The Asian Giant Hornet

One of the marvels of evolution is the Asian giant hornet, a predatory wasp especially common in Japan. It’s hard to imagine a more frightening insect. The world’s largest hornet, it is as long as your thumb, with a two-inch body bedecked with menacing orange and black stripes. It’s armed with fearsome jaws to clasp and kill its insect prey, and also a quarter-inch stinger that proves lethal to several dozen Asians a year. And with a 3-inch wingspan, it can fly 25 miles per hour (far fa...

 Parable of the Scientist as Insect

Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers o...