Bee-zarre ideas

One thing which has always made it difficult for me to accept the “Big Bang” theory of life is what I see as evidence of obvious plans.

We learned at school of plants producing flowers and nectar to attract insects to facilitate pollination and of seed dispersal methods designed (?) to maximise germination chances.

However, your report (19 May) of Cambridge University research claiming that garden flowers have “evolved” Velcro-like conical cells to give bees a foothold on petals in a breeze seems to me a quite bizarre interpretation of events.

Are we to believe that flowers sensed the bees’ difficulty, knew how to correct it and were themselves able to do so?

That suggests an intelligence beyond human standards.

How did they know the bees would be able to get free? Presumably the plants also sensed failure of pollination in windy conditions; otherwise they needn’t do anything.

I find the whole idea fanciful and I question whether bees have any such difficulty.

Robert Dow

Ormiston Road

Tranent, East Lothian