Listening to Learn : Can we learn from Insect Societies?

#Can we learn from Insect Societies?
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Many species of insects, such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites organize themselves into societies. These insect societies resemble human societies in many ways and are sometimes more efficient than our society. They sustainably harvest environmental resources, engineer their environment both inside and outside their nests, practice agriculture, fight disease with a combination of individual and social immunity, organize social hunting parties, navigate their environment using terrestrial and celestial cues and majorly influence the evolutionary trajectories of other organisms such as flowering plants. With all this, can we not learn anything from them, asks Prof. Gadagkar. His answer is a cautious yes. He points out that we have to first overcome some problems. We find everything in insect societies: the good, the bad and the ugly. Thus, we can find suitable examples in nature to justify anything we want - monarchy, slavery, murder, matricide, fratricide, infanticide, siblicide or, if we so wish, democracy, socialism, egalitarianism, altruism, self-sacrifice… So, we cannot mindlessly follow insect societies. It would be dangerous to justify whatever we want by showing that insect societies do the same. This is called the Naturalistic Fallacy. It is suggested that we should first decide what we wish to do, and then, by turning to insect societies or other parts of nature, we may find efficient ways of accomplishing what we want. These ideas are discussed in this talk with examples.
Dr. Raghavendra Gadagkar is a Department of Science and Technology Year of Science Chair Professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Professor Gadagkar has spent his entire scientific career attempting to understand how the societies of insects such as ants, bees, and wasps function. Dr. Gadagkar and his many passionate students have focused on the locally available but previously little-known paper wasp Ropalidia Marginata for their empirical research. Using field and laboratory studies and employing observational, statistical, theoretical, and modelling approaches Dr. Gadagkar and his students have discovered that this Indian paper wasp is ideally suited to understand the evolutionary forces that promote social life. His work has resulted in numerous articles and three books. Being passionately committed to teaching, science communication and outreach, Prof. Gadagkar regularly lectures and writes expository articles and books for the general public. He has received numerous prestigious awards from India and abroad, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the Homi Bhabha Fellowship, and the Distinguished Animal Behaviourist Award for lifetime achievement from the Animal Behaviour Society, USA.
Professor Gadagkar has been elected to all the science Academies in India, viz., the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi; the National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad; and the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru. He is also the fellow of The World Academy of Science; the National Academy of Science, USA; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the German National Science Academy Leopoldina. Dr. Gadagkar has also been conferred the Cross of the Order of Merit by the President of Germany.

[@kkp1985]

Wonderful learning

[@savitavarshney3850]

Really a wonderful program 👏

[@kmalathi4943]

Nice conversation with professor Raghavendra sir.🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 B'lore Karnataka.

[@kmalathi4943]

🐜🦗🪲🦟🪳🪰🐝🐞🦋🐛 B'lore Karnataka.