HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Thank you, Antti, for discussing things.
Date: 12 Sep 92 15:04:22 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England

In article <1992Sep9.154152.12886@cs.joensuu.fi> asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti
Siivonen) writes:
>>>	Thank you, I would love to. You were honest enough to say it aloud. I
>>>	have an interesting text about nonreligious objection to evolution,
>>>	if you want it ask it from me by email. 

kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu) writes:
>> Oh please do enlighten with us in the net with its title, and maybe even
>> a summary.

In article <1992Sep11.113641.21456@cs.joensuu.fi> asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti
Siivonen) writes:
>	I have a software-problem: I can't get a textfile from my account
>	to the BBS-system. I can mail it privately only. 


I asked Antti for a copy of this and duly received it. I've since asked
for details of the source, which are not included in the article itself.

Technically I guess it counts as private e-mail, so I'll ask Antti for
permission to post it to the net.

Watch this space.

>		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

Cheers

Simon
-- 
Simon Clippingdale                simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science    Tel (+44) 203 523296
University of Warwick             FAX (+44) 203 525714
Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.            or 0203 etc. if you're in the sunny UK
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Creationist Misquotes
Date: 15 Sep 92 00:08:49 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <1992Sep14.175342.20712@scic.intel.com> sbradley@scic.intel.com (Seth Bradley) writes:
>I've got another one.  The original quotes are from Dr. Robert Jastrow's
>"God and the Astronomers":

>(from page 14) "The details differ, but the essential elements in the
>astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of
>events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment
>in time, in a flash of light and energy."

	And I always thought that the Big Bang was a vindication of
Cosmic Egg cosmologies. You see,

	The great explosion == the hatching of that egg.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: mrjg8679@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael R James)
Subject: Re: Antti's word
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 05:26:18 GMT

sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:

>In article <1992Sep12.234807.7794@cc.uow.edu.au>, u8515682@cc.uow.edu.au (Wayne Jefferson Doust) writes:
>> ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
>> 
>>>> 	bimbo, jughead
>> 
>>>Please, I'm not advocating the use of the word bimbo, in my
>>>humble opinion why didn't we create a similar ugly word 
>>>about dumb men with blonde hair?
>> 
>> Hmm, we could of course _create_ one. :-)
>> 

>HAH!  That's an easy one.  We can just use one word that already fits......

>........ just call dumb blond men...... quayles......

Imagine my surprise, I was just reading talk.origins
AND THE EMMYS BROKE OUT!

Ba-Da Boom

Thank you, I'm here all week.


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

       barf  [ba:rf]  2.  "He suggested using FORTRAN, and everybody barfed."
            - From The Shogakukan DICTIONARY OF NEW ENGLISH (Second edition) 

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Subject: Re: Question for Creationists
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 01:27:15 GMT
Summary: uh, Lionel?  you are in orbit too ...

In article <1992Sep10.101654.26717@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
> mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:
>
> >There *is* no scriptural statement
> >that *I* am aware of that specifies a "purpose of mankind"[*] -- nor is
> >any such thing a matter of doctrine in ANY Christian sect I know about.
> >That Lionel Tun is willing to utter inane nonsense in response to a
> >question is all very nice, but hardly relevant to anything.

> From the bible, KJV,

	[Lionel quotes (with some context in Mark) the Great Commandment.]

The is certainly the overriding commandment enjoined on all Christians
(and by extension, what a Christian might want all human beings to obey.)
That is still not a scriptural statement of "the purpose of mankind" --
unless you engage in some remarkably shaky attempts to deduce purpose
from a passage that doesn't mention it.  There is no way I am aware of
to get from the Great Commandment to "our purpose" without introducing
assumptions that it is perfectly reasonable (and doctrinally acceptable)
for Christians to reject.  It ALSO takes some rationcinative process or
other to move from "loving God with one's whole heart and mind and soul"
to "worship."  In some Christian contexts, that can be a "natural" iden-
tification -- but to most outsiders what is refered to by "worship" may
not seem to have any thing at all to do with love, most especially with
love of our neighbors.

Lionel -- this kind of thing is called _non sequitur_, and it tends to
make its users look like clowns (and only rarely like clever and enter-
taining ones.)
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@usl.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer			With your crooked heart."
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Ted Holden on Linguistics and Evolution
Date: 7 Sep 92 19:32:37 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <1992Sep7.093701.29084@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>The American Heritage Dictionary [a good intro: it includes about 1500
>Indo-European roots (about all those that are ancestral to English words
>listed in it) and a guide to what can be reconstructed of the culture of
>the Indo-European speakers, judging from what they had words for, such as
>their worship of a god named "Father Sky".].

Note that the appendix containing the guide to Indo-European roots exists
only in the first edition of the _AHD_.  I don't know about the third edition
that's just been released, but the second edition omits this section; the
publishers instead re-published it as a separate volume, possibly in an
expanded form, but most likely just to make an extra few bucks.  I forget 
the title, but it's probably something like, _The American Heritage Dictionary
of Indo-European Roots_.

>


--
*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"    *
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 6 Sep 92 20:55:43 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <Bu2AwE.1Cu@encore.com>, bseymour@encore.com (Burch Seymour) writes:
> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> 
> >In article <KAI.92Aug31094228@kai.nada.kth.se>, kai@kai.nada.kth.se (Kai-Mikael J-Aro) writes:
> >> 
 
> >They carry their necks almost straight up;  it's the only way they can deal
> >with the weight.
 
> I've been to the Zoo Ted. Giraffes are able to bend their heads down.
> I've seen it! Wow!  

Not for any length of time.  Scientists are now claiming that sauropods
carried their necks low, nearly horizontal, ALL the time, because they
could not have gotten blood to their brains otherwise.

Try holding a 20 lb weight horizontally out from your body for thirty
seconds, either from the shoulder or from the hip with elbow bent, it 
doesn't matter.  Picture holding that weight out like that for the rest
of your life.



-- 
Ted Holden
HTE

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: dawkins/_the selfish
Organization: sgi
Distribution: talk
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 92 23:16:18 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.929.17252@dosgate>, herb.sutter@canrem.com (herb sutter) writes:
>
> I don't mean to single out one of Dobzhansky's results and warp it 
> into saying something that it doesn't.  What I wanted to demonstrate 
> was the fact of genetic repair and other mechanisms resisting gene 
> changes, which I feel are part of the mechanisms put in place to 
> keep organisms from developing outside their parent `kind'.

I think you need to explain a few things here.   How does 
a repair mechanism contribute to keeping organisms from 
developing "outside their parent kind"?  I can see how a
repair mechanism might slow down all change, but how does
a repair mechanism decide "This change leaves me within
my parent kind, and this one takes me outside it".

Secondly, what are these other "mechanisms put in place" 
which keep organisms from developing outside their parent 
`kind'?    How does an organism know what its parent kind 
is?   How does it represent its parent kind internally so 
that it can decide whether a change will take it outside 
its  kind or not?    What happens if the representation of 
an organism's parent kind itself changes?   What happens
if the part of the organism that does the checking
changes?

Oh yes, and since you talk about 'kind', just what is a
'kind'?

jon.
From: dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Dick Zeitlin) 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Evolutionism must be
Date: 8 Sep 92 13:16:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Advanced Computer Concepts BBS, New Rochelle, NY 914-654-1981
Reply-To: dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Dick Zeitlin) 

FL> ."For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.
  > .Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great
  > .number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will
  > .turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." 2 Tim 4:3-4

Strange...  I know it wasn't intended in that context, but what came to
my mind when I read the above passage was that "sound doctrine" equated
to scientific study, and "myths" referred to 'religious' teachings.

Why does it seem to fit THAT context so well??

 * OLX 2.2 * Real Pilots enjoy NDB approaches to minimums!
        
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: worthless comic strips
Keywords: creationist propaganda
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 18:41:36 GMT

In article <2554@israel.nysernet.org>, warren@nysernet.org (Warren Burstein)
writes:
> Isn't it sort of contradictory to have a cave-man comic strip be
> anti-evolution?

   In some versions of theistic anti-evolutionism but not others.  Remember,
since false premises imply all conclusions, the creationist can roll his joint
with whatever herbs and spices he chooses and need respond to no logical
authority about which herbs make sense.

>  |warren@      
> / nysernet.org 

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
"Whacha smoking man?"
"A special blend of eleven herbs and spices..."
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters)
Subject: Re: Will Antti start having a real discussion?
Keywords: Antti, evolution, creation, holistic, Menem, Norrblad
Organization: Program in Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, Indiana University
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 03:58:01 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.113441.21318@cs.joensuu.fi> asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
>zuber_rg@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert G Zuber) writes:
>>these nonreligious objections to evolution on talk.origins? 
>
>	All the time in "macroevolution" chain. 

Ah, yes.  The non-religious objection's Antti's been raising in the 
macroevolution thread.  In case you've missed it, his latest version
of those objections is that the _Larus_ ring species isn't an
example of speciation because it doesn't fit the "biblical definition
of species." (A definition he fails to give, and which I was unable
to find in my version of the bible).

Sounds pretty non-religious to me.

<not>

>		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

-- 
* Andy Peters                     * "Slugs are small and portable    *From
* Program in Evolution,           * Just stuff 'em up your nose      *"Slugs,"
*      Ecology, and Behavior      * They'll fit beneath your armpits *by David
* Indiana University, Bloomington * Or right between your toes"      *Greenberg
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb)
Subject: Re: Back to "Bales' scales"
Organization: CSIRO Division of Information Technology
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 01:52:34 GMT

bobb@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Robert W Bales) writes:


>But if we rephrase the question as "Why don't organisms have characteristics
>resembling a number of types of otherorganisms instead of just one?", the
>answer is "they do."  Consider an organism

>    with a tail resembling a beaver's,
>    with a bill resembling a duck's,
		only very superficially
>    with webbed toes,
>    that uses echo location,
		it doesn't
>    is venemous,
		from spurs on the male's hind feet
>    has fur,
>    and has cheeck pouches like a squirrel's.

>Creatures such as the platypus do not fit into a "boring heiearchy," are hard
>for evolution to explain, but pose no problem for creation.

You forgot the most truely amazing bits:
	lays eggs like a reptile
	has warm blood and efficient thermoregulation like a mammal
	has a largely mammalian skeleton, with some reptilian features
	has mammary glands,
	but reptile-like genatilia (one orifice for urine, faeces
				and reproduction)
	monotreme chromosomes ... reflect a mixture of reptilian
				and mammalian traits[1]

But then, these place the monotremes (platypus and the two echidna species)
quite neatly in the "boring" heirarchy. Of your list, only two characteristics
are shared between the platypus and the echidna; all my list of characteristics
are shared. The characteristics in your list which are not shared with
echidnas, but are shared with other species, are superficial and analogues, not
homologues.

Mervyn Griffiths doesn't seem to think that the platypus is a problem
for evolution, in fact, quite the contrary:

	"[the monotremes] represent a branch of mammals that is quite ancient.
	They are more closely related to marsupial and placental mammals
	than to any group of reptiles, yet they have retained a surprising
	number of ancestral reptilian traits over the course of evolution
	and posses an interesting mosaic of mammalian and reptilian
	characteristics".
			Mervyn Griffiths[1]	

I suggest you try reading [1] and [2] before you talk too much more
about platypuses.

I guess it's getting around time for a repost of my monotremes FAQ.


Peter Lamb (prl@csis.dit.csiro.au)

[1] Mervyn Griffiths, "The Platypus", Scientific American, May 1988, pp 60-67.
[2] Terence J. Dawson, "Monotremes and Marsupials: the other Mammals",
	Arnold, London, 1983
-- 
Peter Lamb (prl@csis.dit.csiro.au)
From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Humungosaurs, etc. (water-dwelling sauropods)
Summary: water-dwelling wasn't mentioned because it probably wasn't a factor
Date: 04 Sep 92 21:57:37 GMT

-> From: plumpton@wampyr.cc.uow.edu.au (David Plumpton)
-> Message-ID: <1992Aug31.225103.13300@cc.uow.edu.au>
-> I haven't seen anybody mention that these big boys were thought to have
-> lived in *water*, with just their heads sticking up.  An indication of this
-> is that they tend to have their nostrils on the top of their heads.

You probably haven't seen it mentioned, because that theory has been
pretty much abandoned.  While there is strong evidence that some
sauropods waded in water some of the time (evidence from trackways
that show features of having been made underwater), there is also
strong evidence that they mostly didn't do so.  The "didn't do so"
evidence is also trackway evidence, especially the deposition of
footprints of herds moving over terrain where water wasn't availale,
and the like.

See what recent writers on the subject have to say: Desmond, Alexander,
McGowan, Bakker, etc.  Also, see papers by Gillette in the collection
"Dinosaur Tracks and Traces", about statistical studies of sauropod
trails.
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 01:23:43 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.211611.4008@desire.wright.edu>, sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>In article <2900@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep8.061806.3949@desire.wright.edu>, sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>> 
>>>Says you!  After all, any statement from the man who said that new born horses
>>>can't run, that horses can't comfortably carry any weight over 125 pounds,
>>>that giraffes have enormous blood pressure in their heads *(ALL totally
>>>untrue)*, is very suspect.
>>
>>Sue Bishop is either VERY stupid, or a liar, possibly both.  I have never
>>made ANY of the above statements.
>
>OK, group, did or did NOT Ted say that giraffes have high blood pressure?
>And Ted, you DID say that a new born horse cannot run.  Sorry I didn't save
>it but I'm sure someone else can verify it.  And you also said a year or
>two ago that anything over 125 pounds on a horse was a 'handicap', a mis-
>information about horse racing, actually.

He said that a new born horse cannot *gallop*.  I don't think this slight
misquote is enough reason to call you a liar or VERY stupid.  I can't remember
the 125 pounds thing, but he definitely said the thing with the blood pressure,
probably in another wording.

It seems that T. Holden has now two strategies for avoiding having to admit an
error:  ignoring the contradictions and repeating the error, or claiming he
never said that.

So the best we can hope for could be that we get him to post "I never said that
there was a reduced felt effect of gravity."

-- 
thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany
Science is like democracy - it's not perfect, but it's the best thing available.
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 12 Sep 92 01:11:50 GMT
Organization: HTE

*>> Says you!  After all, any statement from the man who said that new born horses
*>> can't run, that horses can't comfortably carry any weight over 125 pounds,
*>> that giraffes have enormous blood pressure in their heads *(ALL totally
*>> untrue)*, is very suspect.
*> 
*> Sue Bishop is either VERY stupid, or a liar, possibly both.  I have never
*> made ANY of the above statements.
*> -- 
*> Ted Holden
*> HTE
*
*OK, group, did or did NOT Ted say that giraffes have high blood pressure?
*And Ted, you DID say that a new born horse cannot run.  Sorry I didn't save
*it but I'm sure someone else can verify it.  And you also said a year or
*two ago that anything over 125 pounds on a horse was a 'handicap', a mis-
*information about horse racing, actually.
*
*Sue

I find the difference between things I say and the way they come back from
Sue Bishop to be so great, that I have no problem in claiming never to have
made the statements Bishop claims I have.  I have claimed that giraffes
require tremendous blood pressure to get blood to their brains;  that is not
at all the same as saying that that blood, once gotten that high, is STILL
under tremendous pressure and that therefore they live with constant high
blood pressure within their heads.  There IS a bit of a problem when they
LOWER their heads to drink...

Bishop once mentioned making some poor little horse haul her 200+ tochas
around, and I mentioned the obvious fact that somebody should call the 
SPCA.  There ARE horses which can carry men in armor, Belgians...

I once mentioned that I had never seen a baby horse GALLOPING.  That's
not at all the same thing as saying that baby horses CAN"T RUN.  The 
difference to me is fairly obvious.as


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE
From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Question for Creationists
Date: 8 Sep 92 09:58:40 GMT
Organization: City University, London

In article <1992Sep7.185110.16712@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:
>In article <1992Sep2.130157.3954@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>>In article <dkristof.715431601@hq> dkristof@Pt.hq.af.mil (Capt Dave Kristof) writes:
>>>
>>>What is the purpose of mankind?  
>>
>>To worship God.
>>
>>My next door neighbour and myself had a long discussion about this.
>>We concluded that God is simply amazing and wonderful and very very
>>clever and brilliant - in facts words (and thoughts) fail to 
>>sum Him up - not surprising really as He is our Creator and we are
>>His created beings. My neighbour and I thought about all that God had 
>>done for us and given us, including existence itself, and we decided
>>that to spend eternity in God's presence (heaven) was an appropriate
>>length of time - we would be able to actually see God face to face
>>and praise, honour, glorify and simply worship Him.
>
>Interesting--so this "heaven" is where one is sentenced to spend an
>eternity heaping adulation on an omnipotent being with (at least 
>according to the bible) a level of moral development well below most
>spoiled children (and a serious sadistic streak, to boot) in a hideous
>caricature of a bad Hollywood cocktail party that never ends.
>
>Presumably, this "heaven" is that special corner of hell reserved for
>those poor benighted souls who managed to allow the brains god had
>given them to atrophy to the point where they could reject everything
>god's creation around them says in favor of the words in whatever book
>of myths and fables happened to be nearest them when they were growing
>up.
>
>Trygve  

God has given you a very precious priviledge called _free choice_.
On the one hand you can reject God and go your own way - the
consequences are that you will not be allowed in His presence.
On the other hand He says that He will let anyone who earnestly
seeks Him find Him. The ball as they say is in your court.


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