 10 September 2012
Alex F. said;
“But we really have no idea how they can do it.” Surely this is just an argument from incredulity? … To dismiss it as ‘God did it’ in this cavalier fashion is not only bad science, it is bad theology, reducing your faith to mere idol worship!"
Why call the reader’s comment cavalier? Is everyone who disagrees with you guilty of a cavalier approach to things? Sounds like you’re pretty cavalier yourself in that you accuse him (without warrant) of idol worship.
Christian liberals apparently want to present a version of Christianity that can’t be rationally defended … and claim that any attempt to do so is idol worship. Apparently the God of all creation has left himself without a defense of any kind … and no trace of Him can be seen anywhere in the universe.
Biblical creationists in no way raise the creature to the level of the creator. It’s the Darwinist who makes a god of the created order (i.e. nature) by making it the ultimate source of all things.
Is it your opinion that Romans 1:20 is bad theology?
I suggest you read Without Excuse by Werner Gitt, as your view of biblical creation seems hopelessly out of date, based more on Darwinist critiques than reality.
The fact one can understand how something works doesn't mean it wasn't created. e.g. a computer.
John C. said: Of course bees are smarter they’ve been evolving for millions of years, computers have been around a mere fraction of that time.
I don’t think it’s correct to say bees are smarter; they have better programs for sure, but this doesn’t make them smart as they aren’t self-conscious agents. i.e. don’t possess human-like consciousness.
The bees found in the fossil layers appear identical to the bees of today. Thus Darwinist theory must deal with a stasis of a hundred million years or so. When you say bees have been ‘evolving’ for millions of years, where’s the data to support such a claim?
Andrew B., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
To John C. That would be micro evolution to be more exact. There is an article on this site about the oldest known bee fossil to found which you may find interesting. I don’t think there is any evidence to suggest these bees were not as smart as today’s bees.
Dan B., United Kingdom, 10 September 2012
John C., unless you can point to a plausible evolutionary mechanism for the bees’ skill, saying “evolution did it” is just as much wandwaving as saying “God did it”. It has no scientific merit. Plus computers haven’t been evolving, but improving entirely by dint of human intelligent input. Why would bees do better without any initial intelligent programming at all?
Great article Carl!
Shon M., United States, 10 September 2012
What about time would enable bees to not only solve the Travelling Salesman problem but to be attracted to flowers in the first place? How would they know there is anything about flowers that could serve as a food source?
Assuming the first bees found flowers useful for food, how many bees could have survived a strictly random search of their environment for flowers?
The evolutionist still needs to explain how these things arose gradually. I see complex specified information behind the scenes.
Mark K., United States, 10 September 2012
Bees did not outsmart supercomputers. The study by Lihoreau, et al., tested bees' ability to find optimal paths among 4 flowers. This size of problem is easily solved by the smallest computers.
Carl Wieland responds:
You seem to have missed the point, respectfully. The reason why the evolutionist researchers quoted waxed so eloquently about the bees' computational abilities was not because they watched them outsmart supercomputers in their lab. The fact that the bees ability to do this concerns hundreds of flowers comes from what they are known to do out in the field. The study was looking at how the bees do this, i.e. what strategy they apply, and four artificial flowers were presumably sufficient to establish this while keeping the test manageable. As a 'by the way': our article's claims were not from our own understanding of the main research paper, but from the first paper referenced, which was put out by one of the University of London colleges commenting on the research paper; they would of course have known of the parameters of the study, the abstract of which (mentioning that there were four 'flowers') is freely available on the web, incidentally. available on the web at least in abstract form, mentioning the four flowers.
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