Explaining Darwinism to an Accountant

[edwest2]

Hello Namesake,

Nature magazine tells me most leading scientists reject God. The institutionalized bias exists inside and outside of the lab. Ask PZ Myers who pointed out in an interview that the NAS is deluding itself by using Ken Miller as a front man for the theory of evolution, and thinks Richard Dawkins would be a better choice. But he understands the politics of the situation and that Miller was chosen for political reasons.

I now view science, especially biology, as being negatively affected by the equivalent of lobbyists. After all, the goal is to create product and make a buck. And if you want to be a scientist and make a living, what can you do?

Peace,
Ed

 

[Namesake]

Hello Namesake,

Nature magazine tells me most leading scientists reject God. The institutionalized bias exists inside and outside of the lab. Ask PZ Myers who pointed out in an interview that the NAS is deluding itself by using Ken Miller as a front man for the theory of evolution, and thinks Richard Dawkins would be a better choice. But he understands the politics of the situation and that Miller was chosen for political reasons.

I now view science, especially biology, as being negatively affected by the equivalent of lobbyists. After all, the goal is to create product and make a buck. And if you want to be a scientist and make a living, what can you do?

Peace,
Ed

And so you would claim that the conspiracy is so deep that a valid expose’ wouldn’t be published?

All it would take is one courageous grad student who could get his PhD and some cool awards and maybe a Nobel Prize. I wonder why such a grad student doesn’t publish such findings?

I can tell you for sure that when I was a grad student, if I could have upset the accepted science in a way that you claim to know, I would have jumped at the chance. Why doesn’t someone accept that opportunity? It’s every grad student’s dream!

Maybe it’s because there is nothing valid in what you claim?

 

[The_Barbarian]

If you think getting a PhD is an efficient way to make a buck, you’re sadly mistaken.

It all it was was the money, no one would do it.

 

[Namesake]

If you think getting a PhD is an efficient way to make a buck, you’re sadly mistaken.

It all it was was the money, no one would do it.

Right. But some young Turk who had the goods on the evolution conspiracy and went public would have a big jump start to a career. Just imagine if you could turn the whole world upside down with one paper, like Ed could.

Actually, there would be a lot of money involved too.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Well, yes. The big rewards go to the guys who overturn established theories.

Everyone dreams of it. But few manage to pull it off.

 

[edwest2]

If you think getting a PhD is an efficient way to make a buck, you’re sadly mistaken.

It all it was was the money, no one would do it.

Where does the money come from to do science today? Who funded the Human Genome Project? I’m sure you know about the role of the Department of Defense in many scientific endeavors. Funding has to come from somewhere or science would not get done.

Ph.D.? I’m sure you know it takes quite a bit more to do the kind of cutting-edge science that attracts big investors. Sadly, stock analysts probably know more about what’s coming than the general public.

As to the motivations of the peole that want to do research and applied science, that is a different matter. I know too many talented people who got their degrees but had no clue what was waiting for them once they earned the right to put on a lab coat. They were excited and skilled and wanted to make a difference, but, too often, the money people stepped in and either pulled the plug or showed them a side of the real world that was difficult to deal with.

Peace,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

I now view science, especially biology, as being negatively affected by the equivalent of lobbyists. After all, the goal is to create product and make a buck. And if you want to be a scientist and make a living, what can you do?

I posted several articles on another thread that shows where big corporate interests are paying scientists a lot of money to “prove” things that will make them look good. The tobacco industry has done that for a long time. Companies concerned about global warming reports are doing the same.

The results that those bought-and-paid for scientists are as biased as evolutionists who cover-up information and give one-side views on their findings.

Certainly, the atheistic-propagandists use science to support their attack on God and on Faith. Mr. Dawkins has made millions doing just that thing.

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

These scientists are paid to emphasize uncertainty (a relatively easy task when absolute scientific certainty is a rarity) in public hazard product cases, such as cigarettes, aspirin, and asbestos.

Manufacturing Uncertainty
What has happened over and over again is corporations have gotten this raw data and paid mercenary scientists to reanalyze the data and to essentially make positive results go away. If you have raw data, you can do that.

 

[edwest2]

To reggieM -

It is certainly true that one of the commodities sold to people is an idea. For example, convince young women that they have to dress a certain way, and before you know it, a lot of them are walking around in pants that don’t go up to their waist. I confronted a relative of mine and her response was: “But all my friends dress like this!”

A more serious example is the documented effect of showing girls in their teens a body type that is being marketed by a small clique in the “fashion” industry as ideal or beautiful or perfect. How many suffer from serious eating disorders or emotional problems because they can’t meet this ideal?

The same is true for other ideas. The evidence here is that the constant talk about evolution is not science related but acceptance related. Getting people to accept the idea is the goal. Criticism of its relative merits is met by a strong and committed defense which clearly shows that a lack of understanding by some Christians is not the problem. No, the problem is we see the inconsistencies, the false conclusions and the obvious ideology behind the science, i.e. oh, and after you’re done believing in evolution you should get rid of your ‘magical thinking,’ your book of myths written by men, and your belief in an invisible man in the sky.

Atheism is getting a big marketing push right now. Bill Maher with his movie. PZ Myers with his web site. It’s all the rage. But it reminds me of a verse in the Bible where some important people are angry at the whole Christian thing. A wise and well-regarded man reminds them of other similar situations and tells them how they should view the Christians. If it is a movement created by men, it will not last. But if it is something created by God then they could not overthrow it if they wanted to. They accept his words and leave the Christians in peace.

Peace,
Ed

 

[The_Barbarian]

You have it backwards, Reggie. If you’ll check, you’ll see that corporations were paying any scientist who would accept it, to write reports denying the evidence.

But very few of them accepted.

Scientists depend on people telling the truth. Without that, the whole thing collapses.

 

[Lost_Found]

Right. But some young Turk who had the goods on the evolution conspiracy and went public would have a big jump start to a career. Just imagine if you could turn the whole world upside down with one paper, like Ed could.

Actually, there would be a lot of money involved too.

Wow I check back a month later, and y’all are still going at it. I did not start this thread to discuss conspiracy. It’s to demonstrate objectivity & accountability.

If I asked these folks to do a bank-reconciliation, they’d come back to me with theories on fiscal policy. Still no rec - which means an unwillingness or inability to place the available finite data into proper order.

I’ve supervised many a programmer, and the most inexperienced ones - when I hand a bug to them - peel back the first layer and tell me the problem is fixed. After some prodding he’ll peel back a second layer. This is useless to me. Jumping to conclusions with limited evidence drives me crazy and does not solve the problem. And improperly deconstructing evidence - such as when the darwinists deconstruct your sentences to little bits in order to misconstrue their meaning - is evidence of this.

I could never be satisfied with darwin answers given my training and experience over the past several decades because I need to close the deal in order to continue with my job.
So again, I await your calculations, let me know when you’re done the rec, or even a billionth of a percent done.

 

[The_Barbarian]

If I asked these folks to do a bank-reconciliation, they’d come back to me with theories on fiscal policy. Still no rec - which means an unwillingness or inability to place the available finite data into proper order.

That’s why you should stay in accounting. You get to make the rules, and so things can come out perfectly when you do things. In nature, God sets the rules, and our work is to figure out what they are, and how they work, a bit at a time. Not a discipline for the timid.

I’ve supervised many a programmer, and the most inexperienced ones - when I hand a bug to them - peel back the first layer and tell me the problem is fixed. After some prodding he’ll peel back a second layer. This is useless to me.

In science, that’s how the process works. It might be incomprehensible to the layman, but it has one important benefit.

It works. Works better than anything else people have used. It, for example is the way we learned to make computers out of dirt.

Jumping to conclusions with limited evidence drives me crazy

Yeah, in graduate school, they let some financial types and MBAs into the systems courses. One, “Decision-making with Limited Information” drove them right up the wall. When we reminded them that they had been doing that all their lives, they still couldn’t get it. But it works. At the top, the CFOs have to do that, and they can make it work, just as engineers and scientists have to do in the real world. But it’s scary stuff to the average accountant or MBA.

And improperly deconstructing evidence - such as when the darwinists deconstruct your sentences to little bits in order to misconstrue their meaning - is evidence of this.

So you don’t know much about the theory, um? How do I know that? Inference based on limited evidence.

I could never be satisfied with darwin answers given my training and experience over the past several decades because I need to close the deal in order to continue with my job.

We need bean counters just as much as we need scientists. It’s good that you found a job you can do capably.

So again, I await your calculations, let me know when you’re done the rec, or even a billionth of a percent done.

Science doesn’t work like that. Fortunately, there are plenty of people who can work inductively and find those answers we need to progress.

Thank them the next time you see them, and hope that they are grateful you calculated their paycheck correctly.

 

[Lost_Found]

Your analogy of the CFO (Perhaps you mean CEO) explains my point. In our case, reality soon provides the answer as to whether the decision was correct.
With darwinism there is no such accountability or objectivity or reality. This sounds to me like a discipline for the timid.

 

[rossum]

Jumping to conclusions with limited evidence drives me crazy and does not solve the problem.

If you sit around waiting for complete evidence then you may never solve the problem. By making a start with limited evidence, at least you have a chance to solve the problem. As more evidence comes in later you can adjust your solution to take into account the new evidence as it arrives.

Are you a Christian? You made that decision with limited evidence. You do not know the text of the correct ending of Mark’s Gospel, so you information is incomplete. Is that sufficient to delay your making a decision, despite having incomplete and limited evidence?

Sometimes limited evidence is all we have, so we have to use what is available and make out best estimate based on what is to hand. The estimate can be adjusted later as more evidence comes in.

rossum

 

[Lost_Found]

If you sit around waiting for complete evidence then you may never solve the problem. By making a start with limited evidence, at least you have a chance to solve the problem. As more evidence comes in later you can adjust your solution to take into account the new evidence as it arrives.

Are you a Christian? You made that decision with limited evidence. You do not know the text of the correct ending of Mark’s Gospel, so you information is incomplete. Is that sufficient to delay your making a decision, despite having incomplete and limited evidence?

Sometimes limited evidence is all we have, so we have to use what is available and make out best estimate based on what is to hand. The estimate can be adjusted later as more evidence comes in.

rossum

True, but it’s actually the darwinist who makes a claim and then sits around waiting for evidence (150 years), rather than working on backing up his considerable claims mathematically.

Yes, as my profile states I’m Christian. At least I have the humility and the common sense to admit that divine revelation is faith-based. And as already mentioned I have more faith in those sources than the darwinists, in terms of handing on the teachings.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Your analogy of the CFO (Perhaps you mean CEO)

“CFO” means “Chief Financial Officer.” I thought you knew.

The chief financial officer (CFO) of a company or public agency is the corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the business or agency.
Wikipedia

explains my point. In our case, reality soon provides the answer as to whether the decision was correct.

Indeed. The reason evolutionary theory is accepted by the vast majority of scientists, is that it has made numerous predictions about living things that were later verified by new discoveries.

With darwinism there is no such accountability or objectivity or reality.

You’ve been badly misled about that. One example is Huxley’s rather astute prediction that there must have been transitional organisms between dinosaurs and birds. That prediction has since been verified dozens of times.

Another is Darwin’s prediction of common descent, verified repeatedly by the same sort of DNA analysis we use to verify human descent.

There are many more. Would you like to learn about some more of them?

This sounds to me like a discipline for the timid.

Science is always pushing new frontiers. That’s what we do.

 

[The_Barbarian]

True, but it’s actually the darwinist who makes a claim and then sits around waiting for evidence (150 years), rather than working on backing up his considerable claims mathematically.

See my recent post on ways the theory has been verified by new evidence. You’ve got a lot to learn about the theory, and the evidence for it.

If you’d like to learn the mathematical base for evolution, you should read “Population and Evolutionary Genetics” by Francisco J. Ayala (a devout Catholic, BTW) It is a good introductory text, and accessible to anyone with a little high school algebra.

If you would like a more rigorous treatment of the subject, you could try Alan Hastings’ “Population Biology”.

More mathematics than most accountants will have to master.

 

[Lost_Found]

“CFO” means “Chief Financial Officer.” I thought you knew.

The chief financial officer (CFO) of a company or public agency is the corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the business or agency.
Wikipedia

Indeed. The reason evolutionary theory is accepted by the vast majority of scientists, is that it has made numerous predictions about living things that were later verified by new discoveries.

You’ve been badly misled about that. One example is Huxley’s rather astute prediction that there must have been transitional organisms between dinosaurs and birds. That prediction has since been verified dozens of time.

Another is Darwin’s prediction of common descent, verified repeatedly by the same sort of DNA analysis we use to verify human descent.

There are many more. Would you like to learn about some more of them?

Science is always pushing new frontiers. That’s what we do.

Yeah I assure you I’m quite aware what a CFO stands for, and what his role is. Such distractions - typical from the darwinist -have already been used on me earlier in the thread. Nice try though.

And thanks for the offer, but I’m not looking for more of the above distractions - dug-up dinosaurs, birds, trained monkeys and so on. What I’m looking for, to remind you again, is a mathematical reconciliation to back up your singular claim that through random mutation and natural selection we went from a 0 cell system to a 10 billion plus system in 3 or so billion years.
I don’t think you’re ready to provide that any time soon so you can continue your babble for another month if you wish without admitting that you are unable to provide anything close to such an analysis.
Sorry for your luck, that you are unable to provide this analysis. Now, carry on with your dinosaur babble, and your accusations of ignorance/incompetence to anyone who does not buy into your claim.

 

[Ender]

… the difference between “evolution” and “Darwinism”.

As Barbarian said, evolution is the process and Darwinism (or the Modern Synthesis, which is all I mean by the term) is an explanation of what drives the process. For me the important difference is that evolution can be true (and I believe that it is) while Darwinism can be wrong - and I believe that in a significant aspect, it is.

I try to be specific when I object to something not to imply that I am rejecting evolution, only that I am not sold on the explanation being provided - although it is nearly impossible to demur on anything about evolution without being labeled a radical creationist.
hecd:

Lynn Margulis showed convincingly that you are quite wrong about that.

This is an example of what I mean. In the article pointed to this statement is made:

“Carsonella is so reduced and so utterly dependent on its host nuclear genome that it can be regarded as a transition between an obligate endosymbiont and a eukaryotic organelle. It is a genuine transitional on its way from bacterium to organelle. Never let creationists tell you that there are no transitionals.”

Well, this could be true but, unless it can be shown that an endosymbiont has actually become an organelle, there is no way to know whether carsonella is a transitional life form or not. The best that can be said for this conclusion is that it may be true but it is overreaching to say that it is in fact true.

In order for evolution to be true there must be transitional forms and since I have already said that I accept evolution, logically I also accept transitionals. What I don’t accept is that this paper proves the statement it makes about transitionals and I object to it on the same basis I objected earlier to a statement by Rossum about a particular experiment showing evolution in the laboratory. The conclusions are not warranted by the evidence.

Ender

 

[The_Barbarian]

Yeah I assure you I’m quite aware what a CFO stands for, and what his role is.

Hard to say why you confused it with CEO, then. I merely pointed out that while decisions under uncertainty are perhaps daunting to ordinary accountants, CFOs certainly deal with them.

And thanks for the offer, but I’m not looking for more of the above distractions - dug-up dinosaurs, birds, trained monkeys and so on. What I’m looking for, to remind you again, is a mathematical reconciliation to back up your singular claim that through random mutation and natural selection we went from a 0 cell system to a 10 billion plus system in 3 or so billion years.

I suggested some sources to learn about it, but I gather that kind of math is not your forte. The numbers are very clear. The process is abundantly documented.

I don’t think you’re ready to provide that any time soon so you can continue your babble for another month if you wish without admitting that you are unable to provide anything close to such an analysis.

Ah, the atheists do that, too. “You can’t even tell me what color Noah’s eyes were, and you expect me to believe in God?”

And the mathematical proofs, you won’t touch, even when offered. For reasons we all understand.

Sorry for your luck, that you are unable to provide this analysis. Now, carry on with your dinosaur babble, and your accusations of ignorance/incompetence to anyone who does not buy into your claim.

Don’t go away mad. Learn a bit about the math, and come on back and we can talk about it. Do Ayala’s book first. It’s an easier read, but you might want to have a calculator and a pencil to get it best.

It’s more than just counting beans.

 

[The_Barbarian]

This is an example of what I mean. In the article pointed to this statement is made:

“Carsonella is so reduced and so utterly dependent on its host nuclear genome that it can be regarded as a transition between an obligate endosymbiont and a eukaryotic organelle. It is a genuine transitional on its way from bacterium to organelle. Never let creationists tell you that there are no transitionals.”

Well, this could be true but, unless it can be shown that an endosymbiont has actually become an organelle, there is no way to know whether carsonella is a transitional life form or not.

We can, of course, show that chloroplasts are genetically and anatomically almost identical to certain species of photosynthetic bacteria. They are endosymbionts; they have their own (bacterial) genomes, their own reproductive cycle, and energy molecules that are prokaryotic, not eukaryotic.

The presence of these resulted in a prediction that we should see intermediates between organelles and independent organisms. And we have since confirmed the prediction.

That is considered compelling evidence in science.