HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
Subject: Re: what's the point, James?
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 16:53:37 GMT

In article <92333@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
>
>	I'll ask again -- what's the point here? Perhaps some of us
>would be more inclined to follow your little excursion into thermo
>if we had a rough cut of your thesis. I sure as hell don't want to
>read reams of crap by you only so you can come to the conclusion
>that evolution is okey-dokey as far as thermo is concerned. I know

Even if it means converting a die hard, loud mouthed creationist?
Wouldn't that be worthwhile?  Oh yeah, I know, the only good creationist
is a dead creationist.

>that. So tell us James, what's the point here? It isn't going to be 
>a mutant offspring of the following sentence is it?
>
>>If there is no driving force, then no changes can occur at the macroscopic
>>level.  That's called equilibrium.
>

There is definitely a driving force behind all processes on earth.  
No driving force = no process

As far as the earth is concerned, that would mean no sun no moon = no life.
I don't see that happening anytime soon, so I doubt if I'm headed that way.

>Please tell me you aren't typing all this junk so you can pull the
>old definition sleight of hand and confuse allele frequency
>equilibrium (i.e. no evolution) with the kind of equilibrium you

Allele frequency equilibrium would indeed mean no evolution.  But that would
only be true if there were no driving forces.  What are the driving forces?
How about environmental stresses?  That's what I would guess.

Allele frequency steady state, however...

If you don't know the difference, then you need to learn some thermo.

>mention above.
>
>Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
>"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
>resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
> 	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"
>

James P. Henley Jr.
Chemical Engineering Dept
Auburn University

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: mtx014@cck.cov.ac.uk (Robert Low)
Subject: Re: Noah's ark incompatible...with Noah's ark?
Reply-To: mtx014@cck.cov.ac.uk
Organization: Plato's rest home for the incurably geometric
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 07:19:17 GMT

In <1992Jul21.172154@IASTATE.EDU> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:

>  By interpretation I mean the transference of the phrases into their logical
>equivalents.  This is encompasses both the logical and exegetical processes. 
>The two things are too intertwined to be easily separated in this context.

Sorry, Warren, but I just don't think we're really communicating 
effectively. What you are calling an interpretation is well beyond what I
understand by the word. I *think* that what is happening is that
you are claiming that it there is a possible original
meaning of the author that is consistent which you obtain
by claiming that "unclean" is to be understood; my claim is
that in the absence of said author to consult, the text as
it stands is inconsistent. I think (hope, whatever) that
we are saying the same thing in different ways, but I now
doubt that we can establish that. Shall we simply drop the
discussion before we both start to suffer from terminal
frustration?


--
Robert Low  email(JANET): RobLow@uk.ac.coventry.cck
	    smail : Mathematics Department, Coventry University,
		    Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, England.
Keep an open mind---but not so open your brain falls out.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.astro
Subject: Re: Age of the galaxy (was: stars & carbon)
Date: 29 Jul 92 21:44:05 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <92210.124503DOCTORJ@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> DOCTORJ@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Jon J Thaler) writes:
|
|I thank you for your answers.  Since I first asked my question I have done
|some reading.  Now I can ask it more clearly :-).  There are two competing
|models for the dark matter that is postulated to make up the bulk of the
|mass in the universe: "hot" and "cold" dark matter.  The two models predict
|opposite orders to structure formation.  Hot predicts that large structures
|(bigger than galaxies) are formed first, while cold predicts that small
|(subgalactic) structure comes first.  It seems that if one were able to
|measure the age of galaxies and other objects, just as one can measure
|the ages of stars, this would provide evidence for one model or the other.

Ah, well for our galaxy we estimate the age based on stellar aging profiles
in galactic clusters.

Another way of getting minimum ages for galaxies is by measuring how far
away they are.  A galaxy 10 billion light years away is 10 billion years
old.  If one can find systematic differences in the population of galaxies
long ago and far away, then one has clues as to the origin and history of
galaxies.

The recent discovery that small (I mean very small, so-called dwarf) galaxies
were far more abundent in early times suggests that larger galaxies form
by coallescence of small galaxies.

Now, whether this support the 'cold' variant is a difficult question,
since they may well be forming in cluster, and merger may occur
preferentially between cluster neighbors. In this case the largest and
smallest structures are earliest, and the intermediate ones are newer.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: zuber_rg@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert G Zuber)
Subject: Re: Clarence Darrow Quote
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 17:16:20 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.161005.27623@scic.intel.com> sbradley@scic.intel.com (Seth Bradley) writes:
>Some time ago, there was a discussion here about a quote supposedly made
>by Darrow during the Scopes trial that indicated he believed in "balanced
>treatment" of evolution and creation in the schools.  Does anyone have more
>info on this?  I remember the quote turning out to have been fabricated,
>if I recall correctly.  Thanks in advance!

	There is a wonderful article in the Spring 1988 issue of the Creation/
Evolution journal (issue XXIII) on this very topic. I had posted much of it
to talk.origins a while ago. Unfortunately, I just deleted it from my disk
five minutes before seeing your message. The article is called "Creationist
Misquotation of Darrow" and is authored by Tom McIver.
	Creationists have claimed that Clarence Darrow said, "It is bigotry
to teach only one theory of origins.", at the Scopes Trial.

	He didn't.

>Seth J. Bradley

Rob Zuber
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: st1lv@rosie.uh.edu (McLeod, Stephen)
Subject: Felt Affect of Gravity
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 17:36:00 GMT

It took me several months to realize that the so-called 'felt' affect of 
gravity wasn't some real concept.  I think that referring to it as 

'ted's cock-eyed idea of felt gravity' or 
'ted holden's idea of the how gravity felt less because he believes the
earth was orbiting Saturn' or
'the supposed felt effect of gravity'

would help this problem.  As it is now, it often appears to be some real
concept when someone trying to refute Ted's latest essay refers to 
'the felt effect of gravity' in passing.

Just my two bits...
---
Stephen McLeod          Pope of the Church of Everydayism.
The Eternal? Student
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: speciation
Date: 28 Jul 92 22:46:19 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <712301716.1@iphase.FidoNet.Org> Ken.Stuckas@iphase.UUCP (Ken Stuckas) writes:

>What is the consensus these days about  whether or not a new species
>may be created by the natural selection of heritable traits?  Has anyone
>come up with solid evidence for it?

	Well, speciation has been observed several times in the
past 110 years. Four new plant species have arisen via allopolyploid
speciation for example.

	The apple maggot fly _Rhagoletis pomenella_ is living under
conditions today that, if they continue, should lead to speciation.
One race of the fly splintered off from the original host plant 
(Hawthorn trees) and now infests apple trees. There are significant
allele freqeuncy differences at six (linked) loci between the two races
and they do not interbreed in the wild (although they can be forced to 
mate in the lab and progeny are viable). This would be the closest
scientists have to an example of speciation via selection at this
point. The frequencies of the six alleles are changing in a manner 
consistent with selection, but the details haven't been worked out.
Most think they are seeing these six hitch-hike along with an 
unidentified gene probably involved in host plant recognition.
	
	This type of speciation by gradual divergence probably takes
hundreds of thousands of generations, however. I'll predict that
in the next 10 or so years we will see a few new examples of recent
speciation, but by a different mechanism -- change in internal
symbionts. There's a cytoplasmic incompatibility factor spreading
through some species of _Drosophila_ in California right now. Also,
there are now several cases of species that are only reproductively
isolated due to their internal symbionts (i.e feed them anti-biotics
and they can breed successfully, otherwise, they can't.)

Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
 	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Is creationism science?
Date: 27 Jul 92 17:34:00 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Jul27.120022.11641@st-andrews.ac.uk>, mrl@st-andrews.ac.uk (  Michael Ladomery) writes...
>In article <27JUL199203320344@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:
>>While I do agree that (most) creationism is not science, it's not
>>because creationists are throwing out "the" scientific method, since
>>there is no such thing.  There are lots of scientific methods; allow
>>only one and you are forced to throw out much of science.  A recent
>>book which I recommend on this subject (though I do not agree with
>>many of its conclusions, at least not in their strongest forms) is
>>Henry Bauer's _Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific
>>Method_ (1992, University of Illinois Press).  Also quite relevant are
>>the contributions of Michael Ruse, Larry Laudan, and Philip Quinn
>>(all philosophers of science) to Ruse's anthology, _But Is It Science?
>>The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy_
>>(1988, Prometheus Books).  Laudan and Quinn both take what is perhaps
>>the majority view among philosophers of science, that there is no
>>well-founded criterion for distinguishing science from pseudoscience
>>(followers of Karl Popper disagree).
>
>Perhaps philosophers take the view that there is no clear *demarcation*
>or *boundary* between science and pseudo-science; but surely *pseudo-science*
>exists as such: would you agree that astrology is a pseudo-science?
> 
>Am I right in supposing that even if the *boundary* between so-called
>science and so-called pseudo-science is fuzzy to say the least, it does
>not follow that pseudo-science doesn't exist, and that everything is
>science by default? For example, I have no trouble describing "scientific
>creationism" as pseudo-science. Could you elaborate on this pls?

You have hit upon the point where I disagree with Laudan and Quinn.  They
argue that because there is no set of necessary and sufficient conditions
that anyone has been able to come up with for distinguishing science from
nonscience (or pseudoscience) that therefore you can't call anything
pseudoscience.  Quinn, for instance, says that creation science is worse
than bad science, that it's "dreadful science," but he doesn't deny
that it's science.  It seems to me (and I suspect you would agree) that
many of our concepts are fuzzy sets, but that does *not* imply that there
are no clear-cut cases of things that are instances and things that are
not.  Surely at some point "dreadful" science becomes pseudoscience or
nonscience--and I think that is true of most of creationism.  (The exceptions
are things like the proposed hydrological sorting mechanism for the
fossil record, which looks to me like a scientific theory, but one that
is false.)

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: dreiswig@nyx.cs.du.edu (Darwin E. Reiswig)
Subject: Re: Why bible nonsense in t.o.????
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 03:58:21 GMT

David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:

>Tag: James Paul Henley (henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley))
> 
>>> In article <1992Jul24.005742.21919@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov
>>> (Loren I. Petrich) writes: Interestingly enough, the
>>> part that states that men should treat women well also
>>> states that masters should treat their slaves well.
>>> And just as women should obey men, slaves should obey
>>> masters, all according to the Bible. /Loren
> 
>JPH> "Let's put this into a different perspective. The way
>JPH> I treat my wife is with honor and respect. Why? Because
>JPH> that is what the Bible tells me to do."
> 
>How utterly barbaric! I treat my spouse, ladyfriends, and every
>one else with honor and respect because I have a high degree of
>ethics and morals. If you have to get them out of a book, well,
>that tells me you are a sorry example of humanity. You need
>occult superstitions to frighten you into ethical and moral
>behavior, while most others come by it naturally--- doesn't
>that bother you?
> 
>It seems to me, to toot my own horn, my morals and ethics,
>which are based upon equality and compassion, are far superior
>to ones based on ancient occult mythologies, aka bibles.

   "I am not yet within a hundred miles of the God of Christian 
theology.  All I have got to is a Something which is directing the
universe, and which appears in me as a law urging me to do right
and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong.
I think we have to assume it is more like a mind than it is like
anything else we know--because after all the only other thing we 
know is matter and you can hardly imagine a bit of matter 
giving instructions."
		C. S. Lewis, _Mere Christianity_

I suggest you take a look at where your morals actually came 
from.  C. S. Lewis offers a highly logical argument for God.
Have you a better one?  If so, I really suggest you take a 
look at this book first.  More than likely, he will shoot down 
any argument you can come up with.

-Darwin E. Reiswig


--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by 
the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what 
God's will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will.      Romans 12:2
From: mrjg8679@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael R James)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Scientific Method
Date: 27 Jul 92 21:55:34 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

maier@romulus (Chuck Maier) writes:

>>                What hypothesis has been formulated and how can it/they
>>                be tested?

>Molecular biologists might do more work in actually proving (i.e. via
>directed mutagenesis) that it is possible for molecules to evolve through
>genetic mistakes, occurring by pure chance.  Creationists hypothesize that
>this is not possible for the same reason my note won't change into an 
>pro-evolution diatribe by dancing my hands over the keys in subsequent
>editions and followups to the note.  

Ahh, but let's take this analogy to it's logical conclusion.
After every small change, submit your note to a grammatic/spell
checker and if there are any flaws, throw it out because of 
a "lethal mutation".
Give it a few thousand iterations. Are you still be sure you  _couldn't_
get a "pro-evolution diatribe"?


>cm.

--
 Michael James       mrjg8679@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu 

      "Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical
       mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand.  Paul Ehrenfest, carrying
       on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study
       statistical mechanics."  
                                  -David L. Goodman "States of Matter"
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Is creationism science?
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Date: 27 Jul 1992 03:32 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <2A734C9F.9371@ics.uci.edu>, bvickers@net1.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers) writes...
>Surprisingly, these creationists do not discard the scientific method
>surreptitiously; they are extremely blunt about the fact that they have
>no respect or need for the scientific method as it has stood for the
>past several hundreds of years.  The first line of the second para-
>graph reads, "We propose to re-evaluate science."  The ultimate goal
>of "creation scientists" is not to have creationism accepted as
>science; it is to have science accepted as creationism.  They would
>like to "re-evaluate" science, since creationism does not and cannot
>play by its rules.  Do not ever let a creationist tell you he or she
>is doing science; remind him or her of the scientific method, and
>explain how it is cavalierly tossed aside by the top proponents of
>creationism.

While I do agree that (most) creationism is not science, it's not
because creationists are throwing out "the" scientific method, since
there is no such thing.  There are lots of scientific methods; allow
only one and you are forced to throw out much of science.  A recent
book which I recommend on this subject (though I do not agree with
many of its conclusions, at least not in their strongest forms) is
Henry Bauer's _Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific
Method_ (1992, University of Illinois Press).  Also quite relevant are
the contributions of Michael Ruse, Larry Laudan, and Philip Quinn
(all philosophers of science) to Ruse's anthology, _But Is It Science?
The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy_
(1988, Prometheus Books).  Laudan and Quinn both take what is perhaps
the majority view among philosophers of science, that there is no
well-founded criterion for distinguishing science from pseudoscience
(followers of Karl Popper disagree).

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Biogenesis in the warm pool -- the next step
Date: 26 Jul 92 19:21:55 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <9207242206.AA04017@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov> jgacker@NEPTUNE.GSFC.NASA.GOV (James G. Acker) writes:
|	As I was writing this, I think that the point "where a miracle
|occurs" will be when a collection of lipid spheres encapsulating
|nucleic acids (and other stuff) suddenly begin to self-replicate.  But
|let's get that far, O.K.?

How about the nucleic acids by themselves beginning to self-replicate.
This is the current main-line hypothesis, and has even got *some*
experimental support (the existance of a relatively short self-replicating
RNA chain, and the fact that RNA can have catalytic properties, thus
eliminating the need for proteins at first).
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jmeritt@rod.mitre.org (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Scientific Method
Originator: jmeritt@rod.mitre.org
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 12:46:51 GMT


To add my $.02 worth (with yet another unanswered question)


IAW Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (didn't want to get esoteric!):

scientific method - principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of
knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the
collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation
and testing of hypothesis.

So, does creationism use the scientific method?
        If no, never mind because I don't think so.

        If yes:
                What data has been collected in support of creationism.
                What observations support creationism?
                What experiments have been conducted (especially, what
                        experiments have been done, or are possible,
                        that can _FALSIFY_ creationism?
                What hypothesis has been formulated and how can it/they
                be tested?
 
-- 
James W. Meritt:  m23364@mwunix.mitre.org - or - jmeritt@rod.mitre.org
The opinions above are mine.  If anyone else wants to share them, fine.
They may say so if they wish. The facts "belong" to noone and simply are.
From: wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The Flat Earth Error
Date: 28 Jul 92 18:02:34 GMT
Organization: Alpha Science Computer Network, Denver, Co.

In article <0!mm!h-@lynx.unm.edu| rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:
|
|A thread that pops up periodically on t.o and probably elsewhere,
|involves the thesis that the Middle Ages were a time of total intellectual
|darkness, a darkness specifically caused by the advent of Christianity, 
|and only lightened by the rediscovery of Greek and Roman literature and
|the growth of the scientific method; the thesis being that if only
|civilisation hadn't been shackled by Christian dogma for a 1000 years,
|we would all be better off and more advanced today.
|
|Another recent thread involved the idea of a flat earth, to which I myself
B
|
|	Jeffrey Burton Russell, who has published extensively on the
|	intellectual history of the medieval history of the modern
|	world.  In _Inventing the Flat Earth_ he presents modern readers

I read this book. I'm with you. I think a lot of what we were taught
were fabrications such as Washington Irvings story about George Washington
chopping down the cherry tree--never happened. I don't whether people
like him had malicious intent or it was supposed to be a parable and
we just didn't get it.

|
|Roger Squires
|rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu


-- 
 __________________________________________________________________________   
|wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.com|    "Another Case of too many scientists and     |
|Bruce Watson            |     not enough hunchbacks." -- Gary Larson      |
From: phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de (Hartmut Frommert)
Subject: Re: Age of the galaxy (was: stars & carbon)
Organization: Dept. of Physics, University of Constance
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 16:30:01 GMT

In article <752@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:

>[..]  The best current estimates for the age of the
>Milky Way are thta it is about 12-15 billion years old, about 3 times the
>age of Sol (hence we say Sol is a 'third generation' star).
                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I often read SECOND generation. Stars created TODAY are often called third
generation, since they are created in regioons enriched with supernova and
planetary nebula matter from stars of the second generation. Maybe that's
nitpicking.

--
 Hartmut Frommert, Physics, Univ of Constance, | + Whale killing is murder. +
 P.O.Box 55 60, D-W-7750 Konstanz, Germany     | + Eat whale killers.       +
 E-Mail: <phfrom@dknkurz1.bitnet> or <phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de>
+    "Windows NoT" expands in German to "Windows Noch Teurer"
+                                                ^even   ^more expensive