Only partially related but i am going to hop on my soapbox to inform everyone that honeybees are an invasive species in the US and others places. While they are not the sole cause of native bee/pollinator die off they are one of the largest factors contributing to it. Save native bees!

How would we be growing crops in hot or cold places? There are so many insects including ones that literally can survive in a vacuum. Plants would die anyway.

Why can’t insects work in space? In fact, since they’re self-reproducing, they’re actually a better option… Whereas the robots will break down. Insects are probably lower risk…

Insects have evolved for millions of years. They’ve already proven to be an effective machine.

It’s interesting research, but it is possible to have research with limited practical applications but which is still cool

This kinda pisses me off.

I don’t think anyone in that conversation is advocating against “science.” They’re advocating to (or maybe just lamenting the fact that we can’t for political reasons) do more to save real bees (and the environment in general) rather than replace bees with something robotic. And they’re commenting on how starkly this article highlights how much we’re fucking the planet.

Second, building robot bees isn’t really science. It solidly qualifies as engineering, but not science. The reason I bring this up is that while it’s arguable that there’s no science that shouldn’t be pursued (though certainly science ought to be done ethically), there’s definitely engineering that would best be not done at all. We keep engineering new and ingenious ways to extract more oil from mostly-not-oil, but that’s destroying the planet. Elon’s Hyperloop was never a good idea, and it’s fortunate it was never actually built and probably will never be built. A lot of geoengineering proposals that have been put forward are risky on the basis that we don’t understand the ecosystems involved well enough to know what the side effects might be (and that’s likely not something science will be able to solve any time soon.)

Some engineering is beneficial. But some isn’t. And you can imagine Elon or the oil industry or some reckless geoengineering startup railing against detractors calling them “anti-science” just as a PR stunt to sway public opinion in favor of their fucked-up money-making scheme.

Comparing building robot bees to measuring fly genitalia further illustrates how the poster is conflating science and engineering.

The thing about “less strain on bees” seems directly out of someone’s ass. I can’t guess their line of reasoning.

Now, being realistic, we’re so fucked that I doubt we can save the bees. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to make robot bees. But it’s pretty fucked that we have to. Which is all they were saying in that conversation.