OMG, a scientific GENIUS has E-mailed me!

[Darth Wong]

Check this guy out:

Name: Dennis O'Neill
E-Mail: dennisoneill4@hotmail.com

I have an undergraduate degree in bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. I completed courses in probability & statistics, linear regression analysis, human physiology, comparative anatomy, organic chemistry, differential equations and various other rigorous subjects. I very much appreciate the scientific method but it seems to me that there is a great deal of dogma on both sides of the evolution versus creation issue and little openess to truth. Both sides require tremendous leaps of faith due to lack of evidence. My father is a well-published researcher in various fields with a PhD in electrical engineering and his extensive research into DNA from an information theory perspective as well as his research into sound probabilistic arguments for the random or non-random occurence of DNA leads him at this point to believe it was created. But neither he nor I are dogmatic on the subject as there is not enough evidence at this point to resolve the argument one way or the other.


------ eviromental variables ------
REMOTE ADDR: 64.105.81.240
BROWSER: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)

OMG, I am overwhelmed by the superior education of Yet Another Hotmailer! Here's my response:

If you are telling the truth about your wide-ranging background, why do you produce an argument which is based completely on attempts to bolster your personal credibility and has not a shred of evidence, calculations, or reasoning in it to back up your statements? Not even a single example of the problems which you describe. Surely, someone with your extensive litany of university courses and familiarity with university procedures should know that you can't make claims about probability without producing the necessary calculations for critiquing, and that any attempt to do so would get you an "F" if it were handed in as an assignment.

Perhaps you've been working so hard at all of your amazingly complex and very demanding university courses that you failed to notice basic coursework requirements such as the need to back up your claims. Maybe you wrote so many assignments for your many "probability and statistics" courses that you somehow burned out, and completely forgot that statements of probability cannot simply be plucked out of thin air and justified only by a vague reference to your Daddy's background in electrical engineering. Or perhaps your intellect is so astoundingly superior to all other members of the homo sapiens species that you have difficulty explaining the staggering depth of your knowledge to a mere mortal such as myself.

Regardless of the reasons, I humbly ask that you share some of the astounding wisdom and doubtlessly scintillating statistical and probabilistic derivations that you refer to, since without them you give the unfortunate appearance of being nothing more than a poser. And surely, someone of your earth-shattering intellect and educational achievements would not want to look like a poser, correct?

I await the pearls of wisdom which you will no doubt shortly bestow upon me.

[Ford Prefect]

It strikes me that there are an awful lot of people out there with a desire to Prove Mike Wong Wrong. Creationists and rabid Trek-fans alike. Do you feel pleased, Darth Wong, that you are considered the obstacle to overcome in the realms of the internet Creationist?

[Pick]

Delicious, delicious wording.

Yeah, I always found that an interesting argument --"I've taken these classes!" Like somehow his involvement in these "rigorous studies" grants him automatic credibility, or much less that his father's background --in electrical engineering-- has the same transcendant worth. I just regurgitate this as it reminds me of the times I've had kids argue with me at school, all saying that they understand the evolution debate because they took a year of high school biology.

[Darth Servo]

So what else is new? These tards are a dime a dozen. Don't these people realize that a hotmail account is NOT the way to impress people when trying to demonstrated educated status and employment?

I have mixed feelings about whether I hope he responds or not since he doesn't actually say anything substantial. And what kind of person with a PhD in EE goes around researching DNA? Don't such people have enough with their real jobs to keep them busy? My own father also has a PhD in EE and he wouldn't even begin to have the time to go around doing independent research in a completely unrelated field.

[Darth Servo]

Delicious, delicious wording.

Yeah, I always found that an interesting argument --"I've taken these classes!" Like somehow his involvement in these "rigorous studies" grants him automatic credibility, or much less that his father's background --in electrical engineering-- has the same transcendant worth. I just regurgitate this as it reminds me of the times I've had kids argue with me at school, all saying that they understand the evolution debate because they took a year of high school biology.

You'll notice he doesn't mention what GRADE he got in those classes.

[Admiral Valdemar]

And I have a BSc. with honours in biology and I say he's talking out of his arse. My dad is also an electrical and mechanical engineer of a very high standard, but I wouldn't take what he says on evolution without finding a quarry of salt to take it with. But I guarantee he'd pummel me into the ground with his knowledge of engineering concepts. I'll stick to what I know, he sticks to what he knows. Isn't this why we have specialisation, because the expanse of human knowledge is so great now no one person can be a jack of all trades?

This may come as a shock to some people, but intellectual forces in one field, may be absolute amateurs in another. Would you ask a dentist whether you could design a hypersonic airliner? No, of course not, because that's fucking stupid. So why do these cretins accept the words of wisdom from engineers, astronomers, physicists and mathematicians over biologists when it comes to, gasp, biology?

[Crossroads Inc.]

AM I the only one still nieve enough to think that, upon reading the trhead title, Lord Wong had recieved an E-mail from Stephen Hawking or someone?

[sketerpot]

And what kind of person with a PhD in EE goes around researching DNA? Don't such people have enough with their real jobs to keep them busy? My own father also has a PhD in EE and he wouldn't even begin to have the time to go around doing independent research in a completely unrelated field.

The mapping of codons in DNA to amino acids is actually very interesting from an information theoretic standpoint. The coding system is set up so that most random errors will produce amino acids that are similar in hydrophobicity to the intended amino acid, thus leaving the protein structure and function mostly intact. It's perfectly plausible that an electrical engineer would be studying DNA. Check out this cool article (if you can; I may be getting a free subscription via my university):

Evolution Encoded, Scientific American, April 2004.

[Solauren]

Sounds like he's saying "I'm a fundie but I want to break away but can't"

Either that, or he's full of shit

[Wicked Pilot]

I didn't know the University of Illinois at Chicago had special ed courses.

[Jaepheth]

AM I the only one still nieve enough to think that, upon reading the trhead title, Lord Wong had recieved an E-mail from Stephen Hawking or someone?

I did for a few moments, but then noticed 'Genius' was all caps, so I figured it was PHAN mail. (Petty Harassment from Antagonizing Nitwits)

Best acronym I could invent on the spot.

[Nephtys]

Guess EE Daddy didn't know what Junk DNA is, or what this appendix is for, et cetera. Our DNA is so very precisely machined after all.

I absolutely LOVE how statistics courses are part of his 'credentials'. Oh look. He can draw LINES along curves! Human physiology, anatony, and O-Chem... oh, and CALCULUS!

We all know how valuable differential equations are in biology. Or how O-Chem applies specifically to evolution. DW replied nicely to it.. if restrained. Be meaner!

[Ghost Rider]

This one is funny because he actually asserts that because his side has a bunch of jargon that sounds pretty. He thinks that because he spews this can establish that he, and by association his father, are right and the scientists that have been demonstrating this particular theory to scrutiny to the scientific community are obviously blind morons.

Honestly, I did like that he thinks by saying that both theories need to be heard this absolves him from demonstrating why.

[mr friendly guy]

If he replies I bet you he will soon show his true colours - a fundi moron. This guy smacks to be one of those fundies who try to open up by either saying they are not bias or a golden mean fallacy, in his case BOTH SIDES have problems. I forsee shortly he will lose all pretense of being neutral.

[Wyrm]

AM I the only one still nieve enough to think that, upon reading the trhead title, Lord Wong had recieved an E-mail from Stephen Hawking or someone?

Do you really want an answer to that question, XRd.'s?

The title looked interesting, and I clicked it. Not being in the habit of actually looking at the thread author (always figuring I'd find out soon enough -- hey, it saves a half-second of browsing), there was an off-chance that it might have be genuine gushing. Once I saw the old "evil Yoda" avatar, I knew the true author and purpose of the thread: Point and Laff.

[brianeyci]

He's right. You're all being too dogmatic. It's time to throw in the towel. All of you should be ashamed of yourselves, with your dogmatic attitudes.

I propose the following be considered as alternatives to the dogma of science.







I'm partial to the first one myself. Spaghetti and meatballs > airline food > horse steak most likely (I wouldn't know since I've never flown but the mystery is half the fun isn't it!)

Brian

[Gil Hamilton]

I'm looking at the University of Illinois' website. Does he mean "Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering"? Because that's not a "bioengineering" program, that's a chemical engineering program that includes alot of organic chemistry, which is under the umbrella of both their engineering and science schools. From the description on the site, I'm not sure how you can shorten the program to "bioengineering", since that's not really what the program is about. Well, unless you of course were looking at the program catalogue and saw the name, then guessed wrong.

[url=http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/chem_eng/undergrad/index.htm]Here is the description of the website. Does that sound like "bioengineering" to anyone else, or does that sound like a chemical engineering program?

[Gil Hamilton]

Ghetto Edit: Curse me, could someone fix that url tag?

[Vanas]

It strikes me that there are an awful lot of people out there with a desire to Prove Mike Wong Wrong. Creationists and rabid Trek-fans alike. Do you feel pleased, Darth Wong, that you are considered the obstacle to overcome in the realms of the internet Creationist?

I feel that there is indeed a cult building up here, but it's not us. (Not that we don't take his word as law, unless it can be disproved with conclusive evidence).

As for this guy, it took me a while to actaully figure out what he was saying though his ego-inflation. You'd think that a really smart person would actually get to the point, no?

[Big Brother]

Yeah, whatever. Put it on your hate-mail page or something.

[TheBlackCat]

I have an undergraduate degree in bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Coming from someone who has a BSBE, and after talking to a bunch of my classmates who also have one (from different universities), you don't know anything after getting an undergrad degree in bioengineering or biomedical engineering. As he said, he had a lot of lower-level courses in a wide variety of topics, but nothing in-depth enough to be the anything approaching an expert in anything. He is looking at, at best, a lower-level position in a biomedical engineering firm, and even then they have to train you to be of any use to them. The coursework is just too broad without enough depth, you have a solid grounding in just about everything related to science or engineering but no in-depth knowledge of anything.

I am looking at their course catalog and it is pretty much the same as mine was. The only difference is they appear to not take any graduate-level courses as undergrad, which every BE or BME deparment I have heard of requires you do (which means he probably has less depth than many in his field). Anybody who claims he or she is an authority in anything with nothing but a BSBE is an idiot or a liar. I could tell softmore year looking at the course catalog that I wasn't going to get enough depth in anything. That is what a masters or a PhD is for.

This is nothing but argument from false authority. He talks like having a BSBE is supposed to impress us. Perhaps it might impress some people (not you guys, obviously) who don't know what such a degree entails, but it won't impress anyone else who has such a degree.

This is not to make light of BSBE degrees, they are damn hard degrees (all the schools I have visited consider it to be among their toughest degrees, most consider it their toughest). You get vasts amount of knowledge and extremely difficult coursework in an extremely wide range of disciplines, you are expected to be competent in just about every major area of engineering and a number of major areas of science, and you are expected to juggle coursework that has absolutely nothing in common besides that it requres massive amounts of advanced mathematics. It is hard, it is long, and you are required to learn a lot. But you are not and expert. Competent in something does not qualify you to overrule experts in the field.

[Patrick Degan]

Why, I do believe I've found the man's class photo:


Dennis O'Neilll, University of Illinois '06

[Durandal]

Hey, unless this guy can take a wagon, fill it with water, dump a motor-boat engine in it, start the engine and somehow get the wagon to move, he's no Wile E. Coyote.

[Utsanomiko]

For a college graduate, you'd think he'd have more to say on the issue than essentially "I'm a fan of the scientific method but I personally feel the issue has two saids and both are dogmatic so I'd prefer the answer to lie in the middleground." Perhaps he burned out from studying and developed a complex against science having so many facts to keep straight.

AM I the only one still nieve enough to think that, upon reading the trhead title, Lord Wong had recieved an E-mail from Stephen Hawking or someone?

Yes, Fluke.

<_<
>_>

And it's 'naive'.

[Utsanomiko]

For a college graduate, you'd think he'd have more to say on the issue than essentially "I'm a fan of the scientific method but I personally feel the issue has two saids and both are dogmatic so I'd prefer the answer to lie in the middleground." Perhaps he burned out from studying and developed a complex against science having so many facts to keep straight.

I wonder if he puts 'Didn't take any in-depth courses' and 'sucker for Golden Means' on his resume.

AM I the only one still nieve enough to think that, upon reading the trhead title, Lord Wong had recieved an E-mail from Stephen Hawking or someone?

Yes, Fluke.

<_<
>_>

And it's 'naive'.