It could be - but that's not what the author was invoking! They were talking about how having a subset of the population that doesn't follow the trends is essential for keeping up the health of the hive. It's wrong to say that "any bee could ignore the directions" - part of the system that only a small subset does. So if you want to transpose this into advice that you suggest to individuals (as the author did) - you should also suggest some notion of how an individual might detect when too many people are "following directions." Otherwise you're just advocating for following your personal inclinations - which may also be a fine thing to do - but was not what the author was saying bees do.