3/23/12
SLU's Romer Lecture On 'Honeybee Democracy'
April 4
CANTON - Cornell University Biology Professor Thomas D. Seeley will give a talk called "Honeybee Democracy" on Wednesday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of Hepburn Hall at St. Lawrence University. The 2012 Alfred Romer Memorial Lecture, the event is open to the public free of charge and will be followed by a book-signing. Seeley's books will be available at the lecture, as well as in the Brewer Bookstore.
Seeley is a professor in the department of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell, where he teaches courses in animal behavior and does research on the functional organization of honeybee colonies. He grew up in Ithaca, NY, and began keeping and studying bees while a high school student, when he brought home a swarm of bees in a wooden box.
In his talk, Seeley will describe how honeybees make decisions: collectively and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate and consensus-building. Seeley will discuss how these bees evaluate potential nest sites, advertise their discoveries to one another, engage in open deliberation, choose a final site and navigate together - as a swirling cloud of bees - to their new home. He will argue that these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to achieving collective wisdom. A decision-making group should consist of individuals with shared interests and mutual respect, a leader's influence should be minimized, diverse solutions should be sought, vigorous debate of the options should be encouraged, and the majority will should be counted on for a dependable solution. "We will see," Seeley says, "that with the right organization, decision-making groups can be smarter than even the smartest individual in them."
Seeley is the author of three books, Honeybee Ecology (1985), The Wisdom of the Hive (1995) and Honeybee Democracy (2010). He has received the Senior Scientist Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Alfred Romer Lecture was established to honor the late emeritus professor of physics, who was associated with the University for over 50 years.
More information about Seeley can be found on the Cornell University website.
