HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: A man shall be judged by the company he keeps
Date: 6 Apr 92 23:52:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: rhrk.1992Apr6.235255.29610
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany

In article <2714@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>If you really want to adopt the view that theory overrides history, then
>you don't need to go back to 1500 BC for a starting point;  you can
>start 50 years ago or thereabouts.
>
>Consider the company which Bishop and Hyde keep in this theory overrides
>history game.
>
>Consider the case of Ralph Winston, who typically posts on the
>talk.politics group, and mostly posts articles to the effect that the
>halocaust of WWII is a bogus notion and never really took place:

[Winston's vague ramblings about the color of bodies and his even
more vague reference to the abominable Fred Leuchter deleted]

The holocaust is a well documented fact, and if holocaust
revisionists have no better arguments than these (which is very 
likely) it will remain well documented fact.
I can understand anybody who doesn't get the color right after
seeing huge piles of dead bodies, and Winston's "evidence" is
*NOT* convincing.  Any chemist who examines the gas chambers
*without* the intent of finding no evidence for the holocaust
will probably find evidence for it.

Those 1500 BC sources, on the other side, are far from being well
documented, so one has to rely on hard science only, with occasional
looks at the myths.  Looking at myths as if they were facts is
sometimes helpful (Schliemann) but doesn't work all the time.

Sorry, your parallel was not only tasteless but also totally
off the mark.

-- 
-Caddy--(thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany)-----
The question of whether the electron is a wave or a particle
has a clear and definite answer:  No.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Darwin's Enigma
Date: 12 Apr 92 18:39:52 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England

In article <1e7L02r7c5PX00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) writes:
>
>I'm currently reading a book "Darwin's Enigma" by Luther Sunderland.
>On page 11, I found the following information quite interesting and
>thought I'd pass it along. Now, I'm not saying this information is 
>true or not, as you will see, you can look it up yourself as I will 
>when I find a library that's open.


Might it not have been more appropriate to do the legwork first? Just a
thought....

***NOTE*** There follows a logical analogy, intended to make a point.
********** Do not misinterpret.
********** Begin logical analogy ******************

I've just been reading an article over on soc.history by some "historical
revisionists"....I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but, erm, if it
were right, erm, it'd be, erm, interesting....but you guys can judge.

********** End logical analogy ******************


> [creationist tract quoted by Jim]
> [deletions]
>If information about the true nature of the fossil record, so 
>vividly described in these interviews, were to be presented without
>bias in public school textbooks, there would be no need for over
>half of the state legislatures to be considering legislation
>requiring open academic inquiry into the teaching of theories on
>origins.


There is indeed no such "need". Come on, Jim, this is a joke. "Bias"???
See below.


>It is not so much a problem of failing to include in 
>textbooks the simply factual statements that there is an alternative
>to evolution theory - which is accepted by the majority of the
>public - that a Supernatural Power created the universe and first
>life. Rather, the main issue is that textbooks and other school
>materials are completely devoid of certain very significant 
>scientific information which is talked about behind closed doors
>but not made available to the public.


This is familiar. It is precisely Lionel Tun's conspiracy theory,
recently retracted for acknowledged lack of evidence. I suggest that
you are quoting this stuff, preceded by disclaimers, in the hope
that its second-hand nature means that you can weasel out of having
to produce the evidence yourself. Sorry, but that's how it looks from
here.


>I didn't post this information because I like to get flamed, I 
>just thought you would be interested in reading for yourself what
>I've been trying to communicate all along. 


Bullshit. See above.


>-- 
>Jim Loucks           jloucks@uts.amdahl.com 
>{apple, pyramid, sun, uunet}!amdahl!jloucks


Simon
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Every morning when you wake up and look in the mirror, check yourself
for signs of collective identity" - Consolidated on "This Is Fascism"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Ignoring Facts
Date: 8 Apr 92 13:01:28 GMT
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany

In article <2711@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
[..]
> I've got news for you, Bishop, Hyde, and all the rest.  I am PROUD of
> the fact that I am able to make valid judgements as to what to ignore in
> a situation such as this, and I shall CONTINUE to ignore your bullshit
> evidence involving ice-cores and varves.
> 
> In fact, I've even got an admission to make.  I don't know what a varve
> is and I don't even care.  I may eventually look it up [..]
> 
> Ted (Proud to Ignore the Facts) Holden
> HTE

You are practically saying:
"Stop talking to me, I don't listen.  I know the truth, I ignore
everything else."
Do you really expect that others listen to *you* then?

-- 
-Caddy--(thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany)-----
The question of whether the electron is a wave or a particle
has a clear and definite answer:  No.
From: bertsche@llnl.gov (Kirk Bertsche)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: SCIENCE-FAITH LECTURES (4-9-92)
Date: 9 Apr 92 23:05:06 GMT
Distribution: ba
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Sorry for the late notice (I was at the ACS meetings and not near my 
computer), but there are two lectures TONIGHT (4-9-92) at Stanford, which 
should both be very good.  Both speakers are well-respected evangelical 
Christians and scientists who try to be honest with the data from both 
fields.

************************************************************

 "Seven Patterns for Relating Science and Christian Faith"
                       by Richard Bube

                             AND

    "Evolutionary Science and the Forgotten Doctrine of
               Creation's Functional Integrity"
                    by Howard J. Van Till

   Oak East Lounge, Tressidder Union, Stanford University
                   April 9, 1992;  7:30 PM

Sponsored by:  The Templeton Foundation, The American Scientific 
Affiliation, and The Stanford Intervarsity Christian Fellowship

************************************************************

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kirk Bertsche    (bertsche@llnl.gov)    (510) 422-8139
Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, L-397, Livermore, CA 94551
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: biologic diversity since the Cambrian
Keywords: scientific creationism
Date: 16 Apr 92 20:38:57 GMT
Reply-To: colby@bu-bio.UUCP (Chris Colby)
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <sgj9cINNm7s@matt.ksu.ksu.edu> jsanders@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Justin M. Sanders) writes:
>In article <83986@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.UUCP (Chris Colby) writes:

>For E. Coli's amazing trick which a human can't do, I propose reproduction
>by fission. :-)

	I would mention being able to live in a digestive tract, but
that is partially falsified just by reading t.o. There are clearly
posters on this board who are clearly living with their head inserted
in their rectum 8-) Gee, I hope I haven't invited any lawsuits with
that statement 8-( (I'll refrain from making any comments on how the
"felt effect" of sphincter contraction may be influencing anyones
ability to think or post clearly.)

>Justin M. Sanders         "I can trace my ancestry back to a primordial,
>Dept. of Physics            protoplasmal, atomic globule."
>Kansas State Univ.           --Poo-Bah, in _The_Mikado_, Act I

Chris Colby	email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu
"And will our voices be heard/Or will they break like the wind"
-Spinal Tap
From: bruce@tcom.stc.co.uk (Bruce Munro)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Cold-adaption of the African Elephant
Date: 16 Apr 92 09:53:46 GMT
Organization: BNR Europe, New Southgate, London.

In article <1992Apr15.181050.990@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>
>That's right, I'd forgotten how many elephants died during the trip.  BTW,
>a modern trek was done over the same route by elephants, not too very long
>ago.  I seem to remember that they finally just trucked them over.

Yes, but the problem was that the elephants got sore feet, not cold feet.

-- 
Bruce Munro.  <bruce@tcom.stc.co.uk> || ...!mcsun!ukc!stc!bruce
BNR Europe Ltd, Oakleigh Rd South, London N11 1HB. 
Phone : +44 81 945 2174 or +44 81 945 4000 x2174
"There are no strangers, only friends we don't recognise" - Hank Wangford
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: From the heart!
Organization: DSG, Stanford University
Date: 17 Apr 92 16:50:46 GMT

st0o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Steven Timm) writes:

>On the general question of falsifying a theory:

>It is not necessary for those who falsify the theory to present a new theory
>to take its place.

	True enough! This makes work for scientists :-)

	In the case of Julie Thomas, maybe the problem is that the case
of heart developments is already weak for proof of evolution, because of
the comparative lack of data. There are no fossils. The problem is
for Julie to overgeneralize this into a general problem for evolutonary
theories. Surely she has jumped to this conclusion.

>When we come to the question of hearts, we need to ask, what data would be
>sufficient to falsify the hypothesis "the four-chambered heart developed
>from the simpler hearts of ancestral organisms."  A three-chambered heart
>in chimpanzees would be such evidence.

	As I suggested that some clues to phylogeny might be found in
the developmental anatomy, due to lack of fossils, I knew full well
from having read S. J. Gould's "Phylogeny and Ontogeny", that the
relationship between developmental stages and phylogeny not only
is not one to one "recapitulation", but involves numerious cases
of reversals to "primitive" stages, as well as the appearence of
juvenile stages from ancestral forms. The infant chimpanzee looks
more like the human than the adult, and the human retains features
of the ancestral infant, and is immature at birth and for a comparatively
long time afterward (neotany). So, a simple progression was never in
my mind. The reason the three chambered heart does not appear in
mammals, or does it in the embryo?, is that the trait was established
long before chimpanzees appeared.

>It's not clear that the instances
>being mentioned are enough to falsify the hypothesis.  Perhaps this is 
>because the hypothesis itself is ill-formed.  As long as the space of
>unseen transitional forms is infinite, we can say that the human heart
>did not evolve from that of some earlier one, but we can never disprove them 
>all.

	But as numerous aspects of the anatomy of the ancestors can be
seen, the developmental anatomy is suggestive of some phylogeny, but
this is not the same as seeing the hearts of ancestors.

	If you remember this heart business was thrown up as a challenge
to evolution. Now, as the record is non-existant for fossils and all
we have is the developmental anatomy, we are left with only the weak
and circumstancial evidence for evolution, those by similarity and
development. The modern forms we can compare are all far removed
from the presumed stem ancestors, whose hearts we do not have for
study.

Bruce Salem


>Steve Timm
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Interesting paper
Keywords: Mammals Taxonomy
Date: 10 Apr 92 01:48:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: lynx.9ksj47-
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <83697@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.UUCP (Chris Colby) writes:
>
>	Well that's probably enough flaming of rockhunters ...
>

Yeah, I agree!  From my (shallow) reading of _Dinosaur Tracks_, for
instance, the business of interpreting tracks is full of pitfalls.
(Speaking of tracks, I'm reminded of I think it was an Audubon Field
Guide to Animal Tracks that was one of the neatest books...

However, the misunderstandings between physicists/mathematicians
and biologists that I have heard about are interesting from an office rumor
type standpoint.  In _The Growth of Biological Thought_, Ernst Mayr
gripes about physicists not understanding biology and looking down
on biologists for their lack of mathematical precision; 
He mentioned that it was usually physicists who came up with crackpot
theories about the origins of life, etc.

And on the other hand, my brother the grad student in ecology thinks
that the introduction of mathematics into biology papers (like chaos
theory, etc.) is rather forced, and that biologists have an inferiority
complex in this regard.  I tried to argue with him that mathematics
can be quite useful for modeling purposes and also just to give a fresh
perspective on a problem (the examples I gave him were that of the
mechanics of eyeball movement and fern leaves, drawn from _Chaos_).
I'm not sure if he has changed his mind or not.  He tends to be
holistic in his approach to this biology stuff.

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

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Historical Jesus thread moved to sci.skeptic, talk.religion.misc
Date: 11 Apr 92 06:25:08 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic,talk.religion.misc
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Those interested in this thread may follow it in these two newsgroups.

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: A man shall be judged by the company he keeps
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 9 Apr 92 06:26:08 EST
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <2715@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> In article <1992Apr6.063326.791@desire.wright.edu>, sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>  
>  
>> Let me get this straight?  Is Ted now claiming the 'halocaust' didn't happen?
> 
> 
> Are you really that dense?  I was making an analogy between your own willingness
> to deny ancient history on the basis of your own bullshit interpretations of
> ice cores (i.e. on confusing snow storms with years) and people such as
> Winston who are denying more recent history on the basis of similar flawed
> theory.  
> 

But Teddie, dearest, the snowstorm thing is not viable.  Seems that several
other interesting little things like coral reef growth, ocean cores and 
tree rings AGREE with the ice core dates.  And now I have found yet another
source of correlation, lake bottom cores.  C O R R E L A shon!  Look it up.
Neat word.  Don't think you really understand what it means though.


> Ted HOlden
> 
> -- 
> HTE
> bear

Sue
From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Does theory of evolution affect belief in God?
Date: 8 Apr 92 14:54:27 GMT
Reply-To: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <164@ccscola.Columbia> tmason@ccscola.Columbia
    (Timothy E.  Mason) writes:

>I heard recently (within the last few months) about a study
>published in a respected medical journal (may have been JAMA) about the 
>effects of prayer on patient recovery.
>
>This wasn't a "power of positive thinking study"; volunteers prayed for people
>in the experimental group.  These people had a statistically significant fewer
>number of serious complications than the control group.  The subjects didn't
>know if they were in the experimental or control group.

I just did a medline search on "prayer".  It's possible that the
article to which Tim refers is too recent for me to find, but what I
did find sounds pretty much like what he described:

Byrd, RC (1988). "Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer
     in a Coronary Care Unit Population", South Med J, 81(7):826-829.

The abstract claims that there were no significant differences between
the prayed for and not prayed for groups going into the study, but
significantly fewer medical complications in the prayed for group
during the study.  The abstract explicitly states that it was the
Judeo-Christian God that was prayed to, but no other Gods were
apparently prayed to as controls...  I'll leave conclusions to
interested readers.

>Tim Mason
>Tim.Mason@ccscola.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: Buttercup mammoth
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 13:59:47 GMT

In article <#ddHtqzh6@cs.psu.edu>, kiledal@lisp.cs.psu.edu (Erik Kiledal)
writes:
> A wonderful example of the rash conclusions made about the cold-adaptation
> that for some reason (it fits the model?) have gotten stuck. As I have 
> written in a number of postings, careful examinations of the mammoths have
> revealed that they were not able to withstand cold conditions. I still 
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> have not seen anybody disprove this. 
> 
> -Erik

   Ooops!  What you have shown is that many of the physical characteristics
put forth as cold adaptation are shared by tropical cousins of the mammoth
and by tropical animals.  This is _not_ equivalent to showing the mammoth 
couldn't withstand cold conditions.  In fact if the mammoth were a recent
immigrant or if the climate had changed one would expect poor adaptation
and characteristics like those in the warmer weather versions.

   In fact the proposed method of demise for this now extinct spiecies 
offered in a reference from Sue Bishop is that it dies of cold and lack of 
fodder.  This is consistent with the mammoth being somewht maladapted to
cold weather, no?

   Again: did the matrix indicate anything about the climate?

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
From: cjhs@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: wallabies
Date: 6 Apr 92 10:45:14 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

To put my skeptical boot on the other foot, I also have a query about
the wallaby business. I am surprised that sixty years is enough for a
new species to arise in this way. Unfortunately, I don't have access
to the original papers. (I think the reference given was to Science
Digest -- not in our library.) Has anyone attempted to interbreed the
Hawaiian wallaby with the original source stock?

Thanks -- Chris Ho-Stuart
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll)
Subject: A Species of My Own (was Re: Is it my imagination, or . . .)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 18:37:15 GMT

In article <1992Apr5.091255.785@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>In article <0jmj2vg@lynx.unm.edu>, rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:
>> 
>> Hmmm...should we classify you as a Megaomnivore? :)
>>                                                  ^^
>>                                             Note!^^ the Smileys :)
>
>Yeah!  That's it!  Wow, my *own* classification..... I'm honored...

	Hmmm. A species is a biological group which is reproductively
(for whatever reasons) isolated, right? Does this mean that people who
fail to reproduce are forming short lived species, if the failure is 
because of social differences? Geez, if I play my cards right, I could
be H.S.jamesnicoll... 

							James Nicoll
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: Does theory of evolution affect belief in God?
Organization: DSG, Stanford University
Date:  9 Apr 92 22:44:28 GMT

brinkman@edseq4.llnl.gov writes:

>   Fine.  Now would you care to provide any evidence that Joseph Cambell's
>criticisms in this regard are correct?  I agree they are nice "this could be
>the case for these reasons" stories, but I would like evidence that this is
>indeed the case (i.e., that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are primary
>causes of bogotry).

	Why don't you go read Campbell? I have posted quotes from a
couple of places: The two books based on television lectures and
interviews "Transformations of Myth Through Time", and "The Power
of Myth", and go read "Masks of God". I'll let you decide if they are
correct. You may post rebuttals to what he says.

	My assertion is not that everyone who practices religion from
our tradition is bigoted, it is only that certian key sets of values
in our tradition leads directly to Creationism as a uniquely Western
response to science. See my last article for a discussion of these
tendencies.

Bruce Salem
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Noah and his lil' ark (Answer to David, Qs to Kent).
Date: 6 Apr 92 23:16:38 GMT
Organization: MacDTS Mongols

In article <+58Hcpfc6@cs.psu.edu>, kiledal@lisp.cs.psu.edu (Erik Kiledal)
writes:
> 
> Kent:
> >I think the other person had a wrong idea about the concept of an 'open
> >mind'.
> 
> I wonder what the concept 'open mind' means to you? Does it include the
> ability to consider the existence of a god? Does it include the ability
> to accept that we (human beings) may not be able to understand everything 
> about the Universe ('the Universe' here also includes a possibly existing 
> god)? I'm not sure what it means to me, but I would have a problem with
> a person saying he has an open mind and at the same time with certainty
> says that 'God does not exist'  because 'we have no evidence for this'
> or because 'we can explain (if not now, then eventually) everything 
> without the concept of a God'. Rather, I would call such a person a fool.

Yes, it comprised all these possibilities, including the issue that 
the Christian God is based on a nomad-oriented cult of Jahweh. I am not
taking any positions concerning the existence of a God, mostly because
there's no evidence that supports this claim or not.

I have never stated that God does not exist, I have stated that we don't
have any decent material to work with. This is the reason I'm still
keeping my eyes open, compared with others that have already selected
their views, which I would call closing the mind forever. I call
such people close-minded, ruled by cultural or social pressure, and
not by their own mind.

The person who wrote about Noah's ark never mentioned the skeptical
issues of finding wood everywhere on the mountain. Add to that many
reports about the findings of the lost ark, especially in a mountain
that was named long time *after* the 'flood', and one has a fairly
good description of a person with a closed mind.

Cheers,
Kent
Newsgroups: talk.origins