HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: murgesh@rendezvous.esd.sgi.com (Murgesh Navar)
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 20:53:17 GMT



        Then there was neither being nor non-being:
        There was no air, nor firmament beyond it.
        Was there a stirring ? Where ? Beneath what cover ?
        Was there a great abyss of unplumbed water ?

        There was no death nor anything immortal;
        Nor any sign dividing day from night.
        That One thing, in the stillness, breathed quiescent;
        No second thing existed whatsoever.

        Darkness was hidden in a deeper darkness;
        This All was as a sea without dimensions;
        The void still held unformed what was potential,
        Until the power of Warmth produced the sole One...

        Who truly knows, and who can here declare it ?
        Whence it was born, and how this world was fashioned ?
        The gods came later than the earths creation:
        Who knows then out of what the world has issued ?

        Whatever he made the world or did not make it,
        He knows whence this creation came, he only
        Who in the highest heavens guards and watches;
        He knows indeed, but then, perhaps, he knows not!


        A hymn from the Rig Veda (2000 BC). The Rig Veda
is the earliest of Hindu/Vedic Texts. This was primarily
the religion of the Aryans at there advent into India.

                                        -murgesh


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: remmons@iat.holonet.net (Robert Emmons)
Subject: Dating Methods
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 17:26:04 GMT

I'm interested in a layman's guide to determining the age of fossils, 
rocks, artifacts, etc. I've heard about dating via carbon and other 
radio active decay methods, as well as tree ring counting, but I'd like
to see a more detailed explaination. Are there any layman's books on
the subject?


remmons@holonet.net (Robert Emmons)
From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: TIME cover story
Date: 1 Jan 93 02:49:48 GMT
Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.

In article <1680@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen) writes:

>|> Moreover, TIME said that "many, perhaps most, evolutionary
>|> biologists" now believe that "the coming of highly intelligent
>|> life was close to inevitable," because of a supposed inherent
>|> tendency of evolution to favor "behavioral flexibility," which
>|> demands "complex information processing - smarts." 

>I think that TIME must have been looking for this sort of statement.
>I have never seen any such position stated by any of the leading researchers
>in evolution.  I have never even seen such a statement in any refereed journal.

>TIME is simply *wrong* here.

In spades.

Barrow and Tipler, in _The Anthropic Cosmological Principle_, claim that
the consensus is in the other direction, i.e. intelligent life is 
improbable.  They buttress this claim with numerous citations from 
Mayr, Dobzbhansky, Simpson, Francois, Ayala et. al.  They include an
extended quote from Mayr.  The essence of Mayr's argument runs as follows:
Compare the probability of the evolution of eyes, and the evolution of
intelligence.  Eyes have evolved independently some 40 or more times
in a wide variety of phyla.  Intelligence has evolved exactly once.
Eyes are complex, but advantageous.  If the evolution of intelligence
were inevitable because of its advantages, we would expect to see it
have developed many times.  We do not.  Either the advantages are not
as compelling as is claimed, or the evolution of intelligence is much
more difficult than that of eyes, or both.

In fairness it should be pointed out that there has been a general increase
in brain size in vertebrates over the past few hundred million years, so it
is plausible that there is a general advantage, albeit small, in increased
brain size.  On the other hand the hypertrophy of the homo brain size
does have the appearance of an anomalous, accidental occurence.

-- 
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: lmh@iago.caltech.edu (Henling, Lawrence M.)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Throop/Nietzsche problems
Date: 1 Jan 1993 19:33 PDT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: iago.caltech.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <190@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes...
all of the ^lines
> 
^>lesser known fact that new studies are revealing that the spiritual
^>realm which most normal people believe in and can sense, once existed at
^>least in part on this earth.  At present we cannot perceive this other
^>realm directly or with our senses. . .
.. 
^That's why I said "most people" instead of "everybody".  Obviously, I didn't
^intend to include nerds in the discussion.  I tend to write a little bit more
^precisely than you may be accustomed to;  try reading my stuff a bit more
^carefully.

 Please explain how we cannot sense this realm which most normal people
can sense? You claim this is a precise statement?

larry henling  lmh@shakes.caltech.edu
From: bgarwood@sngldsh.cv.nrao.edu (Bob Garwood)
Subject: Re: Next?
Organization: nrao
	<1992Dec23.135956.23238@linus.mitre.org>
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 17:56:44 GMT

"JM" == James Meritt <m23364@mwunix> writes:
JM> In article <1658@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen) writes:
JM> }In article <1992Dec17.133858.6071@linus.mitre.org>, m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
JM> }|> 
JM> }|> What is next?
JM> }|> 
JM> }|> talk.origins:  On the evolutionary side, homo sapiens is seen as merely the most recent
JM> }|> step in a series of rungs in a ladder.  What do you see as the "next rung"? 
JM> }
JM> }There is no next rung because there *are* *no* *rungs*.
JM> }Evolution is *not*, I repeat *not* a ladder, it is a mucking great *bush*.
JM> }
JM> }Humans are not even the most recent species to evolve.  There are several new
JM> }species that have evolved in historical times.

JM> That's nice.  Unfortunately for your "*" speel, I specified one branch in
JM> particular...

Unfortunately for you, ladders don't have branches.  Which is why
a bush is a more useful simile (metaphore?) than a ladder and which
is clearly where the confusion came from.

Can we move on now?

Bob Garwood

I won't be reading any news until Jan 6th

--
From: swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: TIME cover story
Date: 31 Dec 92 20:59:32 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Dec29.230540.14790@gmuvax2.gmu.edu>, jbaker@gmuvax2.gmu.edu (John Baker) writes:
|> 
|> However, it is rediculous to consider the two separate.  To do so is to
|> say that either we cannot make conclusions based on scientific
|> observation, or that God is unknowable.

Or that God is unknowable by *scientific* means!
Whether he is knowable by personal experience is a *differnet* issue,
and one which science cannot address.

|> However, the results of the two should be entirely compatible.

I agree.  However, since I find science to be more a reliable way of finding the
truth than theology, I am more inclined to adjust my theology to match the
data than the other way around.

|> It is interesting that creationists claim this is exactly what the
|> evolutionists do with much of their evidence - they present the few
|> cases that support evolution and ignore all else.

Yep, they *claim* that.  But they can never seem to present any real, honest,
examples of it.

Every time they try they just present gross misunderstandings of what evolutionary
theory says, or else they make fundamental errors in data handling, or they
bring up completely irrelevent facts.

|> When you look at popular "scientific" authors, you find that many are
|> making theological conclusions based entirely on their interpretation of
|> a little data and a lot of speculation.

Quite likely - this is a *human* thing to do.  A scientist is not less human
than the rest of us.

The question is not whether scientists engage in theological speculations the
question is whether they do it in refereed publications under the guise of
doing scientific research. There is nothing wrong with speculation, or even
theology, but it should not be confused with *science*, not even if it issues
from someone who is at other times a professional scientist.

I, myself, constantly work at keeping my religious beliefs conssitant with my
scientific understanding.  But I do not, by any stretch of the imagination,
consider my medititations on this subject to be *scientific*.  I would never
even *submit* them to a refereed publication.

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Organization: City University, London
Distribution: world,local
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 12:26:11 GMT

esot@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Sotnak) writes:
>Mr. Tun has made the mistake of claiming that since the
>(antecedent) probability of life existing (or having come into existence) is
>so low, supernatural agency must be involved.  Another mistake in judgment.

I would not have said low, but rather zero - ie impossible. The
mistake is in assuming that if there are enough `tries' then
something that is impossible becomes possible.

--
  ________  Lionel Tun, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk  ________
 / /_  __/\       Computer Vision Group      /\ \__  _\
/___/_/_/\/ City University, London EC1V 0HB \ \___\_\_\
\___\_\_\/        071-477 8000 ext 3889       \/___/_/_/
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Subject: Re: Talk.Origins Wrestling Federation
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:02:05 GMT

In article <180@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
}In article <1992Dec21.135734.20632@linus.mitre.org>, m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
} 
}> But harmless.  I gave him a place that I'd be within a mile or two of his
}> posting location, and now work full-time just a few miles away.  I've
}> been within twenty miles or less for well over a decade.  
} 
}> Never seen him.  Not interested, not concerned.
}
}Your "challenge", if you actually have the audacity to call it that, involved
}me walking into a formal US Navy ceremony at a country club, X number of your
}reserve buddies in attendance.  

Wrong.  I gave you the street address of a public building.  I didn't mention
the country club until after  you did, and after the event.  Glad to see
you are maintaining your usual high standards of accuracy.

}As I've noted before, Mitre is PLENTY close enough.

sure.

}Any time.

yawn.

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Subject: Re: TIME cover story
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 20:44:26 GMT

In article <1680@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen) writes:
>In article <1hlcnmINNkrb@agate.berkeley.edu>, philjohn@garnet.berkeley.edu writes:
>
>|> Moreover, TIME said that "many, perhaps most, evolutionary
>|> biologists" now believe that "the coming of highly intelligent
>|> life was close to inevitable," because of a supposed inherent
>|> tendency of evolution to favor "behavioral flexibility," which
>|> demands "complex information processing - smarts." 

> I think that TIME must have been looking for this sort of statement.
> I have never seen any such position stated by any of the leading researchers
> in evolution. I have never even seen such a statement in any refereed journal.


I think one has to be highly suspicious of any supposed science writer
who uses referential absurdities like describing contemporary Man as
"highly intelligent life", right along with those who use phrases like
"with the advanced technology Man now has" or "the developed world".

Maybe "the coming of highly intelligent life was close to inevitable"
but then we came along instead.

Cut to Lionel on camera 2 for cheap shot about `evolutionists'.

Cheers

Simon
-- 
Simon Clippingdale                simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science    Tel (+44) 203 523296
University of Warwick             FAX (+44) 203 525714
Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.
From: onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Cosmos without Gravitation
Date: 31 Dec 92 09:06:08 GMT
Organization: Rogaland University Centre



>Sorry! My fault! Earthrise is of course not caused by rotation but rather more an
>effect called liberation. This allows us to see about 60% of the moon from earth.
              ^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>The moon rotates but only ever so slightly that it is barely noticable.





AAAAAAAAAARGHHHH! I have been misspulling end tuping errirs all duy. 





Onar.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout)
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Distribution: world,local
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:09:11 GMT

In <22DEC199200095590@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:

>I took the question of interest to be the origin of life, not necessarily
>the origin of the universe as a whole.  Surely there are probabilities
>and evidence we can examine regarding life's origin (e.g., as is done
>in Robert Shapiro's _Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life
>on Earth_).

But the anthropic principle,which you challenged, does not refer to 
life's origins within the context of the earth alone.  It only attempts
to answer the question "why is the universe so "constructed", the
earth so "placed", the water content "just so", etc. for life to arise
here.  The answer is that in places where things are not "just so" we
would not be around to ask the question (and there may be VERY MANY such
places in the universe, or in "previous" worlds).

I agree that
we can get SOME sense of probabilities, though how good that sense
is, is debatable, because of the enormous difficulty in recreating the
early conditions on the earth, and for reproducing/understanding long 
periods of time in the laboratory. So it is still not equatable
to the 15 riflemen that one can see, judge, and measure.  

Since evolutionary processes took place on earth, with sometime long
periods of statis, it is the simplest (not necessarily the most accurate)
to assume that life also STARTED here.  Since any probability calculations
fail to be convincing, and since pushing the start of life away from
the earth to somewhere else in the cosmos, only postpones the problem,
the simplest assumption, (for the time being) is that life started on
earth.

>Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
>Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
>University of Arizona
>Tucson, AZ 85721
--
Eli Chiprout                 
Dept. of Electronics, 
Carleton University, Canada
emc@doe.carleton.ca
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik )
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Lionel Tun: evolutionary relic.
Date: 22 Dec 92 00:57:15 GMT
Followup-To: talk.origins
Organization: (Evil Eye Creature from Mars, Inc.)

In article <1h3rb8INNlvt@fido.asd.sgi.com>, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com
(Jon Livesey) wrote:
> In article <1992Dec21.045654.38203@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>, jsg1@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JONATHAN SCOTT GIBSON) writes:
> |>     Well, the theory of creation goes like this:
> |>         In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. .....
> 
> Uh Huh.    So what about peer review?

Or what about a publication in a scientific journal?

Kent
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.		
"Don't just do something!  Stand there!"  -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
From: mikec@sail.LABS.TEK.COM (Micheal Cranford)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: I want a reference on "origins" myths.
Date: 1 Jan 93 04:24:42 GMT
Distribution: usa,world
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

------------------------

Edgar pearlstein asks:

>       Can someone direct me to a book which will discuss the many 
>       "origins" and cosmology myths:  things like the world being 
>       carried on the back of a great turtle, and Atlas carrying the 
>       world?


  Anyone interested in reading about creation mythologies should consult [1],
which covers over 100 different creation myths including several in the Bible
(not just the two some claim), the Koran, Greek, Roman, Indian (both American
and Eastern), African, Japanese, Eskimo, etc.


REFERENCES

  [1] Primal Myths: Creating the World  by Barbara C. Sproul.  Harper and Row
  (USA), also Fitzhenry and Whiteside (Canada), 1979.  ISBN 0-06-067501-2
  Sproul is director of the Program in Religion at Hunter College of the City
  University of New York.



  UUCP:  uunet!tektronix!sail!mikec  or                  M.Cranford
         uunet!tektronix!sail.labs.tek.com!mikec         Principal Troll
  ARPA:  mikec%sail.LABS.TEK.COM@RELAY.CS.NET            Resident Skeptic
  CSNet: mikec@sail.LABS.TEK.COM                         TekLabs, Tektronix

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Response to Bill Jefferys, part 2
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 07:18:02 GMT


Bruce Salem response to Bob Bales:
>        The petrology of a candidate then, is an independant indication
>of its reliability for dating as the suitable minerals can be determined
>and the history of the rock can be deciphered to determine that it has
>not been altered since its origin. Igneous rocks in sedimentary
>sequences as tuff and flows inturcolated into undatable rocks can be
>used to bracket their absolute ages as the needed unaltered minerals
>could be found in the igneous rocks.

Perhaps a more important issue is that if the Earth was young, we
would not expect to find a prevalence of consistent but falsely-
dated old rocks.  In a young Earth, rocks that date old would be
anomalies.  Young Earth vs old Earth makes different predictions
regarding the distribution of dating anomalies.  Perhaps Bales
would like to comment on such predictions?

Keith
From: dave@hpdstma.ptp.hp.com (Dave Waller)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Throop/Nietzsche problems
Date: 24 Dec 1992 17:02:15 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: hpdstma.ptp.hp.com

In article <183@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:

|> We have our own journals now.

Which make great comedy when one is bored. Not useful for anything else.

-- 
Dave Waller
From: williams@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Tom Williams)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Response to the Response to the Flood FAQ
Date: 30 Dec 1992 19:15:12 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

>> Wayne Folta
>>(This reminds me of the Mt. St. Helens video that Gish and company have.
>>It shows a valley with a little stream running through it. The valley's
>>walls show millions of fine layers of deposits. Three hundred years from
>>now, people might assume that the layers had been deposited over millions
>>of years and that the stream had taken hundreds of thousands of years to
>>carve out the valley. In fact, the deposits occured in three days, and the
>>valley was blown out by a huge steam/mud flood in half a day.)

I had to underscore Mr. McRae's response here.

I find creationist arguments like this so ridiculous as to be generally not
worth responding to.  To say that geologists might mistake an ash flow for
a deep water marine or lacustrine condensed section representing millions of
years is absurd.  It's like saying that zoologists might mistake crickets for
birds because they both make chirping sounds.

  These two rock types are dissimilar in every way except that they have layers.
Their chemical composition, texture, mineralogy, setting, fossil content,
etc. are entirely different.

  As long as you only pay as much attention to rocks as a landscape painter
might, then of course you can create a flood story.  If you start to pay 
attention to them, the story falls apart.  It's no wonder that creationists
have had such a difficult time recruiting ANY geologists to their numbers.
Not that geologists generally spend any time refuting them, the point seems
so absurd as to be moot.

It's also a testament to the general public's poor understanding of the
landscape that surrounds them that creationist stories are as widely accepted
as they are.

>>And how about the Colorado Plateau (Whitcomb & Morris, pg. 160), which
>>occupies 250,000 square miles, and which has been uplifted multiple times
>>(this believed because of disconformities in the stratigraphic sequences)
>>and yet is nearly perfectly flat? This causes a problem for non-Flood
>>geologies.

The points raised here were DEFINED by 'non-Flood' geology.  How in the
world could this be used as a creationist argument??  Why should this
create a problem for scientific geology??   
--
Tom Williams                       williams@pangea.stanford.edu
Department of Geology				 
Stanford University School of Earth Sciences
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles)
Subject: Re: Lionel Tun: evolutionary relic.
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 02:57:36 EST
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <1992Dec21.045654.38203@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> jsg1@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JONATHAN SCOTT GIBSON) writes:
>In article <ksand-191292144210@wintermute.apple.com>, ksand@apple.com (Kent Sand
>vik ) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec18.133825@IASTATE.EDU>, danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A
>>Ashlock) wrote:
>>> Let me second a fellow poster:  Care to post the theory of creation?

>>Yeah, I've asked about that one now for two years, and nobody from
>>the creation field has provided me with one...

 [long quote from Genesis deleted]
 [irrelevant (to talk.origins) diatribe about present moral decay deleted]
>                        Jonathan Scott Gibson
>                        JSG1@LEHIGH.EDU

 Uh, no, actually, what you posted was a story. A *theory* make predictions.
A *scientific theory* makes *testable* predictions.
 In order to convince me that what you posted was a theory, you (or someone)
should now detail, oh, three main predictions that this theory makes, and
the evidence that backs up those predictions having been fulfilled. 'Kay?

Sincerely,
Ray Ingles
ingles@engin.umich.edu

 They said there'd be snow at Christmas; They said there'd be peace on Earth.
 Halelujah Noel, be it Heaven or Hell; The Christmas we get we deserve.
      -ELP, "I Believe in Father Christmas"