Listening to a Dave Matthews' song today made me think of some talk that I've heard regarding science, both in favor and against it. Mostly I hear misconceptions about the use of the word theory, on both sides. The mystics say that something is "just a theory", while the science students insist that in science, theory is fact. Of course, neither are correct.
We have a certain set of facts -- things that are known to be true by verifiable, repeatable experience. Science takes these facts, and builds theories about the nature of universe such that the theories are consistent with all of the facts. These theories are conclusions drawn from the facts, they are not the facts themselves.
The scientific method cannot prove the theories, it can only disprove them. An experiment collects empirical evidence (that is, facts that are experienced and/or recorded by our senses or instruments used to enhance them) and checks if they support a given theory. If they do, then the theory stands, and if not, then the theory has been disproved.
The science students misrepresent scientific theory when they call it "fact." That's not what science is. A theory that stood for decades or centuries can still be disproved and replaced by a new theory. It has happened and is still happening. The religion students misrepresent science, too, by implying that the word "theory" means that it holds no weight. It's silly to try and discredit a theory when it still holds as the best explanation of the world around us, and not for a lack of attempts to disprove it.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
I'm not Caucasian
Why is it that "white" and "Caucasian" have become synonyms?
I realize that if you just want to describe a person's skin color, that there's not many people that are more "white" than I am. However, if what you want to describe is a person's ethnicity, then I could be Dutch or Irish or English or Danish or Spanish, but none of those people are from the Caucasus mountains. Just because my ancestry is European and my skin color is white, does not make me belong to this invented ethnic group.
I think the real reason that term gets used is because the people that ask the question aren't interested in ethnicity or culture or heritage or anything like it, but are actually only concerned with skin color, and have discovered that ethnicity is a way to disguise that interest to people who don't like being categorized by their color.
I realize that if you just want to describe a person's skin color, that there's not many people that are more "white" than I am. However, if what you want to describe is a person's ethnicity, then I could be Dutch or Irish or English or Danish or Spanish, but none of those people are from the Caucasus mountains. Just because my ancestry is European and my skin color is white, does not make me belong to this invented ethnic group.
I think the real reason that term gets used is because the people that ask the question aren't interested in ethnicity or culture or heritage or anything like it, but are actually only concerned with skin color, and have discovered that ethnicity is a way to disguise that interest to people who don't like being categorized by their color.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Identity theft really happens (This is a serious post)
I've never really had any close experience with identity theft before, but I had a close call with it today.
I got an email from PayPal saying that they needed the users to make updates on their accounts within the next two days. It sounded like a big deal, so I clicked the link to update whatever they needed.
PayPal came up like normal, and asked me for my user name and password to log in, which I provided to get in to the site. I didn't notice anything was wrong until Firefox asked me if I wanted it to remember the password. I said yes, but I wondered why it didn't already know that password. I use PayPal all the time. Then I saw in the address bar what I wished I'd seen from the start: This wasn't PayPal at all. This was some other site with another address that was posing as PayPal.
This is where I went into panic mode. I'd already hit submit on the login. I didn't fill out any of the resulting page asking for my personal information, but I had already submitted my password. Now what could I do? I hurriedly went to the real PayPal site and changed my password before the con-persons could do anything with the information I'd just given them.
And now I've spent the last few hours changing all of my other important passwords, just in case the spoofers are smart enough to use that little bit of information they got.
I reported the site to PayPal, but I don't know what else I can do. Does anyone know how to report this kind of thing to any kind of law enforcement, or is that even possible?
I was going to include the fraudulent email itself, as well as a quote from the actual PayPal site about how to tell a spoofed email from a legit one, but since I'm feeling very paranoid right now I decided that I didn't actually want to quote the con-artists or link to them. Instead, here's the problems with the email that I should have noticed (but didn't, at least not right away):
I got an email from PayPal saying that they needed the users to make updates on their accounts within the next two days. It sounded like a big deal, so I clicked the link to update whatever they needed.
PayPal came up like normal, and asked me for my user name and password to log in, which I provided to get in to the site. I didn't notice anything was wrong until Firefox asked me if I wanted it to remember the password. I said yes, but I wondered why it didn't already know that password. I use PayPal all the time. Then I saw in the address bar what I wished I'd seen from the start: This wasn't PayPal at all. This was some other site with another address that was posing as PayPal.
This is where I went into panic mode. I'd already hit submit on the login. I didn't fill out any of the resulting page asking for my personal information, but I had already submitted my password. Now what could I do? I hurriedly went to the real PayPal site and changed my password before the con-persons could do anything with the information I'd just given them.
And now I've spent the last few hours changing all of my other important passwords, just in case the spoofers are smart enough to use that little bit of information they got.
I reported the site to PayPal, but I don't know what else I can do. Does anyone know how to report this kind of thing to any kind of law enforcement, or is that even possible?
I was going to include the fraudulent email itself, as well as a quote from the actual PayPal site about how to tell a spoofed email from a legit one, but since I'm feeling very paranoid right now I decided that I didn't actually want to quote the con-artists or link to them. Instead, here's the problems with the email that I should have noticed (but didn't, at least not right away):
- The email didn't know my name. It referred to me generically as a PayPal member. PayPal (and hopefully other sites with privileged information) know your name and will address you by it.
- The link didn't go to PayPal's site. I should have noticed this right away, but I'm glad I did eventually notice it before I made a worse problem. If you're looking at an email that wants you to click a link, here's what you should do:
Hover over the link. In the status bar (that's the little gray bar at the bottom of your browser) it will say the address to which the link points. If the text for the link is an address, make sure they match. (In my case they didn't.) Otherwise, just make sure that the address looks like what you'd normally see for the given Web site (i.e., www.paypal.com if the link is supposed to take you to PayPal). Likewise, when you're entering your password or personal information in the destination Web site, look at the address bar at the top and make sure that you are.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Cucumber is the new lemon
Lemon. Not awesome.
At Christina's wedding reception tonight they had a jug of water (with an obnoxiously hard to use spout, which is entirely beside the point) that had a bunch of cucumbers at the top of it. It was really good. I think that's my new favorite flavor of water.
"Yes, waiter, can I have a cucumber wedge with my water?"
And lemon wasn't my old favorite flavor of water. Water was my old favorite flavor of water. Except now it's cucumber.
At Christina's wedding reception tonight they had a jug of water (with an obnoxiously hard to use spout, which is entirely beside the point) that had a bunch of cucumbers at the top of it. It was really good. I think that's my new favorite flavor of water.
"Yes, waiter, can I have a cucumber wedge with my water?"
And lemon wasn't my old favorite flavor of water. Water was my old favorite flavor of water. Except now it's cucumber.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
An Inconvenient Truth
A few weeks ago, Loyd posted a blog about a movie called "An Inconvenient Truth." I don't think I even read the entire thing, because I have certain biases about environmental issues. Let me just explain:
For me the most impressive piece of evidence was the core samples. At first, Gore just showed the graph of the data that they'd been collecting since the late 50's. I'd seen that before, and I wasn't impressed. It definitely shows that the carbon levels and the temperature are increasing, but so what? That's not sufficient to show that it's not a natural cycle. Then I learned that they have been taking samples of the ice in glaciers and in Antarctica, and that they can see what the temperature and carbon levels were up to 650,000 years ago. Over that time you can see the past seven ice ages, and you can see the Earth's natural temperature (and related carbon) cycle. Then you can see that within the last 100 years we've doubled the carbon levels over what they've been any time in the Earth's history. You can see that the increase is exponential, and doesn't fit into the cycle at all.
I can't detail everything that the movie talked about, but just what impressed me about it. One of the things that I felt after the movie was just that I was sad that I hadn't known about any of this sooner. I don't think this is new evidence, but just that it hasn't been made publicly available. Or at least it hasn't been in front of my face before. I guess if I'd cared about the issue I could have looked into it on my own and probably found some of this out, but realistically, what incentive could I have had to look into it on my own? Why would I research it personally if I hadn't ever been convinced that it was an issue that I should be concerned about it? And how many people are like me, in that they would care about the environment if they were convinced that it were in danger, but simply haven't seen any evidence? And how many of those will continue that way despite this movie? Would I have continued in my ignorance if I hadn't been dating Kelly? Do we choose to stay ignorant because we don't know any better, based on the limited evidence we've seen, or do we do it knowingly? Are we close-minded because of political prejudices, or just because it's scary to think that we've done this and that it'll be hard to fix?
The other thing that I realized, besides simply that global warming is actually occurring, is that it is occurring now. This isn't a problem that our children's children will have to face, it's a problem that is already killing people. I'm sure not everyone thinks about things the same way as I do, but I've certainly noticed the increase in natural disaster that's happened in my lifetime. I've considered it as part of the signs of the times, and fulfillment of revelation. It never occurred to me at all that we were causing these things because we have been altering the climate of our planet. I wonder how many religious people are like me, and recognize the signs without recognizing the causes.
- Al Gore
- I didn't vote in the 2000 election, either, because I was on my mission. I didn't know anything about the issues, and the only thing I knew about Gore was that he was the robot that invented the Internet.
- The Environment
- I'm down with the environment.
- Environmentalists
- I think they're wackos that are so fanatic about the environment that they fail to see the solution to their own issues. (Just for the record, that's also what I think of most libertarians.)
- Global Warming
- I haven't been convinced if it is a real thing or not. I realize that they've been doing research on the issue for a lot of years, but even if they'd been doing it for one hundred years (which they haven't been), I don't think that's anywhere near the data that they'd need to make a claim that the Earth's temperature were rising (anymore than it would normally, as part of the Earth's natural cycles), let alone that we as humans have anything to do the rising.
For me the most impressive piece of evidence was the core samples. At first, Gore just showed the graph of the data that they'd been collecting since the late 50's. I'd seen that before, and I wasn't impressed. It definitely shows that the carbon levels and the temperature are increasing, but so what? That's not sufficient to show that it's not a natural cycle. Then I learned that they have been taking samples of the ice in glaciers and in Antarctica, and that they can see what the temperature and carbon levels were up to 650,000 years ago. Over that time you can see the past seven ice ages, and you can see the Earth's natural temperature (and related carbon) cycle. Then you can see that within the last 100 years we've doubled the carbon levels over what they've been any time in the Earth's history. You can see that the increase is exponential, and doesn't fit into the cycle at all.
I can't detail everything that the movie talked about, but just what impressed me about it. One of the things that I felt after the movie was just that I was sad that I hadn't known about any of this sooner. I don't think this is new evidence, but just that it hasn't been made publicly available. Or at least it hasn't been in front of my face before. I guess if I'd cared about the issue I could have looked into it on my own and probably found some of this out, but realistically, what incentive could I have had to look into it on my own? Why would I research it personally if I hadn't ever been convinced that it was an issue that I should be concerned about it? And how many people are like me, in that they would care about the environment if they were convinced that it were in danger, but simply haven't seen any evidence? And how many of those will continue that way despite this movie? Would I have continued in my ignorance if I hadn't been dating Kelly? Do we choose to stay ignorant because we don't know any better, based on the limited evidence we've seen, or do we do it knowingly? Are we close-minded because of political prejudices, or just because it's scary to think that we've done this and that it'll be hard to fix?
The other thing that I realized, besides simply that global warming is actually occurring, is that it is occurring now. This isn't a problem that our children's children will have to face, it's a problem that is already killing people. I'm sure not everyone thinks about things the same way as I do, but I've certainly noticed the increase in natural disaster that's happened in my lifetime. I've considered it as part of the signs of the times, and fulfillment of revelation. It never occurred to me at all that we were causing these things because we have been altering the climate of our planet. I wonder how many religious people are like me, and recognize the signs without recognizing the causes.
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