HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 21 Aug 92 12:50:01 EST
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <2867@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> In article <1992Aug18.053325.17277@smds.com>, rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:
>  
>  
>> To be honest, I never pay much attention to Holden's actual arguments
> 
> Ignorance is bliss...  lots of blissful people running around these days.
> 
> 
>> If you want to look at how big an animal can be there are really two
>> numbers that are meaningful -- the compression loading per unit area
>> of the supporting limbs and the shear stress when the limbs are out of
>> vertical alignment [for animals supported by their limbs].  
> 
> 
> Wonderful.  These are two numbers which tell you a little bit about a 
> creatures ability to bear weight once he's already got the weight up,
> i.e. (here), once he's managed to stand in the first place.  You've
> totally neglected the little problem of standing up in the first place.
> 
> Minor detail...
> 
> The Holden number gives you an idea as to the creatures ability to get that
> weight up there in the first place.
> 
> Bones do not lift weight.  Muscle does.
> 

Ted, I have a terrible shock for you.  Bones are NECESSARY to lift weight.
Anyone who has ever broken a leg can tell you that.

Sheesh.


Sue

> 
> 
> -- 
> Ted Holden
> HTE
>
From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden and superhumongoreallybigosaur weights
Summary: interesting little bit of sauropod trivia
Date: 19 Aug 92 23:32:09 GMT

| From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
| Message-ID: <907@tdat.teradata.COM>
|| The seismosaur is a diplodocid. 
| Quite. There is no remaining doubt.
| It was *thought* to be a brachiosaurid for a year or two back when only
| a few limb bones had been excavated.  But when they got the backbone out
| it was shown to be a diplodocid.  (The most characteristic parts of a
| sauropod are the backbone and skull - they all have rather similar legs,
| so limb bones are of little value in proper identification).

Interestingly, one of the references I was just looking at contains some
work which has been done on statistical species identification that shows
that tibia/fibula length and breadth ratios can distinguish sauropod
species.  The "Dinosaur Systematics" collection of papers, I think.

Of course, with a new specimen of such enormous size, the application
might not be straightforward.
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kramer@bcarh12f.bnr.ca (Guenther Kramer)
Subject: Some help finding Evolution evidence.
Originator: kramer@bcarh12f
Keywords: FAQ
Organization: Bell Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 01:58:11 GMT

A creationist friend wants some kind of proof of the existence of 
transitionary forms.  (i.e. A Museum where the fossil is displayed.)  
He also talks about some archaeological find where human footprints and 
dinosaurs have been discovered in the exact same strata.  This is supposed
to be evidence that man and dinosaurs co-existed.

Is there a 'talk.origins' FAQ or some references I can look up to check 
out these two issues.  I doubt very much that he will accept the evidence,
but I promised him the references.

Thanks in advance,
--
Guenther Kramer                   Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada.  //
Protel Compiler Development                                               // 
Internet: KRAMER@BNR.CA                                               \\ //
#include <std.disclaimer.h>                                            \X/
From: julian@tantalus.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: behavior and evolution
Date: 17 Aug 92 20:02:30 GMT
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) writes:

>In article <julian.714005174@sfu.ca>, julian@fraser.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock) writes:
>>I do not reall yunderstand how seriously to take evolutionism's 
>>claim to explain "everything" we observe ( I should say
>>some evolutionists' claim). It sounds more like an unjustified,
>>but simplifying extrapolation.

>There are different uses of the word "explain" here.  Biology cannot explain
>*in every detail* everything that happens but it "can explain" it insofar as
>it is consistent with biology. 

I see, so when a biologist says that evolution explains the diversity of
life seen in the world, she means that such diversity is consisten with,
and (partially?) predicted by the theory?
If one wants then to postulate divine intervention in the history of
the world it would not be inconsistent with biology to do so. I could
imagine God affecting in some supernatural way the evolution of life
(or any other property of the physical world) in a unique way so that
it showed up in a historical manner but beyond the reach of scientifc
verification (because of its uniqueness).
(A possible analogy might be the impact of a comet on the earth affecting
its evolution in a way that is not observable by later denizens of earth.
ALthough there ought to be a crater I suppose. How about a nearby comet 
flyby that ejected living
spores into the atmosphere and seeded life? This would be completely unobservable
in the geological record, but obviously detectable).
This would transfer the question of whether history shows the results
of God's intervention from the creation to historical events. But I have
had enough discussions of the veracity (or otherwise) of history, 
especially that recorded in the Bible not to want such a discussion here.

Funny old world, really...

julian
 
the theory? 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: What is creationism?
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Distribution: world,local
Date: 21 Aug 92 03:47:18 GMT

I want to comment in general terms about this thread. The exchange
is an interesting one.

First, I think that rather than being anti-emperical, many Creationists
have an abiding faith that their beliefs will be reconciled with science
and that it is desirable, even necessary, to reconcile science with
Scripture. We hear from time to time in this group that it is possible
to reconcile science and religion using the same language. Creationists
do this by making science moot or, indeed, blurring the distinction
between science and religion.

All of these strategies are doomed to failure, as is the extreme anti-
emperical view cited earlier in this thread. Our words fail us and our
ability to know anything absolutely, if only by defining it so, is nil.

The best we can do with respect to science and religion is to keep them
separate, to use two different kinds of language for each, and to have
different standards of knowledge for each.

The effort of the Creationists to reconcile science with religion is
misguided. It shows that they misunderstand religion. One may even
level the charge that they are in fact anti-spritual! My own opinion
is that they are more worried about their belief system becomming an
authority for moral prescription for the rest of us than in a true
spiritual rebirth.

Bruce Salem

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 17 Aug 92 16:22:41 GMT
Organization: City University, London

In article <zs9msg+.alc@netcom.com> stassen@alc.com writes:

>[..about dating trees by tree rings...]

Suppose you had a garden. One day you look out of the window and see
a tree in the middle of if where previously there had been none. Now
a friend comes to visit you for the first time and looks at the tree.
He counts the rings and says its been there for 100 years. You say 
its been there for 1 day. Which of you is correct?

Hint: It depends on your assumptions.
Advice: Don't make too many assumptions about the origin of the
        universe and of species.

--
Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889
Xref: sparky talk.origins:9855 soc.culture.african.american:8959 alt.rap:4160
From: augusto@widget.seas.upenn.edu (Consciousness)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,soc.culture.african.american,alt.rap
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develope?
Date: 21 Aug 92 16:16:12 GMT
Followup-To: talk.origins
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Aug20.223509.7577@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> talk.origins,soc.culture.african.american,alt.rap writes:
>
>     I have thought over the evolution of skin color, and have run into the
>following questions:
>
>1) Following that the darker colors for humans are generally dominant vis-a-vis
>the lighter colors
>2) That the darker the skin color, the better the protection from UV radiation
>
>    Then what would be the evolutionary mechanism that would select for lighter
>skin towards the northern climates?  There's little I can see that would
>actively select against the darker skins/for the lighter skins

	Go read The Color Purple, specifically the part about the
African Village.




						Consciousness

"Foolish worries about human flesh should be ignored.
 What matter is not the package, but the content"
				----Somebody
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 18 Aug 92 19:44:05 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <8ck103Dl606a00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) writes:
|alc@netcom.com (Chris Stassen) writes:
|
|Marvin Lubenow of the ICR is putting the finishing touches on a
|book regarding human evolution and the fossil (or lack of) evidence
|for such. This should be an interesting book.

That is unlikely, given the past track record of the ICR.

It will probably be as bad a piece of garbage as everything else they
have published.

Of course I *could* be surprised.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: behavior and evolution
Date: 15 Aug 92 19:35:32 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

>: Personally I find it hard to imagine a scientific theory
>: (viz one that make predictions and is testable as opposed to one that can
>: be distorted to accomodate anything) that will postulate anythin about
>: humans' ability to think. We do not even know what thinking is
>: yet!

A little investigation into animal behavior should make this a
lot less hard to imagine. You should drop by your local library
and check out a copy of "Animal Behavior: An evolutionary approach
(4th edition)" by John Alcock (1989, Sinaeur, Sunderland, Mass).
In it you can learn such things as the differences between instinct
and learned behaviors (and how some animals are "programmed" to
be able to learn certain things but not others), the genetics and
neurology of behavior, the development of behavior, how behaviors
are organized (you see a pizza and a naked woman -- what do you
do?), how behaviors evolve (including a couple of reconstructions
of historical pathways leading to complex behaviors) and a lot
of other stuff -- including a final chapter on human behavior.
You might also check out E.O. Wilson's "Sociobiology". He also
wrote a book specifically about humans, "On Human Nature" I
believe -- but I haven't read either of those yet as there are
still only twenty fours in a day. Sorry I don't have the complete
references on hand.

Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
 	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: Round 1 again
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 19:23:46 GMT

In article <eaz303Br63lS00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>, jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim
Loucks) writes:
> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
> >In article <1992Aug18.131753@IASTATE.EDU>, btd@IASTATE (Benjamin T Dehner)
writes:
> >>       Jim, you have said before that there are many areas of
> >>discussion which you are not technically competent to discuss, like
> >>ice cores or something.  Not that anyone expects you to know
> >>everything, but you should think about it and understand the
> >>magnitude of the evidence you're up against.
> 
> >But how can understanding of magnitude exist in such a small space?
> 
> I see we're back to the personal attacks. Round and round we go.

   Poor Jim.  He can't even state his theory, won't logically support
his assertions, and won't stop repeating this inane mantra of 
creationist propaganda and people are INSULTING him rather than 
debating.  Shocking.

   Jim, put up some substance or put up with the deserved insults.
 
> 
>>-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
> 
> -- 
> Jim Loucks           jloucks@uts.amdahl.com 
> {apple, pyramid, sun, uunet}!amdahl!jloucks

Jimminy Cricket.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: ICR Faculty update
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 20:00:32 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.121143.1338@ucc.su.OZ.AU>, matth@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU
(Matthew Hannigan) writes:
> In article <5968@pdxgate.UUCP> allenroy@rigel.cs.pdx.edu (callen roy) writes:
>>
>>=Here is a fairly complete listing ICR faculty and their degrees, taken
>>=from the 1987-1988 ICR Graduate School catalog.  I have added, in
>>=parentheses, the fields in which they received their degrees, whenever
>>=I was able find this information.  You'll note that some very
>>=well-known and respected universities are represented.
>>
>>=Mark Kuehne
>>=kuehne@nwu.edu
>>
>>There have been some names added to the list.  Additional information on
>>some of the professors has been noted.   And, Current titles are corrected.
>>a *  marks the professors who were once Evolutionists.
>>
>>C. Allen Roy
>[ ... ]
>>Snelling, Andrew A..............Adjunct Professor of Geology
>>  Ph.D. (Geology) The University of Sydney, 1981
> 
> This guy's supervisor did not even realise that Snelling was 
> a creationist until after Snelling got is Ph.D.; and was stunned
> to find out he was!

   I get to know any student _I_ supervise.  How is this possible?  Of
course I know my current student isn't a creationist because of his postings in
this forum.  I often wonder if I'm obective enough to survive a creationist
student with my objectivity intact...

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: Evolution under High Gravity
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 20:09:38 GMT

In article <1992Aug17.162712.27115@linus.mitre.org>, m23364@mwunix (James
Meritt) writes:
> In article <1992Aug17.093847.1@skcla.monsanto.com> jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com
writes:
> }Besides, look at our own world.  We have creatures that hug the ground, and
> }hundreds-feet high trees.  What is tall or short?  Why aren't there
> }40-foot-high dinos anymore?  We can't blame that on gravity.
> 
> Don't know if I should tell you this, but...
> 
> That is EXACTLY what TAlbottians & Velikovsites (personified by Ted Holden)
> believe.  The gravity on earth changed.

   Um, I've avoided these Holden threads, except for the time I told Ted to
paint himself on the outside of a fossil so he could screw up the radiometric
dating, but wouldn't there be marked mineralogical effects of variable 
gravity?  Are these effects observed?  

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
:)
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: 360 day year
Date: 20 Aug 92 17:31:55 GMT
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA

In article <1992Aug20.005732.21340@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:
}In article <1992Aug18.134445.8131@linus.mitre.org>, m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
}> In article <26595@life.ai.mit.edu> uunet!ucsd!sdsu!hercules.SDSU.EDU!news@ncar.UCAR.EDU writes:
}> }Ramadan starts Feb 23rd 1993 (+- 1 day depending on location).
}> }Yes, Arabic calendar is Lunar calendar which has 355 days per year.
}
}> Interesting.  Then The Arabic portion of earth currently orbits the sun in
}> 355 days while the rest orbits in just over 365 days.
}
}> Or maybe the correlation between a calendar and a solar year isn't all that
}> Ted makes it out to be...
}
}Ted's calendrics can fall under their own leaden weight of inanity --
}but your comment seems to be framed as if you thought you had a point.
}The Muslim calendar is quite explicitly NOT a solar calendar.  (It is
}also normally 354 days, not 355 as stated in the note you responded to.)
}A totally irrelevant "criticism" of Ted will only feed his ego.

Not quite.  Few ancient calandars are labelled "Solar Calendar".  So they,
as in the example, may be irrelevant to the orbital issue.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Stephen C. Miller)
Subject: Re: The Unauthorized Version
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 17:14:02 GMT

In article <0eXc_JS00VpNA1=Epd@andrew.cmu.edu> "Arun K. Gupta" <ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>
>
>Has anybody read: The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible,
>by Robin Lane Fox ?
>
>Basically, I want people's comments on his scholarship.
>
>-arun gupta

I'm reading it right now!

I like it a lot.

Fox is well known and very famous - a well respected scholar, I believe.

I find the tone of his book really tremendous, and he hasn't really
contradicted anything  I know about these matters.  

I know this isn't much, but it is a heck of a book.


-- 
--------------------
=
(former rock star turned grad student)
Steve Miller	 		    stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Round 1 again
Date: 20 Aug 92 13:49:44 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <eaz303Br63lS00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) writes:
>amdahl.com>

>I see we're back to the personal attacks. Round and round we go. 

All it would take to break the cycle is for someone to present a
scientific theory of creationism and we could begin comparing the
two theories objectively. Although we are constantly assured that
the people at the ICR are top notch scientists engaged in science,
they seem not to have taken that first scientific baby step of
forming a hypothesis to test. Are we really supposed to be in
awe of their scientific prowess just because they have PhD's?
Would you be really impressed by a tennis player who got an
endorsement from some tennis shoe company, but hadn't ever picked 
up a racket?

>Jim Loucks           jloucks@uts.amdahl.com 

Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
 	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"

Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Lionel sez: evolution ==> apartheid.
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 17:11:22 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.121440.24522@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
writes:
> In article <1992Aug20.223509.7577@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
talk.origins,soc.culture.african.american,alt.rap writes:
> 
>I will leave it to the evolutionists to come up with a `just-so'
>story to explain this scientifically. Meanwhile while we are on
>this subject I would like to raise a point.
> 
> According to evolutionist thinking, whites and blacks can be
> considered two separate species.

   I am utterly sure this is a lie.  Please support your stament or retract
it, shit head.  A good start on retracting it would be to get a definition
of spiecies and read it.  My daughter is currently playing with a little
girl with a black father and a white mother.

> So the situation in apartheid
> countries has an evolutionary basis.

   This is a lie that has been discredited many times.  Decades ago.
If your view can only be supported by scurroulous lies, why hold it?
It's worthless.

> How are whites and blacks
> considered different species? Well evolutionists like to show
> speciation has and is occuring. A popular method is to say that
> two sets of organisms that are identical but differ in mating
> habits or preferences `cannot' interbreed and are therefore
> two distinct species. This can be extended to human society if
> social factors cause different races to prefer not to interbreed.

   Lionel, they do interbreed.  Take your ignorant lies somewhere else.
Also, please do not make statements about evolution until your know what 
it is.  You got all the details ofthe theory that you mentioned wrong.

> Actually I think the main three racial groupings (black, white,
> yellow) are descended from Noah's three sons.

   Please document this view and explain why current molecular biology 
findings disagree with it.  Hint: you cannot, because it is a false view.

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

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: brinkman@si194b.llnl.gov
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develope?
Date: 23 Aug 92 00:55:09 GMT


   In article <1992Aug21.121440.24522@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk
(Lionel Tun) writes...

   Actually, I am only going to touch a point that no one else has yet
(at least so far as I have seen)...

> So the situation in apartheid countries has an evolutionary basis.

   Okay, a homework question for Lionel.  Compare and contrast the role
of Science with the role of Christianity in creating/maintaining the South
African system of apartheid.   Sorry to tell you Herr Tun, but the state
religion of South Africa was and remains a major (if not THE major) supporter
of the systematized racial inequality found in that country.

   Lionel, pointing to examples of misuse of an idea, any idea, to argue
against the correctness of the idea is crap.  This approach, if ever accepted
by reasonable human beings as a valid criticism of an idea spells a lot more
trouble for religion in general (and Christianity in particular) than it ever
will for science.  In addition to the example of South Africa above, you might
also want to look into such topics as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the
Lutheran/Catholic wars in Germany during the Reformation, and the continuing
intersectarian violence such as is found in Northern Ireland today.  You be
hard pressed to argue that Christianity was/is not behind these examples, in
much the same way you want to claim evolution is behind apartheid.

   Just to continue along this given topic for a second.  Lionel, honestly ask
yourself how much of the racism in the world can be traced back to the misuse
of such Biblical statements as...

>Actually I think the main three racial groupings (black, white,
>yellow) are descended from Noah's three sons.

If you don't believe that this has ever happened, you need to look no further
than Ted Holden's inimitable postings on the origins of the races for an
example of exactly this dangerous thought pattern.

   Come on, Lionel.  If you can't even advance a valid argument even given
a completely false basis (i.e., evolution says blacks and whites are two
species), what are we to conclude about the perspacity of your intellectual
thought?  To quote Chris Lee (and thereby implicitly second his comment) in
a response to this same post, "Mr. Tun, you have reached a new low in the
quality and content of your posting."

>Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)

   Who's zooming who, Lionel?

--
Matt Brinkman
brinkman@edseq1.llnl.gov
Newsgroups: talk.origins