[Scientist]s, it seems, have proven that bumblebees cannot fly.

The [meme] circulates every so often to demonstrate various things. It can be a [paean] to the power of [believing in yourself] like the scientist-defying bee. It can be used to point out the ostensible [Alexander Pope|Pope]an [danger]s of [too much knowledge], or it can be testimony to the [ivory tower|ivory-towerness] of science. It can even be spread in aid of [religious fundamentalism], like [the missing day] story: [God] knows bees can fly, but [godless] scientists don't.

[The truth of the matter] is a little [complicated], as [truth]s so often are.

Here's the deal, according to a post made to the [newsgroup] sci.[aeronautics] on October 9, 1996: scientists never discovered that bees can't fly. They have found that applying certain [aerodynamic] models to bees produces that result. Then they decide that, well, those models don't work for bees -- in other words, bees don't fly [steady state lift theory|like that], they fly [unsteady lift theory|some other way].

Scientists, as a rule, aren't [stupid]. They know that bumblebees fly. They also, [mirabile dictu], know that [science can't explain everything]. That is why they are scientists -- to increase the number of things science can explain.

However, flying bees is in that latter category already: Observation of bumblebees in flight shows the application of unsteady lift processes.

Bumblebee (idea)