|
Post by ltfred on Dec 29, 2009 19:25:23 GMT -5
It's my experience that Engineer Majors tend to be dreadful drunks, at least at the University of Queensland. They also cheat at cards. This may explain something. Over here in Yankee Land, engineers tend to be the ones counting cards Yeah. Cheating. Like I said.
|
|
|
Post by canadian mojo on Dec 29, 2009 20:59:29 GMT -5
Over here in Yankee Land, engineers tend to be the ones counting cards Yeah. Cheating. Like I said. I've never understood why that's considered cheating other than the house doesn't like it. A good poker player can tell you the odds of any hand and they actively try to figure out what the other players are thinking by reading body language.
|
|
|
Post by ltfred on Dec 29, 2009 22:27:47 GMT -5
Yeah. Cheating. Like I said. I've never understood why that's considered cheating other than the house doesn't like it. A good poker player can tell you the odds of any hand and they actively try to figure out what the other players are thinking by reading body language. It's cheating because I can't do it.
|
|
|
Post by Rat Of Steel on Dec 30, 2009 1:04:35 GMT -5
Yeah. Cheating. Like I said. I've never understood why that's considered cheating other than the house doesn't like it. A good poker player can tell you the odds of any hand and they actively try to figure out what the other players are thinking by reading body language. That's exactly correct, mojo. The only reason it's tolerated in poker, however, is that the house gets paid no matter who wins. For the record--and yes, ltfred, I saw the wink, so I'm not talking directly to you--card counting at a blackjack table is legally not the same as cheating. (Unfortunately, they both have the same result from the house's point of view: immediate and permanent ban. ) I'm more of a poker player myself, though, so I don't need to give a shit what the casinos think of card counters.
|
|
|
Post by Vene on Dec 30, 2009 1:25:27 GMT -5
I was just recently introduced to the Salem Hypothesis: engineers are more likely to be creationists than other academics. Any thoughts to the matter? Yeah, as an engineer I find that Salem Hypothesis personally offensive. A) All Engineers do have to have some sort of degree and CAN work as scientists, depending on their interests and field of occupation. There are also MD's working as scientists. B) A degree in engineering is not by itself a scientific credibility. Just because you know how to do statistics and transform ideas into concepts does not mean you understand the rule system behind the original idea. Same is true for MD's, again. Just because you know how to perform surgery does not say you understand the basics of the living matter. And actually in both cases you don't have to in order to do your job. Yes, but is it wrong? I don't think anybody is saying that all engineers are creationists or that engineers can't be scientists.
|
|
|
Post by Admiral Lithp on Dec 30, 2009 14:23:34 GMT -5
"Counting cards isn't illegal, it's just frowned upon. Like masturbating in an airplane."
|
|
abdul
New Member
Posts: 5
|
Post by abdul on Dec 30, 2009 21:01:39 GMT -5
@ Vene
yah, I know. It is just...I felt deeply offended on a personal and professional level the same time. I claim to be an engineer, although I spent all my career doing research, but from an engineering perspective. (/off topic)
@ thread
Maybe it is wrong, maybe it is right. From a scientific point of view I would say nobody here had a serious look at the present data and the bias within this particular record (e.g. the infamous lists of people holding PhD's stating their support for creation).
One essential way to look at these lists might be this one:
Who actually registers on a list like that?
Premise A)
The person must be convinced that there is something to creation, else he/she would not put their real name on the list.
Premise B)
The person must hold a PhD or any other reputable degree, else they would not qualify.
Premise C)
The person must hope to gain a certain benefit from being exposed in public as a supporter of an highly controversial issue (=hoax, but this kind of behavior is not logically comprehensible and therefore their private fun)
Lemma a) The job-market for higher academics is rough and tight.
Lemma b) The chance of pairing employer and employee on the open market is best when the intersection of common values are huge compared to the intersection of opposing values.
Lemma c) The vast majority of employers on the life-science job market are either not supporting creationist view points or not interested in being connected to them for PR reasons.
Lemma d) Scientists are chiefly creative thinkers, their IP is executed by engineers after pre-filtering by management decisions.
Deduction (from all of the above and a little less strictly bound to logical formalism):
By entering your name on a list like aforementioned, your loss in creditability is drastically diminishing your chances in getting a position that requires a fundamentally rounded and global understanding of your field. It does not affect engineers that much as scientists.
A scientist that denies basic fact of his field can not work in his field anymore, aside from these very basic questions he/she refutes and is therefore not capable of progressing the own field (in a practical manner, I have to add). That is why scientists, even if they do have personal reasons to support creation ideas hesitate more to subscribe on those lists. They would be basically limiting their career options to a very narrow subsection of available positions.
Engineers however are not considered to be personally involved with analysis and description of a subject matter, they are supposed to deal with a set of desires on a paper and turn out a greater number of paper with precise instructions for those people who actually do the physical work. Nobody cares about the believes and opinions of a person like that! It is the scientific staff and the management who have to represent the project in public.
Allegorically, the engineers wear a hard hat and walk in the background while the scientists wear glasses and talk to the microphone and the managers talk to the bankers behind closed doors. And guess what happens to the manager if the banker learns that the supposed-to-be-egg-head said totally stupid things in public? It is the same way nobody cares about the erotic preferences of the best dentist in town, whereas the mayor has to be perfectly adopted to a moral consensus.
Conclusion I)
Only those academics who can personally afford to jeopardize their career will enlist in public as creation supporters.
Conclusion II)
This does affect dentists, engineers and architects much less than biologists, physicists, chemists and geologists.
Hypothesis:
The ratio of Creationists to Rationalists amongst various groups of academics is not empirically evident and probably not significantly different from that unknown ratio between various groups of non-academic professionals.
Postulate:
If my theory is correct, the ratio of retired biologists, physicists, chemists and geologists on these lists should be slightly but significantly higher than for for any other given academic group (Engineers, MD's, Sociologists, Priests etc.)
@fstdt
Since there are several hundred names in public circulation and I named one criteria (retirement status) to discriminate between two groups (biologists, physicists, chemists, geologists vs. other academics) you have all the information you need to produce some sort of statistic. (You might want to exclude the data in case the subject is employed by a church or an organization financially depended on a church, but that could also drastically decrease the number of data points and be more adverse for the out-come than just leaving them in)
You are all invited to kill my theory now ;D
|
|
|
Post by Ian1732 on Dec 30, 2009 21:11:24 GMT -5
SPIES SAPPIN' MAH SENTRY!
I'm sorry, what was the thread about?
|
|
|
Post by Vene on Dec 30, 2009 22:06:31 GMT -5
It doesn't work, why don't tenured biologists/physicists/chemists/geologists sign that list? There is EVERYTHING to gain by going against the consensus, especially since most scientists are loud, arrogant, opinionated assholes. That's the whole point of academic freedom. There's also the fact that the scientific fields deal more directly with origins than engineering fields. Only chemistry doesn't deal directly, and we do see more chemists that are creationists than other scientists. ETA: Poll showing that chemists are more likely to believe in god than other scientists
|
|
|
Post by Oriet on Dec 30, 2009 23:23:28 GMT -5
Alright, let's see if I can figure out what you're actually trying to say in this post, and then point out some fallacies. @ Vene yah, I know. It is just...I felt deeply offended on a personal and professional level the same time. I claim to be an engineer, although I spent all my career doing research, but from an engineering perspective. (/off topic) Be offended all you want, but it does have its basis in reality. As another anecdotal tidbit in regards to this, my father was a design electronics engineer, and yet he tried to become a pastor because he felt that strongly about his religion. Considering that ~44% of the US population believes in young earth creationism, and another 30%+ believes in god-guided creation, it is in no way controversial to be in support of some form of creationism, at least for the majority of the US population. Thus, if any view is controversial it is the belief that there was no divine guidance in the formation of the universe and life itself, and yet this is this belief that is widely held in the scientific fields. Also considering the amount of wealth the religious would grant an accredited scientist who would loudly proclaim that creationism as true and it becomes a wonder why they haven't done so in droves. I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here, but if it's what I think you are then you need to remember that most people in managerial positions don't have scientific backgrounds, and often couldn't tell the difference between a rotary potentiometer and a kitchen timer. As such, they are far more likely to held commonly held beliefs, no matter how inaccurate they might be, and so a scientist or engineer who shares their inaccurate beliefs would stand a far better chance of being hired if this was much of an issue. Or perhaps instead of worrying about what the press thinks they're concerned about making sure the other companies' scientists don't consider their products/research to be complete poppycock, which would quickly drive them out of business. And this part has what to do with their personal beliefs...? Have you ever been to a product expo from different firms? If an engineer who is showing off the capabilities of the new project is considered crazy, potential buyers will quickly write them off and use another firm's products. And yes, engineers do represent the companies at those expos, even if they're more of a scientific engineer than their coworkers. Their personal views also come into importance when they're working with another firm and the engineering teams have to work together, as the engineering team from the other firm wouldn't mind having engineers from the other team removed from the project, as it'd advance their position on the project, and net their company, and thus them, more profit and prestige. And it is also the engineers who have to "sell" projects, along with the project capabilities and limitations, to their managers and accounting in order to ensure that the project can be completed. Also, you apparently haven't paid attention to the various scandals that various American politicians have gotten away with over the years if you think they have to worry too much about moral consensus, and don't realise the constraints that workers with more personal interaction with their customers work within. In which case why don't more retired academics support creationism, since their career is already over? Or more, it is that the dentists, engineers, and architects work much less with the foundations of the universe and life, which are what contend with core religious beliefs, than do the biologists, physicists, chemists, and geologists who work with such on a daily basis. Since when are priests an academic group‽ o.O I didn't realise my ordination put me on academic par with palaeontologists, professors, and the people working at CERN. I would have called it a hypothesis instead of a theory as there was a distinct lack of evidence for which to base it on, but consider it attempted.
|
|