Explaining Darwinism to an Accountant

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Okay I have a legitimate question about Darwinism, so there are probably experts on this forum who can settle my misgivings about it all.

For many years I’ve been a computer programmer of custom accounting systems, so I ask accounting questions about evolution.

Years ago, I recall landing a job where I took over the existing custom accounting system and it didn’t balance by seven dollars, in a system tracking three billion tax dollars. My first task was to proof the numbers, that is, find and fix the program code so the numbers reconcile to zero difference.

The existing computer coding turned out to be a dog’s breakfast, because my predecessor used to patch away at the bugs, fixing enough of his mistakes until they cancelled themselves out reasonably close to zero. Eventually I decided to throw out the entire model and re-build the logic/code from scratch because it couldn’t handle any new scenario without excessive retrofitting.

So when I say “proof”, I mean reconcile to the dollar, because seven dollars out of three billion was hiding some serious problems with system design. The key is, as you reconcile, you find all the mistakes.

So- I might accept that peoples’ appearances will change from one generation to the next, and scientists will argue that this accumulates over time. But when someone asserts that life here is 3 billion years old, and in this time evolved 10 billion human brain cells working in harmony with billions of other cells in the heart, liver, limbs, can you see how as a programmer-accountant I would need to see this broken down and reconciled.

So an accountant would say, to be evaluated to the same standard as me, scientists will provide ‘proof’ once they break down their MUTATION and NATURAL SELECTION RATES by the year, over each of the alleged THREE BILLION YEARS and show the ZERO to TEN BILLION brain cell transformation, year-over-year. (Just be thankful I didn’t request by the “transaction”/generation). I suspect that they’re quite a ways from accomplishing this, so I’m suspicious that they’re patching and blind-eying some massive design problems behind the scenes of their model. I could only predict their theory would eventually need to be thrown out and rebuilt from scratch because they have far too much remaining to be reconciled. I am suspicious that there are messes the outsider does not see in their model, if there is a model.

In my dollar accounting world, you will be dismissed after not being able to reconcile 10 billion dollars, let alone fudging seven dollars, on a budget of 3 billion. This is the standard I am held to, and evaluated on. My impression is that scientists are being extremely forgiving of their own standards, more like relying on faith in their claims. Could someone please comment and clarify in a language I can understand.
 
There is grandeur in this view of life,with its several powers,having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.-Charles Darwin
 
For mathematical models of evolution, you want to check out a paper such as one published in Nature (2003) from Michigan State Univ folks:

The evolutionary origin of complex features on “Avida” by Lenski, Pennock, et al

also:

Genetic algorithms and evolutionary computation from TalkOrigins.org
Evolutionary algorithms by Wikipedia contributors

Finally a video from Microsoft’s “Channel 9” I found fascinating. One of the programmers there explained how Darwin’s natural selection (or “survival of the fittest”) is a good analogy for a “fitness” scheduling algorithm that was invented to allow attendees to a conference to see most of the featured speakers they wanted, at the time they wanted. That video is here:

Mike Swanson: Genetic Session Scheduler (requires MS “Silverlight” to be installed which is their “Flash” video player)

I believe the buddhist Rossum (also a IT computer geek I think) has discussed things like this in here. The critique would be “intelligence” seems to be going into the system from the start, since any programming requires intelligence. But that is taken care of in the algorithm itself I think which makes it “random” enough to qualify as a good representative of how evolution would work.

BTW, I code too (PHP/MySQL web sites, and C/C++ games) and I accept evolution fully. 👍 The evidence is there (from biology, paleontology, genetics, etc) even if it couldn’t be described in a rigorously mathematical way.

Phil P
 
is the accountant using generally accepted acounting principles?
 
Years ago, I recall landing a job where I took over the existing custom accounting system and it didn’t balance by seven dollars, in a system tracking three billion tax dollars. My first task was to proof the numbers, that is, find and fix the program code so the numbers reconcile to zero difference.
The existing computer coding turned out to be a dog’s breakfast, because my predecessor used to patch away at the bugs, fixing enough of his mistakes until they cancelled themselves out reasonably close to zero. Eventually I decided to throw out the entire model and re-build the logic/code from scratch because it couldn’t handle any new scenario without excessive retrofitting.
Ironically, that’s a pretty good description of the way God set up evolution. Of course, He could have done what you did, build everything from scratch, but that lacks elegance, and doesn’t seem to be His style. He did it right the first time.

If you look at biological systems you see precisely this. Jerry-rigged in many ways, not great, but good enough for the purpose. Nothing like the perfection you’d see, if He did each living species from scratch. Lots of patches, indicating bug fixing on the fly. There’s no sign of a total do-over.

He created life with a built-in system that generates novelties, and then winnows out all but the ones that make things work better.
 
We use Generally Accepted Accounting standards such as the beatitudes. The Lord uses Generally Accepted Auditing standards to judge us. Some people must have the specific audit guides in use.

mdcpensive1
 
We use Generally Accepted Accounting standards such as the beatitudes. The Lord uses Generally Accepted Auditing standards to judge us. Some people must have the specific audit guides in use.

mdcpensive1
it will take a Holy Accountant to figure out where my back-end points went.
 
even if it couldn’t be described in a rigorously mathematical way.
It could be, but it won’t be.

If the theory was predictive, we would see the numbers illustrating probabilities. But we don’t see a “rigorously mathematical” approach because it’s not a rigorous science.

Accountants and computer programmers should be able to see that quite clearly. Observe the rates of mutations and random environmental changes and add the random components of natural selection. Then calculate the number of changes required to move from one species to another and multiply that by the number of mutations needed to create one change and then amount of time it takes for one positive mutation to occur.
 
Okay I have a legitimate question about Darwinism, so there are probably experts on this forum who can settle my misgivings about it all.

For many years I’ve been a computer programmer of custom accounting systems, so I ask accounting questions about evolution.

Years ago, I recall landing a job where I took over the existing custom accounting system and it didn’t balance by seven dollars, in a system tracking three billion tax dollars. My first task was to proof the numbers, that is, find and fix the program code so the numbers reconcile to zero difference.

The existing computer coding turned out to be a dog’s breakfast, because my predecessor used to patch away at the bugs, fixing enough of his mistakes until they cancelled themselves out reasonably close to zero. Eventually I decided to throw out the entire model and re-build the logic/code from scratch because it couldn’t handle any new scenario without excessive retrofitting.
Hold onto that image, I will return to it later.
So when I say “proof”, I mean reconcile to the dollar, because seven dollars out of three billion was hiding some serious problems with system design. The key is, as you reconcile, you find all the mistakes.
Science does not do ‘proof’, that is for mathematics or logic. Science has evidence and the best current interpretation of the evidence. Because the evidence changes as new things are discovered so the best current interpretation also changes which does not allow for a final ‘proof’.
So- I might accept that peoples’ appearances will change from one generation to the next, and scientists will argue that this accumulates over time. But when someone asserts that life here is 3 billion years old, and in this time evolved 10 billion human brain cells working in harmony with billions of other cells in the heart, liver, limbs, can you see how as a programmer-accountant I would need to see this broken down and reconciled.
With historical information you cannot asume that all the required data will be available. You cannot tell me the name of Cain’s wife and you cannot present me with a reconciled innkeeper’s bill for the Last Supper, accurate to the last denarius. DNA does not survive three billion years - the oldest sequenced DNA I am aware of is some Neanderthal mtDNA about 30,000 years old.

Some of the data is available. Brains did not exist until about 550 million years ago, before then all life was single celled. Some of the first metazoa (multicelled organisms) had nervous systems, but no brain - modern jellyfish are an example. As the fossils get younger we see some lines with increasing brain sizes: amphioxus has more brain than a jellyfish, but less than a fish. Mammals generally have relatively larger brains than other tetrapods. Hominidae generally have larger brains than other primates. Humans generally have larger brains than other hominidae. I cannot give you a mutation-by-mutation account of this any more than you can tell me what Jesus ate on His tenth birthday. The information now available does not contain that level of detail.
In my dollar accounting world, you will be dismissed after not being able to reconcile 10 billion dollars, let alone fudging seven dollars, on a budget of 3 billion. This is the standard I am held to, and evaluated on. My impression is that scientists are being extremely forgiving of their own standards, more like relying on faith in their claims. Could someone please comment and clarify in a language I can understand.
PhilVaz has already referred you to the Lenski paper. That does include exactly the kind of detail that you want, the complete Line of Descent of one of its organisms from one with no function to one with all the functions.

I said that I would return to the accounting programs you described above. Evolution tends to produce kludges like the original program you talked about; patch on patch on patch. However, evolution works in a different way to programmers. Start with a barely working program. Make millions of copies of it, some with changes. Run all of the new programs against each other and pick the ones that are the least inaccurate. Make copies of those least bad programs and repeat the process for millions of cycles. You will get a highly kludged mess that, somehow, produces accurate results.

Also do not forget that there are many ways to write a working program, Yockey (1992) calculated that there were 10^93 different ways to make a functioning Cytochrome-C enzyme. Evolution only has to find one of those possible Cytochrome-Cs and the ‘program’ will work. Fine tuning to find a better Cytochrome-C can come later.

rossum
 
I am also an accountant. I also need to see things tie to 0.
I also don’t ‘get’ evolution.
My husband is a researcher at a major University. He has a PhD in microbiology and genetics.
He doesn’t ‘get’ why it’s so important to tie to 0.
But he can blow your mind away on evolution.
What I’m saying is, what YOU try to reconcile in your head, he and I try to reconcile over the dinner table.
I ask him ALL the time ‘So, EVERY dog I see, is from the gray wolf?’
‘Yes’
‘The pit bull?’
‘Yes’
‘The poodle?’
‘Yes’
‘The Chihuahua? Certainly not the chihuahua?’
‘Yes, even the chihuahua’
‘All from the gray wolf?’
‘Yes’
‘But, how?!?!?’
And he explains it again.
And it still boggles my mind.
I mean, domesticated dogs were FORCED evolution - we KNOW what happened because WE MADE it happen. And I still don’t get it 🤷 😊
 
as a computer programmer you know the need for documentation of all changes, patches, subroutines etc., and something sadly lacking when you go into a new place to fix their long-standing system problems. Just ask the evolutionists to provide their documentation
 
I mean, domesticated dogs were FORCED evolution - we KNOW what happened because WE MADE it happen. And I still don’t get it 🤷 😊
I love this!

The problem most people who don’t accept evolution have is that they don’t understand it the way scientists understand it. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but if you try to force evolution or any other field of science into a non-scientific way of thinking, there will be a disconnect.

Peace

Tim
 
I am also an accountant. I also need to see things tie to 0.
I also don’t ‘get’ evolution.
My husband is a researcher at a major University. He has a PhD in microbiology and genetics.
He doesn’t ‘get’ why it’s so important to tie to 0.
But he can blow your mind away on evolution.
What I’m saying is, what YOU try to reconcile in your head, he and I try to reconcile over the dinner table.
I ask him ALL the time ‘So, EVERY dog I see, is from the gray wolf?’
‘Yes’
‘The pit bull?’
‘Yes’
‘The poodle?’
‘Yes’
‘The Chihuahua? Certainly not the chihuahua?’
‘Yes, even the chihuahua’
‘All from the gray wolf?’
‘Yes’
‘But, how?!?!?’
And he explains it again.
And it still boggles my mind.
I mean, domesticated dogs were FORCED evolution - we KNOW what happened because WE MADE it happen. And I still don’t get it 🤷 😊
Have a look at Tame Silver Fox. They have been bred from wild to tame in 50 years.

rossum
 
Another thing about evolution is that organisms don’t have to be even close to perfect - just good enough - to survive and pass on their genes.
 
Wow look at all the answers!!:bounce: I can’t wait to read them all in detail :hypno: When I was at the Protestant site before joining here, I asked a similar question and they all came back at me like bees swarming Donald Duck:eek:
I especially like hearing from accountants, they know where I’m coming from!!

Specially thanks to PhilVaz for all those links!! I will read them all and get back to you to explain the parts I don’t understand:whacky:
 
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