I don't know how many times I've fallen for this one. Probably 3 times, in Berkeley. =( In addition, I've been targeted and not fallen for it another 4 or 5 times.
This one happened to someone I know:
This happened to someone I know:
This happened to me, except the person wasn't as skilled and I noticed as their hand was going into my pocket:
This is similar to what happened to me
Be careful when logging on to public wifi points
Watch your laptop at the airport
Watch your bags at the baggage claim
Don't drape your jacket over the seat in a restauraunt
The list goes on and on. Search for "The Real Hustle" on youtube or use the link at the top (that guy uploaded all of the episodes). 1) Be really careful on buses and trains. Especially at the main train station in Rome (that's where I was pickpocketed) 2) Be really careful in restauraunts (jackets, fake waiters) 3) Be really careful in crowded places 4) Be really careful near or on escalators. 5) Be really careful in airports (especially in baggage claim and security line areas) 6) Don't play any games at the carnival unless you're prepared to lose. They are designed for you to lose. 7) Don't accept any bets from people 8) Don't give change to anyone 9) Don't trust someone just because they are wearing official looking uniforms, have official looking badges 10) Don't trust someone over the phone. There was one time someone called me identifying them as the "Identity Theft Department of Bank of America" and told me that my credit card had been used in Washington DC. I was really skeptical, didn't know what to do. I said I didn't use my card in DC, but I didn't give the person any of my information. I should have asked for their extension, hung up, then dialed the official bank of america phone number, and asked to be transferred to that extension. 11) Be careful signing on to wifi networks
Note that the notes and the "boiled down" arguments are my interpretation of what Behe and Chiel said. I will post the actual video when it's available, so you can see for yourselves. For now, this is the best I can do.
If I can boil down Behe's arguement: Behe's focus is on biochemistry (his specialty), specifically, on systems of proteins or biomolecules that rely on other proteins and collectively have useful function. Behe terms these systems "irreducibly complex" because they only have useful function when they all exist together. Missing any one component, the system doesn't work. Right now, as of 2007, there is not enough evidence to support Darwinistic mechanisms for evolution. There are simply no explanations in the literature for how "irreducibly complex" systems may have evolved, and the arguments that have been made against the existence of irreducibly complex systems fall apart under scrutiny*. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that structures/systems that look like they were designed intelligently actually were designed intelligently.
*Note: If you read the notes Behe did this by bringing up examples of arguments made against IC (irreducible complexity) and how they involve misinterpreting basic research. Thus, Behe is saying that these arguments against IC are bogus. One of the authors (a Dr. Greenspan) he quoted as misinterpreting the evidence was actually present in the audience. After the talk Greenspan stood up and said that Behe misinterpreted Greenspan. So I don't know what to think. I'll have to dig up the references and decide for myself who is misinterpreting whom.
If I can boil down Chiel's arguement: 1) Intelligent Design is not science. It is not testable via correlation/sufficiency/necessity. Just because something looks like it was designed doesn't mean it was designed (example: hexagonal structures created by convection rolls). Even if you show that one material mechanism doesn't explain the apparent design of something, this doesn't mean that there aren't other material explanations. Science can explain complex molecular structures, so there is no need to use nonscientific theories. 2) Science is compatible with religion. Science does not address the supernatural and does not claim that only the material world exists. Science uses ideas from materialism, but it should not be confused with materialism. Materialism says "the material world is all there is." Science says "we do not address whether or not there is more than the material world." 3) Intelligent Design isn't necessarily good theology. If God created all living things via random mutation + natural selection, how does this diminish His power? Why must Genesis be interpreted literally? What if God chose to use imagery that early non-scientific readers would understand?
Please read the whole pdf if you are interested (or wait for me to post the video...don't know when that will be tho). Here I've only outlined the arguements and included none of the examples/evidence that support each point.
What about my personal reflections? I know that these may be controversial. I'm sorry....and please feel free to correct me. Again, I DO NOT HAVE THIS ALL FIGURED OUT. I am struggling with whether posting my thoughts is edifying for anyone. If it's not edifying, I will remove them. In the past, I have suffered from "post meaningless words syndrome" and that's something I'm trying to correct (thanks for noticing and correcting me).
This is what I am currently thinking. 1) There were a ton of people at this event, maybe 300 or so. Pretty exciting. For the most part, very respectful and cordial. Dr. Chae was a great moderator. 2) Mike Behe's talk was very focused. He's not saying that natural selection isn't taking place. He's not saying that random mutation doesn't occur. He's not saying anything about speciation. His focus is on "Irreducible Complexity" in biochemical systems, and how random mutation + selection isn't enough. Chiel disagrees and thinks it is enough. 2.1) I would like to hear Greenspan's rebuttal to Behe (see note at top). 2.2) Behe focused on talking about science. Behe talked for about 50 minutes. Chiel was given 15 minutes (this was the agreement and all parties agreed ahead of time). Chiel devoted 1/3 of his talk to religion. I think it's interesting...one of my buddies here pointed this out. 3) Some people who asked Chiel questions (trying to break his argument down) afterwards didn't know what they were talking about. Makes ID look bad. Sorry... 4) Behe's conclusion is that right now as of 2007, there isn't any evidence to support evolution of irreducibly complex systems. I think we simply don't know enough to draw solid conclusions either way. Is it just a matter of time until we can analyze every gene, every protein, and their similarities to "cousins" in other creatures? Biochemistry is finite. Everything is in the DNA. It's possible to learn everything about every protein. When we reach that point, I think it will be more obvious whether there are actually irreducibly complex structures, if component parts are derived via mutation from other proteins that either have function or at one point had function or at least were originally "neutral". I'm assuming that someday we will understand not only all the proteins, but all the DNA. Promoters, introns, exons, control of splicing, regulation of espression, relationships between sequences, how certain sequences are derived from others (in some cases, I think it's pretty obvious, but I'm talking about understanding this for every sequence). Then, we can draw conclusions about whether or not certain sequences could have arisen from accumulated mutations. In the interim, there will be debate. 5) This can be extended to speciation. At some point, we will figure how how hox genes or other similar genes, or induction factors affect body characteristics, etc. Until then, whatever we say about selection forces favoring certain beak sizes (among Galapagos finches) or whatever you want to talk about, isn't really meaningful. In fact, I think conclusions drawn from observing characteristics in fossils or in populations of animals don't mean much without the understanding of the genetics. This also has to do with the definition of a species. Of course I don't know anything about how to define species, and I don't study evolution in populations. So, I don't really know what I'm talking about (this is just my own speculation) 5.5) Chiel says that Richard Dawkins' view that science and atheism go together goes too far. 6) I don't know what to think about evolution of resistance to antibiotics in bacteria. I don't know enough about it. 7) So, I'm okay with the status quo. On one hand, if you're looking for an explanation that relies on observable and "non-supernatural" things, the answer is evolution by definition. On the other hand, I think it's reasonable to draw Behe's conclusion also. I'd like to check his references (I'll post here if I find time to do that), but I generally buy his argument that right now there aren't any good explanations for how irreducibly complex systems could have evolved. In this "interim" period, I think both of these are reasonable conclusions. Chiel makes the point that only one of them is scientific (based on correlation/sufficiency/necessity). Do you agree?
If you are trying to prove that A leads to B, you need to show the following: Correlation: When B is observable, is A present? Can we see design appear whenever designer is present? Not really possible to demonstrate... Sufficiency: We need to show that presence of A is enough for B to happen. Can we induce designer to act? Not really possible to demonstrate.... Necessity: We need to show that B does not happen when we remove A. Can we prevent designer from acting? Not really possible to demonstrate....
For example, for evolution you can say something like "If I add a selecting force to this population of galapagos finches, I should be able to observe a change in the finch beak size over time. If I remove this selecting force, the beak sizes will change in the opposite direction." It's testable. I don't know if it even matters whether or not beak size change actually can lead to speciation. The bottom line is that evolution is testable. You can generate a hypothesis and test it. I guess that for ID you could say something like, "If the bacterial flagellum structure were irreducibly complex, you should be able to see that if you remove one of the components, the flagella compoents will no longer have a useful function..." Is this a testable hypothesis? Yes, but there have been many attempts to show that indeed the flagellum components do have some useful function even if one part is missing. Behe debates these attempts. I don't know. Do these hypotheses demonstrate correlation, sufficiency, necessity? I don't know. I'm not suggesting the answer is no. I'm saying that I really don't know. Is ID testable? 8) I would not be okay if right now, people decided to make the Theory of Evolution into the Law of Evolution. There's a distinction between hypothesis, theory, and law, and I'm not sure what that distinction is. What does it take to make a Theory into a Law?
Again, I reiterate that: 1) I don't have it all figured out. I don't know everything (I don't even know part of everything). 2) I have not made up my mind. I am trying to figure this out. I may have said something here that is just one of my current thoughts. 3) I am not with this post trying to push one view or the other. I'm trying to figure it out for myself, and share my experience and thought process with you. 4) I would like to come to a better understanding of how to approach this debate. 5) Please let me know if you disagree with something I've written. I really want to correct myself and I appreciate any comments you may have.
What do you think about this approach? Here's another link that doesn't require NYTimes registration
Thanks and I apologise for posting something for which I have not completely figured out what I think myself. Unfortunately, I don't have any more time to write this post and must get back to studying.
Converts MS Word to use emacs style commands. It's PERFECT on a mac, since you can still use all the "normal" word commands which are by default mapped to the apple key, instead of ctrl like on windows. It makes word behave like all the other default mac applications, where you can use the emacs style commands already. THIS IS SO AWESOME that I had to share with everyone. I'm so excited I just danced over to pick up a tissue for my nose.
At St Vincent's Charity Hospital today, they prayed over the intercom for one of the departments.
They just cancelled all classes tomorrow, even the ones held at the hospital. Yay!
The Behe talk is made even more interesting because yesterday was Darwin Day on campus, featuring a movie which refutes many of Behe's claims. Darwin Day was put on by Patricia Princehouse, a professor of Philosophy here at Case who is completely against ID. She was directly involved in the Dover case. In addition, last year Ken Miller was invited to Case for talk similar to Behe's except Ken Miller argued for evolution.
Ken Miller was also directly involved in recent court hearings regarding ID in classrooms, and in his talk (it's on youtube) he directly refuted many of Behe's arguments. Many others, including Ken Padian (at Cal), were also involved in the Dover case and have refuted (attempted to?) Behe's arguements. My tough bio 1B GSI, Andrew Lee, works in the Padian lab. I'm afraid there will be an endless cycle of pointing out flaws in the other's argument. It's already hard enough to follow this debate in the literature. We'll see.
This thing was organized by John Chae, a great role model for living life according to God's will. He also happens to be the founder of the Northeast Ohio chapter of the CMDA, and he's also a PM&R doc and a PI in the lab I want to work for. It's a big circle.
1) Mike Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, is coming to Case to speak. The talk is sponsored by the CMDA (Christian Medical Dental Association, of which I'm now a student member yay). I'm very interested. If you remember the last time I posted about evolution vs ID (about a year ago), it didn't go over that well. Anyway, I am genuinely interested in Behe's talk, and I hope his talk gets me to think hard. I'm also supposed to publicize it to the professors, med students, grad students, etc., of the medical school.
2) It snowed really hard. Case Western is closed tomorrow because of snow! The first time in recent memory (within the last 6 years) that anyone remembers Case closing because of snow. I had a few close calls driving tho, and it took an hour to make the 5 mile drive home. Unfortunately, our class tomorrow is scheduled at the hospital, which is not closed. ::sigh::
3) Finals next week, IM basketball. Looking forward.
4) Finals next week, med school block 3. Not looking forward.
