The Sensuous Curmudgeon has obtained the Disco ‘Tute’s Form 990 for 2010. There are several interesting aspects of it, but I’ll mention just one. (See the linked post for more.) In the breakdown of funds, roughly $3m–75%–of the DI’s total budget was devoted to the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. However, just $220K, 7.3% of the CSC’s total, was devoted to actual scientific research (assuming that the BioLogic Institute does actual scientific research). Undoubtedly that number has grown since 2010, but I would be surprised to see it approach even a quarter of CSC’s revenue. Kind of sad for a purportedly scientific enterprise.
Where’s the DI’s (research) beef?
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This page contains a single entry by Richard B. Hoppe published on September 11, 2012 6:03 PM.
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So the key takeaway is.….…..Axe, Gauger et al have produced too little research of the caliber we have seen so far.
Agreed.
Maybe I’ve missed something, but from what I’ve seen the “research” they fund gets published in their own, in-house journal. It’s little more than another blog. Have they ever done anything that shows up in any recognized journal?
I wonder how much funding they feel is justified, to support a couple of “scientists” who prove beyond reasonable doubt that evolution does not do something anyone has ever said it does anyway. It might consume a LOT of their budget to prove definitively that sheep do not give birth to wolves.
This looks like slightly more than a $3 million dollar per year operation with $220,000 going “research” at the Biologic Institute and $19,785 going to “research” at Grove City College (See Page 2 where comparisons can be made with developing a transportation system)
Most of the money seems to go into propaganda. And we don’t know what they are getting for that “research” money other than what the Biologic Institute publishes in its own journal, which in not subject to peer review.
But I guess we already knew that.
What “research” has any creationist ever done? For two hundred thousand dollars you could get an automated DNA sequencer and sequence one thousand samples. Has any creationist ever published any sequence data of their own? All I can remember is “reanalysis” of data from other people. Why do they need any funds if they have no labs, perform no experiments, produce no data?
It’s the “et al” that tickles me. What “research” has Casey Luskin ever produced?
In my field we could pay two postdocs from the sum (just salaries and consumables). So what is the money actually spent for? If it would have been used for consumables only $200,000 is quite a lot given that Axe and Gauger just do some low grade biochemistry, some basic E.coli microbiology and some computational work. However, it would be a completely different number if the sum contains salaries and the running expenses one has to spend to keep a lab working (rent, electricity, water, maintenance of equipment, deprecations, cleaning) which is actually the case as PZ reported last year.
I wonder if part of that $220k goes to Behe’s university to pay for all the things he doesn’t do there.
Or is Behe under ‘fellowships’?
Wow:
Not only are these guys peddling nonsense, but they’re getting six-figure salaries to do it.
Or the “research” Behe, Dembski, Philips, Chapman, or Meyer have ever produced?
This profound lack of research is quite deafening to behold, yes?
Peddling Anti-Science Propaganda For Jesus has always been a very lucrative business in the United States.
Hi Steve P!
You’d think that for fat six-figure salaries the research done by “Axe, Gauger et al” would provide us with a way to measure the ‘complexity’ of an organism. Maybe they have, and we just missed it – can you demonstrate the method to us? Explain how the math works, teach everyone here how to do the measurements and calculations – walk us through some examples, step by step.
Note that this is a very low bar to jump – ‘Complex Specified Information’ is supposed to be inherent and measurable in every object, designed or not. The method for comparing two organisms is a very small subset of the problem space; although what it might actually be measuring is a bit of a mystery to me – it isn’t Kolmogorov information, or Shannon information, nor is it (say Steve ‘Complexity lies elsewhere’ P.) in the DNA. Since the DI finds such a method so obvious, and Steve P. is so completely convinced by it, surely such a demonstration should be trivially easy.
Or is it just a case of ‘complexity lies elsewhere’, but Steve P. lies everywhere?
Unlikely. I would go further, and point out that what they are reporting as “research” to the IRS consists overwhelmingly of activities such as giving talks and publishing monographs.
Now, a good research grant should cover those activities. But in a good research grant those sorts of activities are the icing, not the whole cake.
Unlike real scientists these people are entitled to a hardship allowance to compensate for the ridicule they get here at PT.
So the key takeaway is.….…..Axe, Gauger et al have produced too little research of the caliber we have seen so far.
You’ve never been to a restaurant with both bad food and small portions?
They are recipients of Wingnut Welfare. Rather than the needy, it is distributed to those who are willing to grovel and dissemble. There is no drug testing, there is no means testing, there is no time limit, the only disability one need demonstrate is a damaged character, and the only work requirement is to generate pseudo-academic propaganda at a very leisurely rate.
Paradoxically, its lucky recipients tend to be among the most miserable, unhappy, thin-skinned people on earth.
Snicker away Brown.
But to be sure you(pl) definitely won’t get the last laugh.
You can two-step with Darwin till the stars come out while ‘real’ (do I hear faint sounds of bagpipes?) scientists move on.
Go right ahead and keep on thinking information is ‘just’ an emergent property of matter. Elzinga will fill you in on all the details.
Then how come no one, not even Intelligent Design proponents, nor the illuminaries of the Discovery Institute, have ever been able to demonstrate how to do science with Intelligent Design, SteveP?
How come “real scientists” still use Evolutionary Biology, while totally ignoring Intelligent Design, SteveP?
What’s the matter, SteveP? How come you won’t say anything beyond insulting us for not bobbing our heads at your behest?
News flash for Stevie Pee Pee, real scientists moved on one hundred and fifty years ago. Only stubborn reality deniers refuse to accept the evidence. Get a clue dude.
Just like the DI, Stevie has no substance, just bluff and bluster.
None, he’s too busy serving as the Minister in charge of the DI Ministry of Propaganda.
Maybe I should have accepted your offer to have a meal on you, Stevie Pee, but it would have been at the Metropolitan Museum of Art cafetaria, in plain sight of museum security personnel and cameras. Am sure that ours would have been a most “enlightening” discussion!
I don’t know about J. L. Brown, but I’m not snickering. I’m laughing my ass off.
You got nothing, SteveP, nothing. All you got is hot air.
Over the last 20 years there are only two references in the scientific literature (both skeptical) to “complex specified information.” Over the same period there are 1025 references to cold fusion.
Yep. Just like you’re laughing your ass off that Encode got it all wrong. Life fumbled it’s way into the endzone and phhht knows it cuz evolution made all that junk DNA happen. There it is, right there in front of your eyes!! Look at all those useless strings of non-sense DNA!!
Let’s all ROTFLO. All together now!!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah.
Joke’s on you, kiddo!
I thought that Axe, Gauger et Al was a music hall act, a bit like Wilson, Keppel and Betty, only not so funny.
Also, in American English can “takeaway” have the meaning of “fast food” that it has in British English? If so, SteveP might be suggesting that the DI’s beef is prime McDonalds.…..
Lately, every single one of your posts appears to be nothing more than a rephrasing of the old movie line, “the professors at the university called me mad, but I’ll show them! Muhahahaha!”
Cause that’s all he’s got. That’s all he will ever have.
Oh, little Stevie pee pee, are you pretending to understand evolutionary biology (or any branch of science) – again?? Talk about fumbling. You might try actually reading the articles and papers. Yes, life has indeed been “fumbling” its way for three billion plus years and will continue “fumbling” it way for another – who knows how long. If only you fumbled 1% as well as life has, you might have learned something by now. Even if the Encode’s 80% is accurate (despite Birney’s definition of “functional”), just look at all those useless strings of 20% “non-sense” DNA! There it is, right in front of your eyes!! What, you can’t see it?
Let’s all ROTFLO. All together now!!! Hahahahahahahahaha, Stevie.
But what does Encode has to do with the Disco Tute doing any actual scientific research?
Hmmm, the joke seems to be on you, Stevie! As usual.
The real joke is that SteveP would sooner kill himself than admit that the Disco Tute, and all other Intelligent Design proponents, have never done, and will never do any scientific research ever.
Speaking of real research, for those in the New York City area, American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Provost of Science and vertebrate paleontologist Michael Novacek kicks off the new season of monthly AMNH SciCafe talks with “The Whole-Life Catalog: Why and How We Should Map and Understand the Biosphere”
The cost is free but you need to RSVP.
For more information, look here:
http://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/adu[…]tm_campaign=
Please show me in this thread where you made the argument “that over a large number of generations, a species with a large population uses a lot of resources”. The closest I can come to it is you writing “I was referring to the resources used by the entire species over enough time for evolution to produce successful changes” which is not the same. Moreover, both are a far cry from your original “Constraints, sure, but nature still uses an enormous amount of resources for each little change” because a “little” change in this context does not necessarily require a whole lot of energy to occur. What large part of the species resources used over time do you think your original “little” change uses and how would one measure such a thing?
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