[ogoparootbbo]

err, I maybe hugely mistaken but is this an example of a real life of the following joke: "a scientist had this experiment going wherein everytime he rung a bell the grasshopper would jump. He clips one of the grasshopper's legs and rings the bell to see if the grasshopper would still jump and it did. He repeated the clipping process till the grasshopper had no legs. He wondered if it would still jump ... and it did not. He muttered to himself that hence that proves grasshoppers use their legs to hear"

am wondering it this is an example of a teleological thinking?

[phirus]

Yes "random walk" is not a strategy, it is a model. This article basically just says:"Jumping bean motion can be modeled with random walk", which isn't really suprising.

[amatic]

Jumping randomly(edit:in a random direction) when it is too hot is a strategy. And apparently good enough for survival of this species. The bacterium e. Coli uses a similar, or identical strategy of turning("tumbling") in a random direction when the environment conditions are not favorable, and then running straight while the conditions are good. You can guide a blindfolded person to a goal of your choosing just by telling them "hot" or "cold".

Maybe the name of the strategy should be "directed random walk".

[ars]

Yah, this article is basically nonsense. The beans jump more when hot, and less when cold, meaning they are more likely to stay put when jumping into the shade, and if too hot they'll keep jumping.

[kilgnad]

Wrong. The model CAN be characterized as a strategy. Why? Because there are better strategies that can be executed. A model is just a description, a strategy is a method for winning. Some methods are better then others.

Given zero information about your surroundings other then the fact of whether you are currently in a shade or currently not in a shade traveling in a straight line is a mathematically better strategy.

Why? Because random walk includes the possibility of going back to the same place of where there is no shade while traveling in a straight line guarantees every move is a new location.

[ilija139]

Exactly! Many motions in nature can be modeled as either Brownian motion or Lévy flight.

[jacquesm]

> He muttered to himself that hence that proves grasshoppers use their legs to hear

Not quite, but the location of the grasshoppers hearing organ is actually quite close to the legs!

[DonaldFisk]

In crickets, which together with grasshoppers are in the order Orthoptera, the hearing organs are actually on the legs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_(insect)

[dotancohen]

Many women would say the same about many men, who often don't hear a word that they are saying!