My graduate degrees are in law, economics, and finance, not in science. My specialty is in applying critical thinking skills to scientific ideas, and if I think they pass muster, I build a business plan off the idea and raise money in the capital markets to hire scientists, conduct research, and hopefully make lots of money.
That is noble. I work on the flipside of folks like you. I'm the scientist the business people hire to do the inventions. Believe me, from my side of the fence, the business people can "analyze" and "hypothesize" how innovation happens, but it doesn't always happen the way they want.
So this poor guy has and will be wasting years of his life on an idea that has no economic merit.
Perhaps. But this is the classic battle in industry. We are asked to innovate for the bottom line. I just read about the scientist at Kodak
who invented the first digital camera in the 1970's. It was about the size of a toaster and kodak told him
it was nice but not interested.
Funny thing how close Kodak recently came to evaporation because they kept their eye on film and dropped the ball in digital imaging. If they had actually tracked this next-to-useless invention, they'd be the top dog in digital imaging today. As it stands now, if they are
lucky they will be able to get their new printer technology out and remain a player. But they ran up so close to the same cliff that Polaroid fell off of that it makes you wonder how "far sighted" business people are when it comes to technology.
Don't get me wrong. I understand the importance of making a profit. It's what keeps me employed. But sadly too many businessmen in the boardroom and we lose the "Bell Labs" who will provide the breakthroughs that are useless today but might lead to something incredible 10 or 20 years down the road. How long was it before someone made use of transistors after they were invented by Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain?
Kodak has reinvigorated itself by going back to a more research-centric approach. Their patent portfolio is blossoming and they are covering a lot of ground in technology. Is it too little too late? Or is it brilliant?
I know another post-doc who's spent the last six months of his life working in a lab that's trying to genetically manipulate algae to make hydrogen for future use in hydrogen-powered cars. However, hydrogen highly pressurized to 250 atmospheres has a volumetric energy density is only 7.2% of that of biodiesel, so hydrogen will never become a viable alternative source of fuel in autos.
I used to work on hydrogen storage in novel materials. I used to be a true-believer in the hydrogen economy, but I am having my doubts these days for this reason as well as for the general energy balance to produce the hydrogen. At a conference in Norway I attended it was indicated that "storage" was the main thing that would make or break the H2 fuel cell in the auto market. But I believe the energy balance you mentioned may be the bigger problem.
Everyone in that lab is wasting their time.
Actually no, they aren't. What they may be doing is finding the next hydride material that will help in those cases where fuel cells are useful. Or they may be discovering a highly porous material that can be tailored to cleaning up nuclear wastes or sequestering other gases for storage. Scientists may
look like they are wasting their time, but in fact, every new piece of information has the potential to be the next big thing.
You as a business man have the problem of balancing near-term financial returns with long-term vision. Sadly too few american corporations are into that.
As intelligent and highly educated as these post-docs are, they don't have the critical thinking skills to analyze
Stop right there. They do have critical thinking skills. They may not have a
short-sighted bottom-line focus but that is not to say they are incapable of critical thinking. Just different applications.
Maybe they're comfortable earning a modest salary doing research for the sake of research, but I want my efforts to have a huge, enduring, and positive impact on the world.
Well, to be fair, they aren't cows. You can't just hook 'em up to a machine and suck the knowledge out. It does take a special skill set.
Your job is hard, no doubt. But their job is too. They don't necessarily see what you see, but I bet you don't see what they see either. That has been my experience in corporate research.
Evolution is just the same thing. When you go back to first principles and apply thermodynamics, energy efficiency, probability & statistics, and many other basic principles to evolution, it simply doesn't pass muster.
No, you are incorrect there. There is no thermodynamic barrier to evolution. To my knowledge there is no statistical barrier either, considering that any event when looked at from the final result is statistically unlikely. The important points to remember about these arguments are:
1. The earth is not a closed system energy-wise.
2. Evolution is the "path of least resistance" to adapt to a given set of stimuli. Which makes it the most statistically likely result of any given input to the system.
People tend to get so myopically focused on their narrow specialty that they lose focus on the big picture.
And sometimes people with limited scientific skills think their "opinion" is correct just because they can generate it.
I've read a great many scientific articles written by scientists in which they collect great data, but fail to accurately interpret the data because they apply the wrong schema (evolution) to explain the data's origin.
Evolution is a model to explain the variability of the data using the least number of reasonable factors. It does an admirable job. There is no magical "schema" to it. It is merely using the factors at hand:
1. Genetic variability
2. Mutations
3. Genetic drift
4. Reproducing factors that have a finite lifespan
5. Passive filter of "Natural Selection"
to explain the resultant data:
A. Fossil record of life changing over time.
B. Life being uniquely suited to the niche it is found it.
C. Twin nested heirarchies
D. Chemical, genetic and morphological commonalities
I may have missed a factor or response there, but in a general sense this is what the model has to work with, and what it has to explain. It does
exactly that with the most parsimonious set of factors.
And that is how statistical analysis helps us determine the validity of a model like evolution!
Are there questions? Sure! There will always be questions. But this model currently does a pretty bang-up job.
And in the end, remember, that's what this part of science is all about. A model to explain the variability of the data.
Applying YEC often brings that same data into beautiful and elegant resolution.
Well, as a geologist, I can tell you the YE part of YEC plays
total havoc with just about everything we know about physics, chemistry, hydrology, hydraulics, and biology. It requires such a wholesale destruction of physical laws to accomodate the data at hand that the YEC model fails at just about every turn.
I definitely respect your dedication to your science, including going hungry and all that, but I can't help but wonder if there's a better course for your life.
Well, I don't want it. I am quite happy with science. At times it is just about the best thing I can image doing with my life.
Only God can help you follow the BEST POSSIBLE alternative future for your life.
I used to ask him a lot for help. But then I realized I was doing all the answering and I was doing all the heavy lifting.
When I looked back at the beach sand, the single line of footprints were a size 11 1/2. Strangely enough, my size.
The further back I looked the more I realized that there was only ever one set of footprints on the beach. Even when I thought he was lifting me up, turned out I was just jumping.
11 1/2 shoe size. Seemed small for the creator of the universe. But fit me just fine.