HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: Transactional Analysis
Keywords: Psychology, Transactional Analysis
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:12:11 GMT

In article <iordonez.714613304@academ01>, iordonez@academ01.mty.itesm.mx (Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso) writes in part:
|> Hello, skeptic folks.
[...]
|> They all sounded quite reasonable to me, and I found the
|> Parent/Adult/Child model of the personality very elegant, although a
|> little simplistic.
|> 
|> So, is T. A. a valid scientific scientific theory? Or is it another fad?
|> I hope to hear some opinions soon.
|> 
|> Thanks in advance to all those who reply or followup.
|> 
|> Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso
|> iordonez@mitras.mty.itesm.mx

Much as this might offend some of my psychologist friends, no theory
of "personality" has achieved the status of anything more than a scheme
for classifying human behavior.  The TA stuff is actually a new age
version of Freud (Parent == superego, Adult == ego, Child == id--get it?)
and has no basis in neural or behavioral evidence.  The
new-agy part of it is that (if I recall correctly) TA is pretty much
joy and light and happy about human behavior, while old Sigmund was
pretty cynical.  (Get in touch with your true feelings?  SF would
say you can't, and if you could you really, really don't want to!)

To the extent that TA "works" it is probably due to the fact that 
Freud's theoretical work, while out of touch with what is now known, 
was hardly slap-dash or incompetant.  And TA may seem comfortable
because it is quite in line with the intense influence Freudian
ideas have had on popular culture (Spock == superego, Kirk == ego,
McCoy == Id--get it?).

There are tons and tons of theories of human personality, and its
a pretty interesting area to study.  Sign up for some psychology
courses, but be prepared to be skeptical.  The worst of it is no
more valid than astrology, but the best is at least partly plausible.
(TA is closer to the astrology end.)

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15603 alt.alien.visitors:6274 talk.religion.newage:4162
From: jmv@grip.cis.upenn.edu (Jean-Marc Vezien)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.alien.visitors,talk.religion.newage
Subject: Re: Tesla, Mushrooms, and other Silliness
Date: 1 Sep 92 00:01:53 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Organization: GRASP Lab

In article <1992Aug31.201043.18487@random.ccs.northeastern.edu>, rogue@ccs.northeastern.edu (Free Radical) writes:
> In article <64758@cup.portal.com> Don_-_Showen@cup.portal.com writes:
> >RA says 
> >>Note the "could". I could be the Queen of England , too. 
> >>STOP EATING MUSHROOMS !!!!
> >
> >Well since you brought it up.  And since communicating with Tesla and/or the
> >Pleiadians seems a little to much.  How about what those mushrooms have to
> >say.  Let me quote them.
> [A lot of way cool silliness about cosmic mushrooms deleted]
> 
> Don - I don't remember writing the Q of E bit...sure it was me?
> Also - you never did tell me what startling inventions Tesla channeled
> through the little old ladies.  Or does he (as I surmised) just ramble
> about how things are 'nice' on the 'other side', with maybe the odd
> lost-watch-finding on the side?
> 
> 	RA


Well, Don should stop eating those damn mushrooms too.
*I* said I could be the Queen of England. In fact, as
everybody including Gary Stollman know, I'm the
Clone of Elizabeth. I'm planning to take her place
in September and continue the "Hot August Nights"
plan (which will be called "Warm September 5 o'clocks")
by instigating riots in Liverpool (I'll sing
"Anarchy in UK" live and naked. Sure it'll be enough).


See you there,


J "God save the Clones" M.
From: bbbbre01@uctvax.uct.ac.za (Doon)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Worse than AIDS
Date: 27 Aug 92 13:36:54 GMT
Organization: University of Cape Town

With current know-how, it would be relatively simple (I
believe) for someone to clone an oncogene into the common
flu virus.  The results would be catastrophic: a deadly
virus that's easily transmissable, unlike HIV - the 
glorified V.D.  

Don't more people die of hepatitis and TB than of AIDS?


-- 
Doon   			
Dept Microbiology
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
From: robd@cherry09 (Robert Derrick)
Subject: Re: Symbolic Interpretation (Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:44:46 CDT

Robert Derrick (robd@cherry09) wrote:
: Drew Lawson (lawson@acuson.com) wrote:
: : 
: : I also doubt that all of science would fall apart if belief in
: : evolutionary origin fell by the wayside.
: : 
: 
: As others have pointed out, there is an essential interconnectness
: in most of the sciences, and certain aspects of evolutionary theory
: are intwined throughout.
: 
: But the real reason that science would be in trouble is that there
: is no other Scientific theory to replace it.  And you know that.
: 
: Pointed Question, Drew:
: 
: 	Do you really believe that religion should govern the process
: 	of Scientific Investigation?
: 
: rob derrick

Sorry, Drew, I figured you'd answer it in public.

Try robd@cray.com


rob derrick
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15388 talk.origins:10367
From: bsmart@bsmart.TTI.COM (Bob Smart)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 2 Sep 92 08:12:54 GMT
Reply-To: bsmart@bsmart.TTI.COM (Bob Smart)
Organization: Citicorp+TTI

Well, Mr. Lawson, since you've explicitly told us that you "don't hold
that the 'straighforward interpretation' is the only valid viewpoint,"
let's see just how non-straightforward an interpretation you WILL accept:

I propose that the Bible and all of Judeo-Christian mythology is
actually a clever plot by Satan, the Deceiver, planted upon the Earth to
cloud the minds of humankind.  There was nothing Satan could do about
all the physical evidence for an old Universe and an old Earth, so the
Evil One seeded an anti-intellectual and anti-rational religion to
confuse and delay Man's eventual discovery and understanding of God by
interfering with Man's inspection and study of God's works.

What leads Christians to believe that they aren't actually playing right
into the Enemy's hands by taking a fundamentalist, literal view of the
Bible?  How do you know whom to trust?  If the Bible itself is a Satanic
sham, and all you have to go on is faith in the Bible...doesn't that
seem, well, problematic?

---------

A fanatic is someone who does what he knows that God would do if God knew the
facts of the case.

Some mailers apparently munge my address; you might have to use
bsmart@bsmart.tti.com -- or if that fails, fall back to
72027.3210@compuserve.com.  Ain't UNIX grand?
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15864 alt.alien.visitors:6375 talk.religion.newage:4194
From: jmv@grip.cis.upenn.edu (Jean-Marc Vezien)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.alien.visitors,talk.religion.newage
Subject: Re: Saga of the Family of Light I - Pleiadians13
Date: 3 Sep 92 20:00:55 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Distribution: usa
Organization: GRASP Lab

In article <3SEP199212495854@apsicc.aps.edu>, jim@apsicc.aps.edu (frost...) writes:
> In article <3SEP199213095407@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov>, pease@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Pease) writes...
[...]
> >Of course this is all just speculation anyway; but one possibility is
> >that the DNA serves as a filter (or tuner) and that the complete past
> >is stored in the electro-magnetic energy fields that make up everything.
> > 
> >The DNA then tunes one in to that information which matches ones
> >particular tuner (frequency, vibrations).
> > 
> >Just a possibility of how it could be.
> > 
> >Phil Pease 
> 
> I don't know but this sounds an awful lot like the old theory that any
> sound ever made continues to exist forever and to hear it you only re-
> quire a receiver that is sensitive enough to pull up the faintest sounds
> from the past.



Yes, that's what happens when people start using words such as
"electro-magnetic energy fields" without knowing what they are
talking about. 
The only frequency that is relevant in that New Age stuff is the
number of times the word is pronounced !


JM.
From: schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: I visited the ICR in person (1 of 4)
Date: 29 Aug 92 19:26:20 GMT
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

I don't have any hope of converting the faithful, and I don't think
it matters whether their mindset gets reinforced by seeing enemies
at their gates. The ICR Museum is a PR ploy which must be countered,
so that curious and uncomitted people are shown that the ICR's agenda
is religious and not scientific. Now if it turns out that the vast
majority of their visitors are the faithful, then there would be
little point in a skeptical presence nearby.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: pclink@cheops.qld.tne.oz.au (Rick)
Subject: Re: Saga of the Family of Light I - Pleiadians13
Organization: Telecom Australia, TNE Computer Support Services
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 00:05:37 GMT

warren@nysernet.org (Warren Burstein) writes:

>In <64743@cup.portal.com> Don_-_Showen@cup.portal.com writes:
>>And another source says that ETs have bread with earth stock

>I thought they just eat earth people raw.  Never heard of them making
>a soup and eating it with bread.

The face is eaten raw.  The rest of the body is ground up for stock
for later use in stews, casseroles, etc.

Rick.
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15380 talk.origins:10360
From: cust_ts@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Tero Sand)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Date: 29 Aug 92 08:13:13 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <1992Aug28.185242.20364@asl.dl.nec.com> duffy@aslss02.asl.dl.nec.com (Joseph Duffy) writes:
>In article <1992Aug28.155542.2972@rosevax.rosemount.com> grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards) writes:
>>Unless you've got a falsifiable hypothesis and some evidence, creation
>>is just so much religious twaddle.  I see no reason to take your view
>>of the creation of the universe any more seriously that the hindu
>>view, the navajo view, or the story invented by my 3 year old niece.
>
>Yeah! Any view that states dogmatic facts about situations for which
>there are no living witnesses! - like ...oh..say...the theory of evolution
>for example.

No, you don't need living witnesses. Just evidence, and there's plenty
of that.
Stop confusing the two.
-- 
-Tero Sand
  EMail: cust_ts@cc.helsinki.fi     Snail mail: Auroran Sairaala os. 6-1
  (if that doesn't work, try                    Nordenskioldinkatu 20
   cust_ts@kruuna.helsinki.fi)                  00250 Helsinki 25, Finland
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
From: robd@cherry09 (Robert Derrick)
Subject: Re: Symbolic Interpretation (Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: 25 Aug 92 10:57:21 CDT

Drew Lawson (lawson@acuson.com) wrote:
: 
: Silly me!  I always thought that the data structures were compiler
: syntactic illusions of which the hardware has no knowledge.  I haven't
: kept up on recent architecture developments, but I didn't know of any
: machines which make use of data structures.

Yes, silly you.  I gave it half a thought, and a half dozen hardware
data structures came to mind.  So, I guess what you "always thought"
is wrong.  Lucky for you that that is probably the only thing about 
which you are wrong.  Maybe.

rob derrick
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15364 talk.origins:10346
From: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Evol & God : CANNOT Co-exist!
Date: 27 Aug 92 20:36:36 GMT
Organization: Florida State University, but I don't speak for them

Isaac Asimov wrote a pretty essay about this.  A bunch of physicists were 
playing pool and discussing creationism.  One brought up the question, why 
play pool at all when it was so much simpler to pick up all the balls, 
walk around the table, and drop the balls into the pockets?  That's 
standard creationism: god made things like this and they stayed that way.  
However, mightn't a god enjoy the play of evolution the same way pool 
players enjoy the play of the game?

Eric Pepke                                    INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET:   pepke@fsu
Florida State University                      SPAN:     scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                    BITNET:   pepke@fsu

Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 19:52:02 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.164252.15984@acuson.com>, lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
writes:
> In article <1992Aug27.230446.28643@Princeton.EDU>
ydobyns@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (York H. Dobyns) writes:
> >The crucial difference is the *justification*. The second researcher,
> >as you yourself say, *justifies* his decision. He may be wrong, but
> >he's wrong for the right reasons: because the available evidence was
> >misleading or misunderstood. The "researcher" who bases his choice
> >on faith (doctrinal learning) has no such excuse. If he happens to
> >make the wrong choice, he's wrong for the wrong reasons;
> 
> And what if he's right?
> 
> Consider dropping the religious vocabulary.  Joe Scientist, with 20
> years research experience says, "I have a hunch I should check out A."

  Only an idiot of a scientist wouldn't consider both until one is eliminated. 
Even if option B is left unchecked, it remains open to scientific inquiry later.
Usually when a scientist reaches a branch point, an experiment is set up to see
which one is right.

  Consider geometry: when setting up the axioms, it was decided to add that
parallel lines never converge, even though nobody had a particularly good reason
for it.  As a result, later the possibility parallell lines do converge was
checked, and produced the concept of non-Euclidian geometry.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: arsmith@nyx.cs.du.edu (Alan Smith)
Subject: Re: The difference between censorship and rudeness.
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 18:32:24 GMT

In article <3638@execu.execu.com> mike@execu.execu.com (Mike McCants) wri
es:
>In article <1992Aug26.054127.10572@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> arsmith@nyx.cs.d
.edu (Alan Smith) writes:
>>Rudeness is uncool
>>because it violates the
>>homo sapien survival stragedy, that humans should help each other out.
>>Big Al.
>
>"Helping each other out" is starting to get pretty darn expensive.
>
>How long before "survival of the fittest" again has real meaning
>to homo sapiens?
>
>In Somalia, calling it "rudeness" is an understatement.

"Survival of the fittest" works amongst groups of people.  The
Cartagenians died out becasue they weren't fitter than the Romans.  The
Nazis died out because they weren't fitter than the combined forces of
America, Russia, and Britan.

Big Al.  If I'm full of it, I'm in *really* deep trouble.

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.philosphy.misc
From: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Why binary logic?
Reply-To: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Organization: Rosemount, Inc.
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 16:05:04 GMT

dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
: 
: Would it make sense to invent a new logic that has some higher metastable
: state in between TRUE and FALSE?
: 
: This might be a way of "solving" various mathematical, binary logical,
: ethical, philosophical etc etc paradoxes.
: 

It's called "Fuzzy Logic" or "Fuzzy Set Theory." It's a well
established field within the AI area and has been successfully applied
to many real world applications.  Two of the most famous applications
are programs called MYCIN and PROSPECTOR which diagnose
bacteriological infections and evaluate potential mining sites,
respectively.

A trip to the library will reveal many books and articles on the
subject.  Search for phrases like "inexact reasoning" "Dempster-Shafer
theory" "fuzzy logic" "fuzzy sets"

Any decent undergraduate AI text will have a chapter on the subject.

If you really care (and aren't just yanking people's chains) I'm sure
that there is somebody in the CS or Math department at Adelaide who is
working in the area.

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  I'm DESPONDENT...  I
Rosemount Inc.                                |hope there's something
                                              |DEEP-FRIED under this
grante@aquarius.rosemount.com                 |miniature DOMED STADIUM...
From: sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: sci.skeptic FAQ version 0.2.
Date: 4 Sep 92 20:54:40 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: na
Reply-To: sichase@csa1.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.196
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   

In article <1001@tdat.teradata.COM>, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes...
>|
>Or even more appropriately, evolution predicts that repeated speciation
>will tend to increase the diversity of life on Earth.

Why?  How do you define diversity?  The case has certainly been made that
diversity is now much lower (defined by the variation in body plan, for
example) than in previous epochs (see SJGould, Wonderful Life).

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"The question seems to be of such a character
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		that if I should come to life after my death
				and some mathematician were to tell me that it
				had been definitely settled, I think I would
				immediately drop dead again."      - Vandiver
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.alien.visitors,talk.religion.newage
From: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Saga of the Family of Light I - Pleiadians13
Reply-To: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Organization: Rosemount, Inc.
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 18:31:49 GMT

Don_-_Showen@cup.portal.com writes:
: 
: Now I have a few questions.
: 
: The Pleiadians say the human DNA was scattered leaving only the bottom two
: Heli in tact.  Bob Lazer in the video he is selling,  says that he was put
: in a room full of documents the ETS had given the government and that in
: one of the documents it said that ETs had modified the human DNA 58 times.
: And another source says that ETs have bread with earth stock many different
: times.  Now my question is can you from what you know of DNA prove this did
: not happen?  Have you done any comparison of the different human species to
: observe any differences?
: 

Have your ET friends been dicking about with chimpanzee DNA also?
Human and chimp DNA sequences are 99.something percent identical.

:
: From what I have been taught,  by my ET friends,  that DNA is compressed
: data.  Do you think that is possible,  or do you consider DNA fully linear,
: ie this gene does this,  that gene does that.  Or could it be possible that
: maybe DNA is like core memory that comes with a program,  but that that
: program can be changed.  I will have to say that oxygenation is part of the
: formula for changing ones DNA the other factor is love.
:

If you are using programs that come with core memory, you need to
order some upgrades.  I would advise buying programs that come with
CMOS RAM.

Actually, I've never seen a program that came with memory.  

Using your phrase, DNA is pretty much "linear" although some genes
control large sets of traits.  There are also environmental factors
that influence the expression of genes.  As far as I know, neither
love nor panting have shown to be genetic regulatory mechanisms.

I haven't the faintest idea what you mean by compressed data.  This
ususally means that some or all redundancy or patterns have been
encoded in such a way to reduce the total number of symbols required.
The higher the redundancy or the more patterned the data is, the more
it can be compressed.  On the other hand, you generally can't compress
random noise.

Is that the type of data compression you are talking about?  If so,
ask your ET friends for the compression algorithm being used
(Lempel-Zev, Huffman coding, what?).

After reading all of JWs stuff, it's a relief to hear from a rational,
scientific person like Don.

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  Let's send the Russians
Rosemount Inc.                                |defective lifestyle
                                              |accessories!
grante@aquarius.rosemount.com                 |
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15778 talk.origins:10704
From: bvickers@valentine.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Reply-To: bvickers@ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Irvine, Info. & Computer Sci. Dept.
Date: 2 Sep 92 23:45:34 GMT
Distribution: na

>>SCIENCE DOES NOT PROVE A THEORY!!! It can only dis-prove a theory.

sichase@csa3.lbl.gov writes:
>That's an awfully myopic view of science.  Consider the following theories:
>(1) The Earth is round.
>(2) Atoms have nuclei.
>(3) Prolonged exposure to intense nuclear radiation is harmful to your health.
>(4) Blood circulates through the body, passing from arteries to viens through
>small passages too small to see with the naked eye.
>(5) The brain is the seat of thought.
>(6) Diamonds and graphite are not the only stable forms of pure carbon.

I would call most of these things scientific facts, not theories.
There is a difference between what science perceives as fact and what
it perceives as theory.  The original poster is correct; science never
proves a theory.  It can only be used to disprove.  A scientific
fact is usually axiomatic or self-evident.  (Evolution is one of these
scientific facts.  It's a scientific fact that change in allele
frequencies from one generation to the next in a given population
occurs).  Theories typically explain processes and mechanisms.

--
 ___            _    _     _  _        _
(  _) ___ ___ _( )__( )_  ( )( ) o  __( ) _  ___  ___  ___
(___)(_) (__=) (_)_ (_)_   (__) (_)(_((_)(_'(__=)(_) _(_)
Brett J. Vickers (bvickers@ics.uci.edu)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins