HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Giraffes and HN
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministery of Silly Walks
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 22:20:44 GMT

In article <BruKtp.InH@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, mrjg8679@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael R
James) writes:
> Has anyone looked at the HN for giraffes.
> I just read an article that talked about the strength
> of the legs of rhinos ( it was New Scientist, I think)
> and the author brought up giraffes as an example of a large
> animal with thin legs.  What would happen if you applied HTE's
> equation to the giraffe?  Their weight is about 2500 lbs
> typically, and their  legs have a very small cross-section.

  Good point, but there are two problems:

  The HN doesn't take anything about the shape of the animal into account
anyway.

  The sauropods could do what Ted says is impossible if they even had human legs
(I've posted the calculations twice, HTE has ignored them twice) so there isn't
a need to go to giraffes.

***********************************************************************
* Warren Kurt   *  "In our country we have those three unspeakably    *
* vonRoeschlaub *   precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of    *
* kv07@iastate  *   conscience, and the prudence never to practice    *
*               *   either." - Mark Twain                             *
***********************************************************************
From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Attenuated Nonsense (Lengthy!)
Date: 23 Jul 92 03:45:23 GMT
Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Jul22.104632.13433@tcom.stc.co.uk> bruce@tcom.stc.co.uk (Bruce Munro) writes:

>Also, paintings from just a century or two ago
>show galloping horses with their front and rear legs outstretched
>simultaneously, which as we know is not how they gallop.

I have seen copies of paintings of horses with front and rear legs extended
-- however they weren't paintings of horses galloping.  Horses can jump,
extend their legs, retract them, and land in place.  It's done in classical
formal horse shows.  If I recall correctly the maneuver is known as the
pessade.
-- 
Richard Harter: SMDS Inc.  Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742.    Fax: 508-369-8272
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Why bible nonsense in t.o.????
Date: 28 Jul 92 18:40:00 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Jul28.035821.3770@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, dreiswig@nyx.cs.du.edu (Darwin E. Reiswig) writes...
>   "I am not yet within a hundred miles of the God of Christian 
>theology.  All I have got to is a Something which is directing the
>universe, and which appears in me as a law urging me to do right
>and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong.
>I think we have to assume it is more like a mind than it is like
>anything else we know--because after all the only other thing we 
>know is matter and you can hardly imagine a bit of matter 
>giving instructions."
>		C. S. Lewis, _Mere Christianity_
> 
>I suggest you take a look at where your morals actually came 
>from.  C. S. Lewis offers a highly logical argument for God.
>Have you a better one?  If so, I really suggest you take a 
>look at this book first.  More than likely, he will shoot down 
>any argument you can come up with.

C.S. Lewis was no great shakes as a philosopher, though he thought he
was until he was trounced in a debate with (Catholic) philosopher
Elizabeth Anscombe.  The result of this debate so troubled him that
he had grave doubts about many of his arguments for the remaining few
years of his life.  (For the details of this debate, see the recent
(1986?) biography of Lewis by an author whose name escapes me at the
moment, but I think it's A. Wilson.  This is the biography which raised
a bit of a fuss because it reported on such things as Lewis' heavy
drinking and his extramarital affairs.)

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
From: bseymour@encore.com (Burch Seymour)
Subject: Oleogenesis, what's the latest thinking
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 17:16:53 GMT

A while ago I read a rather interesting article in R&D Magazine in the
Innovation Notebook column, by Frederic Jueneman. Unfortunately I've
lost the article and don't remember any specifics. The column discussed
a couple or three theories about how the Earth came to have such a large
supply of oil reserves. The "conventional" decaying animal corses theory
is hard to get passed a gut level test. It just doesn't feel right.
(Of course that's not a scientific evaluation, but a subjective one)
Anyway, My Jueneman presented other theories that I remember as being
interesting.

Anyone out there have any info on what the most recent theories are?

I haven't seen this discussed on t.o recently. If I missed something,
sorry....

-Burch Seymour- bseymour@encore.com
==================================================================
From: utidjian@remarque.berkeley.edu (David M.V. Utidjian)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Some answers for Chuck (on evolution and marriage)
Date: 23 Jul 1992 04:43:04 GMT
Organization: Processed People for a Processed America
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu

Chuck, is the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." a moral absolute?

David Utidjian
From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Oleogenesis, what's the latest thinking
Date: 30 Jul 92 15:41:46 GMT
Organization: Auburn University Engineering

In article <1992Jul29.171653.7953@encore.com> bseymour@encore.com (Burch Seymour) writes:
>A while ago I read a rather interesting article in R&D Magazine in the
>Innovation Notebook column, by Frederic Jueneman. Unfortunately I've
>lost the article and don't remember any specifics. The column discussed
>a couple or three theories about how the Earth came to have such a large
>supply of oil reserves. The "conventional" decaying animal corses theory
>is hard to get passed a gut level test. It just doesn't feel right.
>(Of course that's not a scientific evaluation, but a subjective one)
>Anyway, My Jueneman presented other theories that I remember as being
>interesting.

I would guess that the oil reserves are the result of liquification by
heat and pressure of a long term buildup of vegetation.  I would guess
that before significant animal life was around, at the rate of energy 
conversion from sunlight to chemical energy without large scale means of
reprocessing the biomass, it built up, and got converted by being covered
with hot rock.  We do it all the time,  any cellulose source can easily
by liquified under heat and pressure.

This is purely speculation based on overall mass and energy balances.

>
>Anyone out there have any info on what the most recent theories are?
>
>I haven't seen this discussed on t.o recently. If I missed something,
>sorry....
>
>-Burch Seymour- bseymour@encore.com
>==================================================================


James P. Henley Jr.
Chemical Engineering Dept
Auburn University
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Giraffes and HN
Date: 24 Jul 92 10:32:23 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <BruKtp.InH@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, mrjg8679@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael R James) writes:
> Has anyone looked at the HN for giraffes.

Around 13 or so.  No problem.  The problem Giraffes have is geting blood
to their brains.  A giraffe's blood pressure would blow anything else's
cardiovascular system apart.  


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Thermodynamics FAQ
Date: 28 Jul 92 19:01:30 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <henley.920728071653@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu> henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley) writes:
>W : Work - Energy transfer due to a force acting against an opposing force*.
>           In the most general sense, work can be described as change.
>
>    The opposing force may be such things as friction, electric potential,
>    gravity, inertia, pressure, etc.
>
>* I have amended my previous definition because "resistance" is too ambiguous.

No.  Work is just the integral of an applied force over distance.  You don't
need an "opposing" force acting against the first force.  If you accelerate
a rocket in space free of any other forces over a certain distance, you've
done work.

>
>James P. Henley Jr.
>Chemical Engineering Dept.
>Auburn University


--
*Ka Chun Yu                 * "Deputy dog dog a ding dang depa depa deputy     *
*kachun@as.arizona.edu      *  dog dog a ding dang depa depa . . ."            *
*                           *                         --"Don't Let's Start"    *
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: Category 4 / Other large animal anomalies
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 17:38:28 GMT

In article <2828@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:

>Claiming that I left anything meaningful out of that quote is bullshit.
>
>The man simply said that falls can be fatal for elephants.

Ted, falls can be fatal to my grandmother (and I weigh more than she does).

>Can't stand it, can you?

Can't stand you.

>Ted Holden
>HTE

His Tiresome Exaggerations 

C Frog
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: blah, blah, blah (was: Re: Blah Blah)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 20:12:03 GMT

In article <henley.920731115608@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu> 
  henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley) writes:
>In article <1992Jul31.084540.28560@st-andrews.ac.uk> 
>  mrl@st-andrews.ac.uk (  Michael Ladomery) writes:
>>In article <henley.920730111300@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu> 
>>   henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley) writes:
>>>
>>>Either they do, or they don't.  If they do, then those laws should be able
>>>to predict things in biological processes, including Natural Selection
>>>and Evolution.  If they don't, well...
>>
>>If they don't, well what?
>
>If they don't then something is *terribly* wrong.  If the biologists claim
>that evolutionary processes don't have to follow those laws, then this is
>going to change the whole nature of the evolution vs creation debate.  It
>appears that a few - so far Chris and Seth - are claiming that they don't.

No they aren't.  What they are saying (and I hope I'm not putting
words into their mouth) is that it is pointless to analyze evolutionary
processes from a thermo perspective (except in very broad cases).
Living things are simply too complicated to be handled by such a technique.

>If this is the consensus of the biologists on t.o, then I'm wasting my time
>here.  Those are the laws of science that govern every natural process that
>I know of.

Look: Quantum mechanics governs everything.  If, however, I drop a
bowling ball off a building (onto Ted Holden's head fer example) it
is *stupid* to analyze its motion using QM.  Dumb.  Pointless.
Sure, evolution cannot conflict with thermo, but you can't get
very far trying to understand it in terms of thermo either, there
are better ways.

Gettit?

C Frog 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: alc@netcom.com (Chris Stassen)
Subject: Questions raised (was: "Biogenesis (+ an invitation to C. Menem)")
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 14:43:09 GMT
Organization: The Lion's Den, San Jose

Mark Einkauf (who needs an Email address that works outside of IBM) writes:
[at the end of his posting:]
] I am prepared to discuss the claims made herein.

I am interested in discussion of Mr. Einkauf's name-dropping versus a
rather significant goof.  (There are plenty of other problems with
this posting, but they have been exposed elsewhere.)  I have two
questions for him to answer.

Mr. Einkauf says, regarding biogenesis:
] The basic proteins of which life is comprised do not occur due to random
] natural forces.  Granted, biomonomers can occur spontaneously, and can
] further combine to form proteinoids and some amino acids. 

Amino acids *are* "biomonomers" by any sensible definition of the term.
All three biochemistry texts that I own agree.  To demonstrate, examine
the "generic" amino acid:

		      COO-         ('R' is an atom or molecule
		      |             which differs per amino acid.
		NH3 - C - H         In Glycine, for example, it is
		      |             a single 'H'.  In Alanine, it
		      R             is CH3.)

Q.1) Exactly *what* do you plan to "polymerize" to construct an amino
     acid?  (i.e., please give *your* definition of "biomonomer" as
     it appears to be rather non-standard)

To me, this was a clue that Mr. Einkauf does not have a solid
understanding of the chemistry in question.  But Mr. Einkauf *claims*
to be well-acquainted with the field:

] I am familiar  with the  work of  Miller, Fox,  Oparin, Eigen, Prigogine,
] Eden, Teilhard, Kenyon, Steinman, Monod, and  others. 

Note that Mr. Einkauf doesn't go so far as to say that he has actually
*read* anything by any of these authors.  I suspect that he hasn't.

Q.2) Can you please supply us with a reading list so that we can have
     access to the same materials that you had used to write your
     posting?

Creationist texts on the origin of life are one of the "thinner" parts
of my library (I only own a couple).  However, there is one in particular
that contains detail on almost every one of the names that Mr. Einkauf
dropped, even though some of them are "minor players" in the field.

My hypothesis is that all of Mr. Einkauf's bluster was based on reading
only a single creationist text (Thaxton/Bradley/Olson, _The Mystery of
Life's Origin_).  Did I guess correctly?
-- 
Chris Stassen						stassen@alc.com
DISCLAIMER:  My employer's account, but not their opinions.
From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Why bible nonsense in t.o.????
X-Sender: newtout 0.01 Jul 13 1992
Date: 27 Jul 92  18:26:14

Tag: James Paul Henley (henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley))
 
>> In article <1992Jul24.005742.21919@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov
>> (Loren I. Petrich) writes: Interestingly enough, the
>> part that states that men should treat women well also
>> states that masters should treat their slaves well.
>> And just as women should obey men, slaves should obey
>> masters, all according to the Bible. /Loren
 
JPH> "Let's put this into a different perspective. The way
JPH> I treat my wife is with honor and respect. Why? Because
JPH> that is what the Bible tells me to do."
 
How utterly barbaric! I treat my spouse, ladyfriends, and every
one else with honor and respect because I have a high degree of
ethics and morals. If you have to get them out of a book, well,
that tells me you are a sorry example of humanity. You need
occult superstitions to frighten you into ethical and moral
behavior, while most others come by it naturally--- doesn't
that bother you?
 
It seems to me, to toot my own horn, my morals and ethics,
which are based upon equality and compassion, are far superior
to ones based on ancient occult mythologies, aka bibles.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: T. Rex, categories of evidence etc.
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 21 Jul 92 18:08:58 EST
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <ceP1UuC00VAwE_qpJS@andrew.cmu.edu>, "Arun K. Gupta" <ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
> 
> This bboard beats rec.humor.funny by a huge margin !
> 
> -arun gupta

Yep, I totally agree.  The 'felt effect of humor'!

Sue
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Subject: Re: Mammoths don't smegging gallop...........
Organization: Mitre Corporation, McLean VA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 12:14:37 GMT

In article <2845@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
}This is from the pictures worth 1000 words dept.  I've gotten it down
}to around 40K bytes, which is less than one of Merit's long postings...

You would think that you would have learned to spell it by now.

}I don't really see how anybody can cry too hard over it.
}
}This is from A.D. Stolyar's 'Origins of Representational Art'...
}Izdatelstva Iskustva, Moscow, 1985.

Then it can't e a picture of a mammoth, unless there is one around in 1985.

}For those of you who cannot read the insignia on the image, it says,
}more or less:
}
}"Statuette of a mammoth, ornamented with rows of crucaform symbols,
}tusks 4.9 cm, from the Vogelgerd Gallery, Wurtemberg, GFR, Stuttgard,
}Landesbildstelle.

OOOhhhhhh.  In spite of your claim, this isn't a picture of a mammoth
galloping, it is a picture of some clay.  So?

How about a pictures of cels?  That would conclusively show that elephants
have huge ears, talk, and fly while carrying a small mouse in their hats and a
crow feather in their trunks.  

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Subject: Re: blah, blah, blah (was: Re: Blah Blah)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 14:36:57 GMT
Summary: constraints

In article <henley.920730111300@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu>, henley@eng.auburn.edu
(James Paul Henley) writes:

> Woah there Nellie!  Are you saying that biological processes *DO NOT* 
> have to abide by the laws of Thermodynamics?
 
> Either they do, or they don't.  If they do, then those laws should be able
> to predict things in biological processes, including Natural Selection
> and Evolution.  If they don't, well...

Whoah, there, yourself.  Chemical thermodynamics obviously applies to
biochemical reactions.  On a larger scale, any valid macroscopic inference
from thermodynamics must also constrain biological systems.  I think you
are suffering a category confusion if you expect thermodynamics to EITHER
predict OR forbid natural selection.  Rather, it provides an environment
or set of constraints that will operate as boundary conditions in any
evolutionary regime (selective or otherwise; please do not forget that
debate continues as to the relative importance of selection and of other,
more stochastic, mechanisms of allele-frequency change.)

Like a number of others reading your articles, I get an uneasy feeling
that you think you can hand-wave about "macroscopic" issues to forclose
on evolution.  You will have to be explicitly rigorous (i.e., present a
verifiable mathematical argument) if you hope to urge any such conclusion.

I will also add one more caveat.  Like Paul Schindler, I am willing to
take as a first apporoximation that the Earth is a closed system in your
sense.  But I must remind you, and others, that strictly speaking this
is quite false.  We may neglect this for first-order calculation, but
the Earth actually sweeps in a fair amount of debris from the dustbin
that is the solar system -- and presumably did so more significantly
a few billion years ago when there was more debris around.  Any serious
argument over abiogenesis or the initial stages of biological evolution
cannot afford to ignore this (even if one dismisses Hoyle&Wickramsinghe).
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		The Son of Man has come eating and drinking;
				and you say "Behold, a glutton and a drunkard,
mls@usl.com			a friend of tax collectors and sinners."  And
standard disclaimer		yet, Wisdom is justified by all her children.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: mrjg8679@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael R James)
Subject: Increased Radiation?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 18:41:59 GMT


>> HTE
> Wayne Throop

>> An ungodly amount of radiation was unleashed on the world at
>> the time of the great flood mentioned in the bible and

[deletions]


>Ted is attributing all the additional variation to radiation.  Let's be
>generous and say that all new genetic variation at the current time
>arises due to radiation, and that the period of time was a month or so. 
>We're already being generous with the 100,000 years.  Ted's theory
>therefore requires that the planet was subjected to a MILLION times the
>current background radiation for a period of many days. 

>To my surprise, none of my home references, from "Handbook of Chemistry
>and Physics" to "Pathologic Basis of Disease" have values for background
>ionizing radiation.  Time to get new references, I guess...  But I'd be
>surprised if a million times background for several days wouldn't kill
>just about anything.  So, far from causing "fast evolution", it seems it
>would simply kill everything. 

Well, some back-of-the-envelope (literally!) calculations: Assume a background
of around 360 mrem/yr.  A million times that is about 360,000 Rem per
year.  Round that off to 1000 Rem per day.  That's a LOT of radiation.
The LD 50/30 (Lethal dose to 50% in 30 days) is about 300-500 Rem acute
dose.  
As a matter of fact, my textbook says that for an acute dose of 1000 Rem,
80 to 100% of exposed individuals die within 2 months.

More to the point, we need to ask: How much radiation can you use
to accelerate the diversity in alleles etc.  without killing everybody.

Based on WASH-1400
Normal incidence of : 1) Single Gene Disorders
                      2) Multifactorial Disorders
                      3) Chromosomal Disorders
                      4) Spontaneous Abortions
summed is 1581 per 10^6 population ( 14,000 live births)

and the increase due to 10^6 man-rem is 99-175.
Lets take it to 150 and assume (roughly) a linear extrapolation.
If we want to increase by a factor of ten the rate of these
occurances we must subject our mythical (ha) population to ~ 100 *10^6
man-rem (1581*10 =~ 100 * 150) 

This means that each member of our population receives about 100 Rem
per year.
At this level of dose, immuno-suppresion alone is a serious problem.

It is just not tractable to suggest (at least in humans) such rapid
diversity increase could be attributed to high doses or radiation.

Source: Lamarsh, Introduction to Nuclear Engineering 2nd Edition,
Addison-Wesley,NY (1983)

--
 Michael James       mrjg8679@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu 

      "Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical
       mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand.  Paul Ehrenfest, carrying
       on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study
       statistical mechanics."  
                                  -David L. Goodman "States of Matter"
From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Blah Blah
X-Sender: newtout 0.01 Jul 13 1992
Date: 27 Jul 92  18:27:30

Tag: Mark Einkauf (mark@austin.ibm.com (Mark Einkauf))
 
ME> "I have followed talk.origins for about two months.
ME> There is much heated debate on the fossil record,
ME> the [sic] flood, macroevolution, dinosaurs, etc.
ME> These are all valid topics. However, I'm amazed
ME> that no one seems to question what is surely the
ME> very foundation of the evolutionary theory. The
ME> theory (as I understand it) claims that not only
ME> the specialization of life (i.e. species) can be
ME> explained by purely natural forces acting through
ME> time, but that the very genesis of life occurred
ME> through natural forces acting randomly on inorganic
ME> matter over time. I find this claim that evolution
ME> explains biogenesis to be preposterous, and
ME> in disagreement with scientific evidence. I don't know
ME> why no one in this group has questioned this, for
ME> this is surely the Achilles Heel of the theory.
ME> The fact that biogenesis cannot occur 'naturally'
ME> is a scientific fact, and also, I think, self-evident."
 
You obviously DO NOT understand evolutionary theory. It
does NOT address how life came to be here on Earth. It only
points out the fact that all life evolved and has a common
origin. The fact is, "biogenesis" is not a part of
evolutionary science." I think you have your sciences
mixed up.
 
ME> "It is silly to think that the complexity of our
ME> bodies is the result of random forces."
 
Sorry to educate you, but evolution isn't random, nor was
a "force" applied. The process is chaotic, not random.
Xref: sparky talk.origins:8545 sci.astro:8226