tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post116532632059072877..comments2023-10-06T09:21:48.090-04:00Comments on All-Too-Common Dissent: 'Looney' - another creationist engineer with all the answersDoppelgangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-42842007830516196112007-06-20T19:07:00.000-04:002007-06-20T19:07:00.000-04:00Well, you bring up some good points, but your char...Well, you bring up some good points, but your characterizations - which I agree with - can, unfortunately, be accurately applied to a large number of anti-evolutionists with engineering backgrounds.<BR/><BR/>I suspect Looney is what he says he is - an engineer who is a creationist. Creationism seems to have that affect on otherwise rational, intelligent folks.Doppelgangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-85698132928325786402007-06-17T09:30:00.000-04:002007-06-17T09:30:00.000-04:00Upon further thought, I suspect Looney is an off-d...Upon further thought, I suspect Looney is an off-duty auto mechanic in a tavern with WiFi. I think you gentlemen are being scammed.<BR/><BR/>What does Occam's Razor tell you about this scenario? Looney is an <B>expert</B> in several fields; he's familiar with <B>every</B> example and author. He's got a fancy government job using evolutionary computing, but doesn't believe in evolution. He's a scientist who demonstrates little understanding of science. <BR/><BR/>He's highly educated, but can't spell, read or think. He ignores the valid points you make. Some of the things he says are provably wrong or just plain goofy. <BR/><BR/>I smell a scam. A half-smart drunk could whip up non-sequiturs out of Google searches all night long. <BR/><BR/>"In Internet terminology, a <B>troll</B> is someone who intentionally posts ... inflammatory messages about sensitive topics ... to bait users into responding." -- from the "troll" Wiki pageUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10282674727913586522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-86876997045728072282007-06-17T08:27:00.000-04:002007-06-17T08:27:00.000-04:00Looney is certainly loony, but I question the rest...Looney is certainly loony, but I question the rest of you. <BR/><BR/>Gentlemen, what is the point of discussing issues with someone who can't grasp those issues?<BR/><BR/>Would you engage in an educated discussion with a drunk or a deranged street person? Of course not, because it's a waste of time. Looney is delusional, and word wars with him are pointless. <BR/><BR/>Discussing reality with someone who has proven they cannot grasp reality is an absurd endeavor. Looney isn't ever going to get it. An intelligent discussion with a nut is not an intelligent discussion.<BR/><BR/>There have been a great many brilliant responses to Looney.<BR/><BR/>But you are singing to the deaf.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10282674727913586522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-43468984336454712232006-12-07T10:51:00.000-05:002006-12-07T10:51:00.000-05:00"... but in those terrible 'soft' sciences like bi..."... but in those terrible 'soft' sciences like biology and geology, not only do we have to have 'done' to get a job in the first place, we have to continue to 'do' for the most part all the way through our careers..."<br /><br />This ties in with Looney's massive ignorance of the theories he thinks he's demolishing. Note that ID proponents produce no new data, and pretend that scientific controversies consist of dueling essays, instead of the reality of appeals to data. Scientists have to produce, and reviews or essays don't count for squat if one is trying to get a grant in biology.Smokeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05904417073935434187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-28219562709597256692006-12-07T10:32:00.000-05:002006-12-07T10:32:00.000-05:00Let's just say that if a really smart person studi...<i>Let's just say that if a really smart person studies science, moves on into engineering, and then joins the management team at Enron, we presume he is corrupt until proven otherwise.</i><br /><br />Holy shit. That's a huge non-sequitur and a prime example of sophistry. Taking a specific inflaming incident (Enron) and then blowing that out as some unrelated comparison to encompass all PhDs all the while trying to confuse the actual points being made. Sheesh.<br /><br />I'm going to re-interpret your claim to not just focus on Enron and focus on all in corporate positions. <b>You</b> may assume that all in these positions are corrupt I however do not unless they give me reason to do so. <br /><br />Wow.Rev. BigDumbChimphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04375916659207181335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-85591666960131071462006-12-07T09:45:00.000-05:002006-12-07T09:45:00.000-05:00I documented the reason for the anti-intellectuali...I documented the reason for the anti-intellectualism on a number of earlier post. (Speaking as an intellectual and the son of an engineering professor.) <br /><br />Let's just say that if a really smart person studies science, moves on into engineering, and then joins the management team at Enron, we presume he is corrupt until proven otherwise. If the same person finishes a Ph.D. and becomes a professor, will his moral character be any different?<br /><br />You think it is an irrational disregard. I think of it as no more fairy tales.Looneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15801436449971512320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-35476659408788651292006-12-07T09:03:00.000-05:002006-12-07T09:03:00.000-05:00In real life, engineers don't choose the problems ...<i>In real life, engineers don't choose the problems we must going to solve. The problems confront us regardless. It isn't academia. </i><br /><br />I've never really understood this hatred towards academia that so many creationists seem to have. Perhaps it is because those in academia are not right-wing fundy bots? I don't know. But it is truly asinine to think that those in academia are out fo touch or inexperienced. I cannot speak for engineering faculty, but in those terrible 'soft' sciences like biology and geology, not only do we have to have 'done' to get a job in the first place, we have to continue to 'do' for the most part all the way through our careers (unless one is a lecturer or the like). This air of superiority that some in the private sector seem to exude is premised not in any objective reality, but in fantasy driven prejudice.<br /><br />And sadly, these folks do not seem able to realize this.Doppelgangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-50202159245483024672006-12-07T08:59:00.000-05:002006-12-07T08:59:00.000-05:00I will refer you to Hype theory which those of us ...<i>I will refer you to Hype theory which those of us who have worked a few years in high tech use to filter out garbage claims</i><br /><br /><br />You know what I use to filter out garbage claims?<br /><br />A sampling:<br /><br />1. The use of analogies as evidence<br />2. Repeated use of ill-defined terms despite frequent requests for clarification or correction<br />3. Conflation of disparate topics<br />4. Inability to remain on topic<br /><br />etc.<br />etc.<br />etc.Doppelgangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-83060825718284989672006-12-07T08:54:00.000-05:002006-12-07T08:54:00.000-05:00Loony,
I am puzzled by something. Someone else h...Loony,<br /><br />I am puzzled by something. Someone else has already mentioned this, but it is getting somewhat irritating - you do not seem interested in responding to anything anyone actually writes, or at best you pick out some minutiae and focus on that. <br /><br />If you cannot provide viable comments, just say so, but do not carry on as if you are genuinily trying to have a discourse here, because you clearly are not.<br /><br />You have thus far conflated human ID with BIG ID and the origin of life with evolution. You have denigrated those in academia and misrepresented Theo Dob's famous statement. You have declared that anything not in recorded histroy is shady as far as you are concerned.<br /><br />Did I miss anything?Doppelgangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-82741577235397659342006-12-06T23:46:00.000-05:002006-12-06T23:46:00.000-05:00I must apologize, but as it's 10pm here and that m...I must apologize, but as it's 10pm here and that means my work shift is over, I'm going to have to log off for the night. Once I head home, it's straight for bed or else the wife gets angry. I'll bookmark the page and continue any discussion tomorrow, however.TabAtkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16627740022743842036noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-12728712902369423142006-12-06T23:44:00.000-05:002006-12-06T23:44:00.000-05:00Re:"The problem is that for GA to have been the au...Re:"The problem is that for GA to have been the author of life, it must be efficent on all problems, regardless of the setup. In real life, how we set up the problem is critical to the success of the optimization."<br /><br />Ah, no. Not even close. GA just needs to be good at the one problem that life itself is trying to solve: finding a decent optimum among an extremely large number of variables that all interact in a nonlinear fashion.<br /><br />This just happens to be precisely the sort of problem that GAs are good at.<br /><br />GA has the added benefit of requiring only two things to operate: reproduction with mutation, and selection. The first is happily provided by a number of physical systems (life included), and can be theorized to have appeared in early molecules, and the second is provided by the simple fact that resources are finite, and things which are better at gathering those resources will necessarily take them from things which are worse at it.<br /><br />What this means is that GA in life may itself by a 'good enough' solution - it's so easy to implement that it's difficult *not* to stumble across it. Plus, though it may not be efficient across all domains, it *will* find <b>a</b> decent answer <i>eventually</i>, which is sufficient when you don't have any other method.<br /><br />Re: "Quadratic functions occur all over engineering: Choosing the right size for a support, the angle between limbs, the size of a leaf, the amount of protein to produce ... Typically it is an optimum from many variables."<br />All right, I'll bite. Would you point to some evidence that GAs are bad at solving this sort of problem?<br /><br />Re: "Jackalmage, we seem to have an agreement that GA is useful for some problems, but not all. "<br />If you've changed your mind significantly from your comments earlier today and yesterday, then I suppose we have. However, I quote you as saying, <br />"All of the intelligent design work for non-genetic methods must be done to make a genetic method work. I made a number of posts on this already. The genetic method will burn the most cpu time and give you the worst answer, but they can't work at all without an intelligent designer. Ditto for genetics in life. The order of convergence on genetic algorithms is similar to a random search."<br /><br />That <i>seems</i> pretty clear to me - you're stating that GAs are crappy and of little or no use to anyone. Do you admit that this statement was wrong? If so, what precisely made you change your mind? If not, then no, we haven't come to any such agreement, and I regard any attempt to insinuate that we have as an attempt to move the goalposts. By that I mean that once someone proves you wrong on one point, you simply back off and say, "Well, yeah, but I'm still right about <b>this</b>, and that makes my whole point still right."<br /><br />I would like to think that such deception is below you. Prove that I'm wrong for thinking otherwise?TabAtkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16627740022743842036noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-87270429250586631992006-12-06T22:29:00.000-05:002006-12-06T22:29:00.000-05:00Jackalmage, we seem to have an agreement that GA i...Jackalmage, we seem to have an agreement that GA is useful for some problems, but not all. The problem is that for GA to have been the author of life, it must be efficent on all problems, regardless of the setup. In real life, how we set up the problem is critical to the success of the optimization.<br /><br />Quadratic functions occur all over engineering: Choosing the right size for a support, the angle between limbs, the size of a leaf, the amount of protein to produce ... Typically it is an optimum from many variables.Looneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15801436449971512320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-11629798046036375222006-12-06T22:01:00.000-05:002006-12-06T22:01:00.000-05:00Re: Quadratic functions
Your point is? I'm not s...Re: Quadratic functions<br />Your point is? I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to by "quadratic functions", but it doesn't actually matter. GAs are not a panacea that can solve every problem effectively. As I said before, they are very good at solving non-linear problems with a large number of variables - problems which are *very* difficult for humans to solve effectively.<br /><br />As well, when possible one should always try to find an analytical solution, if only because GAs are *very* computationally intensive. Analytical solutions will invariably be much less expensive to compute. When the problem is just too complex for that sort of thing, though, GAs are very effective.<br /><br />Re:"Also, the amount of intelligent design that goes into encoding a traveling salesman problem and defining the objectives, etc., etc., is what really counts."<br /><br />Uh, yeah. Duh. You have to define the problem properly. Otherwise, the GA will likely be solving a different problem than the one you *thought* you were telling it to. There is a funny example of researchers who were experimenting with GAs using a programmable hardware array. They wanted it to assemble hardware components in such a way as to produce an oscillating electrical signal. When it succeeded, they found that it had not done what they wanted, but had instead assembled a radio receiver that amplified an oscillating signal from a nearby piece of equipment!<br /><br />If you define your problem badly, the algorithm will work badly. This is true no matter what sort of algorithm you use. However, defining the <i>objectives</i> of a problem and finding a good way to represent it is <b>not</b> the same as solving the problem (or else they wouldn't need the GA at all). I can easily provide a way of encoding the TS problem, and the objective (or fitness criterion) is trivial - complete solutions with a shorter length are more fit. But I <b>cannot</b> actually solve the travelling salesman problem myself. The two things are completely different problems with completely different difficulties.<br /><br />Re:"Usually there are a large number of solution methods that work once the intelligent design work is done. Sometimes a problem lends itself to one method or another. Usually, this is not the case."<br />Non-sequitur. This has nothing to do with whether or not GAs are effective. It is simply expressing an obvious (but irrelevant to the discussion) truth - that different problems may be best solved with different solution methods.<br /><br />Re:"In real life, engineers don't choose the problems we must going to solve. The problems confront us regardless. It isn't academia."<br />Non-sequitur. Again, you are expressing an obvious and irrelevant truth. Does this statement in any way imply that GAs are bad at solving appropriate problems? Nope. What it is implying is that I somehow believe that GAs are the be-all and end-all of solution methods, which is a statement that I never made nor implied in any way (unless you can provide quotes that show otherwise).TabAtkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16627740022743842036noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-56524553250931416022006-12-06T21:25:00.000-05:002006-12-06T21:25:00.000-05:00I am well aware of the traveling salesman problem....I am well aware of the traveling salesman problem. Solving games is not the same as designing structures. If we look at something like quadratic functions, GA is awful. These occur all the time in real life. <br /><br />Also, the amount of intelligent design that goes into encoding a traveling salesman problem and defining the objectives, etc., etc., is what really counts. Usually there are a large number of solution methods that work once the intelligent design work is done. Sometimes a problem lends itself to one method or another. Usually, this is not the case.<br /><br />In real life, engineers don't choose the problems we must going to solve. The problems confront us regardless. It isn't academia.Looneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15801436449971512320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-76300246406249424792006-12-06T21:07:00.000-05:002006-12-06T21:07:00.000-05:00If I'm reading you correctly, you are making the f...If I'm reading you correctly, you are making the following claim:<br /><br />To get a GA to produce a correct answer, one must first design that answer into the program.<br /><br />I refer you to the following link as my rebuttal:<br />http://www-cse.uta.edu/~cook/ai1/lectures/applets/gatsp/TSP.html<br /><br />In case my succinct rebuttal was too complex, I shall explain it. The Traveling Salesman problem lies in the NP-complete domain. What this means is that any attempt to find an exact answer will take an exponential amount of time. What <b>this</b> means is that above a certain point, it's essentially impossible to actually find an exact solution, because it simply takes too much computational resources.<br /><br />This also happens to be nearly impossible for humans to discover. Point someone at a picture of 50 dots, and tell them to connect them all, making a single path with the shortest possible distance, and they won't be able to. We won't even be able to get close most of the time.<br /><br />On the other hand, if you can accept that the answer you'll receive is merely <i>very close</i> to the correct answer, a GA can solve the problem in a very, very short amount of time, as demonstrated amply by the link above.<br /><br />Note that this is actually because GAs utilize randomness, or non-determinism, in their design. NP stands for Nondeterministic Polynomial time, which means that they are solvable easily (in polynomial time) using methods that employ randomness, but exact solutions are currently thought to be exponential time.<br /><br />Game playing, as noted, is similar. <b>LOOK</b> at the example in my previous post that I pointed to specifically, where they evolved a Master-level checkers playing program. *Read* it, it's very short. The *only* information the designers put into the design of the program was a "piece differential" element in the final output. However, their solution provably outperforms a program that uses piece-differential by itself.<br /><br />That does *not* sound like the designers put in information about how to win at checkers. If you actually knew what you were talking about, you'd realize that.<br /><br />References, sir, are the antidote to nonsense. Otherwise we're just having a pissing contest. I can show that I'm right, over and over again. Look at the links I provided - they're fairly definitive. You, on the other hand, are simply asserting things without any support.TabAtkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16627740022743842036noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-45874172760282354072006-12-06T20:41:00.000-05:002006-12-06T20:41:00.000-05:00Jackalmage, if you know the answer, then you can e...Jackalmage, if you know the answer, then you can engineer (ID) the GA method to get the right answer. Even when we don't know the right answer, we use ID to tune the GA to work better. <br /><br />If you spend any time working with GA, you will quickly find that GA without ID is impossible. In fact, not a single aspect of ID can be circumvented by employing GA.<br /><br />I will refer you to Hype theory which those of us who have worked a few years in high tech use to filter out garbage claims.Looneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15801436449971512320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-25336181535267861912006-12-06T20:34:00.000-05:002006-12-06T20:34:00.000-05:00Wait, wait, wait. GA is useless and finds bad sol...Wait, wait, wait. GA is useless and finds bad solutions? I believe I have a nice link to many, many, many examples showing how blatantly false that is.<br /><br />Here it is:<br />http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/genalg/genalg.html<br /><br />I'm currently paying special attention to a particular paper referenced there, as I'm doing a project that runs along very similar lines. Read the paper linked to here:<br />http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/genalg/genalg.html#chellapilla2001<br /><br />It talks about using GA to evolve a checkers-playing program that can play at the master level. And this was done in 2000 (there is an earlier paper discussing their project as well) on a computer that is laughably out of date today. There, it took them 6 months of computer time to evolve about 800 generations. On today's <i>desktop</i> computers, you could likely cut that time by a factor of 10. A good dedicated rig could do the same in a matter of days at most.<br /><br />And that's only one example out of many on that one site, which is nowhere near exhaustive. They simply chose a single example in each field.<br /><br />GAs are not useful for everything, and one should try to find analytical solutions when possible, but they are <b>very</b> well suited to problems involving a large number of nonlinear variables.<br /><br /><br />I humbly submit that anyone who can make such claims about GAs while simultaneously claiming that they actually work with GAs is either 1) a very, very bad programmer or 2) completely full of shit.TabAtkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16627740022743842036noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-41191775610185988722006-12-06T19:50:00.000-05:002006-12-06T19:50:00.000-05:00Because people such as your self continue to misre...Because people such as your self continue to misrepresent the theory of and the scientific evidence for evolution. By using such terms as Darwinism and by calling evolutionary biologists and other scientist as Darwinists you also misrepresent where the theory has <br />evolved. Yes Darwin started the ball rolling but many thousands of scientists have worked to move the theory along for 150 years, all the time changing and fine tuning which mechanisms and environmental factors act on species to cause them to evolve. <br /><br />The creationism/ID side misrepresents the facts and injects pseudo-science into the curriculum under the guise of some non-existent controversy. By creating a false sense of equality in the creationists stories and good hard scientific theory they are being dishonest to the subject and are doing a disservice to the children. The constant attempts by the creationists to move bad information into the classroom is why it's not moved out of the classroom.<br /><br />ID/creationism is theology. There is no hard science with experiments, results or even a smattering of published papers as well as the fact it is rife with mis-information and dishonesty. When ID comes up with even a small fraction of the hard evidence that evolution has on its side, then maybe we can talk. Unfortunately all they have now is a giant PR campaign and people such as your self who make wild claims that "Well that man made in a factory speaker is designed, so of course everything in nature is designed..... Just ignore that growing 150 year pile of evidence over there." Using the God did it excuse because science hasn't discovered how something works automatically takes you out of the scientific realm and into the supernatural. Scientists are always willing to change a theory and are always trying to disprove them. Religious explanations take that away. As soon as God did it, you've found your answer. And the answer is, it's not science its religious faith.<br /><br />--------<br /><br />please excuse any typos and probable bad sentence structure, my wife is tapping her foot waiting to go to dinner i didn't have much time to proofread.Rev. BigDumbChimphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04375916659207181335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-52460195615005565972006-12-06T18:31:00.000-05:002006-12-06T18:31:00.000-05:00Doppelganger, I am puzzled about something:
If ...Doppelganger, I am puzzled about something: <br /><br />If someone asked me if the Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge had common ancestors or common designers, I would probably answer with "who cares?". From a civil engineering viewpoint, this is a useless question.<br /><br />If someone asks if apes and men have common ancestors or common designers, why does biology not similarly answer with "who cares?". Why can't the Creationist/Darwinist argument be moved entirely out of the classroom?Looneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15801436449971512320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-30053658549020971582006-12-06T16:15:00.000-05:002006-12-06T16:15:00.000-05:00"Most interesting. Silly and shallow, but interest..."Most interesting. Silly and shallow, but interesting."<br /><br />One of the fundamental laws of engineering: Extrapolation is dangerous. Shallow, but very practical.Looneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15801436449971512320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-718966775041102072006-12-06T15:30:00.000-05:002006-12-06T15:30:00.000-05:00Of course you must know that Miller-Urey was about...Of course you must know that Miller-Urey was about the origin of life, not evolution?<br /><br />And really, it was not about the origin of life, either - it was a series of experiments designed to wsee what organic molecules - if any - could have formed on the primitive earth.<br /><br />And so you also are suspect of anything outside of recorded history...<br /><br />Most interesting. Silly and shallow, but interesting.Doppelgangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-47553975812624512872006-12-06T15:25:00.000-05:002006-12-06T15:25:00.000-05:00Well, to begin with the Miller-Urey implications o...Well, to begin with the Miller-Urey implications of spontaneous generation of initial life forms. Beyond this, most of the extrapolations that fall outside of recorded history.<br /><br />Other than that, I accept everything.Looneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15801436449971512320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-1165435508808163122006-12-06T15:05:00.000-05:002006-12-06T15:05:00.000-05:00And what is it about evolution that you find impla...And what is it about evolution that you find implausible?Doppelgangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-1165435362926016932006-12-06T15:02:00.000-05:002006-12-06T15:02:00.000-05:00Doppelganger, that is quite interesting. It looks...Doppelganger, that is quite interesting. It looks like the gap might not be nearly so large as I had assumed. As evolution bundles a lot of things together there is a large amount that is compelling together with things that I find most implausible.Looneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15801436449971512320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20528115.post-1165434302062676952006-12-06T14:45:00.000-05:002006-12-06T14:45:00.000-05:00I will rebut that in every application of biology,...<I>I will rebut that in every application of biology, there are successful practitioners who reject Darwinism, including medicine, farming, and drug design.</I><BR/><BR/>As has been mentioned, most modern scientists reject a strict Darwinism, your use of it is quite informative. On the other hand, there is definitely a monumentally larger number of people in those fields that reject Dembskiism. By your logic, then, we should reject it. And why shouldn't we reject the nonsense of Bill "The Ted Haggard of Information Theory" Dembski?Doppelgangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.com