HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: lophophore relationships
Date: 7 Oct 92 20:36:48 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <97817@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
|
|This is a cladistic analysis based on morphological data. They give
|"Ciliated feeding tentacles derived from mesosome and containing
|extensions of the mesocoel"

This is, in essence, the definition of a lophophore.
And it is generally considered a fairly strong derived character, since
the other known instances of feeding tentacles lack these defining
characters.

|This isn't my field, so I'm just reporting this. Overall, I thought
|some of the characters they used in their cladogram (that encompasses
|most invert phyla (except pseudocoelomates which they claim are not
|a clade but all independently derived)) were sort of suspect. But,
|what the hell do I know?

In general, the features available for comparing the various invertebrate
groups above the phylum level are rather sparse, and thus any analysis
at that level, cladistic or not, tends to grasp at anything that can be
found.

I suspect that only genetic analysis will really answer the question of
the origins of the vaious phyla in any conclusive way.

I, too, am suspicious of the cladogram, since they seem to fail to address
some feature shared between the chordate phyla and echinoderms that are
*not* found in the lophophorate phyla.  (For one thing the lophophorates
are not exactly proper deuterostomes in terms of ontogeny - that is the
origin of the mouth and anus do not follow the pattern seen in chordates
and echinoderms, though they do not originate in the classic protostome
pattern either - rather they show an intermediate condition).

|REFERENCE:
|Brusca and Brusca, 1990, Invertebrates, Sinaeur, Sunderland, Mass
|
|This is (IMHO) a cool book. The stuff about torted and untorted
|gastropods just screams to be included in any list great examples
|of "jury-rigged" design. 
|
Oh, hey, your right!  Gastropod anatomy is bizarre!  And often confusing.


-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: klein@frith.egr.msu.edu (Jeffrey Klein)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Applauses to Ted
Date: 8 Oct 92 17:39:48 GMT
Organization: Michigan State University College of Stunt Piloting

In article <1992Oct8.162854.1281@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> amorgan@csd-d-5.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog) writes:
>
>All we need is an Earth with twice the radius and the surface gravity
>is only 25% of what it is now.  Are you listening Ted?

Aha!  Another proponent of the Once-Hollow Earth Theory(tm)!
(Not to be confused with the Church of Last Wednesdayism.)

-- 
Jeff Klein             | "Happily, Ral doffs his outer clothing for a
Browsing Boy of the LNH|  refreshing dip in one of the dangerous 
klein@frith.egr.msu.edu|  chemical vats." - Ty Templeton 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: twalters@world.std.com (Tim Walters)
Subject: Re: Uneven felt gravity
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 02:11:47 GMT

In article <57@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>In article <BvMHJE.n0w@world.std.com>, twalters@world.std.com (Tim Walters) writes:
>
>> Ok then, according to the theory of a reduced felt effect of gravity
>> that you seem to believe in, would it be possible to say which areas
>> of the earth had reduced gravity and which did not?
>
>In the age when the really big sauropods lived, all the land had reduced
>perceived gravity (since it was all pulled up into one place, i.e. under
>the small electromag star we then orbitted, and the majority of the water
>did not.  The southern hemisphere was pretty wet.

What exactly do you mean by "pulled up into one place"? Pangaea was
huge, and certainly covered most of a hemisphere. How could it be in
"one place"?
-- 
Tim Walters	twalters@world.std.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: a brief tirade
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 04:50:42 GMT



jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) writes:
>        Almost as good as a scientific theory, with the added flavor that
>a noted theologian has put a label on it saying "Biblically Acceptable"?

I prefer "Theologically Correct".	:-)

Keith


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ran@cbnews.cb.att.com (Robert A. Neinast)
Subject: Re: New Evidence for Creation! NOT!!
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 13:14:22 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.104808.202988@uctvax.uct.ac.za>, watkins@uctvax.uct.ac.za writes:
> I rather enjoyed Robert's humourous post (at the expense of creationists). It
> was good satire highlighting the scientific naivity of some creationists, and
> .  .  .
> creationists, some of the responses have highlighted a different fault amongst
> some anti-creationists - the inability to detect humour in the absence of a
> smilie.

> To Dan, and others who gave a similar knee-jerk reaction to Robert's post,
> as much as scientific naivity is a dissadvantage to creationists, so too is
> humour-impairment to scientific endeavour.


I must come to the defense of Daniel Ashlock here.  One thing about
a good satire (or even only a half-decent satire) of many creationist
arguments is that it often really is indistinguishable from the
real thing.  We only have to look at the original
decaying-speed-of-light (Sedgefield???) article, or the postings
of the likes of Bales, Tun, etc. to realize that they write
"satire" a thousand times better (except, as far as I can tell,
they really are serious).

Dan is certainly not humor-impaired.  He found it just as funny
as the next person.  It's just that in his case, we all got to
see the realization dawn;  most others had it happen in private.

Regards,
Bob
-- 
                                                                  _
". . . and shun the frumious Bandersnatch."                 Nipetlahuini.
Robert Neinast (ran@cblpo.att.com)
AT&T-Bell Labs
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: christ
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 7 Oct 92 18:03:19 EST
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <pockling.718400445@sfu.ca>, pockling@fraser.sfu.ca (richard pocklington) writes:
> 	At a rescent talk given by John Maynard Smith here at Simon 
> Fraser University in British Columbia, it was mentioned that there has been only one 
> recorded incident of parthenogenesis in mammals.  Most of the audience
> didn't understand what he meant, but I admit to giggling.  If you think
> a bit, you may see why.  Mary (a female) may have given birth to a child
> without ever having sex, this is possible (although i\unlikely in mammals due so
> imprinting genes) however, the progeny of a parthenogfenic birth are always
> female.  So how about that, not only do we have scientific evidence that virgin birth can happen, but if it does, the only rational result is that christ was a woman.
> 
> 	Richard Pocklington
> 

So THAT'S why he never married!  And hung around with all those cute
apostles......   ;-)

Sue
From: robd@cherry09.cray.com (Robert Derrick)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: New Evidence for Creation! NOT!!
Date: 7 Oct 92 15:43:51 GMT
Distribution: na
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Robert A. Neinast (ran@cbnews.cb.att.com) wrote:
: 
: I must come to the defense of Daniel Ashlock here.  One thing about
: a good satire (or even only a half-decent satire) of many creationist
: arguments is that it often really is indistinguishable from the
: real thing.

One detail, Robert, that did distinguish your most excellant satire
from the "real thing", and why I kept silent and watched the the
others go into a brief feeding frenzy was a characteristic it had
that is completely missing from almost all other creationist
arguments -- It Was Original.  It was new and different.  The
same criteria could have been applied to the recent "cotera"
invasion.  We could be certain it was "real" because of its
complete lack of innovation.

Theistic Anti-Evolution is like a style of music.  You don't
recognize it so much for its newness, but rather for its
repetition.

Anyway, when I read "cotera", I gave it a 90% chance of being real.
Later "cotera"'s pushed up to 99%.

Yours, I immediately gave about 10%.  Because it was so well done -- it
could have been real -- worse, it may someday be real, but we will
all know, we heard it here first.

I think that your piece was very much needed, because sometimes
we tend to lose all restraint, and to shoot at anything that moves.

In this case, it was a trap shoot, and we were the pigeons.

--

rob derrick				robd@cherry.cray.com
From: markwc@barney.esl.com (Mark Christiansen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Applauses to Ted
Date: 9 Oct 92 16:50:52 GMT
Organization: ESL Inc., Sunnyvale, CA

In article <1992Oct8.173948.15843@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
klein@frith.egr.msu.edu (Jeffrey Klein) writes:
>
>In article <1992Oct8.162854.1281@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
>amorgan@csd-d-5.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog) writes:
>>
>>All we need is an Earth with twice the radius and the surface gravity
>>is only 25% of what it is now.  Are you listening Ted?
>
>Aha!  Another proponent of the Once-Hollow Earth Theory(tm)!
>(Not to be confused with the Church of Last Wednesdayism.)

Why does the Earth have to be hollow for it to be larger?

Mark
-- 
   We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
   -- Wernher von Braun
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: pi=3 (was Re: Abuse By t.o Regulars)
Date: 14 Oct 92 22:06:22 GMT
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks

In article <1992Oct14.154046.21572@athena.mit.edu>, lking@athena.mit.edu (Loren
King) writes:
> Gascan@dcst16.dc (Bill Gascoyne) writes:
>  
> >In article 833@trl.oz.au, jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy) writes:
>> Pi is not defined as the ratio of circumference to diameter. If it were,
>> a great deal of physical laws where it enters would be false. Nice try,
>> Morgan, but pull the other one.
>> 
>>> *Drop* the other one, please.  Enlighten us ignorant heathens.  If pi is
not
>>> defined by the ratio of circumference to diameter, by what is it defined?
>>> (Note that this is a sincere question, since I have for many years been
under
>>> the delusion that pi is defined by the ratio of circumference to diameter
>>> of a Euclidian circle.
> 
> Pi can also be defined as the sum of a convergent series (I don't
> recall off-hand what the series is, however).  Wouldn't this get
> around the problem of a geometric definition?

  Nope.  The series is based on the trigonometric functions, which in turn are
based on the metric over RxR, which is another way of saying they are based on
geometry.

BTW, the sequence is 4-(4/3)+(4/5)-(4/7)+ . . . which is 4arctan(1).

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: Water Sorting
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 12:00:41 GMT

In article <0+4-QK+@engin.umich.edu> ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles) writes:
> One might almost suspect that you were avoiding issues. In fact, I so
>assert. Lionel is avoiding these issues. You can easily prove me wrong,
>Lionel; and if you do, I will offer a public and abject apology. The
>way to prove me wrong is to respond to this post in a point-by-point
>manner, giving a brif overview of why these above issues and points are
>unfounded. I won't hold my breath.

Please, Ray, give him an opportunity to respond to my request that he
classify _Australopithecus afarensis_ unambiguously as either an ape or
a human with reference to various parts of the skeleton.

-- Herb Huston
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: sbradley@scic.intel.com (Seth Bradley)
Subject: Re: 350 lb super-athlete goat?
Organization: Intel SCIC, Beaverton, OR
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 04:29:14 GMT

In article <65@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>But that's not what I was talking about at all, and the entire subject of
>gorillas, which are omniverous and, I assume mostly fruit eaters, is 
>irrelevant here.  
How would you classify Kaz?

>So, as a fair contrast, I'm asking the t.o crew to show me an example of
>a creature which is roughly Kaz' size, which is also low on the food chain
>(which leaves out gorillas, big cats, and all other such contenders), and
>which can lift 2000 lbs.
No problem, as soon as Kaz starts eating nothing but leaves.  This is not
only relevant, but critical.  One must make comparisons of like vs. like.
All the strong herbivores are quite large, to my knowledge (starting with
hippos and rhinos, though a draft horse is no slouch, as its capable of
pulling enormous loads).  A far fairer situation would be to see how much
a rino could lift (though I'm sure no one has measured it) and then try
some scaling, though even that would be completely ignoring structural
differences.

-- 
Seth J. Bradley, Senior System Administrator, Intel SCIC
Internet: sbradley@scic.intel.com   UUCP: uunet!scic.intel.com!sbradley
----------------------------------------
"A system admin's life is a sorry one.  The only advantage he has over
Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare.  On the other
hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing new versions
of their own innards!"  -Michael O'Brien
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Further Clarification
Date: 16 Oct 92 21:03:12 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct16.172524.2809@hsr.no>, onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam) writes:
|> >|> 
|> >|> Why hasn't life evolved many times on earth? ( maybe it has, but there is no
|> >|> evidence supporting it as I know of.)
|> >
|> >One answer is that the existing forms of life would compete
|> >with it, or even use it as food.
|> >
|> >[Mind you, it doesn't take 108 lines to say that]
|> >
|> >jon.
|> 
|> You got the idea, only that this was not my main point. I was defending my
|> earlier statement that life is tending towards greater complexity.

That is a fairly arrogant statement, Mr Aan.    Yes, I "got" 
the idea, but I didn't get it from reading your stuff.   People
were writing about this decades ago.

As it happens, I don't think that this simple notion has the
least thing to do with any idea of "life is tending towards 
greater complexity".   All it says is that the *first* time 
life appears, it has no competitors, and so it can be as
inefficient, have as slow a metabolism, etc, as it likes.
If a completely new form of life appears subsequently, it
has to compete for nutrients... etc with forms of life that
have already established themselves, and which probably win.
Nothing directly to do with a tendency to greater complexity.

For your idea that life tends to greater complexity.  Maybe
you should get around to giving us a definition or two.

"I think most people have a reasonable intuitive understanding 
of what progress is"    Is there any topic people *don't* have 
an intuition about, but do they agree?

Or complexity "the number of less complex topics upon which it 
is based" which is not only a bizarre definition but also self-
referential: to grock complexity you first have to appeal to
"less complex" and also "on which it is based".

Like your original claims about micro- and macro- evolution, 
this definition seems to contain a hidden assumption.  And 
that assumption - that things contain their predecessors, and
inherit some kind of 'complexity metric' from them - drives 
the definition.   Make that assumption explicit and of course
one wants to ask "How do you know things contain their 
predecessors?" and "How do you get their predecessors' 
complexity metric before defining complexity?"

jon.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Why is it bad science?
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 04:29:58 GMT


livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>Another example is the "could have" speculation.   God "could have"
>created the light from distant stars in flight.   God "could have"
>create the fossil record in place.    Nice speculation, but nothing,
>so far, to do with Science.   What's worse is that when you say to
>Creationists "Fine, now explore the implications of this nice
>speculation" they fall silent, until they dredge it up again.

No, "could have" is not what is wrong with light from distant
stars in flight, what is wrong with that idea is it is not
falsifiable.  There is no possible evidence that could ever be
discovered that could disprove such an assertion.  The universe
"could have" been created ex-nihlo on last Tuesday, but again,
"could have" is not what is wrong with that idea.

The tentative school of science would say that evolution
"could have" caused the diversity we see in the fossil record
and flora and fauna of this planet, and that "could have" is
as far as we ever get.  The difference is, that there could be
evidence that would disprove this assertion, but no such
falsifying evidence has been found, giving support to the
idea that "could have" is "did" in this instance.

Keith

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: gmartin@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (George Martin)
Subject: Re: 350 lb super-athlete goat?
Summary: What do gorillas eat?
Organization: NRAO
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 03:59:10 GMT

In article <65@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
  [stuff deleted]
>So, as a fair contrast, I'm asking the t.o crew to show me an example of
>a creature which is roughly Kaz' size, which is also low on the food chain
>(which leaves out gorillas, big cats, and all other such contenders), and
                   ^^^^^^^^
>which can lift 2000 lbs.

I could be wrong of course but I thought that gorillas were primarily
eaters of vegatation.  They are certainly not predators; they are not
a prey species either.  So where would one put them in the food chain?

So depending on one's point of view a gorilla could be low in the
chain, high in the chain, or not in the chain at all.

Then there was the great chain of being.
-- 
George Martin
Systems Analyst                     NRAO/VLA                  Socorro NM
Internet: gmartin@something.aoc.nrao.edu
"Skating away on the thin ice of the new day."  (Ian Anderson)
From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Chimps and Humans
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Oct  1 1992
Date: 09 Oct 92  09:55:46

Tag: Mark Isaak (isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak))
And: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
 
AS> At least I'm not related to chimpanzees.
 
MI> "A serious question for Antti and any other Creationists who
MI> feel like he does: What do you feel would be wrong with being
MI> related to chimpanzees? Please note: I'm not asking why you
MI> think you aren't related; I'm asking why, if you were, what
MI> would be so bad."
 
Yes. Having the relatives over for Thanksgiving dinner:
 
Human:     "Say, Ungh, have some gravy with that?"
Ungh:      "Ugh! Thuhhhh thumm urghah MORE BANANA!"
Human:     "Okay, and you Mrs. Ungh?"
Mrs. Ungh: "But I don't LIKE gravy on bananas!" (Married intra-species)
 
Other than that, I cannot think of any reason one would find the
fact that one is related to chimpanzees distasteful. I'd prefer
being related to horses via evolution, or Christy Brinkly's panties,
but the Gods neglected to ask me my preferance two hundred millions
years ago (then again, I was probably too busy sneeking up on grass
to listen to Them).
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Object-oriented creation
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 04:55:23 GMT



ken@sycraft.com (Ken Richardson) writes:
>I mean, consider for a moment: If you were the Creator, and you were about
>to create life, what techniques would you use to put order and simplicity
>into the task?  Object-oriented techniques!

>In fact, object oriented programming makes reusing code easier than *not*
>reusing code.  So extending this to its natural conclusion, I would expect
>the process of creating life to be a more simple and orderly process by
>reusing DNA rather than not.

By this argument, we must conclude that Homo Sapiens and the squid must
have been produced by different "designers" owing to the fact that they
used a independent design for the eye.  Here, the "design" argument
clearly implies multiple designers.  Perhaps God had the design of
some organisms contracted out?

OOP provides the ability for multiple inheritance, while relatedness
of organisms shows that any inheritance (whether by "design" or otherwise)
only occurs in a hierarchical fashion.  It would be like telling the
programmer, "you can't write any NEW routines, you can only derive new
routines with slight modifications of preexisting routines."

>While my analogy may seem only tangentially relevant to those who are not
>used those techniques will surely see the applicability of the analogy to
>the discussion of "How could chimp/human DNA be 99% alike?"
>There is, after all, a high degree of similarity between DNA programs
>and computer programs.

Its interesting that similarities are an example of intentional design
reuse, but the differences then are *not* an example of independent
design efforts.  Seems like the typical creationist doublethink.

Keith
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: 350 lb super-athlete goat?
Date: 12 Oct 92 19:45:31 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Oct9.035910.424@zia.aoc.nrao.edu> gmartin@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (George Martin) writes:
|In article <65@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
|  [stuff deleted]
|>So, as a fair contrast, I'm asking the t.o crew to show me an example of
|>a creature which is roughly Kaz' size, which is also low on the food chain
|>(which leaves out gorillas, big cats, and all other such contenders), and
|                   ^^^^^^^^
|>which can lift 2000 lbs.
|
|I could be wrong of course but I thought that gorillas were primarily
|eaters of vegatation.

Hey, you're right!  I had forgotten that.  That will teach me to take
anything Ted says at face value.

Yes Ted, that is right, gorillas are pure herbivores, they are even mostly
*foliovores* (that is they mostly eat leaves, not fruits - and leaves are
relatively *low* quality* food).

It is *chimpanzees* that are somewhat omnivorous.

|[They are not] a prey species either.

Well, with one exception - there *is* one species of hunter on Earth
that takes them on - Homo sapiens.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Antti dodges reality (take two)
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 14:36:26 GMT

kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
>  He also would like you to explain what happens to the formation when the lead
>bird is shot by hunters in these species that don't switch off lead birds.

	They do. But, if similar case occurrs, then the formation usually gets
	lost (but finally they find the right direction). 

	It's the same as if the boss of your company would be shot. 

-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.atheism