HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:49:42 GMT

evan@gauss.math.brown.edu (Evan M. Simpson) writes:
>Antti, this has been explained to you several times. Once more for the record:

>Those in this group who require this of you understand the theory of evolution.
>They know that anyone with a firm grasp of the subject can explain it simply.
>If you can't explain it, simply or not, they must assume you don't understand it.

	OK, I see. Definitions:

		EVOLUTION

	Evolution is the intependent development from a form of life to another.
	This happens by cumulative selection and the survival of the fittest. 
	These "select" the best genes.   
	                  ---------------------------

	Need any more ?
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Darwinism is dead !
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Date: 26 Sep 1992 11:30 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
Summary: Oh, please.
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <Bv6D0q.EpB@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters) writes...
>In article <n0abet@ofa123.fidonet.org> Laurence.Vanhelsuwe@f8.n252.z2.fidonet.org writes:
>>Hi All (biologists),
>> 
>>I've just been reading in a VERY interesting book which attacks Darwin's
>>theory of evolution based on natural selection.
>> 
>>It's written by a molecular biologist and as far as I could glance doesn't
>>contain the "G" word...

What's it called?  _Evolution: A Theory in Crisis_ by Michael Denton?
If so, you should be aware that (a) Denton is not a creationist, and in
fact believes in evolution, despite the title of his book, and (b) his
book contains significant errors which have been pointed out in the
_Creation/Evolution_ journal and in reviews of his book in _Nature_ and
the _Quarterly Review of Biology_ (exact references were posted here
earlier).  Andy Peters has already pointed out some of the problems with
Denton's claims in reply to your posting.

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
From: stassen@alc.com (Chris Stassen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Date: 2 Oct 92 17:49:38 GMT
Organization: The Lion's Den, San Jose

Antti Siivonen writes:
[I wrote:]
>> False.  Land plants ("day three") don't predate the Sun ("day four")
>> or fish ("day five").  Try again.

>	No, actually those refer to the visibility of sun. 

You didn't address the other problem mentioned, land plants before fish,
and the excuse for the one which you did address is rather lame.

If you have to mangle Genesis (to the point of lame excuses for changing
the stated order of creation of the sun and moon), and also have to mangle
the scientific data (counting "algae" as the origin of plants, when all
of the plants mentioned *by name* in Genesis show up *much* later)...

... then it is a little silly to consider it an amazing supernaturally
inspired event that these two accounts, each pummeled beyond recognition,
are in some sort of agreement.
--
Chris Stassen			408-943-0630			stassen@alc.com
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Evolution Exhibits
Date: 6 Oct 92 13:52:01 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)

In article <1193@tdat.teradata.COM>, swf@teradata (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>the lophophorate phyla (brachiopods, bryozoans, and an obscure group
>called the phoronids) are generally considered to be more or less
>intermediate between the protostomes and the deuterostomes.

I've usually seen them presented as deuterostomes.  That "usually"
may be a bad memory on my part--but certainly enough so that I find
myself not believing the "generally".
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Subject: Re: Back to "Bales' scales"
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 22:44:13 GMT

In article <7082@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM> bobb@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Robert W Bales) writes:
>
> [...]
>
> It has been said that my arguments have been demolished. It has been said
> that I don't know what I'm talking about. However, it takes more than saying
> to show these things -- it talkes objective evidence. In the case of most of
> my arguments, objective evidence to show them invalid has been lacking.

Can't speak for others, but perhaps you didn't see my post "Bob's Bogus
Statistical Journey" of 16 July 1992 in which I attempted to point out your
bogus use of prior and posterior statistics. I will post it again if you like,
so that you may respond.

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: gascan@dcst16.dc (Bill Gascoyne)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: pi=3 (was Re: Abuse By t.o Regulars
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:56:53 GMT
Reply-To: gascan@dcst16.dc
Organization: LSI Logic Corporation

In article 1444@trl.oz.au, jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy) writes:
> Given them that
> inch, and next they'll want equal time to teach that pi is exactly
> 3. It says so in the Bible.

Thanks!  This is one of my favorites, and I've been looking for an excuse to post it:

2Chronicles 4:2, referring to the construction of Solomon's temple:
'And he made the molten sea, and it was round, ten cubits from rim to rim, five
cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumfrence.'

That's either pi=3 or the most underrated miracle in the Bible.  Show me a circle
ten units across with a circumfrence of 30 units and I'll accept creationism.

---
1. Bill Gascoyne
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: Teemu Makinen
Subject: Re: Friesen on elastics and sauropod necks
Organization: Finnish Academic and Research Network Project - FUNET
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 08:06:57 GMT

In article <42@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>
>Again, reread what McGowan says about the lives of elephants.  They spend
>most of their waking hours eating;  McGowan says it is not clear to him
>how anything could eat enough to get any bigger than elephants.  
     ^^^^^^^^

What about whales?

If you ever have opened a biology book, you must have noticed that in average
*smaller* mammals need to eat more often. As their weight goes down as l^3
their outer surface and hence thermal loss only goes down as l^2. So, in order
to keep warm the smallest rodents (being the smallest mammals also) eat
practically all the time they are awake. But what is true for mammals has
nothing to do with reptiles not to mention other species! I've been studying
dimensional analysis a lot and the only thing you can say is "Dimensional
analysis without common sense and detailed knowledge about physical processes
can be used to prove about *anything*! Throw garbage in, get garbage out!" I
can, for example, prove with DA that women in average drive car faster than
men!

>Digestive efficiency has to be another sort of a square/cube problem in 
>that it has to be related in some way to surface area of intestines, 
>which will go up as a square.  The digestive efficiency of sauropods was
>not likely greater than that of elephants.  

Still once. DA is only an aid of physics. I wouldn't consider anything proven
with DA *only* as a valid result. I can give  as many counterexamples as you
want.

>
>-- 
>Ted Holden
>HTE
>
>

Teemu Makinen  --- teemu.makinen@fmi.fi
From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Friesen on elastics and sauropod necks
Summary: when checked, ted's "impossible" scenario isn't
Date: 01 Oct 92 23:39:07 GMT

: From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
: Message-ID: <1150@tdat.teradata.COM>
:: Message-ID: <40@fedfil.UUCP>
:: news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)

First of all, Ted's title is misleading, since Friesen wasn't
the one providing a model of elastics and sauropod necks.  It was
Ted's own favorite source of information, McGowan, and more, in
a quote from a book Ted claims to have read.

:: The reality is that nothing of flesh and blood could hold the torque 
:: involved with the notion of holding a sauropod neck out near horizontally.
: On what evidence do you base this conclusion?

It is fairly amenable to calculation.  Ted says 300,000 ft-lbs of
torque.  Very well.  Let's assume an analog to the nuchal ligament
of 1 square foot cross section, and a 3 foot separation between the
compressional load on the spinal column and the tension load on the
ligament, at the point the neck joins the body.

Working the (rather simple) arithmetic, we get about 500 newtons/cm^2
of force on the ligament.  This is within the plausible strength of 
ligaments and tendons.  To give an intuitive form, that's a rope of
ligament about the thickness of a thumb supporting 700 or so lbs.
(I'd be obliged if somebody would check these results.)

And whether I've gotten the numbers exactly right above or not, whether
somebody wants to quibble about the size of the ligament or the
distance between the compressional and tensional loads, Alexander
and others have done much more detailed calculations, and found
that the strength required of the ligament is plausible.  McGowan
references Alexander, and pretty clearly agrees with his results.

So, contrary to Ted's unsupported claim, we can see quite simply
that the force *can* plausibly be supported by "flesh and blood"
(or more specifically, ligaments.)

:: Similarly, I could mention the instructions which come with any of the spring
:: action German air-rifles we've all seen:  "Do not ever leave the weapon in
:: a cocked state;  that will weaken the spring."
:: [.. examples of leaving bow strung also ..]

Ted should realize this is irrelevant.  In living creatures, the ligaments
and tendons are *always* "left strung", and this does not "weaken" them. 
As Stanley points out, they self-repair, as dried, dead materials do not. 

Specifically, tendons are always under tension, even at rest.  This is
part of what is meant by "muscle tone", and somewhat extreme measures
often have to be taken to relax this tension for surgery.  Curare is
used in some curcumstances for this.  Even unconscious, even anesthesized, 
tendons continue under tension.  It does not "weaken" them. 

As for ligaments, if they weren't under tension, joints would dislocate. 
One doesn't wake up every morning and pop one's joints back into place
before going about one's business.  All because ligaments are always
under tension.  And (all together now) "it doesn't weaken them".
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
From: emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Differing accounts of creation in Genesis
Date: 29 Sep 92 12:53:53 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University

In <1992Sep28.013015.23071@trl.oz.au> jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy) writes:

>weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:

>>pretty soon.)  Biblical Hebrew does not have a past or present or future
>>tense.  It has a perfective (for completed actions) and an imperfective
>>(for continuing actions).  Temporal sequence is thus ambiguous.

>>>  2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the
>>>  field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see
>>>  what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living
>>>  creature, that was the name thereof.

>Temporal sequences are not ambiguous. They are expressed by what
>is called in Hebrew grammars the "consecutive vav". This is the
>conjunction "ve" regularly translated in the KJV by "and",
>prefixed to the verb in the imperfective. I do not have my 
>bilingual OT here, but I'd bet that "and brought" in the above
>quote is a consecutive vav construction. I've rubbed shoulders
>often and long enough with SIL people in my student days to
>remember that.

That still does not give Hebrew the richness of tense that English or say
Greek has.  Biblical Hebrew is an ambiguous language both in verb construction
and in noun inclusion.  I am afraid there is no way of getting around
it.  Modern Hebrew is NOT to be compared to the different eras of Biblical
Hebrew as Hebrew became a dead language and was revived.  But even before
it died, the meanings of many phrases and words became lost and transformed
into a very peculiar Rabinical Hebrew.  Biblical Hebrew, in its different
phases (which Biblical Hebrew are you talking about?  Early, Middle, Late?)
had to be reconstructed from surrounding languages, which is a dubuious
proposal at best.  See Oxford Press Lexicon of the OT.

The effort to pull out exact meanings from the text is a lost cause.
It is because of an a priori agenda of extracting "spriritual" meanings
from the text that motivates people to come up with all sort of
unprovable propositions about the Biblical languages.
--
Eli Chiprout
Dept. of Electronics
Carleton University	
emc@doe.carleton.ca
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden, Jumbo, and the Fenykoevi elephant
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:25:07 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Oct5.054244.23838@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:
|2) if a divine creator was involved in the selection of human muscle
|origin and insertion points, we can conclude that this creator
|failed its mechanical engineering courses very badly.
|
No, actually what we conclude is that the human being is not designed
to do squats.

Of course that is why we choose it as a sporting event (most performance
sports involve pushing the functional limits of the human design).

Now, for balancing a flexible rod (the backbone) in an upright position
while providing steady propulsion across an uneven landscape, the set of
muscle insertions we have are much more effective they do pretty much
what is needed.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:36:05 GMT

maguire@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Bill Maguire) writes:
>Visability to who?  Who was there to see it?  Either he made light or
>he didn't.  Taking a literal interpretation God must of told someone
>how he made it because no one else was around.  So what did he say?

	There were actually, but we can ignore this now. Bible examines things
	as they happen in the Earth. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Atheistic creationism -- a tutorial
Date: 27 Sep 92 16:35:07 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Sep26.071853.5636@smds.com> rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
|
|Evolution involves both a claimed fact, common descent, and a claimed
|mechanism, genetic change.  To impeach evolution it suffices to impeach
|either the "fact" or the "mechanism".  Now the "fact" really rests on
|some plausibility assumptions.  For example, extant life forms over
|time vary.  The obvious explanations are quasi-continuous creation,
|and common descent.  ...

Ah yes, Charles Lyell's "steady-state' theory of life.

This was considered fairly well demolished by Darwin's "Origin".
The evidence for common descent is so strong that one needs a *mighty*
bizarre form of 'continuous' crration to account for the evidence.

Not only are living things similar to one another, they are similar in
rather *odd* way's.  There are numerous cases of vestigial organs, strange
homologies (the panda's "thumb" is built from a *wrist* bone, not a
replicated finger), meaningless differences (like the differences between
a bat's wing and that of a pterosaur).

Any form of 'creation', one-week, or long-term, has a great deal of
difficulty explaining this sort of hodge-podge.

|  The claim is that the available evidence is compatible
|with either explanation.  We must therefore turn to the mechanism;
|are there feasible and compelling mechanisms for evolution.  The
|claim here is that the postulated mechanisms are not adequate.  Ergo,
|since the dominant (natural) explanation has been refuted, the
|alternatives must be considered.

The *claim* is that the purported mechanisms are inadequate.  Are they?
I have yet to see any reason to believe they are.  What reasons do you have
to say this?  (This issue was thoroughly debated by biologists in the 40's
and 50's, and they have, by and large, concluded that the mechanisms now
known are *more* than adequate, what evidence do you have that they
have not already considered).

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden omissions
Date: 30 Sep 92 04:11:29 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <717658769@sheol.UUCP>, throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:

[much blather omitted]
> With that, here's what Ted always neglects to tell you:
[remaining blather omitted]

Here's what Wayne is neglecting to tell you:  that all of his calculations
and sophistic reasoning are basically an attempt to convince you of something
which common sense and everything you've ever actually observed regarding
large and small creatures tells you is entirely wrong.  He's trying to 
demonstrate that for truly large animals such as sauropod dinosaurs,
effeciencies and things such as power to weight ratios GO UP.


We all know that in going from mice to men, or from ants to mice, these
ratios go down.  We know that 200 lb athletes cannot do iron crosses on
the rings, that their power/weight ratios won't support it no matter how
strong they might be...  we know that ratios go down in going from 200 lb
weight-lifters to your super heavyweights such as Kaz, even in cases in
which the super heavyweight is carrying no extra or appreciable fat.

But Wayne says that if you get REALLY big, then the whole thing turns around.

You have to look at it the right way;  you see, it must also be the case
that if you ate a really BIG bowl of arsenic, it would be GOOD for you,
and give you rosy cheeks.  

It must be the case also that there were twice as many people alive 20
years ago as now...  you know, for every person alive now, two (namely his
parents) were alive 20 years ago...  I'm certain Throop would find nothing
wrong with this.


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: a brief tirade
Date: 26 Sep 92 22:01:24 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <1992Sep23.192500.25102@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jgacker@neptune (James G. Acker) writes:

>	Hey Chris -- 

Hi Jim. 

>	At some point, I'll summarize "Progressive Creationism" in
>my "Creation" book and I'll call it a "Theory of Creation". 
>	 My first impression:
>Is that it's adaptable enough to cope with anything science discovers, and
>very non-specific. 

Could I ask a serious question? What good is a theory that is adaptable
enough to cope with anything science discovers? 

>	Jim Acker

Chris Colby
email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu

>	Who luvs ya, Chris?

Well, I poured my cat a big bowl of food this morning so I assume I've 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: Atheistic creationism -- a tutorial
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 22:26:44 GMT

Richard Harter needs to make a fairly mathematical argument about
evolutionary mechanisims not being sufficient. He needs to handle
the issue of population size, mutation rate, and great selection
pressure. He may have decided that evolution doesn't work for
large stable gene pools and forgotten about how stress in small
populations exaggerates the effects. He may also be ignoring the
critical changes possible on the fitness of a gene pool when some
external change, such as reduction in habitat, places new pressure
on what has been a successful stock.

We need to see a numerical model, Mr. Harter, that takes these
factors into account. Someone else may point us into one that
may already exists and answers Mr. Harter's allegations.

Bruce Salem


Xref: sparky talk.origins:12195 sci.skeptic:17124
From: ncramer@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Object-oriented creation
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:25:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.lch0rlINNde
Reply-To: ncramer@labs-n.bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Interzone Office
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

alc@netcom.com (Chris Stassen) writes:
|If we are a good OO designer, we take advantage of inheritance and
|re-use.  (After all, this is the whole reason that people such as
|Mr. Richardson are claiming that God would use OO design.) [...]
|
|Instead we find different-yet-equivalent versions of the exact same
|function [...]
|
|If you want God to be an OO designer, why is He unnecessarily overriding
|inheritance?  .... Is our Divine
|Object-Oriented Designer expending effort to simulate a misleading
|*appearance* of evolution?

Maybe G*d's manager stuck him with C++?

N
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The new and improved Ted - NOT!
Date: 28 Sep 92 04:17:49 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <1992Sep26.064510.22665@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:
 
> Well, in case it makes you feel better (though I freely admit that I
> didn't put in nearly the level of effort that you did), he didn't seem
> to notice my pointing out several respects in which his understanding
> of powerlifting was seriously flawed either.

I noticed your article, but did not see anything in it which would
substantially alter the results of the articles I've posted regarding
powerlifting event ratios and sauropod load-lifting relationships.

I've noted that just standing up for an ultrasaur is equivalent to a 3000
lb squat, or if you prefer, a 3000 lb lift of SOME sort by a man of 
Kazmaier's size.  I noted that Kaz could dead-lift and/or squat around
1000 lbs and, since I'd never heard of him setting the world on fire
benching, a rather conservative figure of 500 or so.  That would give
a total lift of around 1500 or so, arms and legs being used to max
at least once and more like twice;  still far short of what is needed
for the saur.

Changing the 1500 to 1650 doesn't help the saur an iota.



-- 
Ted Holden
HTE

Newsgroups: talk.origins