HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: In case Bales has convinced you of his honesty...
Date: 18 Nov 92 05:02:49 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <7630@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM>, bobb@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Robert W Bales) writes:
|> 
|> Reality check III:
|>
|> >He hasn't covered a LOT of recent items (like "how do 5 isochrons give the
|> >same date", "how does argon get INTO an object in vacuum", "what is the
|> >evidence for an old universe that you keep mentioning" and more.
|>
|> On about Septeber 24, I posted a refutation of a number of items in Jim's
|> list, including *specifically* the above.  If Jim responded, I didn't see
|> the response.  He may not have seen my ~Sept. 24 article.  If he didn't, I
|> will be glad to repost it.  In any case, the assertion above is flat wrong.

No, you did not!

I was prepared to stay out of this business of Mr Bales telling lies or
not telling lies, but this is a bit much.

Mr Bales was asked to explain the congruence of multiple instances of
isochrons, and he *failed* to do so.   He posted his usual stuff about
how there might be other processes at work that we don't fully understand,
but he did not make the slightest attempt to show how, in that case,
five isochrons could coincide.

As soon as I saw that, I posted a request that he try to actually
answer the question.   I even asked him to spell out what processes
he had in mind, and how they could cause five isochrons to coincide.

As usual, he simply went to earth, and ignored the posting.   Now he is 
claiming he "refuted" "*specifically* the above".   This isn't just a 
wild claim.     This is an attempt to claim credit for something he 
has not done, even after being challenged and being asked explicitly 
to do it.


jon.
From: amorgan@csd-d-4.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: Would you believe anyway ???
Originator: amorgan@csd-d-4.Stanford.EDU
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organizatoin
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 17:29:28 GMT

In article <D0kDuB1w165w@kalki33> kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us writes:
>esot@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Sotnak) writes:
>
>> Besides, like many others, I've gone through the sincere questing and come
>> up empty.
>
>It is not possible that your quest was both sincere and unsuccessful.

I love this.  This is like the witch doctor (or Christian Scientist)
saying "Have faith and you will be healed".  If you aren't healed you
just didn't have enough faith.  Foolish you.  This is like someone
saying that all Christians are moral and when we offer evidence to
the contrary (several Popes, the inquisition, etc) they say "Well,
those aren't *true* Christians".  Proof by rotating definition.  How
exciting.

C Frog
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: More (verbal) Flooding of "the" flood
Date: 19 Nov 1992 18:05:00 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Nov19.172101.23598@news.nd.edu>, scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (scharle) writes:
>
>     Does any Biblical literalist have a brief outline (or even
> better, a detailed one) of world history of ancient times (say, 
> before 2000 BCE) which takes account of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, 
> Europe (like Stonehenge) or the Americas?  I'd suppose that there
> would have to be a story about what got done before the Flood and 
> what after.

Well, a while back, Mr Tun told us that it was easy to give 
a logical explanation of the fossil record on a Flood model,
so I suppose he must know something about things like that.

Unfortunately, he seemed to get very busy just after making 
that claim, and I haven't been able to attract his attention
since.

jon.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
From: skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 22:07:16 GMT
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us writes:
>TMakinen writes:
>> The theory contains not much information. The solutions contain huge or
>> infinite amount of information. Meditate the quantum field theory to enlighte
>> yourself about the difference between the theory and the solutions.
>
>Yes, the solutions have high information content, and this is because
>the initial conditions or the boundary conditions have high information
>content.

Then what's the information content of a Mandelbrot set?

> These conditions are not part of the laws themselves, but must
>be stated explicitly. There must be a source of information to draw from
>in order for a system of low "order" to appear to "evolve" to a system
>of high "order. In the absence of laws with high information content,
>that source must be the boundary or the initial state. This is standard
>statistical mechanics, isn't it?
>Kalki Dasa


|======================================================================|
| Seth Kroger                       "If God made us in His image we    |
| skroger@pan.calpoly.edu               have certianly returned the    |
| Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo             compliment."  -Voltaire        |
Newsgroups: talk.origins,comp.ai.philosophy
From: lang@cs.tulane.edu (Raymond Lang)
Subject: Re: Life is Information
Nntp-Posting-Host-[nntpd-5662]: babylon
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 18:22:44 GMT


In article <1992Nov23.170020.18787@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>, rsprice@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Steve Price) writes:
> 
> In this sense, every human being is constantly processing stagering amounts
> of information, whether awake or asleep, conscious or unconscious, clever or
> foolish, intelligent or clinically retarded.  To breathe, see, smell, walk,
> grasp (anything in any sense of the word), grow hair, metabolize food, or even 
> to die and decay involves literally mind-boggling amounts of information 
> exchanged between an all most infinite set of complex systems ranging from the
> subatomic and quantum to the macro and cosmic scale.  

Seems to me this implies a much broader meaning of the term
"information" than is usual.  I may have missed it earlier in
this thread, but what exactly are you talking about when you
say "information"?  In the sense used above, it seems as if
it could be almost anything, in which case the term, and thus
the original claim that "Life is Information" are both vacuous.

Ray Lang
lang@cs.tulane.edu


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: btd@iastate.edu (Benjamin T Dehner)
Subject: Re: Laying a trap
Keywords: Computer program, random, mutation, chess
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 17:34:18 GMT

In <1992Nov18.133247.8546@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:

>I would like to pose a couple of questions and gauge the
>reactions of evolutionists (and creationists if any are
>reading). As computer programs are flavour of the month..

	Um, first of all, the two scenarios you post below are not
equivalent.  I'll get to why in a second.

>1
>Lets say there is a computer program which `knows' the
>legal moves of chess - lets call it ChessMover.
>ChessMover plays very poor chess because its moves are
>made at random. But it does play very fast. ChessMover
>is small, compact and extremely efficient. But it plays
>bad chess because it has not been designed with any
>chess playing algorithms at all.

>Would it be possible to subject ChessMover to random
>mutations, so that eventually you evolve ChessPlayer,
>a chess program which plays very well, say at master
>level?

	If you simply do random mutations, no.  There is no reason
for it to get better.  IF, however, if you have all mutated chess programs
play against each other, and kill off all of the ones that lose a lot,
the 'winning' algorithm will survive to perhaps mutate into a more winning
algorithm.

>2
>For those of you who are not game fans, but more business
>oriented:
>Consider a spreadsheet program such as Lotus123 or
>QuattroPro. Lets say you have a small calculator program,
>like the toy ones which pop up in some windowing front
>ends. Would it be possible to apply random mutations to
>Calculator until it evolves into Spreadsheet?

	This is not equivalent to the above: what is the driving force
behind the change?  How do you kill off 'unsuccessful' spreadsheet
programs?  In the chess example, there was a simple rule: win or die.
In this one, however, there is no rule of success, unless you already
have some pre-existing model of a spreadsheet that you measure things
to.  

>Please note, both Calculator and ChessMover are small (by
>today's standard) programs, lets say about 2 to 4K for the
>executable. Shreadsheet and ChessPlayer must obviously be
>of a more substantial size (I can't remember how big Lotus
>is). If you like, you can randomly modify the source code
>and compiler, rather than the executables, if you think this
>will make it less brittle. Random modification includes of
>course random additions. You might prefer the source code
>approach as the compiler will reject programs which will
>not even compile, let alone run. If you wish to modify
>the compiler, you can keep a copy of the old compiler to 
>compile it with.

>--
>Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
>Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin T. Dehner    Dept. of Physics and Astronomy 
btd@iastate.edu       Iowa State University 
                      Ames, IA 50011

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: bseymour@encore.com (Burch Seymour)
Subject: Re: Laying a trap
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 15:56:12 GMT
Keywords: Computer program, random, mutation, chess

lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:

>Would it be possible to subject ChessMover to random
>mutations, so that eventually you evolve ChessPlayer,
>a chess program which plays very well, say at master
>level?

Not likely, as that isn't how evolution works.
What (I think) you are describing is this:

try->mutate->try->mutate->try->mutate (etc,etc)

Evolution works as a massively parallel operation with cross sharing
of information. If a mutation on one individual is *really bad*, that
individual dies and the trait is gone. If one individual happens upon
a *really good* mutation, then assuming that individual succeeds in
reproduction, that trait now has a chance of entering the common
gene pool.

You program analogy fails to provide mechanisms for the following:

 1) Environmental pressure to build better programs. 
 2) A mechanism for keeping advantageous mutations and discarding
    detrimental mutations.
 3) A mechanism for producing various combinations of the known,
    working, bits of code.
 4) A method of doing this experiment in parallel with large numbers
    of sites.

-bs-
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna Watson)
Subject: Re: More (verbal) Flooding of "the" flood
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 19:36:04 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.125525.18902@news.nd.edu> scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (scharle) writes:
> 
>    Which brings to mind a characterization of an Italian opera
>which a mathematician told me -- "it's locally consistent".  That 
>seems to me the best that I can say about any Flood history, but 
>the Flood histories don't have any redeeming musical value.

Don't tell my kids that.  They are rather fond of such great works :)
as "Rise and Shine", "Who Built the Ark" and "40 Days of Rain, Rain,
Rain".  (BTW, I do not teach them that there was a literal global
flood, but we can still enjoy the story.)

-- 
Seanna Watson   Bell-Northern Research, 
(seanna@bnr.ca) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Opinions, what opinions?  Oh *these* opinions. | Occam's razor split 
No, they're not BNR's, they're mine.           | hairs so well, I bought 
I knew I'd left them somewhere.                | the whole argument.


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Date: 18 Nov 92 23:50:46 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe)

In article <1992Nov18.172641.11437@nmsu.edu>, sdoe@nmsu (Stephen Doe) writes:
>>> >> >Read the book.

>>> >Read the book.

>>> Is this your new chant?

>>We think you're a chicken, bwak, bwak, bwak! Come on, you yellow-bellied
>>pseudo scientist. Put up them dukes! Awwww, does duh poor baby want
>>momma to take away dat nasty pwoof? Awwww, don't cwy, baby! Momma will
>>make dem nasty cweationists all go away. Den baby can have his bottle!

>Steve "I can't wait to see Matthew flame this guy" Doe

       -------------------------------------------------------
      |  Don't forget to chant:   Hairy Chicken Hairy Chicken |
      |                           Chicken Chicken Hairy Hairy |
      |                           Awww Bwak Awww Bwak         |
      |                           Bwak Bwak Awww Bwak         |
      |                                                       |
      |   Kooki's Infoless BBS Aiken, South Chickolina, USA   |
      |        (kooki33!kooki@lakes.trenton.sc.us)            |
       -------------------------------------------------------
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
From: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Kalki on speed.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 05:10:25 EST
Reply-To: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Organization: Kalki's Infoline BBS, Aiken, SC, USA

danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:

>    Well, I sucessfully invalidated Kalki's proof (that
> evolution is too improbable) without seeing it; the flaw is
> the lack (anywhere) of any model of abiogenisis or any
> estimate of the computational power of evoltuion.  Kalki
> _agreed_ that there are no models for these things, and
> then went on to attack all of evolution because we couldn't
> model these quantites.
> 
>    So Kalki claimed evidence for a creationist position,
> admitted he was lying, and then went on to degenerate into
> stupid, ignorant attacks on evolution based on complete
> ignorance of the subject and science in general.
> 
>    An he did it in RECORD TIME!!!!
> 
>    Therefore, by the powers granted me by the State of Intoxication 
> I award delusion to myself in the name of my false ego and all that it
> surveys.

Congratulations on your medal.

Sincerely,
Kalki "the evolutionist's nightmare" Dasa


       -------------------------------------------------------
      |  Don't forget to chant:   Hare Krishna Hare Krishna   |
      |                           Krishna Krishna Hare Hare   |
      |                           Hare Rama Hare Rama         |
      |                           Rama Rama Hare Hare         |
      |                                                       |
      |   Kalki's Infoline BBS Aiken, South Carolina, USA     |
      |        (kalki33!kalki@lakes.trenton.sc.us)            |
       -------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Date: 17 Nov 92 20:25:08 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Not that I think anyone will be confused, but 
">> >" was Hugh (aka the Kalkinator), and 
">>"  was me in the text quoted below.

In article <owNDuB9w165w@kalki33> kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us writes:

>"Mass" is not a substance either, but a quantitative measurement of a
>physical system. We have conservation of mass, and we have conservation
>of information. What is the difficulty?

I'm going to leave this to others more capable in this area, but in
short the difficulty is that you don't know what you're talking about.
I'll try to give you one thing to chew on, though...  We once had
another creationist here (Jim Brown, perhaps ?) who felt that the
genome of any animal that contained a mutation which caused said
animal to look or act in an abnormal fashion had less information than
the genome of an animal without that mutation.  By any useful
understanding of what the word "information" might mean, this is
false, but I suspect that you would have agreed with that other
individual.  Am I correct?  (i.e. do you think that any mutation that
makes say, a dog less dog-like constitutes a reduction of information
in some absolute sense?)

>> >In spite of the fact that the laws of physics are very simple, and in
>> >spite of the fact that scientists can not even begin to precisely
>> >specify any set of initial conditions for the origin of life,
>> >nevertheless, simply because they want to believe it, they claim that
>> >"in principle" there is such a set of initial conditions that will turn
>> >lifeless matter into living organisms in a certain period of time.
>> 
>> Please point to two scientists that claim this and please include
>> documentation that the claim is made for the reason you cite, or
>> retract your strawman.  A failure on your part to do either will gain
>> me a lot of credit on the talk.origins home game...
>
>James Watson in The Molecular Biology of the Gene, p. 54, which was
>quoted in another post.

Although Watson in a typical fit of hubris claimed absolute certainty
that current life can be explained entirely by physical chemistry, he
did not address abiogenesis in the quotes you posted.  Furthermore
there was nothing in the posted quote which indicated that Watson's
hubris came about because he "wanted to believe" what he said.

>John Slater in Quantum Theory of Molecules and Solids, Vol. 1, p.
>vii.

I'm writing this down, but I can't guarantee I'll get around to
looking it up.  To save me the potential trouble, could you double
check to see that it at least meets the requirements which I spelled
out for you before (since you didn't seem to be too careful in the
prior case)?

>Kalki Dasa

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)

P.S.  I don't know about anyone else, but quite frankly (regardless of
whether or not the quotes could be thought supportive of the Kalkster)
I was somewhat embarrassed by Watson's quotes.  With "friends" like
that, it's no wonder that we have "enemies" like creationists :-(
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: young@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (young.u.huh)
Subject: Re: Request Information for Young Earth
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 18:40:42 GMT

From article <1992Nov20.001225.9301@cbnewsh.cb.att.com>, by tsc@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (tong.s.chen):
>
>According to the biblical dating, the earth should only be 6,000 to 10,000
>years old, not millions or even billions years old.  Can someone kindly
>supply me a copy on some scientific (or non-biblical based) arguments for
>young earth.

If you are looking for scientific arguments, read science books.
Encyclopedias contain articles on topics such as cosmology, 
universe, geology, etc.  "A Brief History of Time" by physicist 
Stephen Hawking is an excellent book.  

However, if you are looking for arguments to reassure yourself 
of what you already believe in, you have apparently found one 
such book already.  If you need more reassurance, keep reading 
it, read other books that support its claims, talk to people who 
believe in it, and attend their meetings.

Young Huh
yhuh@ihlpe.att.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: Random Chess Moves
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 22:04:48 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.153354.21581@asl.dl.nec.com> 
  duffy@aslss02.asl.dl.nec.com (Joseph Duffy) writes:
>
>The trouble with this analogy is that it overlooks the external influence
>of an intelligent source. If programs and computers are making improvements
>using trial and error coupled with randomness ... well you said it yourself
>above, these are within *programmed* constraints, so the outcome is
>intelligently bounded.

Not really.  In this case the programmer is the universe.  The universe
lets some things happen and not others.  It sets constraints (physical
law) and lets things run within those constraints.  Organisms are like
the program.  You could make the argument that this means the universe
has a creator, let us ignore that for right now.  The important thing
is, IMHO, the program-organism analogy shows that random mutations can
be beneficial.

C Frog
>Joe
From: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 14:19:09 EST
Reply-To: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Organization: Kalki's Infoline BBS, Aiken, SC, USA

kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:

> > Read the book.
> 
>    I think you're starting to push your luck, Kalki.  You complain
> about evolutionists posting "grafitti" and hate-filled messages 
> while you keep repeating "read the book" about a book that is only
> available from your institute?  I see asbestos in your future.

Yeah, gee it's strange that these so-called "scientists" won't go out of
their way to acquire something that disputes their cherished dream of
being right.

Sincerely,
Kalki "and the ancients thought that maggots were made from meat" Dasa


       -------------------------------------------------------
      |  Don't forget to chant:   Hare Krishna Hare Krishna   |
      |                           Krishna Krishna Hare Hare   |
      |                           Hare Rama Hare Rama         |
      |                           Rama Rama Hare Hare         |
      |                                                       |
      |   Kalki's Infoline BBS Aiken, South Carolina, USA     |
      |        (kalki33!kalki@lakes.trenton.sc.us)            |
       -------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: tsc@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (tong.s.chen)
Subject: Request Information for Young Earth
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 00:12:25 GMT
Keywords: Young Earth


According to the biblical dating, the earth should only be 6,000 to 10,000
years old, not millions or even billions years old.  Can someone kindly
supply me a copy on some scientific (or non-biblical based) arguments for
young earth.

Also can someone please share with me the following information:
1.  some detail about the archaeological dating techniques (e.g. carbon dating),
2.  the assumptions made when using these techniques, and
3.  possible problems with these techniques.

Please send me via e-mail to "tsc@mtnet1.att.com".

Thank you very much!

Tong Chen
tsc@mtnet1.att.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins