HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Holden builds a straw house
X-Sender: newtout 0.06 Jan  3 1993
Date: 22 Jan 93  11:17:58

 
Who: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
ID: <213@fedfil.uucp>
With: philjohn@garnet.berkeley.edu (Phillip Johnson)
 
[large cut]
 
PJ Quoting TIME> "Various scientists are pondering the prospect
PJ Quoting TIME> that a basic physical law lies waiting to be
PJ Quoting TIME> discovered, a law defining the circumstances
PJ Quoting TIME> under which systems infused with energy become
PJ Quoting TIME> more complexly structured. This law would carve
PJ Quoting TIME> out local exceptions to the general tendency of
PJ Quoting TIME> things to become more chaotic and bland -- higher
PJ Quoting TIME> in 'entropy' -- as dictated by the famous second
PJ Quoting TIME> law of thermodynamics. 
 
TH> "The new "law" being described here is called "intelligence"
TH> or "will", and may be observed in operation rather easily, e.g.
TH> by watching carpenters building a house out of less organized/
TH> complex materials....
 
Dear Ted. Who builds every snow flake? Must be one hell of a
job. . . hope it pays well! And while you're at it, who reaches
into my freezer and makes my ice cubes' molecules so neat and
orderly and pretty? Old man winter? Jack frost? Frosty the
Snowman?
 
Decreased entropy is not a sign of intelligence. After all, if
this were the case, you'd need someone to help you tie your shoes!
 
TH> Ted Holden / HTE
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Subject: Re: SWAA Lecture
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Organization: The Aurora Group
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 17:24:58 GMT

In article <1jelm6$ejh@agate.berkeley.edu> philjohn@garnet.berkeley.edu (Phillip Johnson) writes:
[much deleted; see the original]

Both Grasse and Johnson appear to misunderstand the distinction
between allele frequencies changing in a population (as with the
much-mentioned peppered moths), and the appearance of new alleles.
The first is commonplace, but it can't be expected to introduce
new features to a species.  (It is, however, important in getting
new features established in a population.)  The second is much
rarer and very much more unpredictable, but it has been
observed--and, I believe, at rates roughly what one would expect
from observed rates of evolutionary change.

In short, when someone points out that years of fruit fly breeding
experiments have failed to produce anything but fruit flies, they
aren't attacking evolution; they're just showing their lack of
understanding of it.

[Please note, btw, that "fruit fly" should be two words.]

>     The really important meaning of "evolution" is not that
>creation was a gradual process that required billions of years. 
>It is that the process was supposedly undirected and purposeless. 

Why do you confine your arguments to evolution?  Or do you believe
that earthquakes, hurricanes, and sunspots are directed and
purposeful?  Please note that I do not consider this to be a
rhetorical question, but one which is fundamental to the entire
debate.

>Perhaps those who attribute creation to a Creator are
>committing what Laudan called "the cardinal sin of believing what
>they wish were so rather than what there is substantial evidence
>for."

Perhaps?  It would be more accurate to say that perhaps there are
one or two creationists who don't commit that sin.  How many people
do you think would want creationism taught in schools if they knew
it would be the Huron Indian version of creation?

>On the other hand, perhaps this is still more true of
>Darwinists, who are so eager to believe on slight evidence that
>natural selection can do all the work of creation.  

How did evolution come to be accepted in the first place, if not
because of evidence?  And why is it that those who accept evolution
are virtually the only people searching for data?

>     The points in dispute can only be settled by an unbiased
>examination of the evidence.

By all means, present some.  If you start looking at evidence, perhaps
even you will find that the evidence supports evoltion by natural
selection overwhelmingly more than any other theory of origins.
-- 
Mark Isaak           "Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every
isaak@aurora.com      generation is humbled by nature." - Philip Lubin
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Subject: Re: Yet Another Saturn Myth Variant
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 23:07:05 GMT

rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:


>>This theory has the advantage of being falsifiable: we ought to find
>>fossils of very much larger creatures near the equator only.

>No sooner said than done.  Malawisaurus, from Malawi, was an atypically
>small Sauropod.  See Jacob's new book on African DInosaurs.


I resent your attempt at keeping me out of Rolls-Royces and wild women.
Righteously thinking future members of my Church of the Earlier Saints
Days of Eight Ours (tm) will point out the manifest error in your
reasoning. It is the presence of very large terrestrial fossils
near the poles that would disprove the theory, not the presence of
small fossils at the equator. Your fundamentally flawed reasoning
brands you as a choice recruit for my Church. Start those donations
coming, you have my blessing.
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: They want to debate Phillip Johnson
Date: 25 Jan 93 03:11:49 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <C1DrDw.39y@world.std.com>, pduggan@world.std.com (Paul C Duggan) writes:
|> In article <1993Jan24.134326@IASTATE.EDU> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
|> >In article <qXiuXB1w165w@kalki33.lakes.trenton.sc.us>,
|> >system@kalki33.lakes.trenton.sc.us (Kalki Dasa) writes:
|> >>The basis of Darwinism is materialism, i.e. the proposition that 
|> >>there is nothing in existence except matter and material energy, and 
|> >>nothing ever influences matter except other matter or material energy.
|> >
|> >  False.
|> >[...]
|> >  If you cannot devise a test for these things, then they might as well not
|> >exist.  What difference does it make?
|> 
|> A test that a scientist would use would be a test involving material energy
|> or matter, would it not? So how is that you describe the materialist
|> presupposition of Darwinism as "False"? You seem to be saying the
|> exact same thing by your request for a material test.
|> 
|> Am I mistaken?

You can have a material test for the material effects of immaterial
influences.

jon.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow)
Subject: Re: Who does Phillip Johnson think the creationists are?
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 20:11:12 GMT

In article <markv.728074408@pixar> markv@pixar.com (Mark T. VandeWettering) writes:
>	Evolution doesn't speak at all to the existance of God, positively
>	or negatively.  It does assume he doesn't interfere in the operation
>	of the universe.

In article <1993Jan25.171313@IASTATE.EDU> Daniel Ashlock writes:
>   As has been said many, many, many^75, times evolution has the 
>non-involvement of God as a conclusion not as an assumption.

Note the contrast between these two views (it's even a contradiction if
you equate interference with involvement).  I don't want to focus on this
contrast, though.  What I want to point out is that in both cases the claim
is made that the following proposition (or something like it) is part of
the theory of evolution (whether as an assumption or a conclusion).

	God does not interfere with the operation of the universe.     (*)

In an email message about this issue Daniel Ashlock said, "If a body of
theory does not mention something then it is a tentative conclusion of
that theory that the thing is not involved."  Thus although (*) is not
stated explicitly in the theory of evolution, it is there implicitly.

Both Ashlock and VandeWettering seem to support Johnson's claim that
evolution is incompatible with theism (or at least any form of theism
in which God is actively involved in the operation of the universe, as
opposed to deism).  What do the theistic evolutionists in this group
have to say about this?
-- 
Tim Chow     tycchow@math.mit.edu
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh
only 1 1/2 tons.                               ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: Who is Christian - a simple answer
Organization: LLNL
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 01:16:21 GMT

In article <1k191hINN3d1@dmsoproto.ida.org> rlg@omni (Randy garrett) writes:
$ 	What's the relevance to talk.origins?
>
>I was just responding to an article that appeared within this
>group.  Perhaps you are right and the original article and
>all subsequent postings such as your own are inappropriate.

>On the other hand, since Jesus claimed to be Creator, His
>claims may be entirely relevant.

	Some Hindus, including the Hare Krishnas, claim that Krishna
is a manifestation of the Supreme Lord, Creator of All.

	So why won't you become a Hare Krishna just to see whether or
not Krishna is really a divine being?

$ 
$ 	And why don't you argue this question with a real expert on
$ divinity, our favorite Veda-thumper Kalki Dasa?

>I don't know, why don't I?

	Ask on talk.religion.misc or wait until he shows up again here.
-- 
/Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
/lip@s1.gov
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge)
Subject: Re: Ages in Chaos
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 03:18:21 GMT

> Subject: Ages in Chaos
> From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
> Date: 22 Jan 93 04:53:47 GMT
>
> More recently, a brilliant German archiologist, Heinsohn, who I believe is 
> from Bremen, has written at least one book along similar lines, backed
> by extensive archeological work.  A team of more traditional German scholars
> set out to disprove the thesis of the recent book by actually demonstrating
> the existence of an archeological layer (intervening), the non-existence
> of which was crucial to Heinsohn's thesis, and they discovered that this
> layer did not exist and, thunderstruck, they called in an internationally
> recognized expert who confirmed this finding.

I'd be interested in a summary of this article, outlining Heinsohn's scheme
(perhaps a brief table like the ones in Stiebing's discussion of
chronological revisions in OUT OF THE DESERT showing the synchronisms he
uses), and a more detailed description of the nature of the test, including
pointers to any more accessible sources of a report on this. Did the people
performing the work publish? I'll also be interested in seeing the
discussion of Stiebing's critique mentioned in the promo you posted for the
VELIKOVSKIAN.

> Another article along similar lines is by Ginenthal himself, and concerns
> the great Babylonian king Hammourabi who is thought to have lived around
> 2500 years before Christ.  Scholars have long noted striking similarities
> between Hammourabi and Darius;  both were sixth in lines of eleven kings, 
> and the careers of the two appear in many ways to have been nearly
> identical.  They should appear nearly identical;  Hammourabi turns out
> to be a ghost image of Darius;  other than that, he never existed.

I don't think this will work at all. One of the fixed points relating
Egyptian, Babylonian, and Hittite chronology is a record of the death of
Mursilis I (1590 BCish according to the standard chronology) a few years
after he conquered Babylon and ended the First Babylonian Dynasty (of which
Hammourabi was a member). In fact, looking at a chart of the standard
chronology, the First Babylonian Dynasty is roughly contemporary with the
Egyptian Middle Kingdom. Keeping in mind that V. wanted to synchronize the
end of the Middle Kingdom with the Exodus, Darius could hardly be
Hammourabi. So for this to work, G. would have to explain the Mursilis
synchronism away somehow.

Another problem relates to dating. As I've pointed out before, C-14 dating
corrected by tree rings unquestionably establishes RELATIVE chronology,
regardless of whether one accepts the absolute dates. One of the very
highest priorities when C-14 dating first came into use was fixing the date
of Hammourabi (see Libby's RADIOCARBON DATING). What dating of artifacts
(pottery styles, carbon or thermoluminescence dating, etc) does G. invoke to
support this identification?
From: esot@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Sotnak)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Voyagers on the Ark of Noah
Date: 27 Jan 93 16:51:31 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <9143@news.duke.edu> dgt@phy.duke.edu (Dinko Eduardo Gonzalez) writes:
> [..]
>what about plants?  There is no mention of them in the Noah story, and
>they surely must have died in a flood, deprived of sunlight and 
>nutrients.  [..]

  Don't be so dense.  Just like the animals, they came to Noah.  God said to
the plants "go to Noah" and they just uprooted themselves and marched their
way to the ark.  Sheesh, it's so simple.  Oh, as for how they stayed alive
in the ark, the answer is obvious -- God did it.

--
********************************************************************
Eric Sotnak                   |  One life.
esot@troi.cc.rochester.edu    |  One chance. 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: robd@cherry09.cray.com (Robert Derrick)
Subject: Re: For-sale ads on sci.math??
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: 25 Jan 93 11:16:40 CST

Kalki Dasa (system@kalki33.lakes.trenton.sc.us) wrote:
: robd@cherry09.cray.com (Robert Derrick) writes:
: 
: > And what are you doing here, Kalkster?  Remember, you don't have
: > anything to sell, so I think that it is time that you left, don't
: > you?
: 
: Why don't you try and make me?

Please accept my sincere apologies.  I forgot that you are
Satirically Challenged.  We just get so used to being around
people with a sense of humor around here that we sometimes
are insensitive to those less fortunate.  You will have noticed
that Weiner did not get his feathers ruffled when I dis'd him
with

: Damnit, Weiner, you left the door open!  And just look what 
: you let back in!  Are you proud yourself, young man?

You wrote to me that you weren't trying to sell anything.  But
you have been selling ever since you came aboard.  You tried to
sell Sadaputa's book, you tried to sell his Info-Theory disproof
of Evolution (although, like McCarthy, we never did get to see
what was really on the "list" that you were waving around), and 
you have tried to sell Krsna Consciousness in every post.  So 
you're hypocrisy over on Sci-Math just struck some of us as a
little ironic.  Just call us cheap opportunists.

But despite it all, I think I could cut you some slack, if not
for the whining.

: Why don't you try and make me?

Puh-leez, Kalkirama, time to put away the things of the child.
You're in the grown-up game now.

It's so sad.  You never even understood Sadaputa's Theory.  I can
see how you would feel uncomfortable when called upon to defend it.

: ---
: | don't chant to forget : smiley, smiley, smiley!
: ---
--

| don't chant to forget : terminally humorless, terminally humorless, term...

rob derrick				robd@cherry.cray.com
From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Burgess Shale problematica again (was Re: SWAA Lecture)
Date: 27 Jan 93 00:49:55 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1993Jan26.230125.15462@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov 
     (Loren I.  Petrich) writes:

>	I know about the Hallucigenia identification (it had to be
>flipped over), but where does Wiwaxia go? 

Look for a polychaete worm called a sea mouse.  The resemblence is
quite striking.

>I've also heard of one for Opabinia, also, and even Anomalocaris,
>though I don't recall them offhand.

Those I don't think I've heard, but _Eldonia_ has been classified as a
holothuroidean.

references upon request (thanks Andrew MacRae!).

>/Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
>/lip@s1.gov

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Subject: Re: Yet Another Saturn Myth Variant
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 00:48:53 GMT

keck@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul) writes:


>I will only comment on the "two hours" part, since I remember someone else 
>saying this before, and I wouldn't want it to go unchallenged.

>Fossil coral records, specifically from the Devonian period, show annual and
>daily growth rings (as do modern corals).  These clearly point to a year
>made of about 380 days (number off the top of my head- it's only a few
>longer than now, though).  So, if you belive the fossil record, no go.

Seriously now, I mean, truly seriously, I seem to remember having read
somewhere (and NOT in UFO Official or something like that) that ??? million
years ago the duration of the day was about eight hours. That is, actually,
what started me on my Hal Clement (Mission of Gravity) cum Erich Von
Daeniken theory, for I had calculated that, at the equator, weight
would be reduced by around 10% -- not enough! However, I cannot remember
where I read that. Can anyone help? Perhaps it's only a figment of my
imagination. Hacking into the wee hours of the morning does strange
things sometimes, but I still have a distinct feeling that I read that
piece of info in some serious scientific magazine. I even remember
being extremely surprised and checking for the date. And it wasn't
the April issue. Help, anyone?

Oh, and the "someone else" you mention must have been me. I keep
reposting this pet theory of mine from time to time, in the faint
hope of starting a cult a la Ron Hubbard that will keep me in
caviar, Rolls Royces and women of easy virtue until death 
exclusively.
From: Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Supernaturalistic Science
X-Sender: newtout 0.06 Jan  3 1993
Date: 25 Jan 93  12:29:00

 > From: russpj@microsoft.com (Russ Paul-Jones)
 > Message-ID: <1993Jan21.225724.19434@microsoft.com>

 > the most.  For example, I am not aware of an effort to establish
 > that both the strong nuclear force and gravity are personal
 > expressions of God's will.

I have. In a creationist pamplet i read a long time ago there was a quote from 
the Bible that says that God "...holds all things together". This was
proferred as the final answer to the investigations of nuclear physics.

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---
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Topic for Discussion?
Date: 25 Jan 1993 03:03:27 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1993Jan24.023652.8439@galois.mit.edu>, tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow) writes:
|> In article <1jq3p3INNa89@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|> <Secondly, the obvious "escape" here is to say "Well, micro-
|> <evolution doesn't actually consult a species representation,
|> <it's just that eventually cumulative micro-evolution produces
|> <non-functional organisms.   In fact, that's not an escape,
|> <because now you're saying that the representation "valid species"
|> <is a function of the species+environment, and micro-evolution
|> <can continue to produce cumulatively differing changes as long
|> <as it stays within this representation.   But the information
|> <in "species+environment" certainly changes over time.   In fact,
|> <that's the point, isn't it.
|> 
|> I don't understand your argument.  Imagine a "genotype graph" where each
|> node is a genotype and the edges represent microevolutionary steps.  Why
|> can't there be a set of nodes that is "isolated" in the sense that it is
|> bordered by genotypes which code seriously dysfunctional organisms that
|> can't exist in any environment short of an intensive care unit?  I think
|> you need to appeal to what we actually know about extant genotypes; I don't
|> think you can argue your case purely on extremely general considerations,
|> as you seem to be trying to do.

I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying.   I'm not saying
that there can't be unreachable places in such a graph.   I'm saying
that you can't prove in general that divergence has some limit.

jon.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout)
Subject: Re: Who is Christian - a simple answer
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Distribution: world,local
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 16:57:12 GMT

In <24JAN199317230572@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:

>In article <1jv8amINNokc@morrow.stanford.edu>, salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) writes...
>>In article <1jpnkmINN272@dmsoproto.ida.org> rlg@omni (Randy garrett) writes:
>>>It seems to me that C.S. Lewis's Lord, Liar,
>>>or Lunatic argument holds a lot of logical validity:  
>>>
>>>If Jesus were not divine, then given His clear claims, He must have
>>>been the greatest Liar who ever lived as well as the greatest
>>>hypocrite since He condemned very strongly the smallest lies.
>>>So, I certainly wouldn't want to have anything to do with the
>>>teachings of someone like that.

>Liar, lunatic, or lord is clearly a false trilemma--you've forgotten
>about misinterpreted, misunderstood, or misquoted.

Yes! and perhaps also *misinformed*.  

Even many Christians debate about
Jesus' level of knowledge.  Was he born with full infinite divine knowledge
or did he grow into the knowledge level of his day?  It is hard to conceive
a baby Jesus with full knowledge of Quantum Physics, the nature of the
universe, and evolutionary biology (among other things), even for Christians.

Newsgroups: talk.origins