Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
When a honeybee dies it releases a death pheromone, a characteristic odour that signals the survivors to remove it from the hive. The corpse is promptly pushed and tugged out of the hive. The death pheromone is oleic acid. What happens if a live bee is dabbed with a drop of oleic acid? Then no matter how strapping and vigourous it might be, it is carried kicking and screaming out of the hive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote illustrates how bees react to death and how they expel deceased members to maintain the hive's health.
In this quote, Carl Sagan highlights the instinctual behavior of honeybees in response to death. The death pheromone, which is oleic acid, serves as a signal for the living bees to identify and remove the deceased, ensuring the hive remains healthy and functional. Interestingly, even a live bee treated with oleic acid is treated as if it were dead, showcasing the powerful influence of chemical signals in the animal kingdom and the delicate balance of life and death within their society.
Themes
BeesDeathPheromonesNatureOleic AcidHive
In practice
Example use cases
In a presentation about the social structure of bees to highlight cooperative behavior in nature.
More from Carl Sagan
All quotes →In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
Carl SaganRead
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
Carl SaganRead
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
Carl SaganRead
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
Carl SaganRead
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
Carl SaganRead
Similar quotes
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe -- to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it -- is a wonder beyond words.
Joanna MacyRead
When one looks at Nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it takes on a deeper significance than when one stands outside. More of Nature is thus expressed - it becomes part of a greater whole.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
The dance of the flower in the wind, in the sun, in the rain, cannot be understood by the head; the heart has to be open for it.
RajneeshRead
We must now understand that our own well-being can be achieved only through the well-being of the entire natural world around us.
Thomas BerryRead
When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with out-stretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver.
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead
Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.
Lucius Annaeus SenecaRead