HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sieferme@stein.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman)
Subject: Re: Lionel Tun: evolutionary relic.
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 21:03:08 GMT

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:

Good.  A man who delivers on his promises.  Thank you.

>        In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

OK.  So "heavens" came into being before "earth".  This seems
to agree with evidence from astronomy.  Pretty good theory
so far.  But, who is this "God" character; how did God come into
being before the rest of the universe; and, how did God create
the heavens and earth?  I'm sure that a well-formed theory
like creationism will answer these questions, eventually.

>And the earth
>        was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep;
>        and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.  Then
>        God said, "Let ther be light"; and there was light.

Hmmm, this presents a problem.  What does a "formless" earth look like?
Was this the stage of planetary formation in which stellar dust
was coelescing into earth?  If so, pretty good again.

But now ... BOINGK!  The theory of creationism says that "waters"
existed on the surface of the earth before "light".  If you mean
visible light, you are off by about 10 billions years or so.
If you mean that water existed on the earth before the sun was
created, you are still off by many hundreds of millions of years.
If you mean that visible light did not penetrate to the surface of 
the earth until waters existed on the earth, you are still
way off.

Your theory does not match the best current observations of
astronomical phenomena.  Other theories of cosmology are
much better at fitting the data, plus they have some sort
of falsifiability criteria.

Sorry, your theory is not as good as other theories.
It is hard to say for sure, because your theory has a 
number of vague terms like "created", "heavens", "God", etc.,
which need to be defined more precisely before discussion
and evaluation can occur.
But, since I am only a Talented Amateur (tm), I may
be all wet.  Try submitting your theory to a peer-reviewed
journal in a relevant scientific field; you may get
more acceptance.

(remainder of seriously flawed theory, deleted)

(sudden eruption of discussion of religion, which would be
more appropriately posted to talk.religion.misc or
soc.religion.christianity:  deleted)

(non-sequitur whining about "this day and age":  deleted)

(shocking reference to Dan Quayl, which would be more appropriately
posted to alt.fan.dan-quayle:  deleted)

But, thank you for playing.


-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
       A Lie is still a Lie, even if you believe it.
---------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: A Response to the Flood FAQ
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992
Date: 21 Dec 92  00:27:00

 > From: folta@cs.umd.edu (Wayne Folta)
 > Message-ID: <62893@mimsy.umd.edu>

 > Yes, I see that I was wrong on this one. I was trying to knock
 > off a whole
 > list of replies to the FAQ in one sitting and I had just read
 > the Science
 > that day. I only looked at the picture and caption and got it
 > wrong. (I
 > cannot complain, as I did give permission for the email to be
 > posted, but
 > maybe that is some kind of excuse?)

 > Also, if I might be so bold, I am not "the Creationist", I am
 > Wayne Folta. (Or "Mr. Creationist", to you. :-))

"Mr. Creationist"? Let's see if you are worthy of the title. Please state the 
theory of creationism.

+--------------------------+--------------------------------------+
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| people.                  | Candynet:   42:1001/1                |
|                          | Internet:   Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1   |
|                          |              .fidonet.org            |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------------+

---
From: lmh@iago.caltech.edu (Henling, Lawrence M.)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Velikovsky/Einstein/Cohen:  Graverobbing
Date: 25 Dec 1992 10:38 PDT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: iago.caltech.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <185@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes...

>Establishment science attacked Velikovsky with all means at its disposal. 
>
>In particular, Albert Einstein, a friend and colleague of Velikovsky's from
>before either of them came to the U.S., died in 1955.

 Establishment science murdered Einstein to silence his support of Velikovsky?
Is establishment science on the Net? Has it ever heard of ted holden?

larry henling   lmh@shakes.caltech.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Lionel Tun: evolutionary relic.
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992
Date: 23 Dec 92  02:31:00

 > From: jsg1@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JONATHAN SCOTT GIBSON)
 > Message-ID: <1992Dec21.045654.38203@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>

 >>> Let me second a fellow poster:  Care to post the theory of creation?

 >     Well, the theory of creation goes like this:
 >         In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

(rest deleted)

Sorry, that's not a theory. Please state the theory.

+--------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| 10                    2  | Garden Grove Institute of Technology |
|        DR PEPPER         | Community Outreach Center            |
|                       4  |                                      |
+--------------------------+ Snail Addr: Unit #1, 7872 Trask      |
| Un-pa-tri-o-tic (adj):   |             Westminster, Ca  92683   |
| protesting when the      | Modem:      714-894-7039             |
| government wants to kill | Fidonet:    1:103/241                |
| people.                  | Candynet:   42:1001/1                |
|                          | Internet:   Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1   |
|                          |              .fidonet.org            |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------------+

---
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Profound disappointment
Date: 30 Dec 1992 04:19:56 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <n0a44t@ofa123.fidonet.org> Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org writes:
>Dammit Ted, i thought you at least had some originality. Guess i made a Jumbo 
>error.

	As I had noted before, even though I have known about Ted from
at least 1989 I had avoided getting into the debate on his terms. I am
alittle disappointed to have found out in less than a month that his
views are rather like most obvert religionists that post here who
oppose evolution because of some effect that they assume that it has
on their assumptions about the teleology of Mankind.

	It is also worth noting that people are reluctant or unable to
explore these assumptions at length.

	Now Ted may do us a favor. He is unorthodox enough in his
approach that there is a chance that asking him questions may help
the rest of us to shed light on these assumptions. My probing of
him has led me in a ways, but it is time to be careful and not stray
off the quest. I have no interest on his yarn as to how things have
happened, but rather why he wants things to come out that way. We
will see if he and I can stay on any path of ideas. The danger is
that he is a moving target.

Bruce Salem
From: swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: comparing theories
Date: 22 Dec 92 18:23:56 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1gm39aINN896@morrow.stanford.edu>, salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) writes:
|> Common Descent can be regarded as factual is due to the large correspondance
|> of the emperical facts with the inference to be drawn that the systematics
|> of biology suggest common descant, a structure of relationships that look
|> like common ancestory. This is quite different from the theory used to
|> explain the inference. Now, if you know any history of Biology, you would
|> know that there have been contendors for this explaination, other than
|> the one proposed by Darwin.

Indeed.  The incredible irony of this whole thing is that Darwin's explanation was
widely *rejected* during his lifetime, even while his (very powerful) evidence
for Common Descent was almost universally accepted (within 10 years, except by
a few religious fanatics, like today).

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: Talk.Origins Wrestling Federation
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 19:26:16 GMT

   I'm confused.  If beating the living crap out of Ted is a 
valid rhetorical technique, why can't I just put on my mad bomber
cap and rub him out?  There are some fine points of nettiquite I'm
not clear on here...
...is it true that God will not permit a knight who is true to fall
in battle before one who is false? 

Dan
Danwell@IASTAET.EDU
oh yeah, :-)
                              (rub, rub, rub)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Organization: The Aurora Group
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 00:21:07 GMT

[I missed Lippard's original comments, having been on vacation.  This is
in response to a follow-up to a follow-up to a follow-up.  Apologies if
anything relevent got left out along the way.]

>>I, too, once marveled at the unlikelihood of everything in the
>>universe coming together in such a way to create me.  Such an occurrance
>>seemed wildly improbable.  Then I realized that, had all circumstances
>>not been as they were, I wouldn't be around to marvel, so questions of
>>probability are meaningless.  The probability of my existence, given that
>>I exist, is exactly one, no matter what my theological assumption
 
>In <20DEC199214091069@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:

>This seems like a bad argument, to me.  Suppose I'm put in front of a firing
>squad of fifteen men.  They all fire, but I don't die.  I continue to
>exist.  By an argument analogous to what you've given, I shouldn't marvel
>at my own continued existence or wonder how it happened--the probability
>was one.  But if, in fact, all fifteen men *missed* me, there is an unusual
>fact there that requires some sort of explanation.  The fact that if they
>hadn't missed me, then I wouldn't be there to puzzle over my existence, does
>*not* explain what is curious in this situation.  Likewise, the fact of
>life's existence requires some sort of explanation other than the supposed
>"explanation" offered by the anthropic principle.

You're basing your conclusion on what you already know about firing squads.
If you knew that only, say, one in ten individual shots would be expected
to miss, and that many fewer than 10^15 firing squad executions have ever
been performed, then, yes, you would certainly be justified in wondering
whether there was something different about your case which let you survive.
In contemplating the factors which allow life to exist in the universe,
however, we don't know anything about how likely each shot will miss or how
many trials there were.  Suppose, in your example, that the number of
people who face firing squads is unknown and potentially infinite.  Then you
would have no reason to think that your survival was anything special, or
at least you couldn't claim that it was inexplicable in terms of what you
knew.

I'm not saying that the anthropic principle explains the existence of life,
just that it says why life isn't inexplicable.
-- 
Mark Isaak           "Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every
isaak@aurora.com      generation is humbled by nature." - Philip Lubin
From: swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Matters of Gravity
Date: 24 Dec 92 17:11:53 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Dec16.234456.28693@trl.oz.au>, jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy) writes:
|> scratchy.caltech.edu!justinf (Justin Fang) writes:
|> 
|> 
|> >	I agree the parrot syrinx did not evolve to mimic human speech.  
|> >It evolved to make the complex calls of parrots.
|> 	    ^^
|> 
|> 	    No no no! The point I was making was: nothing evolves TO...
|> Am I really the only one to fume at this "to"? "To" implies a purpose.

Yep, but there are *two* (or more) levels of purpose involved.

The *current* purpose of the parrot syrinx, as it is used by wild parrots
is one of these.  This is a *real* purpose (even if there is no intent involved).
I tend to read a statement like the above as refering to this final purpose.
[It is certainly *maintained* in its current form because it performs this
purpose for the parrots, so the purpose is even, to some extent, influencing
the evolution of parrots].

Yes, you are right, evolution does *not* anticipate, there is no goal to
evolution itself, beyond the rather trivial one of reproduction.  But this
does not mean that it does not *produce* purpose.

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: A Response to the Flood FAQ
Date: 22 Dec 92 18:02:13 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Dec16.141835.20281@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) writes:
|> 	The lesson is this:  if a global Noachian flood did actually
|> cause all present-day geological formations, it COULD
|> be proven scientifically.

Not only that, but 150 years ago there were several major geologists who were
attempting *just* *that*.  In fact the glacial deposits of northern Europe were
originally interpreted as Noachian.

What happened?  They totally failed to find *any* evidence confirming the flood
that stood up to close examination.  That is why it is rejected today.

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Probability of Life
Date: 31 Dec 92 20:40:03 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Dec24.125330.28789@linus.mitre.org>, m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
|> 
|> To me personally, it appears almost inevitable.  Whatever "life" is, of course.
|> Now, I don't necessarily think that it has to resemble me - or you - but the
|> systems appear to develop almost inexorably given the proper conditions. 
|> The "proper conditions" appear to be extremely flexible...

That is also my *hypothesis*.

Unfortunately, other than the early occurance of life on this planet, and the
ubiquitous occurance of organic molecules, I have little *scientific* evidence.

It is my belief that we will be able to recognize the correct model of abiogenesis
when we arrive at one that predicts a high probability for the origin of life.
[But then, I am often wrong ...]

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Xref: sparky aus.netstatus:258 aus.aarnet:1273
From: pte900@jatz.aarnet.edu.au (Peter Elford)
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus,aus.aarnet
Subject: Re: US-AUS net link is lousy. Cure?
Date: 22 Dec 1992 03:54:46 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: aus
NNTP-Posting-Host: 139.130.204.4
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Tas van.Ommen (tas@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au) wrote:
: I frequently log in from LA and have been noticing a dramatic change in
: packeting effects in the last two weeks.  Am I to believe that the
: growth in net usage is noticeable on such short timescales??  At first thought
: one could attribute the reduced performance to a seasonal increase in
: demand, however I would expect _academic_ usage to fall off near Christmas.
: Also, I am seeing these effects around 3am-8am AEDT when user demand from
: inside Australia is surely at a minimum.

This is interesting. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, we have been
trialling a pair of data compressors on the link to the USA. These devices
do in-line compression of data as it goes by and in theory provide increased
throughput on a link of any given speed. They do not seem to have done
particularly when in practise, possibly because much of what is moved
over the link to the US is file transfer, and much of that is already
compressed.

The devices have been removed from the link because one of them stopped
working yesterday, so I will be very interested to hear if you (or anyone
else for that matter) *stops* having problems that have appeared since
Sunday 13th December (Australian Eastern Summer Time).

--
Peter Elford,                             e-mail: P.Elford@aarnet.edu.au
Network Co-ordinator                      phone: +61 6 249 3542
Australian Academic Research Network      fax:   +61 6 249 1369
c/o, Computer Services Centre             pager: +61 6 245 3035
Australian National University            post: GPO Box 1142     
Canberra, AUSTRALIA                             Canberra ACT 2601
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus
From: rossc@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Ross Cartlidge)
Subject: Re: metro.ucc.su.oz.au looks to be scrambled
Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Distribution: aus
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 23:17:21 GMT

kre@munnari.OZ.AU (Robert Elz) writes:

>Indications from attempts to send news to metro indicate that it may
>be in a poor state - may might, or might not, be getting through,
>and if not, almost anything might be happening to it, news isn't
>arriving there at all.

>kre

Yep - one of the news disks filled up.
It was fixed on the 27th - but newsxd (the downstream feeder)
didn't start up correctly -I just fixed this

rossc
-- 
________________________________________________________________________
Ross Rodney Cartlidge			    |   rossc@ucc.su.oz.au
Information Services, H08		    |   Phone:     +61 2 6923491
University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia   |   FAX:       +61 2 6606557
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus,aus.aarnet
From: tas@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (Tas van.Ommen)
Subject: Re: US-AUS net link is lousy. Cure?
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Distribution: aus
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:08:59 GMT

pte900@jatz.aarnet.edu.au (Peter Elford) writes:

>The devices have been removed from the link because one of them stopped
>working yesterday, so I will be very interested to hear if you (or anyone
>else for that matter) *stops* having problems that have appeared since
>Sunday 13th December (Australian Eastern Summer Time).

I think we have found the cause - I must confess I felt a bit of a fraud
posting my complaint yesterday because as I was doing so I noticed how
much better the net performance was.  I cannot say exactly when I first 
noticed these problems, but around 13th December seems right from memory.

Thanks for your concern!
Tas

Newsgroups: aus.netstatus
From: labman@ecr.mu.oz.au (Bruce Robertson)
Subject: Engineering Computer Resources - Xmas Break
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 03:14:49 GMT


  It is now Christmas time {Thought that was needed to be said}

  Our Department will shutdown its entire network by 3:00PM
  24 December 1992

  We will resume operational status on 4 January 1993.


  This is a notice to inform people who regularly ftp/fetchfile
  to gondwana.ecr.mu.OZ.AU [128.250.70.62] not to panic........


  Merry Christmas to all.
  .... and drink lite beer..

 regards,
  Bruce Robertson                               | labman@gondwana.ecr.mu.OZ.AU
  Department of Engineering Computer Resources, | labman@128.250.70.62
  C/o Faculty of Engineering,                   | I think you're pretty tough
  University of Melbourne, 3052. AUSTRALIA      | Dont I.  [Daffy Duck]
From: daemon@jatz.aarnet.edu.au ()
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus
Subject: QLD isolated
Date: 22 Dec 1992 00:45:33 GMT
Organization: Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet)
Reply-To: Douglas Ray <ray@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 139.130.204.4

The link from the QLD hub to the national hub at melbourne broken around
11:30 today (tues 22nd dec).  We're checking.
						- douglas ray
						doug@unimelb.edu.au
						networks & comms
From: msp@pos.apana.org.au (Mark Purcell)
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus
Subject: RE: metro.ucc.su.oz.au looks to be scrambled
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 08:26:50 +1100
Organization: Private site: Sydney, Australia

>Path: pos!runxtsa!ipso!metro!basser.cs.su.oz.au!swift!pta!gossip.pyramid.com!uunet!paladin.american.edu!darwin.sura.net!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!math.fu-berlin.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!regent!monu1.cc.monash.edu.au!monu6!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!not-for-mail
>From: kre@munnari.OZ.AU (Robert Elz)
>Newsgroups: aus.netstatus
>Subject: metro.ucc.su.oz.au looks to be scrambled
>Message-ID: <1hdl6eINN4md@munnari.OZ.AU>
>Date: 25 Dec 1992 11:38:38 +1100
>Distribution: aus
>Organization: University of Melbourne
>Lines: 6
>NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au
>
>Indications from attempts to send news to metro indicate that it may
>be in a poor state - may might, or might not, be getting through,
>and if not, almost anything might be happening to it, news isn't
>arriving there at all.
>
>kre

News is making it mentro, but via Germany??

Mark

-- 
msp@pos.apana.org.au	msp@pos.dialix.oz.au
Mark Purcell, 62/25 Market Street, SYDNEY NSW 2000.  (02) 283 5598
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus
From: dclunie@flash.pax.tpa.com.au (David Clunie)
Subject: South Australian news down (via yoyo) - help wanted !@#$
Organization: Her Master's Voice
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 22:23:23 GMT
Reply-To: dclunie@pax.tpa.com.au
X-Posted-From: flash.pax.tpa.com.au
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

Aaargh ! A desperate plea from a lonely news site.

yoyo, which supplies all the news for south australia, has been down for
a week, and now the university of adelaide where it lives is going on
vacation for 2 weeks !@#$

This means that we are all without news, and getting desperate. Would
some kind soul somewhere else in the country be generous enough to put
a site or two in its newsfeeds file for a few weeks ? This would be
a very Christmas like gesture and would undoubtedly earn lots of
brownie points with Santa Claus.

david

Newsgroups: aus.netstatus
From: tas@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (Tas van.Ommen)
Subject: Re: US-AUS net link is lousy. Cure?
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Distribution: aus
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 17:35:01 GMT

I frequently log in from LA and have been noticing a dramatic change in
packeting effects in the last two weeks.  Am I to believe that the
growth in net usage is noticeable on such short timescales??  At first thought
one could attribute the reduced performance to a seasonal increase in
demand, however I would expect _academic_ usage to fall off near Christmas.
Also, I am seeing these effects around 3am-8am AEDT when user demand from
inside Australia is surely at a minimum.

Tas van Ommen                        Internet:  tas@herca.jpl.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus