The "science has proved that bees can't fly" urban myth originated in a 1934 book by entomologist Antoine Magnan, who discussed a mathematical equation by Andre Sainte-Lague, an engineer. The equation proved that the maximum lift for an aircraft's wings could not be achieved at equivalent speeds of a bee. I.e., an airplane the size of a bee, moving as slowly as a bee, could not fly. Although this did not mean a bee can't fly (which after all does not have stationary wings like the posited teency aircraft), nevertheless the idea that Magnan's book said bees oughtn't be able to fly began to spread.
It spread at first as a joke in European universities, at Sainte-Lague's & Magnan's expense. But later it became a "fact" among the gullible or the uneducated not smart enough to get the joke. Later still it became a "fun" experiment to develop complex mathematical theories both to explain how insects fly, or why they can't -- scientific intellectual sophism.
It has remained popular to this day, among the kinds of people who believe there were never dinosaurs because the devil made fossils to fool us, because the fact is that the world is only 6,000 years old & God made it in seven days. Alleged "loopholes" in physics are lit upon as evidence that the supernatural, & not physics, informs the nature of the universe. Whether that supernatural agent is God, astrology, the Good Fairies, or homeopathy, physics must first be shown to be the primary delusion so that wild impossibilities can be embraced as greater truth.
The simple way to debunk the moronic assertion is this: The aerodynamic equations that explain airplane flight are based on steady-wing & not moble-wing function. That a steady-wing airplane the size & shape of a bee will not fly has no baring whatsoever or the vastly more complicated moble-wing functions of insects.
And wow, doesn't it seem like even someone of highly limited intellectual capacity might've lit on that with even a third-grader's science education?? Never underestimate human capacity for ignorance.
Though the folklore began as a joke about a steady-wing flight equation foolishly applied to moble-wing, as often seems inevitable of folklore, the joke took on its own separate life. Silly reasoning evolved, building falacy upon falacy: Bees can't fly because it takes rear-wings to steady the flight, & they have no rear wings so they should tumble through the air ***-over-teakettle. No, that's not it, bee's can't possibly fly because it is physically impossible for wings to beat as fast as bee's wings beat. No wait, bees can't fly because the texture of their wings is too flat, unlike a bird or an airplane designed like airfoil. Oh! No! Wait! Though bees can fly (because we've seen 'em do it) & it does follow physics, nevertheless science can't explain it, so there!
Well, actually, Navier-Stokes flight equations are applicable to bees, & were developed in the early 1800s. So all that is really true is this: most of us couldn't follow Navier-Stokes theories of motion even if a professor tried to make it simple for us, so we still have to make an emotional decision to embrace the strong probability that physics do govern the universe, or that physics have no applicability because God & magic rules the universe.
