HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher)
Subject: Re: Let's just throw evolution out
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 17:02:19 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

>This seems to be what Drew Lawson is saying.  But there are a lot
>of other things he is not saying:
>	- how his religious faith is tainting his view of science.


Drew has since come forward and stated this unambiguously:

>> [me] Your original statement is ambiguous. Were you rephrasing the assumption
>>"there is no God", as "God is not relevant", or were you stating that
>>evolutionists make at least one of these assumptions? [they are of course
>>distinct.]

> [Drew] I was using the two as being equivilent [sic] within the scope of
>stating a
>scientific hypothesis.  In either case, a system which the scientist
>expects to work would not rely on God.


>>If you start from the assumption that God exists AND is relevant to
>>everything, then this distinction will be incomprehensible to you.

>Sorry to contradict you.  That is my assumption, but I understand the
>distinction.  I just didn't think that it had a large effect on the
>topic I was presenting.
>
>Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
>lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate


Drew has spoken, shall we say, precipitously. Pretty well tears it up as far
as he's concerned, dunn't? Take your marble and go home, Drew. Come back when
you're ready to become part of the solution, through a willingness to modify
your assumptions in light of the evidence.
From: bvickers@valentine.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Subject: Re: Evol & God : CANNOT Co-exist!
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Reply-To: bvickers@ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Irvine, Info. & Computer Sci. Dept.
Date: 28 Aug 92 08:34:56 GMT

vnelson@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gerald Vernon Nelson) writes:
> What caused the origin of the very first cell?
> Did God make the first cell?  Yes or No?  It is a binary question.

Not yes or no.  It's "don't know."  We can't say whether
God made the first cell.  There's no evidence for either
side of the argument.  Even if the answer were "No," I
submit that that would not be a disproof of the existence
of God.  Who says God has to be the creator of the first cell?

> You cannot answer, god did, but it did it by itself too.

You can't really answer either way since nobody knows.

> God and evolution are contradicting theories.

Maybe -- if you're a stubborn creationist or a stubborn atheist.
I would expect to hear this from Bob Bales, Jim Loucks or
Lionel Tun.  The ground you're walking on is just as shaky
as theirs, Gerald.

--
 ___            _    _     _  _        _
(  _) ___ ___ _( )__( )_  ( )( ) o  __( ) _  ___  ___  ___
(___)(_) (__=) (_)_ (_)_   (__) (_)(_((_)(_'(__=)(_) _(_)
Brett J. Vickers (bvickers@ics.uci.edu)
From: dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The Philosophical problems of Creationism (Was: Try the Bible (Re: Calling Young-earth Creationists)
Date: 1 Sep 92 07:04:41 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: Electrical and Electronic Eng., University of Adelaide

In article <1992Aug31.214433.22971@dscomsf.desy.de> Hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
>deny anything to be "proven". However the Bible does in fact give a value for
>PI, so the creationist value of PI is :-
>
>3.0
>
>The relevant bit is in Kings where it refers to a "circle of 30 cubits in
>circumference and 10 in diameter".
>
>Wonder how they will square the circle?

That's easy. That's the bit that talks about "the four corners of the earth."
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Put up or shut up, Antti.
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 11:11:29 GMT

adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters) writes:
>Well, they must be pretty good biologists, then, huh?  Can you list
>some of their publications?  University affiliation?  "The BBS System" is
>pretty big.  How about helping us out?

	Norrdahl: LM 1991 ALA ARV pop. in Eastern Bothnia comes first to my mind
>Antti, I haven't seen anything of substance from you yet.  Show us
>you have some way to back up what you say, or stop wasting our time.

	How about the L. argentatus -case ?

	Btw. never visited Russia ?
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
From: brinkman@si194b.llnl.gov
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Damning with faint praise
Date: 2 Sep 92 21:37:04 GMT


   In article <1992Sep2.015053.4490@hfsi.uucp> ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata FSO)
writes...

>I can truthfully tell you that I would have
>flamed a creationist just as quickly if they had colored their posting with
>such attacks.  But I honestly haven't noticed any such postings from their
>camp.  Now if I just missed them but they still exist, then my flame pertains
>to them as well.

   Where have you been?  To cite merely one example, within the past two weeks
we have seen (for the umpteenth-bazillion time) a Creationist claim and
repeat, without any rational support, that evolutionists are racists (LT).

   Where were your flames (which you truthfully would have launched just as
quickly) for those multiple posts which were colored by the inky black tar of
rank sensationalized ad hominem?

   How can you claim with a straight face, "I honestly haven't noticed any
such postings from their camp"?

   Is this an outbreak of selective amnesia, or have you grown so inured to
Creationist rhetoric that slanderous ad hominem tripe from "their camp" has to
be explicitly spelled out for you to find it offensive?

   You know, this whole discussion would be funny if it wasn't so depressing.

>John G. Ata - Technical Consultant | Internet:     hfsi!ata@UUNET.UU.NET

P.S.  I am not arguing that namecalling is a productive, rational means of
      debate.  I am arguing that Mr. Ata's claims above are either ingenuous,
      ignorant, or based on a selective filtering of reality.

--
Matt Brinkman
brinkman@edseq1.llnl.gov
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Bill Riggs _astounding_ ignorance of basic biology
Date: 3 Sep 92 06:58:47 GMT
Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.

In article <87734@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>In article <95197@bu.edu>, colby@bu-bio (Chris Colby) writes:
>>>	- Abiogenesis ?

>>Abiogenesis is not a fact (IMHO) as an alternate hypothesis exists
>>(panspermia).

>I'm not quite sure I would count the possibility of panspermia as an
>alternate to abiogenesis as I would count it as a mutant variant.  I
>suppose you could argue for anautomatogenesis of silicon based life
>that came up with nifty ways of programming carbon and sent out their
>rocket probes around the galaxy, but at some point I leave such ideas
>for Ted Holden to take care of.

You have, you should excuse the expression, the germ of a good idea
but you haven't carried it far enough.  Recently, after the consumption
of an anchovy/garlic/jalapeno pepper/feta cheese/strawberry pizza,
I had a revelation which I will share with you.

THE BIG BANG WAS ALIVE!

Yes boys and girls, the Big Bang was alive from the very beginning.
It wasn't Carbon based life, natch, but it was alive.  As the big hot
cooled down it spawned new forms of life, which generated still other
forms of life in turn.  About five billion years ago two energy vortices
named Vinnie and Moe, had an inspiration in the middle of one of their
interminable rounds of photon rummy.  Vinnie said to Moe, "Let's do
Carbon", and the rest is history.
-- 
Richard Harter: SMDS Inc.  Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742.    Fax: 508-369-8272
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Date: 31 Aug 92 22:07:46 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: duffy@aslss02.asl.dl.nec.com (Joseph Duffy)

In article <1992Aug31.194922.7862@asl.dl.nec.com>, duffy@aslss02 (Joseph Duffy) writes:
>If you follow the original thread you'll understand that I don't
>think either side has such direct evidence that they can produce.
>Because of this I don't believe that either side can draw an
>"inescapable conclusion".

I apologize for my creationist insinuations.

Meanwhile, please explain why the only acceptable evidence for inescapable
conclusions is that on the order of magnitude of live videotapes.  To me,
if the only alternative is to repeatedly invoke conspiracies of coincidence,
then the direct interpolation of what the indirect evidence says is an
inescapable conclusion.

We have no direct evidence--in your sense--regarding the building of the
Pyramids, but I think the evidence is conclusive that they were indeed
built, on location, roughly 3-4 millennia ago.  Do you?
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Some questions for Laura. Please read it.
Date: 27 Aug 92 02:41:16 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <6654@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM> alanf@tekig6.PEN.TEK.COM (Alan M Feuerbacher) writes:
|
|I think there are only two logically consistent positions on whether the
|original writings were inspired or not:  the fundamentalist position that
|*all* scripture is inspired, which the Bible itself claims (2 Timothy 3:16),
|or the opposite, that it is merely the writings of men.

I tend to agree.  But I think it *is* perfectly consistant to see the
scriptures as inspired while not accpeting the literalist version of
inerrancy.  That is all parts of the scriptures contain a message from
God, but they may not necessarily represent the literal historical truth.

[I suppose it is also possible to question whether certain items are truly
scriptural or not, but that is a different issue - in fact that is the
same, to me, as determining which written works are inspired].
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Punctuated equilibrium
Date: 26 Aug 92 20:06:15 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <94154@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
| Thus, missing links are not (usually) found because
|you would have to be searching in the area speciation happened to
|find them. In other places, the fossil transition would be sharp -- 
|this would be due to replacement by migration, not fast evolution.
|
|In some cases, the speciation locale has been found and intermediates
|between two distinct species are located there (In my FAQ I give an
|example of a brachiopod transition).

In the original paper proposing the theory, Eldridge and Gould present
a case involving several closely related species of trilobite.

Another area where the newspapers tend to distort their theory is in
the mechanism for the changes during speciation.  This *relatively*
rapid change is still considered to by driven largely by natural selection,
with a moderate dose of 'founder effect'.  Thus the theory is still
essentially Darwinian in form.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Xref: sparky talk.origins:10114 sci.skeptic:15040
From: aaron@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Shroud exposed at early date (Tim O'Neill)
Date: 26 Aug 92 08:34:27 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5


Lee Thomas writes:
(concerning the dirt on the image of the feet of the Turin shroud)

>If a statue/mannekin was used [to wrap the shroud around during faking]
>why is it so accurate in small, historical details, but so inaccurate
>in gross anatomical details?


        Surely the answer is likely to be that the statue was not anatomically
        correct but that small details were then painted on afterwards to
        allow the forgery to conform to the fourteenth century conceptions
        of the crucifixion (and it has already been noted that it largely does
        so). Perhaps the forger couldn't easily get access to a statue of
        a sufficiently modern statue of Christ himself that he could daub
        paint on.

               Aaron Turner            aaron@minster.york.ac.uk
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 29 Aug 92 20:45:09 GMT
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks

In article <2882@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> Birds sleep "standing" because they have a tendon which goes over the back-
> facing joint of their legs, keeps their legs comfortably suspended at a sort
> of a half bend, and keeps their claws tightly clomped around the limb or
> whatever with no effort on their part.  
> 
> This wouldn't work for a sauropod or any straight-legged creature or any
> creature with knees facing forwards for obvious reasons, and it doesn't even
> work for an ostrich.

  1) Just because it doesn't work for a ostrich doesn't mean it couldn't.

  2) If the knee has to be facing backwards, just run the tendon along the other
side of the leg for forward facing knees.

> For a bluejay which weighed 400,000 lbs, it wouldn't work either...  the 
> tendon would snap and everything would collapse.

  1) Thicker tendons
  2) Four legs
  3) Dinosaurs don't even remotely have the same structure as a blue jay

> Dinosaurs were mostly of two basic types, birdlike which included even the
> tyrannosaur, and sauropod or sauropod-like, which were either mammals
> outright as Dr. Velikovsky claimed, or were very similar to mammals.

  Ah, yes.  Well we should always trust Dr. Velikovsky's opinions in biology. 
What was his doctorate in again?

> The idea that sleeping "like a bird" would come naturally to a sauropod
> is idiotic for obvious reasons.

  Humor me: what reasons are so obvious?

> Basically, at some point, everybody slips, falls, has to work under a
> car, goes swimming, or does some fricking thing which will require that
> he be able to lift his own weight off the ground.  The idea that sauropods
> might have been an exception to this is ludicrous and warrants serious
> consideration only by an idiot.

  So, when a sauropod falls it dies.  Big deal.  Helps cull out the weak anyway.
I have no problem with this (not that I'd want to live by it).

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
From: adcsys@smds.com (ADC system account)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Competition for Truth
Date: 2 Sep 92 06:48:14 GMT
Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.

In article <la7k81INN7gg@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> salem@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM (Bruce Salem[CONTRACTOR]) writes:

>	You must go further and cite the "science is religion" ruse.
>A strategy in this group has been to blur the distinctions and to
>rhetorically manipulate ideas so that it seems that we are all speaking
>the same languages when we are not. So, Creationists intentionally lie
>sometimes in order to gloss over the destinctions.

I would be careful about about using the word, lie, in this context.
Everything can be viewed from a political perspective, or a religious
perspective, or from an artistic perspective, etc.  I have known, as
I suppose we all have, people to whom the political signifigance is
everything, to the point where truth and falsity are simply irrelevant
issues.  I once was bemused by reading a "politically correct" critique
of scientology which scathingly denounced scientology on the grounds
that it favored and appealed to the middle class.

Similarly people for whom the religious perspective is primary will
see the important aspect of science as being religious.

A philosopher named Pepper [and not Popper] wrote a rather interesting
work classifying competing world views.  I don't remember the categories,
except for animism and materialism.  A main point was that a world view
is more or less complete in itself, in that everything can be accounted
for and described in terms of the world view.  According to Pepper there
were about eight different major world views that people use, of which
about half, e.g. animism, have fundamental difficulties.

Someone who thinks within the framework of one world view interprets the
statements and perspectives of other world views in the terms of their
own world view.  Most people, to the extent that they consider these
matters at all, have some capacity for understanding other world views.
Others do not.

Science and religious fundamentalism live in different worlds.  It seems
to me to be perfectly reasonable for a fundamentalist to view religion
as science.  Within their world view competing world views are interpeted
as competing religions.  From my perspective this is rather close
minded, but then, there is no such thing as close mindedness in the
universe of a truly close minded person.
-- 
Richard Harter: SMDS Inc.  Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742.    Fax: 508-369-8272
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
From: Michael.Leugs@f88.n106.z1.fidonet.org (Michael Leugs)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Pt 3/3: Shroud exposed at early date (Tim O'Neill)
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 11:44:16 -0500

        I'm not as well-informed as you two, but it seems I read that the
geometry of the image on the shroud does not match human physiological norms. 
Was that ever a true criticism, and if so, how was it disproved?


>> As a follower of the person depicted (by whatever means) in the
>> Shroud, I cannot refer to someone as mentally deficient simply because
>> they disagree with me.  Malicious, perhaps, or misguided, but not
>> moronic.

>>A religion which threatens eternal and unending torture for simply calling
>>someone a fool?! You can keep that!


Actually, Mr. O'Neill, he did not say that.  He simply thinks that it is not a
nice thing to do, and that J. Christ agrees.

Michael Leugs


 * Origin: Two Wheelers - The Bicylists' Communications Link (1:106/88)
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Date: 2 Sep 92 21:45:23 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)

In article <1992Sep2.201644.11493@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, mcgrath@cs (Robert McGrath) writes:
>|> Is the word "dendogram" even part of your vocabulary?

>I thought Wiener's remarks were intelligent and to the point, but 
>scarcely simple or easy to read.

I certainly don't object to people claiming that my writing is unclear.
That's not why I was unfriendly towards Riggs.

>I do not sympathize, however, with the "if you can't read the technical
>jargon of my field you must be a moron" attitude.

Considering that "dendogram" was the first bit of unobvious jargon that I
used[*], and I only used it after Riggs complained about my language, and
I did so since it points up an obvious rottenness in his attitude to the
evidence of evolution, I really fail to see where I give that impression.

|> >point he was trying to make. (i.e "linguistic, dental, and genetic
|> >classification...were (?) found...")

I am puzzled about the non-clarity of the above.  Researchers in different
fields have classified mankind based on languages, on teeth, and on genes.
The results could have been anything, but they weren't.  There was a good
deal of similarity in the results.

[*] Seriously, do I have to explain "proto-language", especially in a
context talking about the origin of language?

>It's not amusing nor productive and it makes you look like an idiot.
>If you don't mind my pointing that out.

I _do_ mind things being pointed out that I did not do.  I consider Riggs
low on brains for his rude "evolution is only a theory" comments, with no
evidence on his part of being able to evaluate the evolutionary evidence
in the first place.  I couldn't care less if he knows what "dendogram"
means or not, and I certainly would not estimate his IQ from such a detail.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Xref: sparky talk.origins:10786 alt.atheism:16459
From: jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: worthless comic strips
Keywords: creationist propaganda
Date: 3 Sep 92 18:02:02 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
>   Week ago Sunday I was reading the paper and enjoying my coffee when I
>noticed the comic strip B.C. (by J. Hart) had Wiley doing a poem that said (my
>paraphrase) "The world just got here by accident.  Right.  Suuurrre".  

Here's the poem Wiley wrote in the Sunday (8/23) strip:

			 	The Seed

A seed is such a miraculous thing, it can sit on a shelf forever.

But how it knows what to do, when it's stuck in the ground, is what 
makes it so clever.

It draws nutrients from the soil through its roots, and gathers
its force from the sun.

It puts forth a whole lot of blossoms and fruit, then reseeds
itself when it is done.

Who programmed the seed to know just what to do? And who put the
sun in the sky?

And who put the food in the dirt, for the roots? And who told the
bees to come by?

And who makes the water to fall from above, to refresh and make 
everything pure?

Perhaps all of this is a product of love. And perhaps it happened
by chance. Yeah, sure.

===================

Y'all should have figured I saved that strip and put it on my office
wall. :-)

> How long has B.C. been pulling this stuff?

Coupla years that I know of.

-- 
Jim Loucks           jloucks@uts.amdahl.com 
{apple, pyramid, sun, uunet}!amdahl!jloucks
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 1 Sep 92 12:49:58 EST
 <1992Aug28.155544.15577@acuson.com> <87429@netnews.upenn.edu> <1992Aug31.154733.18325@cs.joensuu.fi>
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <1992Aug31.154733.18325@cs.joensuu.fi>, asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
> 
>>In answer to the question of how biological evolution is important to
>>linguistics of all subjects, I know of two.  One is the question of the
>>origin of language itself.  The second is the origin of the variety of
>>languages.
> 
> 	You ignore the fact that languages have developed to simpler forms 
> 	not more complicated as the so-called evolution "theory" claims. 
> -- 

Obviously you have never studied evolution.  It claims no such thing.

Sue

> 
> 		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint
> 
> 	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !