HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jjh00@outs.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Shuffling a new deck
Summary: without the K/T catastrophe we'd be tree-shrews
Keywords: chance
Date: 26 Aug 92 23:07:38 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@OUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA


 jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) writes:
>
>	General question:  without catastrophic events such as
>planetary-rocking collisions, what would the course of evolution be?
>I.E. are collisions/mass extinctions required to "shake the pot"
>resulting in more diversity?

Mass extinctions, whether from bolide impacts or other sources,
tend to immediately  _reduce_ diversity -- but they _do_ upset
stable ecologies, and create vacancies in ecological niches that
can then be filled by other lineages, or not.  On the other hand,
some niches (obligate dinosaur gut parasites, for example)
are likely to be eliminated forever, along with the animals
that filled them.

My understanding is that after each mass extinction, some of
the remaining taxa diversify, but that the new diversity
tends to be at a lower taxonomic level than before the event --
that whereas a total pre-event diversity of 100,000 species
might comprise 10,000 genera, 1000 families, and 40 phyla,
a few million years after the event one might find
200,000 species in 15,000 genera, comprising 700 families
in 30 phyla.

It's like pruning a bush.  After removing some major branches,
many minor branches, and a whole lot of twigs and leaves,
and then letting the bush grow back, there may actually be more
total leaves, but the number of major branches is still smaller
than before pruning.

In _Wonderful_Life_, S.J. Gould
points out that most phyla that exist today were present in
the Cambrian, along with a bunch of others that have gone
extinct -- there's actually less diversity today at the phylum
level (among animals) than there was 500 M years ago.

To bring the point down to a more personal level: *speculation*
is that without the impact (and maybe the catastrophic eruption
of the Deccan Traps flood basalts) at the end of the Cretaceous,
the present-day ecology would still be dominated by the diverse
dinosaur lineages, and that mammals would still be a minor tribe
of nocturnal, shrewlike insectivores.  The extinction of the
dinosaurs gave us the chance to "adaptively radiate" into a
whole bunch of formerly-occupied niches.

---
Joel Hanes


I'd recommend Lyn Margulis' excellent _Five_Kingdoms_
to those interested in biodiversity at the phylum level.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Subject: To Joseph Duffy -- I've got your videotape!
Content-Type: text
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 14:16:38 EDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4dev PL73]
Content-Length: 1529      



	Mr. Duffy:

	I've got a real deal for you!  "The Abiogenesis Story - Complete" is
a set of 1.46 x 10^12 four-hour videotapes which records, in real time, the 
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	View:

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	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov

	(Your first tape will arrive in 6-8 weeks, and one approximately
every two weeks thereafter).


Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: To Joe Duffy and T.O. et al.  - re: Abiogenesis (fwd)
Date: 3 Sep 92 19:55:34 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <9209021222.AA10544@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov> jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) writes:
|
|	4.  Self-replication of a chemical entity.
|
|The trigger for self-replication -- 
|RNA self-catalysis, clay-surface catalysis, or 
|other -- appears (to me) to be the "clincher".  Make this happen,
|and God/supernatural intervention is not necessary for abiogenesis.

These certainly have both been shown to happen in the laboratory.

The real difficulty lies in determining at what point a self-replicating
system can be called alive.  This is not an easy question, and one on
which there is little agreement.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 29 Aug 92 02:05:05 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <953@tdat.teradata.COM*, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
 
* True enough, but I think *birds* do things differently, and I do not know that
* I have ever seen a bird laying down to sleep (sitting on a nest is not for
* sleeping, it is for uncubating eggs).
* And, remember, dinosaurs are more closely related to birds than to mammals,
* so the avian type of sleep is more likely to be relevant than mammalian.
* I do think the idea that sauropods never lay down warrants serious
* consideration, Warren had that right.
* Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com

Every part of the above is either dubvious or completely wrong other than
for the spelling of the name (Friesen), and at this point, I'm not sure whether
I'd trust the guy that far.

Birds sleep "standing" because they have a tendon which goes over the back-
facing joint of their legs, keeps their legs comfortably suspended at a sort
of a half bend, and keeps their claws tightly clomped around the limb or
whatever with no effort on their part.  

This wouldn't work for a sauropod or any straight-legged creature or any
creature with knees facing forwards for obvious reasons, and it doesn't even
work for an ostrich.

For a bluejay which weighed 400,000 lbs, it wouldn't work either...  the 
tendon would snap and everything would collapse.

Dinosaurs were mostly of two basic types, birdlike which included even the
tyrannosaur, and sauropod or sauropod-like, which were either mammals
outright as Dr. Velikovsky claimed, or were very similar to mammals.

The idea that sleeping "like a bird" would come naturally to a sauropod
is idiotic for obvious reasons.

Basically, at some point, everybody slips, falls, has to work under a
car, goes swimming, or does some fricking thing which will require that
he be able to lift his own weight off the ground.  The idea that sauropods
might have been an exception to this is ludicrous and warrants serious
consideration only by an idiot.


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE
From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Subject: Re: _Evolution From Space_ odds, part 2
Keywords: Hoyle, chance, probability, histones, amino acids, DNA
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 01:36:45 GMT

I think the biggest problem is the assumption that life started as
is. Why can't there be a bootstrap process involved? All you need to
start with is any reproducing system, the first system probably wouldn't
be very good (explaining why it took so long to get going). Eventually
a "mutation" improves this system some, after some number of stages it
reachs something resembling what we call life. 
What you really need for odds are the odds of getting the simplest
reproducing system (do we even know what this system is?).
-- 
>>Unix/C Contract worker available 5 years C/unix work experience<<  ______
Available for Telecommuting/Travel and contracts on the T Line       \    /
in the Boston MA area. Send me e-mail for a copy of my Resume.        \  /
       -- VWIS 508-793-9568 (2400 baud), Linux support BBS.--          \/
From: fritz@triguy.East.Sun.COM (Steve Fritzinger - SE Sun Washington,DC.)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Proof: God wrote the Bible
Date: 1 Sep 1992 15:38:25 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Distribution: world
Reply-To: fritz@triguy.East.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: triguy.east.sun.com

In article 9371@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu, kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu writes:
 Moral:  One can come up with all sorts of gibberish concerning patterns in a
 	book if that book is hefty enough.
 
 I'm sure there are people out there who can give better examples of this.  (I'm
 working off the top of my head.)

Martin Garden(er?)'s book _Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus_ contains
an interesting essay on this sort of numerological dreak.  It 
describes just how easy it is to come up with these sorts of
amazing coincidences.  He uses the example of Pyrimidologists how,
by measure various distances inside the pyrimids could "proof"
the that builders of the pyrimids predicted every important event
in modern history.

He then describes how he had measured the Washington Monument
and found all sorts of amazing predictions.

Steve Fritzinger   --  steve.fritzinger@East.Sun.COM
The First Rule of Holes:
When you're in one, stop digging.
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: 160' Diplodocus...  429,895 lbs
Date: 3 Sep 92 00:19:54 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <2881@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
|In article <945@tdat.teradata.COM*, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
|
|* That assumes that girth increases proportionally with length - a very
|* dubious assumption, especially for a diplodicid.
|* 
|* Why not try a simple increase in length with no increase in girth?
|* This gives 2.29*18 tons => 41 tons.
|
|As utterly ridiculous as your "why not try" is, it's still impossible.
|Nothing 41 tones lives anymore.  If it could happen, it would happen, and
|we have no evidence of it, anywhere within recorded history.
|
|What you're really saying, is that for your goof refutation of my basic
|theory to work, you need dinosaurs which scale in surrealistic fashion.
|
No, as I stated a couple of sentences later, I was doing a parody of your
argument style by choosing the opposite absurd assumption.  I very clearly
stated that an *intermediate* condition was almost certainly the truth.

However, I *was* also trying to make an important point.  You cannot simply
apply linear scaling and expect to get reliable results, you have to use
what anatomists call allometry, that is differential scaling.

As I have been informed by e-mail, this is in fact how the weight estimates
of about 55 tons for the Breviparopus(?sp) were arrived at.  That is the way
in which diplodocids scale with size was measured for known specimens, and
then the resulting formula was applied to arrive at an estimated volume
(and mass) for the larger specimen implied by the tracks.

This is certainly what I would have expected from any competent paleontologist,
so I cannot say I am surprised.

[You really do have to start from the right point - Diplodocus was the
lightest of the Morrison sauropods, as well as being the longest].
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God and Drew...
Date: 27 Aug 92 01:43:19 GMT
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

vnelson@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gerald Vernon Nelson) writes:
>In <94541@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
>
>>Also, can you back up your repeated assertion that "evolutionists"
>>take this one step further and say "... so therefore there is no
>>god." I haven't seen anybody on t.o. say that. I haven't seen
>>any evolutionary biologists say that. I (a grad student studying
>>evolutionary biology) don't claim that. I've never seen a text
>>in the field make this claim. Where are these phantom hoards of 
>>people arguing in this manner?
>
>I'm one, and proud of it.  I was raised without religious bias
>and the idea of evolution co-existing with god is an atrocity.

As both an atheist, and an ex-christain, I have to say that the idea of
evolution and God being mutually exclusive is silly on both sides.

>All of the evidence you agree to is mutually exclusive to the 
>concept of god.  How can someone cling to such an idea?
>It is shown again and again, that things just didn't happen
>as depicted in the Bible, yet people stubbornly believe the
>general idea, there is a god, and he created all life.

It is shown that the evidence contradicts ONE very narrow interpretation of
the Bible.  The idea of "god" can take a pretty close to infinite number of
forms, and one piece of evidence won't eliminate them all.

One the whole, I have found not a single piece of science that proves or
disproves god.  Sciecne is mute on that particular subject.  (The fallacious
and often wrong "scientific proofs" of God [like entropy, origin of life,
and Big Bang] don't count.)

>Vern Nelson


|======================================================================|
| Seth Kroger                       "If God made us in His image we    |
| skroger@pan.calpoly.edu               have certianly returned the    |
| Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo             compliment."  -Voltaire        |
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: following up to my own post
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:30:25 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <94541@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:

>Life originated from non-living sources and diversified over
>millions of years. All species on the face of this planet share
>a common ancestor and have been modified (mostly via natural
>selection) with descent. _That_ is the evolutionary point of
>view.

I should clarify this a bit. Strictly, the theory of evolution is 
independent of any hypothesis of abiogenesis (i.e. it does not matter 
how the first living organisms appeared, the theory of evolution
would apply in any case). But, since it would be kind of lame 
to present the theory of evolution ignore how life itself
evolved(*), these two topics are often lumped together. 

(*) although that's precisely what I do in my FAQ 8-)

The theory of evolution is a scientific fact. Hypotheses about
the origin of life are currently rather long on speculation
and short on data (but getting better). The current front-
runner is the RNA-world hypothesis, followed closely by the
Cairns-Smith clay model (yeah!). The perennial dark horse is 
panspermia (and this really isn't a model of the origin of life,
just how life _on earth_ started.)

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: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 17:16:52 GMT

In article <2873@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> And then there's another factor which Throop, Friesen et. al. leave out of
> their calculations entirely.
> 
> Kaz lives on the very top of the food chain;  sauropods lived on the very 
> bottom.

  Sauropods were plants?

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Help needed to debunk creationism
Date: 26 Aug 92 15:26:59 GMT
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany

In article <930@tdat.teradata.COM>, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>All creationists think all dating techniques are unreliable - they have to
>in order to make their position even remotely plausible.
>[..]
>Do you want more?

That was a very clear and understandable answer.  I don't know the dating FAQ,
but this should be in it if isn't already.

-- 
thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany
Definition:  Idiot-proof  -  you are idiot-proof when you NEVER flame anybody.
From: jespah@milton.u.washington.edu (Kathleen Hunt)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Vestigial organs
Date: 3 Sep 92 20:26:39 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <984@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>
>Now, back to the subject.  I have been reading the article in this month's
>Scientific American on intercellular signalling (you know hormones and all
>that stuff) and how it is accomplished at the molecular level.  My immediate
>response to the `design' of the signalling system was "Rube Goldberg device".
>
>Really: First messenger => receptor => switch enzyme (GTPase)
>	=> switch-effector complex => secondary messenger (e.g. cyclic AMP)
>	=> activator (kinase) => activated system.
>
>Gurrrghhh.  That's just plain *excessive* use of intermediate signals!

The first-messenger/second-messenger coupling may be a little excessive,
but from the second messenger onward, the multiple intermediate signals
allow magnification of the hormonal signal.  Just one hormone molecule
landing on a receptor can cause formation of, say, 1000 cAMP's, which
each activate 1000 kinases, which each ... well, you get the idea.  It
allows a cell to respond quite strongly to a very faint hormonal signal.

But I can think of some other aspects of the endocrine system that are
pretty jury-rigged.  The hypothalamus-pituitary system, for example; the
hypothalamus goes to all the trouble of making and releasing a hormone, 
just to have it travel a few millimeters over to the pituitary.  Why not
have the hypothalamic neurons just synapse straight onto the pituitary
cells?  That's the way teleost fish do it, and it's a lot more efficient;
it allows more precise control of pituitary hormones.  

-- 
Kathleen Hunt //  U.W. Zoology //  jespah@u.washington.edu 
  Safety tip:  Never point a loaded storm-petrel at anyone.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ed_eck@milkwy.enet.dec.com 
Subject: Re: And what about the decay in the speed of light?
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 19:26:50 GMT


In article <david_s.1.715531716@gribb.hsr.no>, david_s@gribb.hsr.no (Sjen, David Andreas   8-94) writes...
>Has anyone out there read the report 'The Atomic Constants, Light and Time'
>by Trevor Norman and Barry Setterfield, issued by the Stanford Research 
>Institute in August 1987? 

      [...]

>Does anyone out there have any comments on this report?
> 
>:)avid


Yeah--they lie. There's a lenghty FAQ about them; here's a previous posting 
from t.o.:



Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: macroevolution
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 16:26:14 GMT

lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay) writes:
>Oddly, all standard biology texts disagree with you. Possibly you
>haven't read any of them.

	Yes, I have spent a lot of time with them, but it doesn't seem to get  
	anywhere. Besides, I don't call that biology. Also I have read the 
	creationists opinion. You are right: They're mostly naive, whereas 
	evolutionist books contain a lot of data. Yes, a lot of data. But, if 
	you read between the lines, you find that it can't be true. Simply, 
	if I would claim that 9 = 10, everybody would claim that it isn't true.
	But if I hide it to a huge formula, then, if you don't read your books
	well, you end up believing that 9 = 10. Very clever. 

	Those evolutionists lack one thing: A holistic view of thinking. I would
	recommend that each of you here, would do your own studies in some field
	of biology -outdoors- not in museums. Ever tried to identify museum 
	objects ? Know how hard it is ? It's because they're outside their 
	context, normal environment. Doing hard work in the nature would give
	you/them PRACTICAL knowledge about the subject. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Holden and superhumongoreallybigosaur weights (or: more Ted errors)
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 17:40:11 GMT

In article <2887@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
[...]
>MY major problem is that "proving" anything assumes an audience bright
>enough to comprehend the proof or, in this case, intellectually honest
>enough, non-brain-dead enough, non-sufficiently-locked in with standard
>dogma...
>
>YOUR major problem is that at some point, quibbling and avoiding salient
>points becomes indistinguishable from lying.

My, my...hypocrisy knows no bounds in Ted Holden, does it?

Of course, Ted will never own up to the fact that he never did address the
salient points of radiative heat transfer and the difference between heat
and temperature in the "Venus debate", nor will he acknowledge such salient
points in the current debate as the fact that limbs are levers with muscles
and tendons applying forces on the points of the lever where they attach, and
that changing the geometry of the lever and moving the attachment points will
have significant effects on the lifting ability of the limb in question.

In short, Ted will, conveniently, never acknowledge the salient points which 
blow his arguments to tiny pieces.  Why?  Because Velikovsky is his Savior,
and no amount of evidence will convince him that Velikovsky's primary thesis
is bogus.

Since no amount of evidence will sway Ted in his arguments, what fits the
definition of "dogma" better than the bizarre beliefs he so frantically
clings to?

>Ted Holden
>HTE



-- 
				Kevin Brown

			    kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
			    kevin@taronga.taronga.com
From: gavrila@imhfhp16.epfl.ch (Spyros Gavrilakis)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Futile request?
Date: 31 Aug 92 15:37:49 GMT
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne


Hello,
    I have never contributed to this group but I have been trying to
    follow the postings for some months. I find a lot of what is said
    (written/typed) interesting but there is one very big problem :
    There is a large number of postings. I very often have to
    'catch up' leaving unread sometimes hundreds of postings.

    I am posting this to make a request - mostly to the more keen
    contributors : Could u plz exercise some restraint and delay
    your replies for a day or two? This way u get a bigger audience.
    (Is this a futile request? Probably made b4)
Spyros. G.
Newsgroups: talk.origins