HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bruce@supr.scm.liv.ac.uk (Bruce Stephens)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: 160' Diplodocus...  429,895 lbs
Date: 2 Sep 92 17:03:06 GMT
	<Btrt9q.6C5@world.std.com>
Organization: Centre for Mathematical Software Research, Univ. Liverpool, UK

>>>>> On 30 Aug 92 00:27:26 GMT, twalters@world.std.com (Tim Walters) said:

> (news) writes:
>>Size and strength are always an advantage UNTIL you come to some point,
>>which varies with the design for any given life form, at which which 
>>increased size begins to equate with disfunction.  
So is smallness.  Up to a point.  And number of limbs, and length of
tail, and ...  All up to a point.

> Hmm. In that case, why aren't house cats the size of lions? Same basic
> design. Why didn't it happen?
> 
Well, MAYBE SOME OF THEM ARE!!  Ted hasn't explained how domestic cats
and lions are related yet (unless I missed that post).

--
Bruce Stephens.  Centre for Mathematical Software Research, Liverpool Univ.
Internet: bruce@uxb.liv.ac.uk     JANET: bruce@uk.ac.liv.uxb
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develope?
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 10:57:44 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.230626.17809@cco.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
>We should also note that skin color variations are present among the other
>primates as well.  For example, a gorilla has black skin, while a chimpanzee
>has lighter skin (those primates with darker hair tend to have darker skin,
>just like humans).

Gorillas usually have black skin, but there is an albino gorilla.  His name is
Snowflake, and last I heard he was one of the most popular attractions at the
Barcelona Zoo.  The common chimp (_Pan troglodytes_) has lighter skin as an
infant that later darkens; this is illustrated by the dust jacket photograph
for _Chimpanzees of Gombe_ by Jane Goodall, which shows a youngster sitting
between two adults.  The bonobo (_Pan paniscus_), sometimes called the pygmy
chimp, has a dark skin from birth.

-- Herb Huston
From: hamilton@hydra.cs.gmr.com (William E. Hamilton CS50 CS/50)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Question for Creationists
Date: 3 Sep 92 16:46:39 GMT
Reply-To: hamilton@gmr.com (William E. Hamilton CS50 CS/50)
Organization: GM Research Labs, Warren, MI

In article <dkristof.715431601@hq> dkristof@Pt.hq.af.mil (Capt Dave Kristof) writes:
>For you Creationists out there, a simple question:
>
>What is the purpose of mankind?  
>

I don't claim to be a young-earth creationist, but I can't resist this one:

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever"

- The Westminster Shorter Catechism
  1643 or thereabouts

Bill Hamilton
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: I visited the ICR in person (4 of 4)
Date: 3 Sep 92 01:33:57 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Followup-To: alt.atheism,talk.origins
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Aug31.204837.29425@leland.Stanford.EDU> yergeau@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dan Yergeau) writes:
|In article <37445@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, slinke@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Steven Linke) writes:
||> Evil Practices:
||>   Abortion
||>   Promiscuity
||>   Pornography
||>   Genocide
||>   Euthanasia
||>   Infanticide
||>   Chauvinism
||>   Bestiality
||>   Homosexuality
||>   Drug Culture
||>   Child Abuse
||>   Slavery
|
|Hmmmm, are they asserting that the practices listed above
|did not occur before Darwin?  Then, they are going to have 
|to rewrite the Bible.  Maybe that is part of their "True 
|History."

Remember earlier where they traced 'evolutionism' back to ancient
Sumerian paganism (which they called 'pantheism')?  Since that was
one of the first civilizations, they can honestly (if perversly)
claim that evolutionism *does* predate these things.

Of course I would still like to see how they equate Darwin's scientific
theory with an ancient Semitic religious cult.  And on what evidence.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Subject: Re: Holden numbers, powerlifting, and reality
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 13:40:38 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.002629.17003@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:
}OK, that's it--I've been reading t.o. semi-regularly again lately and
}have come to the inescapable conclusion that Ted Holden is not a
}powerlifter and, for that matter, don't seem to know anything to speak
}of about powerlifters or powerlifting.

Naturally.  Why should he excuse his ignorance and willingness to espound
absurdities from that field too?  That he knows nothing of mathematics
or any hard science has been long established.
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Creative speculation on outrageous chance
Date: 27 Aug 92 20:08:32 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <schinder.714758496@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov> schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov writes:
|In <9208242249.AA04264@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov> jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) writes:
|
|First, if I remember correctly there are three plausible moon
|formation scenarios (fission by excess angular momentum, fission by
|collision, independent formation), and I believe the evidence
|(slightly) favors independent formation. 

I think this has changed in the last year or so, and the preponderance of
the evidence is now leaning towards a variant of 'fission by collision'.

In particular there is now a detailed model showing that a collision between
the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized body, under sutiable constraints on relative
momentum and angle of incidence, will produce, eventually, a moon of the
size and composition as our Moon.   Note this covers the evidence for
'independent formation, since much of the lesser body, which would have formed
elsewhere, goes into forming the Moon.  (It also does not come out a simple
fission process, it is more of a splash followed by gravitational
consolidation of the orbiting debris).

|>	(Add in abiogenesis itself, an event which is so common that it
|>can only be shown to have possibly occurred on one celestial body in a 
|>Universe with, in Saganese, "billions and billions" of celestial bodies.)
|
|By whom?  Could you give a reference for a computation which shows
|that the odds are this small (frankly, I don't think it can be shown,
|since we know so little about the mechanism)?  All we can now say is
|that our cursory examination of the solar system shows clear signs of
|life on only one planet, and there's no obvious evidence of life
|elsewhere in the universe that's detectable by remote means.

I think that is all he was really saying anyway, that we have not observed
life anywhere else, so we cannot actually assume its presence.

Still, I think he is reading too much into this.  We have not really been
able (yet) to search outside of our Solar System very effectively.

|>	3.  Another collision hastening the demise of the dominant
|>dinosaurs:
|
|But I thought that the amount of junk in the solar system meant that
|there's a near dead certainty of large objects colliding with the
|earth every few million years?

Not really.  It is a little tricky, but most objects remaining in the
Solar System have relatively stable, distinct orbits, and this is more
true for the larger classes of bodies than for the smaller.

Large body collision were far more common in the early history of the
Solar System than now.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 16:01:22 GMT

mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:
>Both of Andreas' claims are false, and neither makes any contact with
>the points Matthew made.  There is no known overall measure of language
>"complexity" for natural languages, and by and large they all seem much
>the same -- languages with simple inflectional morphology, for example
>Enlish, tending to great complexity in word order syntax.  There is,
>furthermore, no overall tendency (despite popular statements to the
>contrary) for languages to move towards simpler inflections (which is
>what I suppose Andreas to have in mind in the first claim.)  More
>importantly, evolutionary theory makes no claim that development must
>be towards greater complexity.  Rather, there is a more subtle constraint
>-- evolutionary theory DOES suggest that variety increases (as species
>emerge from previously interbreeding populations) which can prepare for
>and allow a greater range of complexity among species.  If you start
>out simple, and generate varieties that can reproduce, then you MAY
>(perhaps with a high probability, in fact) find complexity in later
>generations -- but that is not *necessarily* the case, however likely
>it may be.

	Hmm, I'm an experienced user of many languages, both simple and 
	complex. I have found the structure of English language bit stiff
	and not flexible whereas I can use my imagination more when I use 
	Finnish, which is a primitive language. One good example you can see
	in my signature: It's very easy to invent palindromes in Finnish, 
	when the structure is not very strict. I see that some languages 
	develop faster than the others, and for instance Swedish has been
	quite flexible, when German and Finnish have been more conservative. 
	Still the tendence is clearly to make things more simple. "Computer",
	for instance, used to be "Datenverabteilunganlagung" in German and 
	now it's "Computer". The same has happened with the structure of the 
	language. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
From: schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul J. Schinder)
Subject: Re: visiting ICR? (check brain at door)
Reply-To: schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 15:09:41 GMT

In <94948@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:

>In article <37434@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> slinke@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Steven Linke) writes:

>[List of "evil evolutionists" at ICR edited]
>>John Rockefeller: "A ruthless developer of one of America's...

>>Andrew Carnegie: "Carnegie is honored today for philanthropies...

>>At this point, one of the museum patrons commented on the picture
>>of Karl Marx, "Evolutionism is practically synonymous with
>>Communism."

>Oh yeah, that must explain why Rockefeller and Carnegie where also
>present in the group of evolutionists. Are you required to check
>your brain at the door or what? 

Looked that way to me while reading what Steve posted.

I *was* suprised that the ICR museum is apparently so openly
religious.  Have they given up trying to force their "science" into
public schools by legislation?  It seems to me that any lawyer
fighting such a case would merely have to take the judge on a tour of
the ICR musuem to prove that the motivation behind "creation science"
is purely fundamentalist religion.

>>Steve Linke

>Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
--
--------
Paul J. Schinder
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
From: cjhs@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Date: 4 Sep 92 09:14:10 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

news (news@fedfil.UUCP) wrote:
: In article <87502@netnews.upenn.edu>, weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
:  
: > Moreover, only a moron who has zero comprehension of what evolution claims
: > would be so bold as to state that evolutionary theory claims that things
: > must develop from simpler to more complicated.  That's just a flat out lie.
: > -Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
: 
: Interesting to see that you've become a creationist, Weiner.  You're claiming
: that evolution accounts for simple forms, but that God must have created
: all the higher forms...  the standard version which everybody has seen, which
: has humans and all other higher forms deriving from one-celled animals via
: a long series of apparant violations of the 2'nd law of thermodynamics is
: by your reckoning a flat out lie.
: 
: Good to know where people stand.

No, that is not what he is claiming.  Obviously, evolutionary theory
allows that complex things can develop from simpler things. All Matthew
is saying is that evolutionary theory does not claim that this is the
only direction which development takes. In this he is quite correct.

Whether or not you agree that evolution is a valid theory, Matthew is
correct to point out that the theory does not require all development
to be from simpler to more complex.

I don't understand this violations of the second law complaint. I had
thought you postulated an accelerated evolution due to increased
mutation rates due to a flood of radiation. The arguments of based on
the second law are bogus; if they were valid they would rule out your
scenario as much as the more conventional scenarios.

Felicitations -- Chris Ho-Stuart
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Help needed to debunk creationism
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 14:23:19 GMT

In article <134340@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>, dk@imager (Dave Knapp) writes:

|>In Article <930@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
|>writes:
|>
|>> |2. What is the evidence that radioactive isotopes have
|>> |   constant decay rates over geological time?
|>
|>> A. the fact that the decay rate is constant under *all* conditions
|>> in the laboratory today.
|>
|>   Actually, there is recent very good physical evidence for the
|>constancy of decay rates for at least 200,000 years, long enough
|>to destroy these arguments.  The light curve of SN1987A has
|>followed the halflife curve of Co-56 (I think that's the isotope)
|>very accurately.  The distance to SN1987A has been measured geometrically
|>as 170,000 light-years; thus, the constancy of radioactive decay
|>is assured over that timescale.
|>
|>   Please note that there is no extant creationist "explanation"
|>that accounts for all these measurements simultaneously.  

Before the Creationists start dredging up cosmologists using models in which the
speed of light, radioactive decay etc change with time, none of these models are
in the slightest bit compatible with Creationism since they all require
timescales of the order of billions of years to work.


--

Phill Hallam-Baker
From: czl30@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Chris Lee)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Date: 3 Sep 92 00:07:11 GMT
Reply-To: czl30@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Chris Lee)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Sep2.171035@IASTATE.EDU> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
>
>  What English lacks in the complexity you refer to it more than makes up for in
>complexities elsewhere.  It is not an easy language to learn as a second one: my
>roommate has been studying since grade school (about 18 years) and still
>couldn't write a letter that would fool a native speaker into thinking he was
>American.
>

This doesn't make sense!

I am a native English speaker whom nobody would think American.

Maybe that's because I'm English.

The language spoken in the US should be called "American". Shortly after
I arrived in here somebody who couldn't place my accent (a mixture of
Middlesex and Manchester with traces of Yorkshire) told me "You speak
English real good for a foreigner". My reaction was "Thank you, you
speak English really well for an American". Which didn't go down very
well. But the English in America are very sensitive about their language.

> |  __L__   *******************************
>-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
> |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
> |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
>/|   ___    * Math Department             *
> |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
> |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
> J  _____   *******************************

Chris Lee
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ds0007@buhao (Dale Skiba)
Subject: Re: worthless comic strips
Organization: Medtronic, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 13:15:53 GMT

keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
: 
: >   Week ago Sunday I was reading the paper and enjoying my coffee when I
: >noticed the comic strip B.C. (by J. Hart) had Wiley doing a poem that said (my
: >paraphrase) "The world just got here by accident.  Right.  Suuurrre".  Since
: >this is a standard creationist line I started paying attention and sure enough,
: >one of the daily strips was Wiley doing a poem about prayer in schools.  He was
: >bitchiong that the establishment clause of the first amendment didn't contain
: >the phrase "wall of seperation between church and state" and deducing that that
: >notion had, as a result, no constitutional weight.
: 
: >   Leaving aside the fact that both these points of view require one to ignore
: >all sorts of relevant information, does anyone else have examples of creationist
: >or evangelical propaganda on the comics pages?  How long has B.C.
: >been pulling this stuff?
: 
: >   PLEASE EDIT YOUR NEWSGROUPS LINE.  I CROSSPOSTED THIS TO TALK.ORIGINS AND
: >ALT.ATHEISM.
: 
: I also despise Hi & Lois and Family Circus for similar reasons.
                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

My pet peeve is the ignorance of basic Astronomy demonstrated by the illustrator
of the Family Circus.  Every so often, I notice an impossible representation of the
night sky -- crescent moon with stars appearing in darkened part of the moon's disk!

I wonder if this is a joke of his, or if is he really that stupid.  It shouldn't
bother me so much, but for some reason it really annoys me.

--
Dale Skiba
From: jjh00@outs.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Creative speculation on outrageous chance
Summary: Impacts are common
Keywords: Devonian
Date: 25 Aug 92 19:40:34 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:
>
>
>   (quotes Washington Post article about microtektites found
>    in 365-Myear old sediments in Belgium)
>
>  Quick question:  is the earlier extinction the Permian?

No, it's in the upper Devonian.  I have the relevant issues
of _Science_ at home -- I'll bring 'em in and provide
citations, more exact dates, and suchlike technical stuff.

I believe that microtektites attributed to the same event
were also recently found somewhere else, maybe China, and
that this correlates well with the proposed arrangement
of land masses in Pangaea.


>	Based on this article, it appears that at least twice the Earth
>had evolved a very stable population which existed for a period of time
>immensely longer than humanity's miniscule temporal foothold.


Many more mass extinctions are known; I think at least ten.


There are lots of impact craters known, too -- see the recent
thread in sci.geology for a listing of the largest ones.

The rest of your posting seems to imply that asteroid or
comet sized bolides should be thought unusual -- nothing
can be further from the truth.  Every piece of old planetary
crust preserved in the Solar System shows evidence of a
continuing barrage -- on the timescale of the history of
life, impacts are as common as traffic accidents in a big city.

---
Joel Hanes
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ehamrick@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Eric N Hamrick)
Subject: Re: visiting ICR? (check brain at door)
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 16:34:59 GMT

-------------g
In article <94948@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
>In article <37434@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> slinke@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Steven Linke) writes
:
>
>[List of "evil evolutionists" at ICR edited]
>>John Rockefeller: "A ruthless developer of one of America's...
>
>>Andrew Carnegie: "Carnegie is honored today for philanthropies...
>
>>At this point, one of the museum patrons commented on the picture
>>of Karl Marx, "Evolutionism is practically synonymous with
>>Communism."
>
>Oh yeah, that must explain why Rockefeller and Carnegie where also
>present in the group of evolutionists. Are you required to check
>your brain at the door or what?

     I have heard one rumor that there is a basket outside the entrance
  with this handwritten sign attached to it:

              Please place brain in basket before entering.


     Or borrowing a Creationist argument, before you enter, God intervenes
  and forces your brain into a state of hibernation. Same difference.

        -Eric Hamrick-
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: 160' Diplodocus...  429,895 lbs
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 21:30:28 GMT

In article <2885@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> In evolution, if something can happen, and there are huge advantages to
> it and few if any countervailing disadvantages, then it will happen.

  Ted: explain why mice don't have wings.  Mice are cirtainly light enough to
fly.  So it should happen, right?

> Size and strength are always an advantage UNTIL you come to some point,
> which varies with the design for any given life form, at which which 
> increased size begins to equate with disfunction.  

  Which is different for different types of animals.  Why aren't shrews as big
as elephants?

> I'm not the one who's missed something.

  No, to miss something implies you are at least trying to comprehend.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: 160' Diplodocus...  429,895 lbs
Date: 28 Aug 92 00:15:48 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <945@tdat.teradata.COM*, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
* In article <2877@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
* |For the benefit of Mssrs. Throop & Friesen, the concensus of opinion
* |for the tracks found in Morocco and listed as breviparopus is that the
* |creature was 160' long.
* 
* I'll accept that provisionally.
* 
* |Let's assume the worst possible case (from my perspective), that the creature
* |was a diplodocus, i.e. of all the various kinds of sauropods, the very 
* |lightest.  Assume also the normal figures which you see for diplodocus, i.e.
* |around 70', 18 tons.
* |
* |160/70 = 2.2857
* |
* |2.2857^3 = 11.94
* |
* |11.94 * 36000 = 429,895 lbs.
* |
* |Sorry about that.
* 
* 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.


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE