Should scientists be legally accountable for deceiving the public?

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Well, should scientists be legally liable for deceiving the public and manipulating the evidence to support their OWN brliefs based on untrue claims and unsupported by scientific evidence?

 

175 thoughts on “Should scientists be legally accountable for deceiving the public?”

  1. colewd: The interesting discussion is how much of the diversity that we observe can be attributed to design or descent.

    Where is that discussion happening? Shall we start a new OP?

  2. colewd: -DNA
    -Proteins
    _Ribosome
    -Spliceosome
    -Flagellum motor
    -electron transport chain
    -photosynthesis
    -human brain
    -respiration
    -muscle structure

    And do you think you should be held legally accountable for deceiving the public?

  3. colewd

    The best alternative for the evidence that common descent does not explain is design.

    Sorry but science rejected all “God, er, Designer of the Gaps” arguments two hundred years ago. Unless you have some positive evidence for this Designer you’re just pissing into the wind.

  4. keiths:

    Tell us exactly where Theobald’s arguments fail. Quote him specifically and include your analysis of his missteps.

    For maximum embarrassment, you could attempt it in a new OP.

    You ran away yesterday. Doing so again would really disappoint Jesus. Don’t let him down.

    colewd:

    Who was your mentor in manipulation tactics?

    I’m trying to get you to defend your views for once instead of merely stating them. If that makes me a “manipulator”, then so be it.

  5. colewd:

    The real problem with Theobald’s test is that it assumes random change as the mechanism. If you look at his analysis critically it renders OOL impossible with odds less than 1/10^1000 based on his comparative analysis of the origin of eukaryotic cells.

    Why? Please defend your view instead of merely stating it.

  6. keiths,

    I’m trying to get you to defend your views for once instead of merely stating them. If that makes me a “manipulator”, then so be it.

    Are you claiming that probability estimates are the only way to defend a view? I asked you for a probability analysis and you ignored it. I accept that you don’t want to use statistics in your argument because probability theory is currently not the best tool for the debate.

  7. OMagain,

    And do you think you should be held legally accountable for deceiving the public?

    And when did I stop beating my wife 🙂

  8. keiths,

    I’m trying to get you to defend your views for once instead of merely stating them. If that makes me a “manipulator”, then so be it.

    The only defense I have seen of your views is citing a paper without comment to how it supports your views.

  10. colewd,

    Are you claiming that probability estimates are the only way to defend a view?

    Of course not. You were the one who wrote this, concerning the origin of the human genome:

    Estimation of probabilities are used to eliminate causes that are unlikely or establish causes that are likely.

    I just asked you to follow up on that:

    I look forward to seeing your estimates in the case of evolution. What are you waiting for?

    That’s when the squirming began. Observe:

    colewd:

    I am enjoying your discussion more with Eric on philosophy and mathematics.

    We can table the discussion whether you are supernatural or not

    keiths:

    Are you kidding? We’re finally getting to the heart of the matter. You wrote:

    Estimation of probabilities are used to eliminate causes that are unlikely or establish causes that are likely.

    Let’s see your estimates. You know, the ones you used to decide that evolution was unlikely and that “outside resources” were needed.

    colewd:

    How is this going to help settle the supernatural status of Keiths?

    keiths:

    Easy. If the human genome can’t be produced without the assistance of supernatural resources, then neither can keiths.

    You claimed:

    Estimation of probabilities are used to eliminate causes that are unlikely or establish causes that are likely.

    Let’s see the probability estimates you used to determine that humans, and by implication keiths, had a supernatural origin.

    Or you could admit that you don’t have any. No one will be surprised.

    colewd, following some hand-waving:

    So, intuitively,there is a very small probability of a fully natural origin of keiths.

    keiths:

    That’s pitiful, colewd…

    When your bluff was called, you couldn’t provide a single probability estimate or even an upper bound…

    Why not practice what you preach? You told us:

    Estimation of probabilities are used to eliminate causes that are unlikely or establish causes that are likely.

    Where are your probability estimates?

    colewd:

    This is a reasonable request that could lead to an interesting discussion but I don’t have time right now to take a worth while shot at this.

    You’re squirming and evading your own criterion. I’m sure Jesus is proud.

  11. Some scientists should definitely be legally accountable, especially those who market poisonous pharmaceuticals and practice unethical clinical trials and falsify data to keep getting grants.

    Mistakes should be forgiven, but willful damage to the public should not.

    How about the scientists who said smoking is safe?

    Evolutionary biology? Eh, self-delusion isn’t a crime….

    Personally, my more immediate worry is the Cultural Gestapo that is now in Canada and spreading to the USA. This is far worse an impact than evolutionary theory.

    It’s a $250,000 fine to refer a trangender person who is biologically male pretending to be a female as “he” in New York City. If I said, “dude look like a lady” (to quote the Aerosmith song), that’s a punishable offense in some places. In Canada it can lead to jail time.

    This is God’s punishment on a society that rejects truth. The Cultural gestapo want to mess with biology now and outlaw referring to the biological sex of animals! The evolutionary biologists now will not be punished by right wing creationists but by the atheists Social “Justice” Nutjobs (SJW). God has a sense of humor.

    It was foreseen 20 years ago:

    The New Creationism: Biology Under Attack Debate

    When social psychologist Phoebe Ellsworth took the podium at a recent interdisciplinary seminar on emotions, she was already feeling rattled. Colleagues who’d presented earlier had warned her that the crowd was tough and had little patience for the reduction of human experience to numbers or bold generalizations about emotions across cultures. Ellsworth had a plan: She would pre-empt criticism by playing the critic, offering a social history of psychological approaches to the topic. But no sooner had the word “experiment” passed her lips than the hands shot up. Audience members pointed out that the experimental method is the brainchild of white Victorian males. Ellsworth agreed that white Victorian males had done their share of damage in the world but noted that, nonetheless, their efforts had led to the discovery of DNA. This short-lived dialogue between paradigms ground to a halt with the retort: “You believe in DNA?”

    More grist for the academic right? No doubt, but this exchange reflects a tension in academia that goes far deeper than spats over “political correctness.” Ellsworth’s experience illustrates the trend — in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and other departments across the nation — to dismiss the possibility that there are any biologically based commonalities that cut across cultural differences. This aversion to biological or, as they are often branded, “reductionist” explanations commonly operates as an informal ethos limiting what can be said in seminars, asked at lectures or incorporated into social theory. Extreme anti-innatism has had formal institutional consequences as well: At some universities, like the University of California, Berkeley, the biological subdivision of the anthropology department has been relocated to another building — a spatial metaphor for an epistemological gap.

    Here is the description 20 years later:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkdHcaRwkw

    Think academia isn’t filled with worthless nutjob professors? One of my favorite Atheists, Phil Mason Thunderf00t on Melissa Click:

    https://youtu.be/XWnOes3wQiM

  12. colewd,

    It can’t be an assumption based on an inference? Did you read the paper I cited?

    It has to start somewhere. You are saying it STARTS as an assumption, somehow suspended in mid air. Anyway, word lawyer away; common descent is indeed a conclusion based upon analysis, not just something someone randomly decided to ‘assume’ a priori.

    Ironically, you couldn’t even get the relationship to Creationism right. 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;

    He did drop ‘by the Creator’, but not before blowing your entire analysis – that Common Descent was ‘assumed’ as an alternative to Creationism, and that his assumption was Universal from the get-go – completely out of the water.

  13. colewd,

    BTW there has been a challenge to Theobald on multiple origins.

    Where does the quote come from, and how does it challenge Theobald? Anyone can dump a bunch of text.

    The real problem with Theobald’s test is that it assumes random change as the mechanism.

    Is that the real problem with it? It doesn’t even go into mechanisms of change.

    If you look at his analysis critically it renders OOL impossible with odds less than 1/10^1000 based on his comparative analysis of the origin of eukaryotic cells.

    This is ridiculously confused. Theobald says nothing about OoL, 10^1000 is a number out of a hat, and the eukaryotic cell is not (given the relationship to archaea and alpha proteobacteria) anything to do with OoL either.

  14. Altogether now:

    The Most Recent Common Ancestor Is Not The First Organism.

  15. Allan Miller,

    This is ridiculously confused. Theobald says nothing about OoL, 10^1000 is a number out of a hat, and the eukaryotic cell is not (given the relationship to archaea and alpha proteobacteria) anything to do with OoL either.

    From his 2010 paper on UCD.

    The “best competing multiple ancestry hypothesis” has one species giving rise to bacteria and one giving rise to Archaea and eukaryotes, said Theobald, a biochemist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
    But, based on the new analysis, the odds of that are “just astronomically enormous,” he said. “The number’s so big, it’s kind of silly to say it” — 1 in 10 to the 2,680th power, or 1 followed by 2,680 zeros.
    […]
    Biologists call the independent development of similar traits in different lineages “convergent evolution.” The wings of bats, birds, and insects are prime examples: They perform similar functions but evolved independently of one another.
    But it’s highly unlikely that the protein groups would have independently evolved into such similar DNA sequences, according to the new study, to be published tomorrow in the journal Nature.
    “I asked, What’s the probability that I would see a human DNA polymerase [protein] sequence and another protein with an E. coli DNA polymerase sequence?” he explained.
    “It turns out that probability is much higher if you use the hypothesis that [humans and E. coli] are actually related.”

    So 10^2680 to get to bacteria and eukaryotic. My estimate 1500 orders of magnitude smaller for OOL. Seems conservative to me. No mater how you slice these numbers the probability bug is going to point to keiths supernatural status 🙂

  16. stcordova: It’s a $250,000 fine to refer a trangender person who is biologically male pretending to be a female as “he” in New York City. If I said, “dude look like a lady” (to quote the Aerosmith song), that’s a punishable offense in some places. In Canada it can lead to jail time.

    This is God’s punishment on a society that rejects truth

    What about babies born with ambiguous genitalia? I find it sort of ironic that religious fundies like you think that somebody’s “free will” should be denied to people who feel their sex doesn’t correspond with their genitalia. And talking about irony…

    stcordova: Evolutionary biology? Eh, self-delusion isn’t a crime….

    stcordova: This is God’s punishment on a society that rejects truth

    Also babies are born atheists. Is that a biological reason to call christian parents who indoctrinate their kids “cultural gestapo”?

  17. Allan Miller,

    He did drop ‘by the Creator’, but not before blowing your entire analysis – that Common Descent was ‘assumed’ as an alternative to Creationism, and that his assumption was Universal from the get-go – completely out of the water.

    I cited evidence you didn’t read it. So I will lift it for you my good man.

    In The Origin of Species, Darwin adduced a wide variety of evidence for his theory of evolution by natural selection. The evidence included morphological data, embryological data, data about the geographical distribution of organisms, and much more. In each case, Darwin’s strategy was to argue that the data could not easily be accounted for by the hypothesis of creation, but were exactly what we would expect if the theory of evolution by natural selection were true. He con- tinued:
    it can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above speci- fied. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers (Darwin, 1962, p. 476).

    Based on the evidence Darwin inferred common descent based on natural selection as a mechanism. Now Theobald argues common descent without a mechanism. Notice that he was challenged that the inference argument was unsafe.

  19. colewd: So 10^2680 to get to bacteria and eukaryotic. My estimate 1500 orders of magnitude smaller for OOL. Seems conservative to me. No mater how you slice these numbers the probability bug is going to point to keiths supernatural status 🙂

    You appear to understand nothing about Theobald’s paper, including its main point. What you quote is not the likelihood of common descent but the likelihood, given common descent, of the particular sequences we observe today. It’s just that the likelihood of separate descent is much, much lower. We prefer the hypothesis that maximizes the probability of the observed sequences.

    And the most recent common ancestor of extant life has nothing to do with the origin of life. That’s another thing you don’t understand.

  20. John Harshman,

    You appear to understand nothing about Theobald’s paper, including its main point. What you quote is not the likelihood of common descent but the likelihood, given common descent, of the particular sequences we observe today. It’s just that the likelihood of separate descent is much, much lower. We prefer the hypothesis that maximizes the probability of the observed sequences.

    And the most recent common ancestor of extant life has nothing to do with the origin of life. That’s another thing you don’t understand.

    I don’t agree with you that the recent common ancestor of extant life has nothing to do with origin on life. Where did the recent ancestor come from? Are you denying cause and effect?

    The point I am making is that if the number of 3 separate origins is so low (1/10^2680), Theobald’s hypothesis comes into question. If we assume each origin event is the same then the origin of bacteria would 1/10^900 which essentially falsifies Theobald’s proposed mechanism.

  21. colewd: I don’t agree with you that the recent common ancestor of extant life has nothing to do with origin on life. Where did the recent ancestor come from? Are you denying cause and effect?

    How about this, then?: The most recent common ancestor of extant life has no more to do with the origin of life than does any living species. The recent ancestor, of course, came from a prior ancestor. The origin of life would be quite a while before that.

    The point I am making is that if the number of 3 separate origins is so low (1/10^2680), Theobald’s hypothesis comes into question. If we assume each origin event is the same then the origin of bacteria would 1/10^900 which essentially falsifies Theobald’s proposed mechanism.

    The point I am making is that you have no clue about Theobald’s hypothesis. That isn’t the probability of 3 separate origins. It’s the probability of observing the sequences we observe given 3 separate origins. If you can’t tell the difference, you have no business talking about Theobald’s paper. Further, Theobald’s “proposed mechanism” is simply descent on one tree or another. His numbers have nothing to do with the probability of abiogenesis, as you seem to imagine. I believe I’ve tried to explain all that to you several times.

  23. Seriously, he’s entirely clueless but he drones on regardless. It’s an embarassment to see him post.

  24. colewd: I don’t agree with you that the recent common ancestor of extant life has nothing to do with origin on life. Where did the recent ancestor come from? Are you denying cause and effect?

    For fucks sake Bill. There’s a long history before the last universal ancestor. It’s just the most recent universal ancestor, it’s not the first species to originate on Earth.

  25. Well, should scientists be legally liable for deceiving the public and manipulating the evidence to support their OWN brliefs based on untrue claims and unsupported by scientific evidence?

    Only when they are policy-makers at the same time. For example economists who advise politicians should be accountable for failing to foresee market crashes. Policy-makers should be more accountable in general.

  26. colewd: Based on the evidence Darwin inferred common descent based on natural selection as a mechanism.

    No, you misunderstand. He inferred that species evolve by natural selection(that their complexity and their being adapted to the environment owe to natural selection), not that natural selection is the mechanism that yields common descent. That would be nonsensical. Come on for fucks sake just think about it for a moment. Why would Darwin infer common descent due to natural selection? That doesn’t make sense, so he wouldn’t.

    Common descent is a consequence of isolation of reproducing populations, whether there is natural selection or not. Darwin knew and understood this.

  27. stcordova: It’s a $250,000 fine to refer a trangender person who is biologically male pretending to be a female as “he” in New York City.

    I hope you have transgender children. Direct personal experience is usually the only cure for people like you.

    stcordova: This is God’s punishment on a society that rejects truth. The Cultural gestapo want to mess with biology now and outlaw referring to the biological sex of animals!

    Well, what do you propose? What is the Truth about sexuality? And how does god want you to behave to people who are transgender? Should we look to the bible for the punishment that god is expecting you to extract Sal?

    As it seems to me the most danger comes from people like you saying that we need to do something about those people that are causing god to punish us. Like it or not, your attitude is intolerant, like the gestapo, whereas those who are encouraging acceptance are the polar opposite.

    You are the proto-nazi Sal, with your implied talk about “truth” and “punishment”.

    https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/121/4/1167/2581601/Lesbianism-Transvestitism-and-the-Nazi-State-A?abspop=1&related-urls=yes&legid=ahr;121/4/1167

  28. colewd: I don’t agree with you that the recent common ancestor of extant life has nothing to do with origin on life.

    How long was there between the origin of life and the most recent common ancestor? How do you know?

  29. colewd,

    The point I am making is that if the number of 3 separate origins is so low (1/10^2680), Theobald’s hypothesis comes into question. If we assume each origin event is the same then the origin of bacteria would 1/10^900 which essentially falsifies Theobald’s proposed mechanism.

    I don’t know whether to laugh or … OK, I’ll go with that. 10^2680 is not made up of 3 spins of 10^900 each.

    On MRCA and the OoL – suppose we were to eliminate all trace and memory of all organisms on earth except for the parrots. Does that mean we would be justified in concluding that the organism emerging from the OoL was a parrot? I’m hoping you’re shaking your head at this point. Likewise, suppose we were to eliminate all organisms on earth except for eukaryotes. Does that mean the OoL yielded a eukaryote? No? Try again with bacteria, then archaea. If each had a separate origin, there is no more reason to suppose that the common ancestor of all survivors of that clade arose in an ‘OoL event’ than there is in the bird example.

    Then think about eliminating all except eukaryotes, archaea and bacteria. ie, do nothing, because any such elimination has already occurred, and that’s all we’re left with.

    Either the 3 groups are not commonly descended – 3 separate common ancestors, none of them the OoL – or they are – one common ancestor, not the OoL either. The probability deals with the likelihood that our data comes from the first scenario vs the second. Taking that probability, and then dividing it by 3 to get the probability of the origin of each separate lineage, is … it’s … I’m …

  30. colewd,

    Based on the evidence Darwin inferred common descent based on natural selection as a mechanism.

    He just didn’t. Common descent is about separated gene pools, NS a mechanism of change within.

    Now Theobald argues common descent without a mechanism.

    Common descent needs no mechanism other than descent and isolation.

    Notice that he was challenged that the inference argument was unsafe.

    There are critiques of Theobald for sure, as there should be in science. You cling to the life raft that they are right, but 3 origins instead of 1 is hardly the greatest victory for Creationism, nor any kind of problem for ‘Darwinism’. See, for example, Darwin.

    Regardless, I haven’t seen anything that better supports 3 origins than 1.

  31. OMagain:

    I hope you have transgender children. Direct personal experience is usually the only cure for people like you.

    There are now about 70 genders listed including worm.

    If someone is anorexic is it kind to say they look fat because they insist they are fat! They friggin need help to cope with their mental issues.

    Is some young teenage dude wants to chop his thing off because he thinks it will make him more like a girl, is it kind to encourage him. He might be horrified to find out, as some trans sexuals born as boys find out the hard way, most normal men are attracted to females who were born females, not emasculated men pretending they are females.

    And irony of ironies, is it just religious folk who object to men posing as women? No, it’s some feminists!
    http://www.advocate.com/caitlyn-jenner/2015/10/26/feminist-germaine-greer-goes-anti-trans-rant-over-caitlyn-jenner

    If he’s going to chop his junk off and grow breasts and take hormones that can make him sick, he’s got a lot more problems than getting his feelings hurt because someone uses the correct pronouns.

    A lot of trans-sexuals don’t feel the Cultural Gestapo Social “Justice” Liars speak for them. They don’t want all this attention drawn to them.

    And sheesh, a $250,000 fine for someone using certain pronouns? What happened to the 1st amendment. If I’m a medical doctor, should I be fined because I used the pronoun “he” in the medical records when describing he’s suffering from the effects of chemical castration? And Darwin forbid if the guy wants to be called a deer (one of the genders).

    Some student somewhere insisted on being called “your majesty”, and the school caved and the teachers called him “your majesty”. Say “his majesty” works in customer service, you don’t think that will cause some problems.

    Some guy insisting he’s a girl wanted to be in the girls locker room with no curtains and girls be forced to see what he looks like. Is that right? What a freaking mess.

    I never thought I’d be agreeing with an evolutionary biologist like Jerry Coyne who insisted how anti-science it is not to notice the difference between men and women and the stronger effect of natural selection on men. Coyne took PZ Myers to the woodshed here:

    https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/03/09/when-ideology-trumps-biology/

  32. Allan,

    Taking that probability, and then dividing it by 3 to get the probability of the origin of each separate lineage, is … it’s … I’m …

    He’s actually taking the cube root rather than dividing by three. His reasoning seems to be:

    1. The origin events are equiprobable and independent.
    2. The joint probability of all three origin events is 1/10^2680.
    3. Therefore the probability of each is p, where p^3 equals 1/10^2680.
    4. Therefore p is approximately 1/10^900.

    It’s still a comical misinterpretation of the Theobald paper, but at least his math makes sense given the comical misinterpretation (and the accompanying assumption of equiprobability).

  33. keiths,

    He’s actually taking the cube root rather than dividing by three.

    You’re right, I should maybe have said ‘exponent’.

  34. stcordova: Is some young teenage dude wants to chop his thing off because he thinks it will make him more like a girl, is it kind to encourage him. He might be horrified to find out, as some trans sexuals born as boys find out the hard way, most normal men are attracted to females who were born females, not emasculated men pretending they are females.

    Your thoughts regarding gender are as deep and as relevant as your thoughts regarding biology.

    Like I say, the only “cure” is for you to experence these issues directly. Then, perhaps, you’ll gain some empathy.

    stcordova: Some guy insisting he’s a girl wanted to be in the girls locker room with no curtains and girls be forced to see what he looks like. Is that right? What a freaking mess.

    If it’s not right, it’s wrong. And if it’s wrong it deserves punishment?

    How would you punish the transgender Sal?
    What age did you decide your sexuality Sal?

  35. stcordova: There are now about 70 genders listed including worm.

    If someone is anorebla bla bl bla

    0.4 / 10

    Pretty substandard trolling here Sal.

  37. stcordova: If someone is anorexic is it kind to say they look fat because they insist they are fat! They friggin need help to cope with their mental issues.

    Is some young teenage dude wants to chop his thing off because he thinks it will make him more like a girl, is it kind to encourage him. He might be horrified to find out, as some trans sexuals born as boys find out the hard way, most normal men are attracted to females who were born females, not emasculated men pretending they are females.

    You are completely confused in the most terrible direction

  40. keiths,

    It’s still a comical misinterpretation of the Theobald paper, but at least his math makes sense given the comical misinterpretation (and the accompanying assumption of equiprobability).

    Your right I am taking the cube root. The math is that the three events happening as individual events is AxBxC.

  41. Allan Miller,

    There are critiques of Theobald for sure, as there should be in science. You cling to the life raft that they are right, but 3 origins instead of 1 is hardly the greatest victory for Creationism, nor any kind of problem for ‘Darwinism’. See, for example, Darwin.

    Regardless, I haven’t seen anything that better supports 3 origins than 1.

    Since my challenge to keiths is to argue that he can be accounted for by only material cause does it really matter 3 origins or 1? Our boy is looking pretty supernatural at this point 🙂

  42. colewd,

    Your right I am taking the cube root. The math is that the three events happening as individual events is AxBxC.

    Yep, we got that. What is less clear is why you think it relevant.

  43. colewd,

    Since my challenge to keiths is to argue that he can be accounted for by only material cause does it really matter 3 origins or 1?

    No it doesn’t. What I’m more interested in, though, is your assertion that scientists have somehow deceived the public on UCD.

  45. colewd,

    Since my challenge to keiths is to argue that he can be accounted for by only material cause does it really matter 3 origins or 1? Our boy is looking pretty supernatural at this point

    Only if one accepts your comical misinterpretation of Theobald’s paper. You have sunk to a JoeG-like level of scientific incompetence.

  46. keiths:
    colewd,

    Only if one accepts your comical misinterpretation of Theobald’s paper.You have sunk to a JoeG-like level of scientific incompetence.

    It helps when one wishes to cling to a bad caricature of science.

    Glen Davidson

  47. keiths,

    Only if one accepts your comical misinterpretation of Theobald’s paper. You have sunk to a JoeG-like level of scientific incompetence.

    Can you support this assertion?

    You tend to mock people and manipulate as a tactic when you are unable to defend your claims. In another post you tried to manipulate Neil.

    If you need to use these fact-less tactics, have you considered that the beliefs you are clinging to may me wrong?

  49. colewd,

    Here’s the key sentence from Theobald’s paper:

    Therefore, UCA is at least 10^2,860 times more probable than the closest competing hypothesis.

    First, note that you got the exponent wrong. It’s 2860, not 2680.

    Second, note that Theobald is comparing the probabilities of various hypotheses given the data. In other words, Theobald’s conclusion is that universal common ancestry fits the evidence 10^2860 times better than the best competing hypothesis.

    Your comical misinterpretation is to think that he’s saying something about the probability of OOL.

  50. Bill, stop digging. Read Theobald. Try to understand it. Use my reply to you as a guide.

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