HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 10 Sep 92 05:39:18 GMT
Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.

In article <2899@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.040240.26054@smds.com>, rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:

>*>Try holding a 20 lb weight horizontally out from your body for thirty
>*>seconds, either from the shoulder or from the hip with elbow bent, it 
>*>doesn't matter.  Picture holding that weight out like that for the rest
>*>of your life.

>*Now this is a tad misleading.  Try the following experiment instead.
>*Take an 8 foot 2x4 and center it on your shoulder so that you have four
>*feet hanging out in front of you and four feet hanging out in back.
>*Piece of cake, right?  

>I hope you don't seriously mean, that since sauropods had to hold their
>necks out AND their tails out, that it all balanced, and that the whole
>deal was therefore easy for them.  If so, a better analogy would be
>holding TWO 20 lb weights out from your body, one in each hand, instead
>of just the one we were talking about.

I will stretch a point and give Ted credit for claiming that I made a
bad analogy.  However the 20 lb weight bit doesn't wash.  I suspect that
Ted knows this perfectly well and is checking to see if anyone will catch
him out, or whether they will just grumble at it him.

The reason that it is hard to hold your arms out for an extended period
of time is that the force comes from the muscles in your shoulders.  Your
arm is much longer than the length the muscles are operating over; you
operating at a mechanical disadvantage. [Translation -- the leverage is
against you.]

If a sauropod had held his neck up the way you hold your arm up, it would
indeed been in deep sneakers.  But it didn't, of course.  They had moderate
size cable running along the top of their vertebrae -- there is a big groove
just for that purpose.  The cable [actually a big ligature] was attached
all along the body of the sauropod.  Actually it ran both ways so, yes,
the tail and neck counterweighted each other.  There were several advantages
to this arrangement.  No work had to be done to support the neck; the force
on the cable is passive tension rather than the active compression of
muscles.  The leverage was favorable.  And the force downwards was
distributed backwards into the body.

Nice try, Ted.
-- 
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.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: zuber_rg@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert G Zuber)
Subject: Re: Riggs and Gould
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 20:02:12 GMT

In article <1313@tecsun1.etl.army.mil> riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs) writes:
>	Gould maintains that T.H. Huxley's family doctored the account of
>his exchange with Wilberforce so as to make him appear more heroic and
>to make Wilberforce look like an ignoramus. At least that is my interpretation
>of Gould's interpretation. The details are there for anyone who wants to go
>read and make up his/her own mind.

	I apologize for having jumped into the middle of this. But are you
in any way trying to tie the above statements into a discussion about
the scientific veracity of creationism versus evolution? 

>Bill R.

Rob Zuber
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Date: 7 Sep 92 00:01:00 GMT
Followup-To: talk.origins
Organization: Apple

In article <1992Sep2.171035@IASTATE.EDU>, kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren
Vonroeschlaub) wrote:
>   Also, if you really believe Finnish hasn't changed in the last 1000 years you
> should really bone up on your historical readings.

Sigh, don't believe everything Antti rambles about, Finnish has 
changed, not so much earlier, but for the last 100 years Finnish
has gained a lot of English words, whether we wanted them or not.

Before that we stole a lot of Swedish, German and Russian words.

I still don't see why Finnish is so primitive and pure, it has
a very young grammar, mostly because books with Finnish print
didn't happen until quite late.

Kent

"I would rather have a thousands idiots attacking my position, than
have one idiot helping to defend it."	[Paraphrased from Voltaire]
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 8 Sep 92 11:37:10 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <1992Sep8.061806.3949@desire.wright.edu>, sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
 
> Says you!  After all, any statement from the man who said that new born horses
> can't run, that horses can't comfortably carry any weight over 125 pounds,
> that giraffes have enormous blood pressure in their heads *(ALL totally
> untrue)*, is very suspect.

Sue Bishop is either VERY stupid, or a liar, possibly both.  I have never
made ANY of the above statements.


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: questions for super-biologist Antti
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 15:35:45 GMT

colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
>If you are really a biologist (yeah right) who has studied evolution
>(uh huh, sure) and has found big flaws in it, you should at least
>be able to answer these basic questions. The first one is fresh-
>man level biology, the rest are somewhat harder. But, you have
>claimed to be a better biologist than Darwin. I claim to be a
>lesser biologist than Darwin, and I can easily answer them --
>so you should have no trouble. Personally, I think you don't
>have even the slightest grasp of evolutionary biology and your
>objections stem solely from adherance to anti-scientific religious 
>dogma.

	I can say that this is the way Marxists pose questions - if you use 
	false questions, you can't get right answers, if you use evolutionary
	questions you get evolutionary answers. How could I give you right 
	answers if you use wrong therminology ? I consider your attitude as
	the "propaganda of the class-enemy" . Can I ask you, how you explain
	Social Darwinism and the zero-probabilities of useful mutations ?
	"They don't exist" is a wrong answer. I found your questions 
	irrelevant. 

>P.S. You still haven't provided the references backing your claims
>that A.) animal hybridization accompianied by changes in ploidy
>have occurred (and explained it's relevance to speciation in the
>plant genus _Tragopogon_) B.) "Point" birds in a flying wedge
>suffer higher mortality (you haven't even addressed if there are
>species where the point position is not shifting, much less why
>this is incompatible with evolutionary biology.) I think you are
>making these up (although I bet I could find an animal hyb experi-
>ment that fits the bill if I looked) to fit your arguments.

	I don't claim that they're not shifting. 

	PS. Your high-brow scientific jargon doesn't impress me. The words are
	meant to express the meaning, not to hide, but it seems that you 
	prefer hiding it. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic
From: zuber_rg@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert G Zuber)
Subject: Re: Question for Creationists
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 18:00:44 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.130157.3954@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>My next door neighbour and myself had a long discussion about this.
>We concluded that God is simply amazing and wonderful and very very
>clever and brilliant - in facts words (and thoughts) fail to 
>sum Him up - not surprising really as He is our Creator and we are
>His created beings. My neighbour and I thought about all that God had 
>done for us and given us, including existence itself, and we decided
>that to spend eternity in God's presence (heaven) was an appropriate
>length of time - we would be able to actually see God face to face
>and praise, honour, glorify and simply worship Him.

	Thank you Lionel. This post of yours really brings us closer to a
resolution of the creation/evolution controversy. Not.

	Could you kindly take such stuff elsewhere to more appropriate
newsgroups? Is this too much to ask?

Rob Zuber
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Subject: Chance? Yeah, Sure  (was: worthless comic strips)
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Organization: The Aurora Group
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 14:53:57 GMT

In article <87ST03Qz76e400@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) writes:
[quoting J. Hart's "B.C."]
>And perhaps it happened by chance. Yeah, sure.

Could a creationism apologist please explain to me how an act of
God can be distinguished from pure chance?  I submit that it is
creationism which says life arose by pure chance, and evolution
which says is was shaped by selection.
-- 
Mark Isaak           "Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every
isaak@aurora.com      generation is humbled by nature." - Philip Lubin
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Creationist misrepresentation of Colin Patterson
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Date: 9 Sep 1992 09:25 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <01GQ03107d9000@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>, jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) writes...
>lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:
>>Can anybody tell me if the following quote, which was attributed by
>>John Mulder to Colin Patterson, is to be found in the works of
>>creationist Luther Sunderland, and if so, where?
> 
>>   Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing,
>>   any one thing that is true?
> 
>>Is this a question Sunderland asked Patterson, or is this a rhetorical
>>question Patterson used in a lecture which Sunderland taped?
> 
>>(Jim Loucks?  You have some stuff by Sunderland, don't you?)
> 
>The quote sounds familiar. I'll check the transcripts and a book by
>Sunderland.

I found some stuff in the _Creation/Evolution Newsletter_ (vol. 5, no. 5,
1985)--letters from both Sunderland and Patterson.  (Thanks also to
Alan Feuerbacher.)  Looks like the question was asked by Patterson in
N.Y., Sunderland taped and transcribed it.  And it was apparently NOT
a rhetorical question.  (At least in the letter in the above C/E newsletter,
Patterson goes on to offer his answer to it.)

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Fall 1992 Whole Earth Review--anti-Darwinism
Date: 5 Sep 92 16:54:00 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

I was at a local record store yesterday and saw the Fall 1992 issue
of Whole Earth Review on the shelves, with a cover advertising articles
on artificial life inside.  There's an excerpt from Steven Levy's new
book on artificial life (the excerpt is about Thomas Ray's Tierra
program), a short description and some pictures of the SimLife program
in operation, and an article by Kevin Kelly called "Deep Evolution" which
argues that Darwinism is completely wrong.  (He quotes Lynn Margulis
equating Darwinism with phrenology.)  In his short bibliography of
recommended anti-Darwinian books, he includes some popular creationist-
cited works, such as Michael Denton's book and Soren Lovtrup's book.
Cover price is a whopping $6.75, so I didn't buy it.

P.S. Anybody reading this who will be in Tucson on Wed., September 9:
Steven Levy will be giving a talk at noon in the Gallagher Theater on
the UA campus, about his new artificial life book.

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
From: hamish@sybase.com (Just Another Deckchair on the Titanic)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The t r u e testament of God Almighty.
Date: 10 Sep 92 16:12:42 GMT
Organization: Sybase Inc, Emeryville CA USA

In article <1992Sep8.093252@IASTATE.EDU> danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
<                  [Lionel's alt.praise.the.lord stuff deleted]
>
<> Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
>> Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889
<  ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
<HA!  "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

There are none so blind as those with Vision....

	Hamish
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hamish Reid       Sybase Inc, 6475 Christie Ave, Emeryville CA 94608 USA
+1 510 596-3917   hamish@netcom.com  hamish@sybase.com  uunet!sybase!hamish
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ks54079@cs.tut.fi (Saarinen Kimmo Samuli)
Subject: Anatomy supports the functionality (Was Re: Holden Numbering)
Organization: Tampere University of Technology
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 07:09:15 GMT

In article <2899@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.040240.26054@smds.com>, rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:
>*Now this is a tad misleading.  Try the following experiment instead.
>*Take an 8 foot 2x4 and center it on your shoulder so that you have four
>*feet hanging out in front of you and four feet hanging out in back.
>*Piece of cake, right?  
>
>I hope you don't seriously mean, that since sauropods had to hold their
>necks out AND their tails out, that it all balanced, and that the whole
>deal was therefore easy for them.  If so, a better analogy would be
>holding TWO 20 lb weights out from your body, one in each hand, instead
>of just the one we were talking about.

With this analogy you mean that you _are_ like a sauropod ? Facinating !

>Believe me, it's harder.

And guess why ?

Simple, your anatomy (shoulders' bone and muscle structures) _are_
not suitable for this kind of physical exercise only because it
is not natural to the normal usage of your arms.

So, please go back to study first anatomy and then you should
think why a sauropod could hang its' head and tail, and why
holding of the weights out of your body with your hands is
hard for you. You see the difference ?

	k@	(kat)
-- 
ks54079@cs.tut.fi           Kyll{ mies kissan nostaa,
kissa@cortex.sai.vtt.fi      jos h{nt{ kest{{.        - san. lasku Jaalasta
--
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: macroevolution
Date: 10 Sep 92 20:53:15 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Sep7.194132.3943@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
|> 
|> 	You see, they are one species, but Larus argentatus can't breed with 
|> 	Larus fuscus fuscus. But L.f.f can breed with L.f.intermedius and 
|> 	L.f.i can breed with L.f.heuglini and L.f.h can breed with L.f.taimyrien
|> 	sis.... -> L.argentatus graellsii. 
|> 
|
|Then they cannot be one species.  One of the more common definitions of 
|species is 'animals who freely interbreed and produce life fertile offspring.'
|If they don't/can't interbreed then they are different species.

Actually it is not that simple.  If you go through the chain of intermediate
populations the two end forms *can* interbreed (indirectly).

This phenomenon is well known, it even has a name - 'ring species'.

It is, in essence, an *intermediate* case between full species and ordinary
subspecies.  All that it would take to make the two end forms full, proper
species is for the intermediate population to be eliminated by some mechanism.

Thus, as an intermediate case in the formation of species from a single
species, a ring species is generally considered powerful evidence *supporting*
modern evolutionary theory.

Taxonomically a ring species is usually treated as a single species.  But
this is close to being an arbitrary decision.

|What you are describing is speciation in action.
|
Yep, that's right.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Followup-To: talk.origins
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<tyre.716061838@sfu.ca> <95644@bu.edu>
Date: 13 Sep 92 09:11:05

Here's another theory of the evolution of homosexuality.

1. Humans or some human ancestor evolved a harem form of sexuality.
A dominant male ruled the females.  The surplus males went off
into the bush.  Harem societies are common in animals in which
the male is substantially larger than the female.

2. As intelligence advanced, or maybe just arms capable of carrying
food to a camp, it became possible for females to stay in one place
while males foraged.  This permitted larger families than those in
which the female has to carry the young till they can keep up.

3. This made the labor of the excess males useful, and what evolved
was their feminization and sexual domination by the dominant male.
If this is correct, the primary form of homsexuality is the
domination of adolescents by adult males.

4. Tribes of this kind would be defeated by tribes in which every
male was a warrior.  Homosexuality was then biologically suppressed
but only incompletely.

Could this theory be tested?  Perhaps if there were enough
catastrophes killing whole families and fossils could be obtained,
the age and sex distribution would tell the tale.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: ds0007@buhao (Dale Skiba)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Ted Holden on Linguistics and Evolution
Date: 9 Sep 92 12:41:39 GMT
Organization: Medtronic, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:

[lots of interesting stuff on orgins of language]

Thanks for posting something that explains Linguistics a bit.

--
Dale Skiba
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters)
Subject: Re: Antti's word
Organization: Program in Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, Indiana University
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 16:25:37 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.234807.7794@cc.uow.edu.au> u8515682@cc.uow.edu.au (Wayne Jefferson Doust) writes:
>ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
>
>>> 	bimbo, jughead
>
>>Speaking about 'bimbo', doesn't it show that language itself
>>evolves, and with the advent of Hollywood stars lacking certain
>>intelligence compensated other ways our language got a new
>>word. In other words, evolution. Thanks Antti for pointing this out.
>
>>Please, I'm not advocating the use of the word bimbo, in my
>>humble opinion why didn't we create a similar ugly word 
>>about dumb men with blonde hair?
>
>Hmm, we could of course _create_ one. :-)

I wonder what color Antti's hair is. . . :-)

>>Kent
>
>Wayne

-- 
* Andy Peters                     * "Slugs are small and portable    *From
* Program in Evolution,           * Just stuff 'em up your nose      *"Slugs,"
*      Ecology, and Behavior      * They'll fit beneath your armpits *by David
* Indiana University, Bloomington * Or right between your toes"      *Greenberg
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 10 Sep 92 06:35:55 EST
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <BuB3J5.78C@agora.rain.com>, trifid@agora.rain.com (Roadster Racewerks) writes:
> 
> 
> I think common sense shows one possible biological "rationale" for the
> appearance of homosexual behavior among a species: overpopulation.
> 
> In fact, didn't the recent experiment{ with the huge, purposefully overpopulated
> colony of lab mice tend to show an increase in same-sex behaviors as the
> population density went up? Seems like a fairly good scheme for reducing the
> population to me...
> 
> Suze
> 

Yes, according to my recollection of the experiment, this is what happened.  

Sue

Xref: sparky talk.origins:11206 alt.atheism:17005
From: bvickers@net1.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Subject: Re: worthless comic strips
Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.atheism
Reply-To: bvickers@ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Irvine, Info. & Computer Sci. Dept.
Date: 11 Sep 92 16:07:23 GMT

lbarrass@phillip.edu.au writes:
>  It appears to me that the only thing wrong with BC is that paranoid
>evolutionists disagree with it, which in their eyes makes it wrong. All the
>flack the strip has received recently shows a real fear of anything opposing
>evolutionary views.  Don't fall into the trap many evolutionists accuse
>creationists of, that is to suffer from tunnel vision.

I agree that people are making too big a deal out of the comic strip.
Personally, even though I don't agree with its politically and
scientifically oriented strips, I really couldn't care less about
B.C.  If its author wants to express right-wing or creationist
viewpoints, that's his own business (and the business of the
newspaper publisher).

>  I haven't noticed any posts condeming yoga/meditation/eastern philosophy in
>public schools.

That's because no one is trying to teach these things in science
classes.  Fundamentalist Christians are the only ones trying to
shove their strange brand of religion into science classrooms.
That is simply not tolerable.

--
 ___            _    _     _  _        _
(  _) ___ ___ _( )__( )_  ( )( ) o  __( ) _  ___  ___  ___
(___)(_) (__=) (_)_ (_)_   (__) (_)(_((_)(_'(__=)(_) _(_)
Brett J. Vickers (bvickers@ics.uci.edu)
From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: How To Find God
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Aug 21 1992
Date: 15 Sep 92  10:54:22

Tag: Douglas V. Simpkinson c60c-2hl@web-2f.berkeley.edu
 
DVS>LT> Lord, forgive him for he does not know what he is saying.
DVS>LT> Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
 
DVS> "Does the Lord read USENET?"
 
Yes. She's an atheist, however. Look on alt.atheist and ask for Her.
 
DVS> "You can choose the warm, comforting ignorance of blind faith,
DVS> or the cold, hard reality of thinking for yourself."
 
Can I have warm, comforting pretzels and cold beer?
 
> c60c-2hl@web.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Antti is confused (was Re: macroevolution)
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 11:39:14 GMT

adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters) writes:
>Answer this, Antti (and remember, I'm in Bloomington, Indiana, not Russia or
>Finland or wherever you claim to be:  Here, it's rude _not_ "to answer right
>to the question):  if the intermediate subspecies did go extinct, why
>would you continue to insist that the extreme (sub)species were not
>full species?

	Because it seems that the Biblical definition of species differ from
	scientific definition. This is speciation in scientific sense ONLY, I
	can agree that. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !