Review: "Moneyball" and Beekeeping

I've spent the last few days reading the book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. I am a New York Mets' fan and, with their hiring of Sandy Alderson as General Manager, I thought it might be interesting to read up on his background and others he has recently hired.  The book describes the history of the Oakland A's from the late 80s until 2004 or so. The A's are a small-market team with a limited budget that, nonetheless, were able to field teams that were quite competitive.  To my surprise, I've discovered a book that has implications beyond baseball, and is applicable to all areas of life, including beekeeping.

I feel many readers might miss the message of this book. This really isn't a book about doing more with less but about being a critical thinker. The management of the Oakland A's were, overall,  "outsiders" to baseball.  They had not internalized generations of "baseball wisdom" about what produced a winning ball club. They were willing to question orthodoxy, and, more importantly, answer these questions in a rational way.  Nothing in baseball "orthodoxy" was sacred to them! This approach led the team to take a different approach to judging talent and building a roster, much to the chagrin and embarrassment of many baseball insiders on their scouting staff.

There is a lesson in this book that applies to other facets of life, even beekeeping. Are we willing to question conventional beekeeping wisdom and ask ourselves why? Where's the evidence? How do we know this? This is a tough thing to do, especially, when facing the laughter and mocking of other beeks with years more experience and a ton more respect in the community.  Much of what I do as a beekeeper is to test ideas out over time. Some ideas are failures and they are jettisoned, others that seem to work are retested and critically examined. I do listen to and respect more experience beekeepers but always with a critical ear. How did they arrive at this idea? Is the advice they give based on what's more economically efficient for the beekeeper or what is best for the bees in the long-term? What are the trade-offs? This critical approach does mean more work  because it's easier just to accept and do whatever conventional wisdom says to do. But I think in the long-term, the critical approach will be more successful and, therefore, satisfying.

Clarifying the Issues

This week on the Organic Beekeeping List, a heated discussion developed between a more conventional beekeeper, Jim Fischer, and members of this "no chemical" beekeeping list. The debate centered around the efficacy of Dee Lusby's "no dope" approach in saving hives from the threat of CCD. Fischer, a devotee of "scientism", claims that a good portion of Lusby's bees succumbed to CCD like symptoms this spring, and that she has hid this fact from her own "true believers" on the email list. I'm a new beekeeper, still learning, still critically digesting the vast amounts of beekeeping information available, so I will not presume to weigh in on the issues. However, this discussion was important for me in that it helped me clarify a few issues about my own apicultural "philosophy" and the importance of fairness, honesty, and compassion.

Firstly, the debate only highlighted for me why I call myself a sustainable beekeeper and not organic or natural, since my chief concern has always been the long-term survivability of bees and not being right, or ideologically "orthodox". If something doesn't work apiculturally in my locale in the long-term, I have to be willing to critically question my approach, whether it be a chemical treatment, or a method of "organic" orthodoxy. I have to be willing to even give up beekeeping if I find that I serve as a detriment to the bees. I know this might mean admitting I'm wrong, or ignorant, or, worse yet, incompetent, but my objective is not to be right; my objective is to sustain bees in the long-term. I need honesty and humility to be a sustainable beekeeper, remembering "I Could Be Wrong!"

Secondly, the debate showed me the need for compassion. When a beekeeper loses his/her bees, no matter what methods s/he uses, I hope we might all show some empathy for the loss and not glee. Before you organic beekeepers think I am only wagging my finger at Mr. Fischer, you might consider why he got such a kick at rubbing your face into Dee's losses. Isn't there often a certain self-righteous glee taken on this list when reports of conventional beekeepers' losses appear on the 'net? Most beekeepers I know are looking into the "glass darkly". We are all sorting through a complex array of interacting factors that impact our bees. No one has all the answers, and while I may not agree with other beekeepers' choices, I do not rejoice anytime a hive dies.

I do not rejoice in writing this. I feel very presumptious and hypocritical.

Top Bars in The News

An article was about top bar hives at Inside the Bay Area. Maybe we are on to something important in our Bee Activism!

Another Email to Global Issues Class on "Ishmael"

I had a few angry students attend class on Wednesday to review for a test. Most of the anger is focused on the book "Ishmael" again. Here is the email I sent them enititled: Some Hints.

I didn't have time to give you some helpful advice on taking the test on Friday. (Sorry about this) This is especially important for those of you who haven't taken these tests from me before. So keep the following in mind:

1. Whether you want to believe it or not, I really don't care what position you take on a given reading. What I do care about is:

2. That you understand the argument of the author fully and treat it fairly whether the author is Day, Westheimer, Kahne or Quinn.

For example, many of the "high-five" criticisms made of "Ishmael" this morning only showed me you hadn't read the book adequately since Quinn anticipates and answers those criticisms in Ishmael. Any critique you make of "Ishmael" must also take into account Quinn's answers as well. As a critical thinker, you cannot just dismiss "Ishmael" with knee-jerk responses that either distort his argument or selectively ignore pieces that don't fit into your pre-conceived ideas.

I think many of you have forgotten that I said I think "Ishmael" is a scary book. Why? Because I can't easily dismiss it and would like to at many points, just like some of you.

3. Try to avoid anecdotal evidence to support your argument. If you can't, admit that your evidence is anecdotal and leave it at that. So, for example, if you don't have systematic evidence that rich people have, lets' say, a good work ethic, and argue that they do, simply because one time you saw Donald Trump working in his garden, admit it! This is just an anecdote, a one time event, and you are building a case on that.

For those of you who want to read someone who criticizes other thinkers and does it by treating their ideas fully and fairly, read Aquinas' Summa Theologica. But remember, even Aquinas recognized he was finite.

Anyway, have fun studying,